Biblical Manhood - Week Four (Healing The Father Wound)

thanks douglas well thank you douglas thank you man y'all sound good even for six a.m it's awesome i love uh love having time just to worship with men and uh sing with you all and love just hearing you guys lift your voice to the lord great to be with you this morning to continue our study of biblical manhood and just to quickly review uh where we were last week uh if you uh got your outline there everybody should have a handout so you can take some notes have your bible ready we're going to continue to put some verses together that are building our uh biblical foundation for what it means to be men and so i want to encourage you to make sure to continue to write these verses down highlight them underline them in your bible i want to welcome our online groups we're excited to have you all and thankful that you're sticking with us through this biblical manhood study we were talking about last week about dealing with the wounds of the past that we have as men and if you remember i brought the suitcase up here last week and we talked about these wounds that men carry and how we're kind of dragging this baggage with us around from the past so we defined a wound as any unresolved issue from the past that creates a deficit in our life today remember any unresolved issue from the past it creates a deficit in our life today and we explicitly called out five different wounds that typically hinder men the absent father wound that we're working on right now overly bonded to mother wound the all alone wound the kind of lack of men and mentor wound that we carry with us fourth the lack of manhood vision remember had the binoculars like i'm not really sure uh what i'm supposed to be as a man and then fifth the depravity wound so just as a reminder kind of what are we covering what are we talking about last week i started by discussing the absent father wound and gave you a definition of what does that mean because some of us think well my dad wasn't really absent like he was in the home he was physically there some of us he was absent completely but for many of us he was there but there was some kind of disconnect uh either emotionally or there was some kind of void spiritually that created a deficit in our lives and so we defined the absent father wound as an ongoing emotional social or spiritual deficit that's ordinarily met in a healthy relationship with dad that must now be overcome by some other means and we just made the observation and we talked about even our table in my group last week that we all have different relationships and experiences with our fathers again some are absent physically but many other dads are absent emotionally or spiritually and all those cause consequences in our lives they cause huge cultural problems we discussed that last week in terms of drug and alcohol abuse sexual confusion unwanted you know children that it creates all these issues when men are are impacted by this this absent father wound and it creates huge personal challenges for us a lot of men deal with anger addiction lostness uncertainty about who they are and what to do with their masculine energy and a lot of that comes from this wound remember last week we said what do sons most need from their fathers and i just kind of gave you a few ideas one this idea of quality and quantity time that sons need life skills from their dads that sons need transcendent purpose like what am i here for is it is there anything beyond just kind of like uh you know doing well in school and having a good career and having a nice house like what is what is there something bigger to live for and that sons need a father's love so we started to share last week about our relationship with our dads and the deficits that we face today because of those relationships understanding is only the first step so we're trying to figure out how our relationship with our dads impacted us but our goal is not just understanding it's resolution it's resolution remember what we said about the suitcase those are unresolved issues of our past that are causing deficits today i don't want you to get this image in your mind it's like well if i have these issues in my past then i can never deal with them that's not true we can deal with them we can get resolution and so our goal is to over overcome those deficits by other means how do we do that well if you have your bible let's start by looking at malachi chapter four so this is uh if you are searching around your old testament this is the last book of the old testament so it's easy to find go the book of matthew and hang a left and it's the the last book of your old testament math malachi chapter four and what's interesting is here when the prophet malachi is is talking about the day of the lord and the messiah coming and he begins to paint a picture of what's going to happen when the messiah comes and i want you to just notice this this is in malachi 4 and this is the very end of the old testament okay this is right at the end the last couple of verses of the old testament so he says in verse 5 look i'm going to send you the prophet elijah before the great and terrible day of the lord comes now we know this he's talking about john the baptist right john the baptist is going to come and he's the uh precursor he's the pre-runner who's coming before jesus comes and he's going to come and he's going to announce the messiah but then look at verse 6 and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers otherwise i will come