June 16, 2013
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
We laugh about this that if we ever forget Mother’s Day, it will be the end of the world but if we didn’t say anything on Father’s Day, no one would ever notice! So, today, I want to say a few things about being fathers. This might be only my second sermon about fathers in the past 15 years!
Being a good dad doesn’t come easy. Being the kind of dad whose kids will one day remember him with fondness and joy is hard work. Being the kind of dad who, although being far from perfect, still manages to love and lead his children well is challenging.
While I know that not every woman here is in a relationship today with someone who is a father or may even have fond memories of your father, this message is going to go beyond what it means to be a father.
The man in your life may make it look like second nature, but being the kind of man who knows just when to firmly say, “Walk it off” to his son and when to put his pride aside and play princesses with his little girl is tough stuff. Being the kind of father that every little girl would want to one day walk her down the aisle and that every boy would want to be like when he’s bigger takes a ton of work.
We seem to have this ambivalence in our understanding of what masculinity is today. Is it the ability for a father to take his son on an outdoor camping trip and know how to build a campfire or is it to teach his son how to make gourmet meals by learning from some of the great cooking shows on TV? Is a father supposed to continue to show loving affection with his little girl even when she is searching for affection from the boy in her English class? Being a good dad doesn’t come easy. There are not many fast and proven how-to manuals to follow.
Proverbs
But today’s lesson from Proverbs, we actually do have a how-to manual on the wisdom represented in God’s word. From Proverbs, we have the first book of such sage advice.
In Chapter 3, the writer, a father himself, is offering his son a lesson in something that applies to each of us, man or not. The father is extolling his son in something deeper than lessons on camping, shaving or tying a tie.
In Proverbs 3, the writer’s son, and we, get a lesson on godliness—the art of walking closely with our Creator.
It’s clear from God’s word that, like being a great dad, a life of godliness doesn’t come easy. It comes down to a handful of practices and attitudes that any man or woman aiming for it will spend all their days striving to see it happen.
First, says this father, godliness is grounded in an attitude of unrelenting love. At the heart of the Hebrew faith was a belief in God’s che-sed, often translated as “steadfast love.” It’s the idea that God’s love for his people never gives up or fades away. In our pew Bibles, it reads, “Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you,” meaning that don’t let God’s steadfast love like loyalty give up on you. It’s a belief that the love of God, although at times hidden in seasons of struggle or pain, is always in hot pursuit of the people of God.
I remember the times as a little boy and my father would hold my little hand in his big hands in the big city. He knew that I might get lost if I didn’t stay close to him. We would play this secret hand game of squeezing each other’s hands back and forth. No one knew we were doing this; it was hidden from anyone else. In some way, it’s a symbol of my father saying to me his steadfast love and loyalty to me means that he will never give me up.
The godly person then is one who, having been transformed by such unending love from God, displays a faithful, unrelenting love for others. He writes, “Let not steadfast love or loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.”
Godliness is first and foremost a God-shaped inner integrity where you would want to be quick to forgive and ready to reconcile because you want this love for each other to not fade away. You have this love around your necks. You have written it on your hearts. This is the kind of steadfast love and loyalty one has with a husband or a wife or a friend who refuses to run away but instead fights for the future of the relationship. You want to be able to hold hands and squeeze them back and forth.
Secondly in verses 5 to 8, the father continues the inward focus on the art of godliness and tells us that a truly godly person will not only have an attitude of unrelenting love for others, but also an intellectual humility about himself or herself. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” he says. And “be not wise in your own eyes.” It may sound simple, but a key skill for the godly is a refusal to believe that he or she already has all the answers.
Truly godly people are going to be well aware of their limitations and not just submit themselves to the wisdom of others, but first to the will and wisdom of God. This means that the art of godliness is also the art of prayer, where we make our needs known to him. It’s the art of studying the Scriptures, where we submit ourselves to the truths he’s revealed. It’s the art of repentance, where we actively turn from our prideful idolatries in all their forms and lay hold of the unrelenting love and wisdom and goodness of God in Christ instead.
My father who was basically uneducated according to today’s standards had an intellectual humility about himself. Never went to school and probably the only formal training that my father received in his life was serving in the US Army during World War II. But I can remember him saying in his rather broken English, “By on by.” He must have picked it up in the army. I think he meant that the wisdom of God will be revealed to us some day, by on by. We don’t need to be wise in our own eyes but when we pray, study the Bible, and repent of our sins, we can trust in God and be humble.
