Good day Templar family
Mark 5:21-24; 35-42
Today is Father’s Day, a day set aside to honor the men who have been given the great privilege of being fathers. I thank God for my grandfather, and I cherish his memory. I also thank the Lord for the tremendous honor of being a father myself or as I like to be called, a Dad. The Lord has blessed me with two wonderful children and two adopted children. It is a wonderful honor to be their dad.
I know that I have made many mistakes as a father. I ho... moreGood day Templar family
Mark 5:21-24; 35-42
Today is Father’s Day, a day set aside to honor the men who have been given the great privilege of being fathers. I thank God for my grandfather, and I cherish his memory. I also thank the Lord for the tremendous honor of being a father myself or as I like to be called, a Dad. The Lord has blessed me with two wonderful children and two adopted children. It is a wonderful honor to be their dad.
I know that I have made many mistakes as a father. I hope I got a few things right along the way as well. Either way, I know that I have had an influence in the way our children turned out. I say that to remind you that we often underestimate the influence a man has in the lives of children.
Fathers, you are influencing the lives of your children every single day. They are watching you and they are learning from you. Sons are learning how to treat a spouse. Daughters are learning what to look for in their own spouse. Sons and daughters are learning how to serve the Lord. Your children are learning how to appreciate the Bible, and the things of God, just by watching you.
Men, all the children in your life, whether they are in your family, or are just around you, are watching you and they are learning from your example. They are learning about faithfulness, obedience to the Lord, worship, serving God and others, and many other lessons, just by watching how you carry yourself around them.
That is a lot of responsibility. That is the way God intended it to be. God has invested leadership in the home in men.
Because we have been given that sphere of influence in the home and in the community , we can expect that we will be called to give an account of how we exercised that influence when we stand before the Lord. “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way,” Rom. 14:12–13.
If you wonder whether or not the influence of a man in the lives of children is so important, consider the following:
Over the past ten years the number of murders committed by teens has risen from 1,000 per year to over 4,000 per year.
Over the past 30 years there has been:
A 550% increase in violent crime
A 400% increase in illegitimate births
A 200% increase in teen pregnancies
A 300% increase in teen suicide
The vast majority of the teenagers involved in the statistics I just mentioned are from homes that lack a father.
Over 70% of all juveniles in state reformatories come from homes without a father.
Since our responsibility is so great to our families and before the Lord, we need to know how to carry ourselves as we move through life.
Most of you are well acquainted with this story. Jairus has a young daughter who is sick. He fears that her sickness is fatal. Knowing that he cannot save her, but believing that Jesus Christ can, this grieving father goes to ask Jesus to come to his home to heal his daughter.
As the events of this passage play out, Jairus teaches his wife, his daughter, his servants, and all those who are watching, some valuable lessons about faith and onedience. He sets an example that every man, especially every father, would do well to take heed to.
He was a man who had it all. He was a man who had reached the pinnacle of success in that society. But, at this moment in time, none of it mattered! He suddenly finds himself in a place where none of that matters! Sickness and death could care less about who this man is, what he possesses or the position he holds.
Here is a man who is religious. But, his religion is powerless to help him or his family. Jairus would have traded everything for the power to heal his child. Life became very defined for Jairus! He had everything a man could want in life. In a moment of time, all this things he possessed added up to exactly nothing. Death had come to the house of Jairus, and it had come for his real treasure. That “little daughter,” v. 23, the one Luke calls his “one only daughter,” Luke 8:42, was dying and nothing else mattered!
This powerful man, this prosperous man, this influential man, this man of standing in the community, was not ashamed to humble himself before the Lord. Jairus came before the Lord reverently, prayerfully and passionately. He “fell at His feet,” v. 22. The word “fell” means “to descend from a higher place to a lower.” Jairus came down from his lofty perch to humble himself before the Lord.
Dads, men, this is what the children around you need to see. They need to see men who are not afraid to approach Jesus Christ. They need to see men who are not ashamed to kneel before the Lord in public, and in the home. They need to see men who, like Jairus, will admit before God, their families and everyone else, that they are helpless and hopeless without the help of the Lord.
Do your children know that you are saved?
Do your children know your personal testimony of salvation?
Do your children remember a time when you, their father, personally shared the Gospel with them?
Do your children see you in prayer before the Lord?
Do your children see you taking godly leadership of the home?
Do your children know that God comes before everything else in life?
Do your children see you unashamedly, openly, consistently and fervently seeking the Lord?
It is a shame when men are more likely to chase a golf ball than seek God on Sunday morning.
It is a shame when men send their families to church while they stay home.
