For Father’s Approval

This past Sunday was Father’s Day – which is not like Mother’s Day at all. Mother’s Day is really a day long kind of event, with flowers, dinner, cards and gifts. Father’s Day should be renamed to – a Father’s Minute. And as father’s it is our fault.

Mother’s are happy with whatever they get and their response is typically: “My children were thinking of me!”. As father’s, we look at the gift and think, “What were my kids thinking?”

Man, I miss the old days of when a father was the master of his own domain – a larger than life presence and in charge! When I was researching for my Father’s Day sermon, I found a great verse that could help bring those days back!

A Rebellious Son Deut 21:18-21

18 If a father has a stubborn and rebellious [child] who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline them, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of [them] and bring [them] to the elders at the gate of [the] town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This [child] of ours is stubborn and rebellious. Tthey] will not obey us. [They] are reckless and unredeemablely rebellious." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone the child to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. –

Now those were the days. So, if you carry that concept forward to today, whenever your kid starts to get out of hand, all you have to say is “to the gate!” Boom, they clean their room! Now that is intense. But as we look at that concept in 2009, we wonder how that could possibly be in scripture. Obviously, there is much more to it than what appears on the surface – and indeed, there is.

First, you have insight as to how God views all rebellion. God hates rebellion. In Roman’s he says that for him rebellion is as witchcraft. Not just for a child, but for all earth’s children who are defiant and exhibit willful rejection of God’s truth, presence and authority in their own lives.

Second, there is a background to this scripture. Scripture is clear and direct on the responsibility of a father to teach, model, and guide the lives of his children. The molding of character, integrity, humility and most of all a pure and holy sacrificial love is the primary task of a father. However, it is not as easy as just showing up the gate and saying, “I’ve had it! Deal with this kid!” There needs to be an examination into the parenting that brought the child to this point.

The impact of a father and the importance of his presence and role in the family has never ceased to be a powerful shaper of hearts, minds and lives. In fact, we have been deeply shaped by our own “father” experience.

I recently heard that the most dominant indicators of personality and emotional stability is the quality and quantity of a father’s love and acceptance. The rest of life is lived out of the wealth of that treasury, or spent trying to fill its lack. My experience as a pastor has borne this out to be true. Many times I encounter people that are living out the relationship they had with their fathers Whether they are living or not. This was recently driven home to me in a powerful way.

I recently sat with a man who was a very successful man by all appearances. He was well dressed in a pressed Italian suit, patent leather shoes, perfectly coiffed and distinguished gray hair, and the light hint of expensive cologne. He was fit and with an athletic build which belayed his age of 68. He shared that he had once held the top position in a very large legal firm which he had founded. The firm was so successful that he was able to take over the company his father had started. He left after he discovered that it did not bring the satisfaction and admiration from his father that he had thought it might. He then entered the business world. He was so successful that he had the luxury of using any one of the four planes he owned to travel between his businesses that were spread from coast to coast.

However, it was none of these things that stood out to me. He had come to talk about being a Christian executive in the world of high finance. As his story unfolded, it soon became apparent, and surprised even himself, that he was still trying to live up to his father’s expectations even though his father had passed away a number of years earlier. The wounds, perhaps unintentionally, inflicted by a stern, emotionally detached, high performance man remained as scars upon his soul. What he had longed to hear were the words from his father that he was loved and wanted and, that his father was proud of him and that he had his father’s approval. But the closest he got was a comment from his father that he had done far better than his father had ever expected. And so this highly admired, successful, distinguished and indemand business man held on to those words as one would hold a fragile egg. And to this date, his life is still shaped and measured by the voice of his father.

The simple inescapable reality is this: the love, or lack there of, that we receive in the earliest days of our lives, charts a course for the rest of our lives. We either draw from the wealth of the invest that was poured into us, or spend our lives trying to fill the gapping seemingly bottomless hole that was left – often because of the absence of a loving, attentive father’s guiding and re-assuring hand. So,much comes down that simple question that we all want an answer too: “Does anybody love me”?