and strike the land with a curse malachi 4 6 here ought to be one of those verses that we underline in our manhood bible that helps us understand that one of the things the messiah does when he comes is he begins to reconcile children with their fathers and fathers with their children uh the reason i think that's so important to notice is that this is not something that can happen outside of the supernatural work of the holy spirit okay it's not gonna happen just a natural fleshly power god has to come and move in our hearts and the hearts of our fathers to reconcile these relationships so i want you to just see right off the bat we need god's help to overcome the father wound you're not going to do this in your own strength your own wisdom you're not just going to kind of work your way through it it's only by the power of the holy spirit that we can overcome this wound but if you are willing to lean into god you're willing to rely on the spirit and on his strength then you can resolve this wound you can become a different person and leave a different legacy for the next generation so how do we deal with the father wound let's dive right in how do we overcome the father wound okay a quick word about dealing with this responsibly some men who go through this study and think about this issue of the father wound and they begin to like understand how their relationship with their dad has impacted them will leave this study and will blow up their relationship with their dad okay that's not what i'm asking you to do that's not what god's asking you to do so you need to be very wise and understanding about how you respond to the father wound because a lot of young men and and i did this when i was a young man uh kind of push back against their father's authority and their father's role in their life and young men can be jerks about that amen okay let's just be honest young men can be jerks about that all of us in our lives go through a season where we are a jerk to our dad and so part of that is we're kind of bowing up we're trying to kind of establish ourselves as our own men you know dad i don't need you i'm my own man and so that is just we have to know that's part of our flesh so if we don't understand how to do this correctly and biblically and and why with wisdom then we will actually make the relationship worse instead of making the relationship better remember the biblical command in ephesians 6 honor your father and your mother okay whatever we do we need to speak with honor and not with hate we need to speak with honor and not with hate you guys know you can say the same thing two different ways you can say the exact same content two different ways you can say it respectfully and you can say it hatefully and you know the difference and the difference is what's in your heart what's in your heart toward the person you're talking to and specifically what's in your heart toward your dad let's go to hebrews 12. hebrews 12. i think this is a helpful verse to kind of get our arms around the role of our fathers in our lives in hebrews 12 9 and 10 it talks about the role of dads in their discipline of their children here's what it says he's talking about god's discipline of us but he then refers to the discipline of our parents here's what he says furthermore we all had human fathers discipline us and we respected them shouldn't we submit even more to the father of spirits and live for they are our earthly fathers verse 10 they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them but god does it for our benefit so that we can share his holiness now think about verse 10 there our fathers disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them not what was best they didn't always do it right but they did the best they could do that's what this verse is implying that they didn't get it right they weren't perfect but they did what was seemed right to them in the moment okay that's what this verse is saying even if they totally screwed it up they did the best they could do as many of you have said to me in private conversation you've said my dad messed up a lot of things in raising me but he did a lot better than his dad and his dad did a lot better than his dad before him that there's some generational issues here and our dads are taking a step forward and hopefully lord willing we're taking a step forward from the things our dads gave to us but we're not going to get it perfect either and if we're expecting perfection from our fathers we got to watch out when our kids expect perfection from us we're going to be in trouble we need to honor them for that even while we are honest about some of the pain and deficits and wounds we have from their hand we also want to honor the things that they have done for us we took time last week in our groups to discuss the wounds we've experienced from our dads they range from total abandonment to a lack of direction to a lack of spiritual instruction or anything like that and everything in between and you remember we said some of us have a scratch from the father wound some of us are missing an arm so just remember that right you say well my dad was there he was present he was at all my sports games right but still understand what were some of the things that maybe you have a scratch from your dad there's a couple of things missing that you want to make sure you get right with your kids but then others of us we have giant wounds so what do we do we don't want to use it as an excuse to just be immature men we don't want to use it as