THE POWER OF EXAMPLE
Daniel 5:1-30
INTRODUCTION
ILLUSTRATION Survey made by National Center for Fathering and National Parents-Teachers Association showed that over the last ten years (1999 – 2009), a number of key gains were made that show fathers have significantly increased their involvement with their children at school. Increases were made with fathers:
Walking/taking their child to school 38% to 54% +16 percentage points
Attending class events 28% to 35% +11 percentage points
Visiting their child’s classroom 30% to 41% +11 percentage points
Volunteering at their child’s school 20% to 28% + 8 percentage points
Fathers also significantly increased their interaction with teachers, school officials and other parents. Fathers increased their engagement by:
Attending parent-teacher conferences 69% to 77% +8 percentage points
Attending school meetings 28% to 35% +7 percentage points
Attending school-based parents meetings 47% to 59% +12 percentage points
For these gains, I congratulate all the fathers who have children in school. Happy Father’s Day! Although the report was encouraging, there is still much room for improvement for all of us fathers.
Today I would like to speak on the POWER OF EXAMPLE. Fathers should realize how powerful their examples are to their children. Please open your bibles to Daniel 5:1-30.
EXPOSITION
Before we read our focal passage, let me summarize the preceding paragraphs.
Daniel 5.1-4
This section says that King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand guests and even ordered to bring the gold and silver goblets taken from the temple in Jerusalem. They used the goblets and even praised the gods of gold and silver.
Daniel 5.5-9
While they were celebrating, suddenly a human hand appeared and wrote something on the wall. The king was frightened so he decided to call all the wise men in Babylon to interpret the writing on the wall. Unfortunately no one was able to interpret it.
Daniel 5:10-17
When the queen learned what happened, she recommended to the King to ask for Daniel. She explained that Daniel has the spirit of gods in him, found to have insight, intelligence, and ability to interpret dreams and solve difficult problems.
Eventually Daniel was called and told to receive special gifts from the King provided he would interpret the meaning of the writing on the wall. Daniel however declined to receive the gifts but went ahead and interpreted the writing on the wall.
READ Daniel 5.18 – 30
This section talks about three important informations:
1. The short narrative on King Nebuchadnezzar’s greatness that led to arrogance and pride which eventually ended in humility and praise to God. (See Daniel 4)
2. The indifference of King Belshazzar towards his father’s experiences and how he did not honor the God who holds his life in hand.
3. The meaning and implications of the writing on the wall.
What can we learn from the experiences of this father and son kingship?
Big Idea: FATHER’S EXAMPLE IS POWERFUL
1. Keep Building Positive Examples (5.18-21)
I emphasize positive examples because sometimes our examples are negative. Everything that we do is examples that our children would most likely imitate. If they are negative examples, then we have negative followers. Take the life of King Nebuchadnezzar and the kind of examples he made.
God gave King Neb sovereignty, greatness, glory, and splendor. God made him steward of this high position. This probably is an example that should inspire any child. Although probably King Neb never deserve this kind of opportunity, God gave it to him anyway.
Now it was one thing to be given an opportunity, it is another to know what we should do about it and how it influences our character. In the case of King Nebuchadnezzar, What did he do?
Because people dreaded and feared him (5.19), he put to death those whom he wanted dead and spared those he wanted spare, he promoted those he wanted promoted and humbles those he wanted humble.
His heart became arrogant and hardened with pride; as a result he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory for seven years until he acknowledged that the Most High God is sovereign. (see Daniel 4)
Unfortunately, his son King Belshazzar followed his example of arrogance and pride. I am sure that King Neb never wanted his son to follow his footsteps but he did because A FATHER’S EXAMPLE IS POWERFUL.
What kind of examples are we building? As long we are alive, we will keep on building examples in terms of our job, character, and faith.
What kind of worker or employee are you? If you are a mediocre worker, you will produce mediocre children. If you are unstable worker, keep changing jobs, you will produce unstable worker. Don’t be surprise and frustrated you influence them to be like that.
Now some of you would say, I am a diligent worker, how come my children are lazy? They are not lazy, they are rebellious. Sometimes in the process of achieving our success and diligence, we sacrifice them.
We became a model employee and successful businessmen at the expense of our children’s need of love and attention. As a result, they do exactly the opposite to express their anger and frustration against us. Children, don’t say your “Amen” yet, I am not done with my sermon yet. FATHER’S EXAMPLE IS POWERFUL.
What about our examples in terms of character or integrity? We want our children to be honest, humble, generous, and caring, and then let us be the prototype of these goals. It is simple; honest, humble, generous, and caring persons are produced by honest, humble, generous, and caring parents especially the fathers because we are the leader of our home.
We don’t put all the blame to the parents in terms of our children flaws because there are other factors but the major influence is parenting especially fatherhood.
Some of us fathers never had a chance to be fathered and have no idea how to father a child. What can you do? Learn from others, ask for help, and don’t guess. There are lots of resources out there – God and His word, good friends and associates and caring relatives. We need to learn to be a good father because FATHER’S EXAMPLE IS POWERFUL.
What about our examples in terms of faith? If we want our children to worship God, talk to God, listen to Him and practice other Christian disciplines; let us set a precedent.
ILLUSTRATION Recent research is shining light on the importance of male spiritual leadership in the home. Among their findings is the reality that 68 million of our nation’s 94 million men don’t attend any church. This, in spite of the fact, that 86% of them grew up with some sort of church background.