God’s purpose in a father’s relationship with us, his children, is that this question would be clearly evident, demonstrated and answered with a loud resoundingYES.

The stories that we are told in Scripture can teach us lot if we are willing to listen. Abraham is probably the first picture that we have a blended family where there are brothers of a different mother. Abraham loved both of his sons, but was forced to make a choice between Ishmael, the son of Hagar the slave woman, and Isaac, the son of his wife Sarah. Because of that forced choice, there were terrible, generational consequences that endure even to today. Rejection is a powerful and long lasting experience.


Then there is the sad and terrible story of Eli, a high priest and judge of Israel, who held the most prominent position in all of Israel. Unfortunately, he became indulgent of his sons and did not discipline them but rather turned a blind eye to their cheating, carousing and spoilt behaviours. As a result, God brought severe judgment down upon them. Consequently, Eli lost his sons for lack of being a Godly father.

Likewise, the repercussions of the parenting style of King David had significant and far reaching impact upon his son King Solomon – it divided a nation, and even led to it’s destruction as nation.

That is not the way it is supposed to be. The role of a father is a critical one, no matter how much our society down plays it.

We need to once again capture God’s image as Father, and his purpose for earthly fathers. We need to be the fathers that God calls us to be.
As fathers our primary responsibility is clear:

Deut 6:
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

The primary role and responsibility of a father is not the material provision of home, money and stuff, but the shaper and cultivator of heart, mind and the faith of the next generation.

It is the understanding that what we do teaches. We teach our daughters and sons how to interact with God –who He is, what we can expect; what it means to live in submission and obedience of God and earthly authority in our lives. We teach our sons how to treat, view and talk to and about women. We teach our daughters of how they can expect to be treated when they begin to enter into relationship – what to look for in a partner.
This is not meant to minimize the importance of mother at all – only to highlight the powerful, long lasting impact and responsibility of the role of father. We need to realize that ‘I am teaching my own son to be a father’.
We need to realize – as dads and moms – the impact we have on our children is more significant and meaningful when we do it together. Committing to God and raising children in a way that is honouring and pleasing to God is a powerful force.

When we do it from a foundation of love drawn from the compassionate, pure and patient love of God, it changes everything. Unfortunately, there are great pressures and influences in the world that seeks to negatively shape hearts and minds – and the reality is they might win. We are up against a tough adversary who is actively seeking to capture hearts. It is an old story and there is no guarantee. However, there is this hope. No one, other than a mother, can love a child, a son or daughter, in the way that a God oriented father’s heart can. It’s why the promise “train up a child in the ways of the Lord and when they are older, they will not depart from it”
Maybe you have had the gift of a great dad. One you know, or knew, that you could pick up the phone, not matter the hour, regardless of the issue and say, “Dad….I need you” – and you know no matter what he is there.

I know that of my own dad. Because there have been more than a few points in my life when I had to make that call. It is the greatest gift that you can give your child. You have your difficulties and fights, but at the end of the day, you know if you picked up that phone and said ‘Dad….I need you’, the cavalry is on the way. Few things bring more comfort in life than that knowledge. It is one of the reasons that losing a parent is so hard – no matter your age.


Maybe your experience is more like my lawyer friend who still feels the sting of the withheld, or absence – or maybe worse, the abuse of a father’s love. There are few pains deeper and longer lasting.

God calls and want you to hear these words.

Psalm 68:4-6 (New American Standard Bible)
4Sing to God, sing praises to His name;
Lift up a song for Him who rides through the deserts,
Whose name is the LORD, and exult before Him.
5A)father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows,
Is God in His holy habitation.
6God makes a home for the lonely;
He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,
Only the rebellious dwell in a parched land.

God promises that he will be the father of the fatherless. One of the greatest ways for the church to live out the image of God in the body is join Him in that activity. The church can play a wonderful role with God as ones who ride through the desert looking to be ‘a father to the fatherless’ and ‘to make a home for the lonely’.

The best Father’s Day present is not what you will get today, but what it is that you give. We do not need to demand our position or right to be ‘the father

Neil Cudney