an excuse so we need to actually move into maturity how do we do that let's talk about six practical things that we can do okay first of all we need to summon the courage to choose to forgive we need to summon the courage to choose to forgive ephesians 4 32 ephesians 4 32 says to us that we need to forgive in the same way that christ has forgiven us forgive one another the same way christ has forgiven you one of the distinguishing marks of the christian life is forgiveness we have been forgiven so much by god in jesus christ how could we not forgive others who've done things wrong to us wait a minute keith wait a minute you're saying that i need to forgive my dad for some of those really painful things that he me does that mean if i forgive my father that i suddenly approve of his treatment of me if i approve of the way that he raised me i approve of the sins in his life i'm approving of the hurtful things he said the hurtful things he did no forgiveness of past wrongs is not approval of past wrongs forgiveness of past wrongs is not promotion of past wrongs it's not saying what was done was okay it's not saying what was done was right what forgiveness is is a choice let me say that again it's a choice to say i am not going to hold a grudge i'm not going to allow this to hold me in anger i'm not going to allow bitterness to take root in my heart i'm not going to stay there i am not going to hold this charge against my dad and stay in a place of unforgiveness some of you have heard me tell this story before but it's worth sharing again because this experience shaped me so much i remember whenever i was a freshman in college and those of you who don't know barry's story with her dad it's a wild story of drugs and being in prison and him uh sharing her name and address with with fellow inmates and then writing all these nasty letters to her and all this while she was in high school it was a really really difficult experience and so she and i were friends all through high school we were dating we get to college and her freshman year we were doing a youth event at a church and we get a phone call and it's a cousin it's a family member who says hey your dad he's been out of prison now for about a year and he's had a stroke and he is in the the va hospital in in south dallas and so we get in the car we we leave the church where we are for that weekend we drive to the va hospital we go in there and uh now i had never seen him he had been imprisoned during our whole friendship and she had not seen him in years and barry had kind of you know walked through that season with her kind of normal joy and you know she would talk about it but she didn't really want to deal with it or whatever and we walk into his hospital room and he's there and he's a very large overweight man he's got all these tattoos and satanic you know stuff on his body and it's just it's a pretty overwhelming uh image but i have this image in my mind you guys know my wife little petite berry we walk into the hospital room and she sees him you know for the first time in many years and she begins to shake physically she's overwhelmed with emotion in that moment she begins to physically shake and you know he had run off all of his family and nobody was there whatever and it ended up being barry and her mom that were there with him at the end of his life and she begins to shake so violently with all this emotion and she's realizing in that moment that she had said the words i forgive my dad i'm not holding on to bitterness or anger or whatever but then seeing him brought back all the emotions of all the things that he had done to her i just want to say to you a couple of things i learned in that moment that you can say the words i forgive but then things happen in the future where you run into those hurts again maybe it's that person maybe it's a consequence of that person and then you feel all those emotions again and choosing to forgive this is the big aha is not a one-time deal it's not a one-time deal it's not like hey i forgave that i'm good no forgiveness is an ongoing choice it's an ongoing choice so barry we walk in that hospital room but she's shaking with with anger and feeling just overwhelmed with emotion in that moment and then what happens as she spends time praying and her dad's in a coma and she's there with him and i have this very vivid image of at the end of that day her holding his hand and saying to her father dad i forgive you and i love you and it's so i'm still getting choked up right now telling you this story it was many years ago but it was so powerful not for her dad her dad was in a coma it was powerful for her and the same is true for all of us as men that this forgiveness is a powerful release in our own lives of this anger and bitterness that we can hold on to you may think that's admirable that's a moving story but maybe not possible for you because you feel like your anger toward your father kind of holds him accountable for what he did that was wrong you don't think you know i don't i don't want him keith to to win i don't want him to have a anything over me but listen that's a wrong way to think about it you have to trust the lord to hold your dad accountable for his life it's not your job to hold him accountable your job is to forgive you're not god your dad's going to give an account to god one day not to you so holding on to these things that you think you are holding over him is not actually helping him or helping you he's got to resolve those things with god you and i have been