[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for Father's Day - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

I’d Rather Have a Backache Now
 
A man came home from work and saw a neighbor out in the back yard playing ball with his daughter. He knew the man had a hard job - a laborer's job. He called to his friend and said, "Jim you ought not to be doing that. You are going to get a backache." To which the neighbor responded, "Oh yes, maybe, but I'd rather have a backache now than a heartache later." There is a lot of wisdom to this response. We should be participants in our child's life and not spectators. We must know them at playtime, at study time, bedtime, mealtime, family time and worship time. If we come to know them, then the reverse is true, they will come to know us. 
 
Eric S. Ritz, www.Sermons.com
 
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Is God Like Daddy?
 
Think of a four-year-old coming home one Sunday after a lesson that taught about God as our Heavenly Father. Sound theology would quickly note that God is neither male nor female, but youngsters do not concern themselves with theological niceties. A four-year-old hears "Father;" the only father he knows anything about is the one that lives with him and says, "Pass the biscuits, please;" so he asks..."Is God like Daddy?" Wow! What a heavy load! But a good load to consider on Fathers' Day...and a good one to consider when we realize that what Daddy is can become a role model for our children's concept of God. 

David E. Leininger, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
 
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This Is Not a Race
 
Clovis Chappell, a great preacher of a previous generation, used to tell the story of two paddleboat steamers. They left Memphis about the same time, traveling down the River to New Orleans. As they traveled side by side, crew members made disparaging remarks about the slowness of the other boat. Words were exchanged. Challenges were made.

And the race began. The competition was keen as the boats roared down the Mississippi. One boat began falling behind. Not enough fuel. There had been plenty of coal for the trip, but not enough for a race. As the boat dropped back, an enterprising crew member took some of the ship's cargo and tossed it into the ovens. Their boat began to catch up, so they made fuel out of more and more cargo. They finally won the race, but in the process they burned their cargo, the very material they had been hired to transport.

Parents, our primary mission is not to win a rat race, but to faithfully care for those persons entrusted to us, especially our children.

Bill Bouknight, Collected Sermons, www.eSermons.com
 
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Someone Who Loves You
 
In his book, Disappointment with God, writer Philip Yancey relates a touching story from his own life. One time on a visit to his mother--who had been widowed years earlier, in the month of Philip's first birthday--they spent the afternoon together looking through a box of old photos. A certain picture of him as an eight-month-old baby caught his eye. Tattered and bent, it looked too banged up to be worth keeping, so he asked her why, with so many other better pictures of him at the same age, she had kept this one.
 
Yancey writes, "My mother explained to me that she had kept the photo as a memento, because during my father's illness it had been fastened to his iron lung." During the last four months of his life, Yancey's father lay on his back, completely paralyzed by polio at the age of twenty-four, encased from the neck down in a huge, cylindrical breathing unit. With his two young sons banned from the hospital due to the severity of his illness, he had asked his wife for pictures of her and their two boys. Because he was unable to move even his head, the photos had to be jammed between metal knobs so that they hung within view above him--the only thing he could see. The last four months of his life were spent looking at the faces he loved.
 
Philip Yancey writes, "I have often thought of that crumpled photo, for it is one of the few links connecting me to the stranger who was my father. Someone I have no memory of, no sensory knowledge of, spent all day, every day thinking of me, devoting himself to me, loving me . . . The emotions I felt when my mother showed me the crumpled photo were the very same emotions I felt that February night in a college dorm room when I first believed in a God of love. Someone is there, I realized. Someone is there who loves me. It was a startling feeling of wild hope, a feeling so new and overwhelming that it seemed fully worth risking my life on."
 
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
 
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Don't Eat the Forbidden Fruit
 
Whenever your kids are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God's omnipotence didn't extend to God's kids. After creating heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing he said was:
 
"Don't."
 
"Don't what?" Adam replied
 
"Don't eat the forbidden fruit." God said.
 
"Forbidden fruit? We got forbidden fruit?
 
Hey Eve! We got forbidden fruit!"
 
"No way!"
 
"Yes way!"
 
"DON'T EAT THAT FRUIT!" Said God.
 
"Why?"
 
"Because I am your Father and I said so!" said God, wondering why he hadn't stopped after making elephants.
 
A few minutes later God saw his kids having an apple break and was angry.
 
