Maker of Heaven and Earth; Genesis 1:1-3, Colossians 1:13-17

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Passing Along the Faith; Joshua 4:19-24

    Happy Father’s Day and Happy Men of the Church Sunday! You need to hear today that you are important. We live in a society that increasingly says that you, as white men, have nothing important to contribute to the society. Your time is over. But as Mr. George and I were talking about after church last week, God isn’t finished with you until God calls you home. Your maleness is God-created and is part of what God uses for God’s purposes. It doesn’t make you better than or superior to us women, but it does make you different with different responsibilities. 

     Have you ever noticed that the 10 Commandments ends with a commandment in masculine language? “You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is your neighbor's.” The women weren’t left off the hook. They are responsible as well, but it was the Fathers who were to be the primary instructors of the children. You see, the Law was written primarily to men. Women were only responsible for portions of the Law and were covered for the rest under the man in whose household they resided be it father, husband, brother, or uncle. Women rarely lived alone in Old Testament times, unless they were widowed, and then it became the responsibility of the community to care for the widows and any children they had. The telling of sacred history was the responsibility of both parents, but primarily of the fathers. We see it in the questions asked in the celebration of Passover—the fathers answer the questions and tell the sacred history. We see this in today’s passage as well, “When the children ask the Fathers, ‘What do these stones mean…”

     And when the Fathers didn’t do their job of passing along the faith, there were sad consequences. All we have to do is a flip a few pages in our Bible to find out. Turn to Judges 2:6-10:

       6 After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession 

       of the land, each to their own inheritance. 7 The people served the Lord

       throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and 

       who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel. 8 Joshua 

       son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten. 

       9 And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in

       the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. 10 After that whole 

       generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew 

       up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. 

Uh-oh! What happened in this passage? At some point, parents forgot to teach their children. It wasn’t that children rebelled against their parents; it’s that the parents didn’t teach them. The text says that the people did not know the Lord nor the work that He had done for Israel. It was an ignorant generation. This doesn’t excuse them, but certainly there was an unfulfilled responsibility on the part of a whole generation of parents. 

     Why did they stop teaching the faith? Maybe it wasn’t because they stopped believing for themselves, but with so many competing religions around them, maybe they left it up to their kids to figure it out for themselves. We see the same thing happening today. People say, “I’m not going to impose my beliefs on my children. They can grow up and decide for themselves.” Yet, children are brought up without exposure to anything. This is not beneficial. It’s one thing if your children end up rejecting what you’ve taught; it’s another thing altogether if you’ve failed to teach them. Each person must make their own profession of faith, but it is our job to lay a solid foundation. You don’t have to have all the answers; you can learn together. Remember that God equips those God calls, and no one can fulfill their calling without God. Ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom and help. 

     Or maybe the fathers stopped teaching their children because they thought it should be somebody else’s job. They expected someone else to do it. Again, this is something we see today. Parents are to be the primary instructors of their children. Many have gratefully let others take over that job, but at what price? Parents have less and less hands-on time with their children. They may even go to all of their children’s activities, but they are usually watching from a distance and not engaged. I heard a TED talk in 2013 on pornography. A study showed that the average age of first exposure to porn for boys is age 10. Today, the average age is 8! Even those who put restrictions on their children’s electronics probably have friends whose parents don’t have the same restrictions. Another study was attempted to test the effects of pornography use on relationships among college-age men. The people doing the study could not find a large enough sample of non-porn users to use as a control group! The analyst giving the talk suggested using ex-porn addicts as a control group since not enough non-users could be found. If we aren’t teaching our children, who is? 