commanded to forgive romans 12 19 says to us that we are not to take vengeance into our own hands the scripture is explicit that's not your job right because the lord is the one who will avenge that which is wrong not us and so we have to forgive you can forgive if your father turns in faith to jesus christ here's what i want you to know the lord will forgive him the way same way the lord has forgiven you you think about all the things you've done that you've sinned against god and how many times god has forgiven you and showed mercy to you the lord will do the same thing for your dad so if god will forgive your father why will we not forgive our father the lord is gracious to all who call in the name of jesus and we need to be gracious as well so first of thing we got to have courage to forgive number two we've got to aggressively seek reconciliation aggressively seek reconciliation the bible says in second corinthians 5 18 that we are ministers of reconciliation why because we've been reconciled with god through jesus christ if we're a believer in context obviously paul is talking about our mission when he says we have the ministry of reconciliation he's saying we have a mission to go out and help the world be reconciled to god through jesus christ but the application of this text is profound we are ministers of reconciliation we are charged with helping other people reconcile to god and we are charged with reconciling to each other whenever we have unreconciled relationships we are a reconciled people let's explore that metaphor for just a minute spiritually when you put your faith in jesus christ as your lord and savior the bible says that those of us who were enemies of god we weren't like almost there we were enemies of god and we would put our faith in jesus christ what happened is is god turned us around he helped us to walk away from the people we were before he forgave us for rebelling against his authority and doing life our own way and here is the truth of the gospel god sent his son for us not when we were perfect or walking toward god he sent his son for us when we were walking away from him in this way he purchased our reconciliation when we were enemies he made us sons and daughters instead of enemies of god that's what reconciliation in the gospel means now apply that same reconciliation to your relationship with your father your relationship with your dad could be distant for two different reasons it could be distant because of him or because of you or maybe some combination of him and you it could be distant because of his choices we've talked about that because of his sin you can't forgive but you can't change his decisions i understand that you can't make him want to reconcile with you you can pursue him but it doesn't mean he's going to want to reconcile however many men are distant from their fathers for other reasons okay let me give you a couple of the reasons why we are distant with our distant with our dads some are distant because their father's relational shortcomings separate the two of you many men don't know how to talk about their emotions many men don't know how to express affection many men don't know how to have those serious talks with their sons this is my dad okay my dad was fully present physically fully present in my life helpful in school at all my sports activities fully present but he struggled greatly to talk to me about serious topics it has gotten so much better over the years that we've both have grown and matured in the lord but most of my time growing up he would have my mom have the difficult conversations with me so whether that was about sex the birds and the bees puberty my mom's having all those conversations with me because my dad's like i'm not touching that with a 10-foot pole my dad struggled to tackle those topics to talk to me about the hard issues in life now there could be separation between you and your dad that springs simply from your father's fear of having hard conversations with you we all know what that's like man i don't want to get into that topic your dad may just not have the words to talk to you may not have the courage to start the conversation in addition there could be separation between you and your dad because of you let's be honest it could be because of you and we need to own our own junk the things that we've done that have caused conflict with dad many fathers struggle with a lack of gratitude and a lack of respect they receive from their sons because dads who are present and in the home sacrifice struggle work hard to provide for their families day in and day out and especially young men especially young men and adolescents seem to forget young men in the room are you listening to me seem to forget that their dad is paying all the bills feeding them clothing them and young men can lose their minds i was once a young man i understand what that's like we can lose our minds we begin to think dad is stupid doesn't understand anything doesn't understand our lingo that dad was never a young man that wanted to have sex with a young young girl okay we rebel against our father's wisdom and instruction we blow dad's money and then we wonder why is this relationship so hard come on if that's you listen to me if there's distance between you and your dad because of you not because of him but because of you then you need to own that you need to confess it and you need to seek reconciliation with your father don't put every problem in your relationship with your dad at his feet there's a lot of