The father, the mother, the son or daughter who does these things is truly humble, and very godly.
The father in Proverbs 3 continues by shifting the focus from our inward attitudes to how a godly person approaches one of the most difficult things that we face—the stewardship of our belongings. Too often we wrongly attach far too much of our identity and personal self-worth to the accumulation of physical things. We attach too much worry and worship to seemingly big things, like the amount of money we have in the bank and arguably minor things, like that collection of baseball cards Dad refuses to throw away.
The godly, however, are those who by the power of the Holy Spirit stops hoarding. The godly person discovers the joy of being generous toward the things of God and worshipfully submits their things to God’s will. He writes, “Honor the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”
Even as a gambling man who had lost his day’s wages at times, my father is remember by me as a generous man. In the top drawer of his bureau was a cigar box that was always filled with change. We never received an allowance but whenever we needed some money like milk money at 3 cents a day, we were allowed to take whatever we needed out of this cigar box. This was enough. 3 cents a day was enough to have milk.
The godly man or woman knows that stuff comes from and belongs to God and when we are set free from the enslaving, idolatrous attitude that possessions are gods, we are blessed. A life lived in the art of godliness is a life lived in financial generosity toward the work of the kingdom and the needs of others. A life lived in the art of godliness is a life where one’s heart is attached to and anchored in the unshakable, life-giving things of God. After all, as Jesus once said, “Where your treasure is, there is your heart.”
And lastly, the writer of Proverbs gives us one description of the godly life that seems particularly appropriate on this Father’s Day. The godly realize that God is sovereignly molding and shaping their lives, even to the point of correcting us. The godly embrace, and do not despise, divine discipline, knowing that, “the Lord reproves the one he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights” (Proverbs 3:12).
I mentioned this incident before that the only time that I received a spanking with a Chinese slipper by my father was when he learned that I played hooky from Chinese school when I was about ten. He told me that it hurt him more than it will hurt me because he was disappointed in me. I have never cut class since.
As much as we’d like to live our lives writing our own rules, devoid of correction or consequence, it simply doesn’t work that way in the family of God. Through faith in Christ as your forgiver and reconciler, we’ve been brought into the family of God, and as such the Father in heaven has become, our Father. And like any good Dad, he gets a say in our lives, and will discipline us—not punish us, there’s a difference—when life gets too far off his intended path. The godly will not hold this against God, but wisely see it as evidence of the love of God. God is not cruel when God disciplines us. No, God would be cruel if God left us alone. But God doesn’t.
God is at work in our struggles, using them to refine us through fire and chisel, through brokenness and repentance, to draw us back to his word, his ways, and his Son, Jesus Christ.
I got a spanking because my father really loved me and cared for me. As part of God’s family, the godly realize that there is purpose in pain and struggle, not punishment, and that every so often God will allow us to hit rock bottom so we will realize that God is the Rock at the bottom. On God, we have a solid rock foundation to build our lives on.
Godliness is No Easy Task
Being godly like being a good father is not an easy task. But we can thank God because God grades us on a curve; choosing to see us in light of what Christ has done for us on the cross instead of how well we parent our child or how well we know how to start a campfire without matches or even how much we fill the offering plate. None of these tasks are easy but they are worth doing because we want to be godly as well as good parents.
So for the fathers who happen to be here today, we thank you for embracing the manly ways in which you have loved so well. You deserve a day of doing whatever you like—even if it’s falling asleep on the couch with two remote controls and an empty plate once covered in nachos perfectly balanced on your belly.
And all the people in the congregation can be encouraged to embrace the art of godliness by walking closely with the Creator by saying: “Let us pursue the art of godliness. Let us be a people of unrelenting love and intellectual humility. May we be the kind of people who steward our things for God’s purposes and refuse to despise the Lord’s discipline. Such a life will certainly make our Father in heaven quite proud.”
As the father teaching his son in Proverbs 3 say, “My child, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you” (3:1-2).
May all the fathers and all of us here today receive the length of days and years of life and abundant welfare to come.
Let us pray.
Gracious Lord God, we thank you for your patience, mercies, and instructions for us to live a godly life. Forgive us when we stray away from your paths and strengthen our resolve and commitment to do your will at home, through this church and into the world. We pray for all those who provide guidance in our living as we strive to do likewise with others. And may the love of God and the joy in the Lord, and the peace that passes all understanding in the Holy Spirit be with us as we continue to worship this morning. In Christ, we pray. Amen.