Research has revealed that if a child is the first person in a household to become a Christian, there is a 3.5 percent probability that everyone else in the household will become Christians. Not very high at all. If the mother is the first to accept Christ, the percent goes up and 17 percent of the homes will see the remainder of its members trust Christ.
But if the father is first, there is a 93 percent probability that everyone else in the household will follow. FATHER’S EXAMPLE IS POWERFUL.
If your children were born after you became a Christian, we have all the opportunity to guide and set them excellent examples. Don’t waste those opportunities. Fathers take care of their children and care for their emotional, physical, and spiritual needs.
Bring them to church to worship God and not simply play. Read the Bible with your children and teach them obey Christian values.
However, if your children were born before you became a Christian; it is not too late if they are still alive. Pray for them and never stop, talk to them about your faith with respect for their opinion, and set example to them by living your Christian life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. FATHER’S EXAMPLE IS POWERFUL.
2 Corinthians 3:2-3. You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 3You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Paul said that the Christians in Corinth are their letters of recommendation. Our children are our letters of recommendation too.
ILLUSTRATION A certain Dr. P. W. Philpott tells the story of a father he once knew. A fine Scottish Christian and successful businessman had a son: a splendid, well-educated, and respected young fellow, who was arrested for embezzlement.
At the trial, when he was found guilty, the youth appeared unconcerned and nonchalant until the judge told him to stand for sentence. He then looked over at the lawyer’s table and saw that his father, too, was standing.
The once erect head and straight shoulders of an honest man were now bowed low with sorrow and shame as he stood to receive, as though it were himself, his son’s condemnation. The son looked and wept bitterly.
What about our example of finishing well? I think a positive quality of King Nebuchadnezzar was his decision to acknowledge that the Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes. Although it took him seven years to realize this, at least, he had demonstrated to his children an example of repentance, recovery, revival, and renewal.
I believe this is an important aspect of life: we are not perfect and we will in some ways fail but what is significant is how we stand up and set example to our children that falling is not death yet and rising is always an option.
I am saying this because a lot of fathers know how to fall but never learn the art of standing up and recovery. Too bad we have shown them how to fall but not how to stand up. There are lots of fathers out there who have fallen but have never recovered.
If you are one of those fathers who have fallen and you are still alive, stand up and re-chart the direction of the life you are living. We can always point it to the east where the sun keep rising; where the Son of God keep encouraging us.
ILLUSTRATION I like the attitude of the professional coaches after losing a championship game, they would encourage their players by saying, “it was an excellent season, we will try again next time.”
Fathers do not allow the failure of the past to pull us down deeply and never recovery from it. Let us set example of to our children and loved ones that when one’s experience in life failed, we can always create new and successful ones.
It is a mistake to project and teach a concept that living should always be victorious. How we wish that our victories will always be more than our losses. But let us always set an example of how to recover and restart life anew. FATHER’S EXAMPLE IS POWERFUL.
How can we honor our fathers today? I would like to address our children – adult, married, single, and young.
2. Learn all the lessons and avoid all the mistakes that our father experience. (5.22-28)
Daniel explained that the reason Belshazzar received that writings on the wall is the Lord’s judgment. (Read Daniel 5.22-23) Daniel said that Belshazzar knew what happened to his father but instead of humbling himself to God who holds in his hand his life and all his ways; he desecrated God by using the goblets from God’s temple and praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
Instead of learning the lesson from his father’s mistakes, he ignored it and did the same thing. As a result, his kingship was shortened. The writings on the wall means:
“Mene” – God has numbered the days of his reign and brought to an end.
“Tekel” – the king have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. He never met the standard God set for him.
“Peres” – his kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
The bible recorded example of repeated sins and how God punished the children for the sins of their fathers up to the 2nd and 3rd generations. The punishment was given because the children did not learn the lessons from their parent’s mistakes and avoid them.
ILLUSTRATION Like father, like son; what the father does, the son will most probably follow.
Never make your father’s mistakes as your excuse for committing the same mistakes. You always have a choice and a will to follow a different path especially if you are a Christian.
Sometimes I hear parents would say to their children, “Anak, we are telling you this because we do not want you to experience what we had experience.”How would they respond? With pride they would say, “I know and besides I am not you. I am not going to be like you.”
You know what, parents and children have the same DNA, spiritual DNA – we are weak, sinful, and lost. Without humility, we will never find the right way to life and the lessons God wanted us to learn. Be careful and be humble. Be teachable and be wise. FATHER’S EXAMPLE IS POWERFUL.
Sometimes we find it difficult to honor our fathers because of their past mistakes. Why not learn the lessons of their sins instead of burn with anger against them? Why not forgive them and learn from their experiences?
We all know that humans like our father are not perfect. They failed us once or maybe twice or more but let us not give up on them. Let us dwell on the goodness of God and let God heal our hearts so we may have the strength to give our father another chance.
If you are a Christian and having a hard time to forgive your father, think about the example of our heavenly Father. If our earthly father would go to our heavenly Father, what do you think our heavenly Father would do? FATHER’S EXAMPLE IS POWERFUL.
CONCLUSION
ILLUSTRATION “Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
“Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee... and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.
“Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
“And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom and the meekness of true strength.
“Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, ‘I have not lived in vain.’ ”—General Douglas A. MacArthur
This prayer is the goal of most fathers, but let us not just pray, set positive examples for children too.