things there that he needs to own but there's also a lot of things that you and i need to own it's not just him that's a sinner it's also you and we bring all that into our relationship what do we need to confess to reconcile with our dad once you've dealt with your hardness of heart toward your father and you've confessed your own sin toward your dad you're ready to take a risk and there's two important questions i want you to take a risk number three to risk to ask for your father's love we already mentioned it in matthew 17 5 where at the transfiguration the father announces this is my beloved son in whom i am well pleased that's actually the second time this announcement happens in the book of matthew it also occurs in matthew 3 17. in matthew 3 17 is where jesus is baptized by john the baptist if you remember the scene john the baptist is baptizing jesus in the jordan river and the scriptures say there in that passage that a dove descends on jesus representing the holy spirit and listen the father speaks from heaven and what does the father say again he says these words this is my beloved son in whom i am well pleased listen to him why is god so determined when he speaks over the sun to announce his love for the son why does he do that it seems important to god for us to know that the father has loved the son from all eternity that he does love him today and he will continue to love him for all eternity this is the model father-son relationship one of trust love glad submission of the son to the father and beautiful support and love from the father to the son you see that and how god the father and god the son relate to each other but for many of us as sons we didn't ever hear dad say i love you from our fathers some of this is a generational thing some of this is a personality thing some men are not expressive they're not comfortable talking about their emotions many guys i talked to had grew up in a home where mom said to them i love you every single day i love you honey all the time but dad never said the words dad never said the words i love you and many fathers think why do i need to say the words i show the words every day i'm here aren't i i'm here i'm paying the bills i'm taking care of the needs why do i need to say it i'm showing it this leaves a son in an awkward situation of not ever being completely sure does dad love me some of you in this room may be those sons you would say i think my dad loves me even though i never heard him say it but you know and i know you need to hear it you need to hear your dad say i love you so if you've never heard that take the risk ask for the heart of your father ask for the heart of your father tell him you need the words i need the words dad the second thing i want to ask you to risk is risk asking for your father's blessing this is related but it's a little different let me explain my language here asking for your father's love everybody in the room you understand that but what do we mean by asking for your father's blessing the blessing from father to son is a big deal in the bible especially in the hebrew culture in the hebrew culture it was how the blessing of god was passed from one generation to the next one of the most important interesting stories related to this is found in genesis 27 26-30 where jacob steals esau's blessing from the father isaac isaac was old his eyesight was bad and he couldn't tell who he was blessing and jacob was a deceiver he was a trickster and he deceived isaac in order to get the blessing from isaac i want to read the description of isaac's blessing to you in genesis 27 26 through 30 as genesis 27 26-30 his father isaac said to him please come closer and kiss me my son so he came closer and kissed him when isaac smelled his clothes he blessed him and he said ah the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the lord has blessed may god give to you from the dew of the sky and the richness of the land an abundance of grain and new wine may people serve you and nations bow and worship to you be master over your relatives may your mother's sons bow and worship to you those who curse you will be cursed and those who bless you will be blessed what's the parallel of the blessing in our lives today it's more than love it's more than love love is relational blessing is approval blessing is affirmation it's knowing that your father is proud of you it's knowing that your father blesses what you are doing with your life fathers are funny about their blessing some give it easily others withhold it because their sons don't live up to their expectations come on now can we get honest in church this morning that our expectations as fathers are a real deal it's a real struggle well my son's not the star athlete that i wanted him to be he's not the star student that i really expected him to be this son didn't pick the girl that i wanted him to marry didn't get the job that i would have chosen for him on and on and on it goes our expectations as fathers and so what does the father do he withholds his favor not his love i love you son but withholds his blessing his approval of his son and you and i need to understand this that just as powerful as withholding love is a pr is withholding the blessing withholding approval and favor over your son and so the father withholds this approval this blessing and it crushes the sun nothing is more powerful in the life of a son than to know that a father is proud of him nothing i talk to men all the time 50 60 70 years old still trying to get dad's approval