     Sadly, today part of the reasons we don’t see more male teachers is that we don’t value teachers. We say we do, but our practice indicates otherwise. Few teachers are paid even a livable wage. I taught school in a former life. You don’t see many male elementary school teachers anymore. I only had 3 in my cohort at UNCG and one quickly went on to become a principal. I taught for 3 and half years both private and public, and if I had not lived in subsidized housing, I could not have afforded to teach. I lived in a home owned by my parents. I paid utilities, property taxes, and insurance, but no other rent. The situation isn’t better today, especially considering those with college debt, of which I had none.           Sometimes outsourcing instruction, especially in the faith is necessary. We need men in church. Too many children today are growing up without dads at all. Not just absentee dads, but no dad. Mom may not know who the father of her child is, or she wants nothing to do with the father of her children and doesn’t want them to have anything to do with him either, or she may have had her children by in vitro fertilization, or a child might have lesbian parents. And though society has negated the importance of men, it is a fact that boys who do not have fathers are more likely to end up in gangs because they are drawn to other men, even if they are not appropriate role models. It is a fact that girls use their fathers as a first type for good or for ill of people they are likely to date and marry. Both girls and boys suffer when positive male influence, especially from fathers, are absent in their life. Though society is relegating fatherhood to the margins, it is very important. And most importantly, people need to know they have a Heavenly Father. As we heard last week, God, the perfect Father. Some people have a difficult time with this image because of the poor or absent examples of their earthly fathers. As we recounted in our biblical examples, earthly fathers often do fall short, even the excellent ones. Remember, everything in this life is only a type. God is the real thing. Earthly fathers are only intended, even at their best, to represent God and to point us to God. They are never intended to replace the need for our perfect Parent, our heavenly Father, the One who adopts us as His own with full privileges of adult, naturally born children, who receive the full inheritance of all that God has to give. who God is the Father who will never leave us nor forsake us, who will never leave us orphaned, but has an extra-special place in His heart for the orphans and fatherless. God is the Father who loves us fully and unconditionally, who always extends forgiveness to us. God is the One who seeks us and pursues us when we go astray. God is the Father who corrects us and disciplines us so that we will grow, without ever putting us down. God is the One who knows us inside and out, better than anyone else, including ourselves. God is the Father who collects all our tears in a bottle, who sends the Holy Spirit to comfort us, and who will one day wipe away every tear from our eyes. God is the Father who fashioned and designed us and put His image in us. God is our Father, the One who wants to have a relationship with us. God is the Father who makes His people into His family. This is the perfect Father, and the Father of us all. 

     We need men to work with not only with youth and children, but younger men. We need men to lead small groups and to be mentors. We need men to learn so they can lead their families. I love that we host the Scout program in town. What a place for young people to gain values and skills to become healthy and productive members of society. Thank you, Joe, for being our charter representative. Thank you, Tracy for all you do with our Scouts. But as great as Scouting is, it is passing along the faith that is most critical. Sometimes things like Scouting can be an avenue for that to happen. It’s those side conversations. Sometimes it’s at our jobs where we can pass along the faith. I keep telling people I’ve had more opportunities to share the gospel, to share my faith working at the restaurant for the past 9 months than I have in my role as pastor, other than with the folks in church, in the past 2 years. Now it is rarely a full gospel presentation in one shot, but it’s bits and pieces here and there. It’s a prayer with someone for healing or for a difficult relationship, or a Scripture verse, or sharing what Jesus has been doing in my life recently or a Biblical truth. But they are small ways that might result in a person taking one step closer to Jesus or that might lead eventually to a discipleship relationship. Listen and be intentional. There are lots of resources on mentoring. Another resource I would recommend to you older gentlemen is a new book out called, “The Gun Lap: Staying in the Race with Purpose” by Robert Wolegemuth. It’s about finishing well, for indeed, we are not done until God calls us home. May you be those who ever strive to pass on the faith. 

     Mary Ellen found this poem this morning by Leonard Wagner, which I think is a perfect way to sum up: 

        THE WORLD NEEDS MEN 

         ...who cannot be bought; 

         ...whose word is their bond; 

         ...who put character above wealth;

         ...who are larger than their vocations; 

         ...who do not hesitate to take chances;

         ...who will not lose their identity in a crowd; 

         ...who will be as honest in small things as in great things; 

         ...who will make no compromise with wrong; 

         ...whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires; 

         ...who will not say they do it "because everybody else does it;"

         ...who are true to their friends through good report, in adversity as well as in 

             prosperity;

         ...who do not believe that shrewdness and cunning are the best qualities for 

            winning success;

          ...who are not ashamed to stand for the truth when it is unpopular; 

          ...who can say "no" with emphasisis, although the rest of the world say "yes." 

         God, make me this kind of man. 

May the Lord make You such men as well.

