Promise Keepers
August 97
My testimony …. church boy, Baptist camp in Wheaton, First serious prayer:Triopia, Can you Direct plays? Lay Witness Mission. God has used: honky-tonk C&W bands, pumping organ for Mom, everything I’ve given Him. I have received much praise for what God has done.
A teacher’s perspective: To fathers, to grandfathers, to any male who has influence over a young person.
My premise tonight. If you buy it, then we can talk. If you don’t, then you might want to start on your refreshments early. This: With few exceptions, and unless some cataclysmic event comes along to change our minds, we look upon God as we looked upon our earthly father. If our father was not Christ-like, it may take a lifetime of learning to overcome this impression.
We may be born with a need for affection, but must be taught the trait of showing love. We are not born with forgiveness. Watch young children. Selfish. “Mine!” We are not born with obedience. Have you eaten beside a baby? What’s on your plate is on his.
How can you be obedient to God if you’ve never been taught obedience by your father? My case… was and am obedient to my father. Kids would choose to play somewhere else because at my house, whoever caused the trouble got whipped, no matter whose child he was. (Although changed a bit as a grandfather) Dad’s priorities: made a living buying run-down farms and restoring them, then selling them.. Hard way to earn a living. . . I stayed home sick one day in my frosh year.. cut hedge. Never sick again. but.. when a ballgame or concert came… hay left in the field.
A very dear friend. Lax parents.. (Mike).. divorce… eat tried to buy his affections. I can see his relationship to God is following the same pattern. “I will do this Lord, but what will you do for me.” Parents bargained with him and now he is bargaining with God.
As I’ve spoken tonight, many of you have already looked at your relationship to God in relation to that of you and your father. And much of what I say here applies just as readily to those of you are simply a significant influence in the life of a youngster.
I sit every Sunday next to a 30-year lady and her niece.. brings her church… David Beard.. two blonde little girls.. brings them to church… morning devotions and lots of pop tarts.
Lay Witness missions… churches in which women have been forced to fill all positions of responsibility.
Fathers One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. English Proverb (17th century). Collected in: George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs (1640).
Your sons want your approval, no matter what they seem to say. Fathers and Sons This is a pain I mostly hide, but ties of blood, or seed endure, and even now I feel inside the hunger for his outstretched hand, a man’s embrace to take me in, the need for just a word of praise. Jimmy Carter (b. 1924), U.S. president. “I Wanted to Share My Father’s World,” Always a Reckoning, Times Books (1994). Promises It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath. Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.), Greek dramatist. Fragments, no. 385.
To my knowledge, I have never had a troublesome student with a caring, responsible father.
I am where I am because my parents and grandparents prayed for me.
If you wait for someone else to change your attitude before you do, it’ll be too late.
The first time I flew on a commercial airline… flight attendant speech.. oxygen masks.. Please put on your mask first before attending to small children who may be with you. I was shocked until the reason became obvious. That’s our job in raising kids, too.
The problems of Jacksonville … Racism.. not genetic. It’s taught by racist fathers. Indifference toward those in need. Indifferent fathers breed indifferent sons.
Two places to get a Pepsi in Perry. Cecil’s.. 10 cents. Norma’s.. 5 cents. I had to keep a financial journal. I got spanked for buying a Pepsi at Cecil’s. The same week, a friend’s house burned.. no insurance. Dad wrote out a check for $1000. I was confused. I didn’t realize dad was not concerned about money, but wisdom.
One of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced.. watching one of my friends try to raise his son long-distance. Divorce. Lives many miles apart. Father: barely holds his own financially. Mother married a very wealthy man and proceeded to spoil the child. Acted spoiled? Prescribed drugs. Boy would visit and demand to be pampered. The man loved his son too much to indulge him. He would cry would the boy would leave, angry at him. Expelled from school. Father fought to get him re-enrolled. I’ve cried with this man. I’ve prayed with this man. He has never stopped praying. He never will. This summer…… his son returned, to work side-by-side with him in a very hot and dirty job. It works, my friends. God is faithful.
Ten year old girl sat on my porch this summer. Wanted to come to camp. Divorced parents fighting over who would pay the twenty-dollar fee. We prayed. The father gave in. The little girl accepted Christ as her savior this summer.
Helen Dickens: When you want something badly, go to a new Christian and have them pray for you. God knows they have no patience.
Daniel’s fishing pole.
Boy and father in New England, clearing a field. Boy struggled to lift a rock. Father smiled. Boy: why? You haven’t used all your strength. But… etc. You have asked me to help you.
Sing.. Only Saints Can Raise a Child to Love the Lord.
The premise of Promise Keepers relies upon the Biblical injunction that the man is to be the spiritual head of the family.
USA TODAY , August 11th, 97… Among adults whose parents had two or more failed marriages, 67% divorced, 26% two or more times. …whose parents divorced and remarried once, 58% divorced, 19% at least twice …..among adults raised in intact homes, 41% divorced, 9% two or more times. You have a responsibility as a father to teach children how a family works. Albert Sweitzer said, “A family is where we learn how to live.”
A responsibility to show your children the practice of joy. How it works. How you get it. What it does for you. I sit in the average church service and want to scream! Our church services, in large part, are made for adults. The vocabulary used, the patterns of worship, the music, the decor, the joyousness. Singing 18th century hymns following a 19th century order of worship surrounded by 17th century architecture .. and we wonder: Why aren’t kids more interested in church. Who owns your church? The adults. Not the children. “As long as we’re in charge, we’ll sing the music we like, we’ll have the order of worship we like, we’ll have the church which pleases us first.” Your children cannot watch you sitting solemnly in church then cheering wildly at a ballgame and not become what you are.
My grandmother was a prayer warrior. We all went to church, but she was the prayer warrior. I was in college when she died. I don’t think she saw a single result of her prayers for me. Few are blessed to see the results of our work for the Lord.
Let me tell you what’s happening… I don’t know, but it’s something big. There’s a generation of Christian warriors rising right now which are years ahead of where you and I were… Dylan… “I don’t know what it is….” Last week… football prayer group, first him, then two.. now five players and all the coaches. Something is happening. Summer PAC camps. We used to struggle a bit to settle kids down and talk about salvation. In recent years, we’ve had to revise our game plan. Most walk in with salvation.. many are already prayer warriors.. many have already formed their own groups… We’ve had to use more and more adults such as Rich just to keep up with the kids and where they are in their walk. Something is happening.
The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.