Sermon Central
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What My Father Taught Me
Contributed by Paul Decker on Jun 24, 2009 (message contributor)
Summary: We need to learn from our fathers. This is a rewrite of one of my favorite Father’s Day messages.
WHAT MY FATHER TAUGHT ME
Exodus 20.12
S: Father’s Day
Th: Learning from Dad
Pr: We need to learn from our fathers.
?: What?
KW: Principles for life
TS: We are going to observe three biblical principles for life that my father taught me.
The _____ principle for life that my father taught me is…
I. KEEP LEARNING
II. DON’T BE AFRAID OF CHANGE
III. BE A PERSON OF GRACE
RMBC 21 Jun 09 AM
We recognize that our fathers have communicated to us a tremendous amount of wisdom.
Our fathers have taught us many things with their pithy sayings.
See if some of these seem familiar:
ILL Father (H)
Don’t ask me, ask your mother.
Close the door; were you raised in a barn?
Don’t worry; it’s only blood.
A little dirt never hurt anyone; just wipe it off.
Keep your eye on the ball.
This will hurt me a lot more than it will hurt you.
Do I look like I am made of money?
We’re not lost!
No, we’re not there yet.
As long as you live under my roof, you’ll live by my rules.
I’ll tell you why; because I said so, that’s why.
You throw like a girl.
I’m not sleeping; I was watching that show.
I’m not just talking to hear my voice.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
What did I just get finished telling you?
Don’t make me stop this car!
Men are like buses; just wait on the corner and another one will come along.
What part of “no” don’t you understand?
If you’re gonna be dumb, you’ve gotta be tough.
And some of us have been in a position to repeat it.
We want to recognize this morning that…
God has given us our fathers.
We all have biological fathers.
Others of us have someone who has stood in as a real father and did the “dad” things with us.
But we all have a heavenly Father who has demonstrated His love for us by solving our own personal addiction to sin.
He has accepted us as sons and daughters because He has accepted the work of His Son on our behalf.
As I reminded us on Mother’s Day last month…
God has given us instruction on how we are to treat our parents (Exodus 20.12).
We find the instruction in Exodus 20.12:
Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
We are told to honor our parents.
The word “honor” means to show respect, to reverence, even to
hold in awe.
What this means to us is that, no matter what our age (since this is a timeless command), we are to treat our fathers with high esteem.
This means then…
We honor God by honoring our fathers.
We are giving respect to God when we respect our parents, and specifically today, our fathers.
This should inspire us to think differently than we have at times.
We may have the tendency to be critical.
Perhaps, our dad failed us in some way.
At the same time, we need to remember that that we have been far from the perfect son or daughter.
So whatever the mistakes of the past, whether they are ours or our father’s, we are to honor our fathers today.
One of the ways we honor our fathers is by listening to them and learning from them.
We need to learn from our fathers.
Again, as on Mother’s Day, this is a personal message for me.
Because I want to share with you just a smidgen of what my father taught me.
The first principle for life that my father taught me is to…
KEEP LEARNING
(II Peter 3.18a)
Regardless of whether we are fathers, mothers, sons or daughters (we all fall in there somewhere…), we are to keep learning.
This is reinforced by II Peter 3:18, where it says…
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We are to be students in God’s world.
ILL Notebook: Knowledge (microorganisms)
A woman had been assisting a young Sunday-school class with finger painting. As she escorted one solemn-eyed seven-year-old girl to the bathroom to wash her hands, she said to her, “We have to get the germie-wermies off. Do you know what germie-wermies are?”
“Yes,” replied the little girl, “microorganisms.”
Already at this young age, this little girl has proved to be a student.
And whether she realized it or not, she was a student of the world God had made.
My dad taught me the importance of education by his example.
I always thought it was interesting in my young childhood that though my dad was a bricklayer, on his shelves were books about Abraham Lincoln, World War II and Greek culture.