The Father Almighty; II Corinthians 6:14-7:1

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God is One; Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Mark 12:28-34

Last week, on Trinity Sunday, we emphasized that God is Three in One. We saw that we cannot rename the members of the Trinity based on function because the functions overlap. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Over the next several weeks, we will flush out this relationship. Though we don’t understand it, we saw that it has great implications for us. In Romans 8 we see that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all work together to accomplish the fullness of our redemption and salvation, and even the redemption of the created world. Today as we begin our series on the Nicene Creed, our emphasis is that God is One in Three. The Nicene Creed begins, “We believe in One God.” God is One. We do not worship 3 gods. I don’t if it is easier to think of God as One in Three or Three in One. It’s just not something our minds can fully grasp, but we see it again and again in Scripture. Our Old Testament reading is known as the Shema, which is the first word of this verse in Hebrew. It is the command form of the verb to hear with the implications that what you hear, you take seriously to obey and live it out. It tells us that Yahweh our God is One. We are given God’s name. Last week, we saw that Name applies to both the Father and the Son. Jesus also said that more than once when He declared, “Before Abraham was, I AM”. The Jews who heard Jesus tried to stone Him because they knew He was using the Divine Name for Himself. Jesus also said in John 10, “I and the Father are One.” In II Corinthians 3:18, the Spirit is called Lord. “And we who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Although the New Testament word “Lord” doesn’t always correspond to the Old Testament Divine Name Yahweh, it seems to here. The two “Lords” in this verse are equal. Father, Son, and Spirit are One. We worship One God. In our gospel reading, Jesus is being tested. Having been asked several questions by teachers of the Law, scribes, and Pharisees, Jesus is given one last test and is asked, “What is the Greatest Commandment?” He quotes the Shema and adds the second greatest commandment—to love your neighbor as yourself. This intrigues one of the scribes who is pleased with the answer. This scribe reiterates that God is One and there is no other God. No one is like God. He agrees with Jesus that loving God and loving neighbor is greater than all other commands combined, and sums them up. In return, Jesus is pleased with the man’s intelligent response and tells the scribe that he “is not far from the Kingdom of God.” Perhaps he is one of the scribes who later embraces Jesus as Lord and Christ. When you’ve summed up the Law, there is no reason to ask anything else. The Law of God is love. Jesus though continues to teach using the Psalm we alluded to last week to indicate that He is Lord. He is equal to Yahweh. He is One with God. The Lord our God is One God. There is only one God. Our God is not one option among many. There are many spiritual beings but only One is God. None of the others would exist without Yahweh. Nothing can exist without our God. Our God is the God of everyone, whether or not they acknowledge God. Many choose lesser gods or false gods. But there is only one true God. The truth of who God is demands a response. We are told to teach it to our children and grandchildren. We are told to remember it and repeat it. Like last week, even though we might not understand the doctrine of the Trinity, it has huge implications for us. God as Three in One works for our benefit to bring us into relationship with God. The fact that God is One in Three demands a response from us. The revelation that God is One is tied to a command. In fact, we heard Jesus call it the greatest commandment—“And you shall love Yahweh your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength.” So how much do you love God? Do you love the Lord with all of your strength? Strength refers to physical ability. All the various things we do with our physical bodies represent all of our strength. You might think, “I’m not that strong. At least not any more.” Even though you may not be able to physically do the things you used to be able to do what are you doing with your body? Are you using your body in such a way that you can say, “I’m loving God with all of my strength?” Love the Lord your God with all of your mind. This refers to your thoughts. Do you love God with ALL of your mind? With what are you filling your mind? If you want to work on loving God with all of your mind is to practice Philippians 4:8 “Finally brothers and sisters, whatever things are true, whatever things noble, just, pure, lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue or any praise, think on these things.” Do you love the Lord your God with all of your heart? In the time when the Shema was first spoken, to love the Lord your God with all of your heart was a matter of the will. Is all your will aligned with the purpose and intent of loving God? By the time Jesus reiterated these words, the heart was beginning to take on the connotation of the seat of the emotions. I think Jesus intended it to mean both. What we love with our heart we talk about. What we love we spend our time and resources on. What we love with our will we invest in. What are you passionate about? Are you passionate about Jesus? And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your soul. Your soul is what makes you you, the core of your being. Are you marked with love for God? Can someone look at you and say, “There’s a person who loves Jesus?” That is what it looks like to love God with your soul. God wants 100% of all of you and everything you got. If you had to measure yourself on how much you love God, how would you do? Could you give yourself a 50% score? 80%? Do you love God with 100% of you heart, soul, strength, and mind? Jesus tells us that the truth of who God is—the fact that the Lord our God is one also demands that we are to love other people as we love ourselves. James tells us we cannot love God if we do not love especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus calls us to love everyone, including our enemies, and that our love is a witness that we really do love God. Do you really love God?