Eric was having a hard time deciding whether or not he was going to go to the prom and who he was going to ask. Robert, seeing his son Eric struggling, decided to give him this advice. He said, “Eric, right or wrong, make a decision. The road is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.”
Boy, do I know that. And also those little bunny rabbits. Our theme for today is called Remembering Dads.
Lucille Ball shortly before her death did a remarkable TV interview with Merv Griffin. He asked her very serious and pointed questions. One of them was, “Lucille, you’ve lived a long time on this earth, and you are a wise person. What’s happened to our country? What’s wrong with our kids? Why are our families falling apart? What is missing?
Lucille Ball answered without hesitation. Papa and papas are missing. Things are falling apart because Papa’s gone. If Papa were here, he would fix it. Some wise words. So many times families fall apart because fathers are missing. God made families with two parents for a reason. He gave fathers the responsibility and privilege to run the family. When that figure head is missing, things tend to fall apart. The family needs the father’s love to function properly. In my eyes, a father’s love is like this. When that little baby is born and the father holds the child in his arms, the love is immediate and unconditional. Oh, we as mommies feel that, too. I’m sure as he looks at that child, his thoughts are. No matter what you do in life, I will always love you.
This is the way God, our father, looks at us. God is the father who is always home. In our verses, the Apostle Paul finishes this chapter on spiritual purity by highlighting the intimate relationship believers have with God. He gets his teachings from the Old Testament, one of which is Samuel, 2 Samuel 7:14.
I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of man and the strokes of the son of man.
In this verse, God is telling David, when you are gone, I will be a father to your son Solomon. Not only to your son, but to your descendants, which is who? Us. God is promising unconditional love. Well, God will not correct David well, God will not only correct David’s son, but David’s descendants if they sin. In the next verse, God also says that his loving kindness will not depart from them, meaning he will never abandon his children. That means us. And it is in the way in that way that it is exactly how God the father is to us.
Isaiah 43:6 says, “Well, say to the north, give them up, and to the south, do not hold them back. Bring my son from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.” Verse seven, everyone who is called it by my name, and who I have created for my glory, whom I formed, even whom I made.
It’s another verse that Paul took his his teachings from. Paul drew from these verses to remind Christians that by separating ourselves from the world, we are welcomed directly into God’s family as his cherished children. In the Old Testament, God has redeemed Israel from slavery and commanded the Israelites to live separate from other nations. That meant keeping themselves pure from sin, including the worship of other gods or idols. Paul is urging believers to separate themselves from any connection to worshiping idols or ongoing participation in sin.
In our New Testament reading for today, we understand that God, like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, welcomes us home no matter what we’ve done. God desires a relationship with his children. He cares for us. The Bible tells us that God desires us to be with him together as a family. God risked it all for us. He sacrificed his son to protect us from sin and damnation. We at times fear God the father as we did our earthly fathers growing up. But how can we come to God without fear? How can we understand God’s love and faithfulness? Again, I say he sent his son to intercede for us. That says it all. So, our goal today should be trusting in the Lord and always call him father, knowing that he was and is our first source of fatherhood.
Through his gracious word, he shows that he delights in lavishing us in mercy and grace. He doesn’t stay angry and he takes our wrongs and faults and covers them with his son.
What is a father? By Paul Harvey. A father is a thing that is forced to endure child birth without an anesthetic. A father never feels worthy of the worship in his child’s eyes. He’s never quite the hero his daughter thinks. Never quite the man his man his son believes him to be. And this worries him sometimes. So he works too hard to try and smooth the rough places in the road for those of his own who will follow him.
Fathers are what give daughters away to other men who aren’t nearly good enough. So they can have grandchildren who are smarter than anybody else’s.
Fathers make bets with insurance companies about who will live the longest. One day they lose and the bets paid off to the part of them that they leave behind.
Those are words by Paul Harvey.
Every day is a new day with God. We can run to him freely and confidently through Christ. He has made a way for us to know and enjoy him. He is not lost. We don’t need to go find him. He can be found everywhere. He’s not hiding. He didn’t leave. In fact, he comes looking for us every day to rescue us from brokenness. He will never give up on us.