"Didn't I tell you not to the fruit?" the First Parent asked.
 
"Uh huh," Adam replied.
 
"Then why did you?"
 
"I dunno," Eve answered.
 
"She started it!" Adam said.
 
"Did not!"
 
"Did too!"
 
"Did NOT!"
 
Having had it with the two of them, God's punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own. Thus, the pattern was set and it has never been changed.
 
Morgan Murray
 
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 What Does A Father Do?
 
I received a letter from a single mother who had raised a son who was about to become a dad. Since he had no recollection of his own father, her question to me was "What do I tell him a father does?"
 
When my dad died in my ninth year, I, too, was raised by my mother, giving rise to the same question, "What do fathers do?" As far as I could observe, they brought around the car when it rained so everyone else could stay dry.
 
They always took the family pictures, which is why they were never in them. They carved turkeys on Thanksgiving, kept the car gassed up, weren't afraid to go into the basement, mowed the lawn, and tightened the clothesline to keep it from sagging.
 
It wasn't until my husband and I had children that I was able to observe firsthand what a father contributed to a child's life. What did he do to deserve his children's respect? He rarely fed them, did anything about their sagging diapers, wiped their noses or fannies, played ball, or bonded with them under the hoods of their cars.
 
What did he do?
 
He threw them higher than his head until they were weak from laughter. He cast the deciding vote on the puppy debate. He listened more than he talked. He let them make mistakes. He allowed them to fall from their first two-wheeler without having a heart attack. He read a newspaper while they were trying to parallel park a car for the first time in preparation for their driving test.
 
If I had to tell someone's son what a father really does that is important, it would be that he shows up for the job in good times and bad times. He's a man who is constantly being observed by his children. They learn from him how to handle adversity, anger, disappointment and success.
 
He won't laugh at their dreams no matter how impossible they might seem. He will dig out at 1 a.m. when one of his children runs out of gas. He will make unpopular decisions and stand by them. When he is wrong and makes a mistake, he will admit it. He sets the tone for how family members treat one another, members of the opposite sex and people who are different than they are. By example, he can instill a desire to give something back to the community when its needs are greater than theirs.
 
But mostly, a good father involves himself in his kids' lives. The more responsibility he has for a child, the harder it is to walk out of his life.
 
A father has the potential to be a powerful force in the life of a child. Grab it! Maybe you'll get a greeting card for your efforts. Maybe not. But it's steady work.
 
Erma Bombeck, Field Enterprises
 
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FATHER'S DAY: A TRIBUTE
 
Today is Father's Day. A day of cologne. A day of hugs, new neckties, long-distance phone calls, and Hallmark cards.
 
Today is my first Father's Day without a father. For thirty-one years I had one. I had one of the best. But now he's gone. He's buried under an oak tree in a west Texas cemetery. Even though he's gone, his presence is very near--especially today.
 
It seems strange that he isn't here. I guess that's because he was never gone. He was always close by. Always available. Always present. His words were nothing novel. His achievements, though admirable, were nothing extraordinary.
 
But his presence was.
 
Like a warm fireplace in a large house, he was a source of comfort. Like a sturdy porch swing or a big-branched elm in the backyard, he could always be found...and leaned upon.
 
During the turbulent years of my adolescence, Dad was one part of my life that was predictable. Girl friends came and girl friends went, but Dad was there. Football season turned into baseball season and turned into football season again and Dad was always there. Summer vacation, Homecoming dates, algebra, first car, driveway basketball--they all had one thing in common: his presence.
 
And because he was there life went smoothly. The car always ran, the bills got paid, and the lawn stayed mowed. Because he was there, the laughter was fresh and the future was secure. Because he was there my growing up was what God intended growing up to be; a storybook scamper through the magic and mystery of the world.
 
Because he was there we kids never worried about things like income tax, savings accounts, monthly bills, or mortgages. Those were the things on Daddy's desk.
 
We have lots of family pictures without him. Not because he wasn't there, but because he was always behind the camera.
 
He made the decisions, broke up the fights, chuckled at Archie Bunker, read the paper every evening, and fixed breakfast on Sundays. He didn't do anything unusual. He only did what dads are supposed to do--be there…
 
 
 The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations and sermons for Father’s Day can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.
 
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