It is a shame when men fail to love the Lord with all their hearts, and when they fail to lead their families to the same devotion.
It is a shame when men abdicate their god given responsibility to their wives.
Men, the children around us must see us seeking the Lord. They must see us setting the example of approaching Jesus. It is a lesson, when learned, is not soon forgotten!
I once read about a farmer who had labored all spring and summer of a crop of wheat. As harvest time neared, he was sure that he would receive a bumper crop. This crop was sorely needed to pray off creditors and supply and secure the family for another year.
Just a few days before the crop was to be harvested, a freak storm that brought strong winds and hail completely destroyed the crop. The harvest was lost!
That farmer stood beside his field and looked at the ruined crop. His small son stood nearby. The boy expected that his father would react in anger and despair. He expected his father to curse the weather, and maybe even God.
Instead, that father began to softly sing, “Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee...”
When that boy reached adulthood he said, “That was the greatest sermon I ever heard.”
His father had demonstrated a genuine faith that was real in the good times and in the bad and that father’s faith spoke volumes to that son!
Dads, men, it is our responsibility to lay the children within the sphere of our influence before the Lord and trust Him for their spiritual upbringing and their salvation.
One of the greatest gifts you can give your children is the gift of prayer and the gift of faith in God. Be diligent to take their names before the Lord. Pray for their salvation, their protection, their devotion to the Lord, their holiness. Pray that God will guide them, shield them, teach them and give them am ever deepening hunger for the things of God. Men, that appetite will be cultivated by what they learn from watching you.
If they see men who love the Lord, they are more likely to love Him too. If they are surrounded by men who are faithful to God, they are more likely to be faithful to Him too. But, if they are surrounded by men who take the things of God lightly and treat God with less than full devotion, that is the path they will likely take as well.
We have been given the opportunity to influence lives for Jesus. One of the ways we do that is through our public worship of God.
Do the children around you see you worshipping when you go to church?
Have they ever heard you give your testimony of salvation and faith in Christ in public?
Do they see you faithfully placing Jesus and His business ahead of all other things in life?
Do they see a man who loves the Lord and is not ashamed for everyone around him to know it?
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Micah 6:8
The children around us see our devotion to the Lord lived out daily. They must see us trusting in Him, walking with Him, and looking to Him for all things and in all things.
Again, Jairus lays out a challenge for men today. Going to church is one thing, but to bring Christ home with you is quite another thing altogether. I would remind that the responsibility for the spiritual formation of your children does not rest on the shoulders of the church. The responsibility for training training children in the things of God begins in the home. And men, as the head of the home, the responsibility begins and ends with us.
It is not your wife's responsibility to see that your children are in the Lord’s house when it is time to worship. It is your responsibility.
It is your responsibility to see that they learn the Bible.
It is your responsibility to teach them how a man of God walks, talks and lives.
It is your responsibility to guard the home and keep out the things that would steal or stunt the souls of your children. (Television, Internet, Music, etc.)
You are responsible for what they see, hear and learn. Teach them to be discerning when it comes to language and content. You will answer to God for what they learn in your home. You will reap what you allowed to be sown into their lives.
It is your responsibility to see that Jesus Christ is your Lord, and the Lord of your house. Be sure that He comes home with you.
Pro. 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” This does not mean that your children will be perfect if you take them to church and try to do right by them.
It does mean that they will have a moral guide for their lives and actions.
It does not mean that they will always be good and godly men and women.
It does mean that they will know the difference between right and wrong.
It does mean that they will have been given a giant push in the right direction.
Men, what we teach our children will show up in their lives as they grow up, and when they are adults.
What is a father’s influence?
He teaches kindness by being thoughtful and gracious even at home.
He teaches patience by being gentle and understanding over and over.
He teaches honesty by keeping his promises to his family even when it costs.
He teaches courage by living unafraid with faith, in all circumstances.
He teaches justice by being fair and dealing equally with everyone.
He teaches obedience to God’s Word by precept and example as he reads and prays daily with his family.
His steps are important because others follow them.
One startling bit of research conducted, found the following: When the father is an active believer, there is about a seventy-five percent likelihood that the children will also become active believers. But if only the mother is a believer, this likelihood is dramatically reduced to fifteen percent. Fathers, men, your influence in the lives of children is beyond calculating.
Men, where does this message find you?
There is no way to overemphasize the influence of a faithful man in the lives of children, spouses and the church. I am calling on all men to be that kind of man.
Have a blessed Fathersday
MC Louis Steyn
OMSDT. Priory of St.Miltiades
Freedom in Christ