still longing for a father figure in their life to put a hand on the shoulder and say i'm proud of you son i remember going to college my dad was a high school counselor retired as a high school counselor really passionate about good grades getting into the right colleges getting on the right trajectory for your future career as a high school counselor would be so i grew up in a home where we had many conversations about college applications and psat tests and sat scores and uh getting the ap test done and all this stuff for the right future and i excelled in math and excelled in physics and so my dad said you really should be an engineer and so i go off to baylor to go to college and i started in the mechanical engineering program i'm tracking along in mechanical engineering i'm doing very well in mechanical engineering and i have a very powerful encounter with god my freshman year of college where the lord specifically calls me into ministry and says keith you're not supposed to be an engineer you're supposed to be a minister of the gospel if you've been walking with jesus very very long you know you have a few of those moments in your life they don't happen all the time but you have a few of those moments where god is so real to you and his voice is so loud to you that you know if you don't do it you're being disobedient it was one of those moments in my life and in that in that calling on my life the thing i was most nervous about was the conversation i would have with my father because i knew what my dad wanted me to do i knew what my dad wanted me to do in school with my life and i remember my freshman year going home for christmas and i remember sitting with him and saying to my father dad i believe that god has called me into ministry my dad grew up in the church when he was a kid and was going to church three times a week but when he became an adult he rebelled against that i think he thought that a lot of it was for show and he was like you know who's going to go down to the altar call this week and we got to get out of here you know the service is going on forever that was kind of my dad's experience with church and so i'd say when i was growing up we were more casual christians we were more uh just would go christmas and easter would go a few times a year had some relationships there but it wasn't a big deal in our lives so when i sat down with my dad and i told him what god had called me to do these were the exact words out of my my dad's mouth well i guess if you're okay never having any money in your life now i can vividly tell you about that conversation that happened over 20 years ago like it was yesterday because this need for your father's blessing is so powerful in a son's life in between my sophomore and junior years of college i did my first stint of ministry full-time i was on a summer revival team with other college students and i went into that summer and i was still wrestling with this truth that i was pursuing what god was calling me to do but i wasn't sure that i had my dad's approval to do that i was still wrestling with that this is like now 18 months later and i'll go into that summer and i'm praying through that summer uh god i'm struggling with this because i want to follow you but i also want to honor my father so i remember going in that summer and i started praying that summer god do a work in the heart of my dad that he would see that this is what you've called me to do and he would bless it i started praying that beginning of the summer about the seventh week of the summer i had an opportunity to preach uh on a sunday morning and i called my parents it was about two hours away from dallas where they were and i said hey mom and dad why don't you come out on this sunday and i'm gonna be preaching in this church i'd love for you to come and to be there with me and they're like yeah that'd be great and so they come out to hear me preach and so i get up and i preach the the word that morning in this church and my father comes up to me after the service and he says to me keith i can see now that you're doing what god wants you to do i'm so proud of you that is such an important moment in the life of a son and so if you've never had that moment of receiving the blessing from your dad i don't care how old you are take the risk and ask for it tell your dad that i need to know that i have your blessing that you're proud of me for what i'm doing ask for their favor for their prayer for their blessing fifth walk daily with your heavenly father jesus teaches us something revolutionary matthew 6 9 in the lord's prayer when he teaches his disciples how to pray he tells them start with our father in heaven this is remarkable jesus is teaching us about a new relationship with god as not just our lord and our master but as our dad can you imagine that we can know the god of creation as our heavenly father through faith in jesus christ we now understand that we don't have a performance relationship with god we have a reconciled relationship through jesus christ built on love how incredible is that what's so powerful men in this room men that are watching online is that we need to know that in christ we are secure in the love of god you don't have to worry when you wake up in the morning am i going to lose god's love today is my love secure in him galatians 4 6 and 7 says we have been adopted into god's family and we can call him abba father you know what that phrase abba means it means daddy that we can have that kind of relationship fully adopted into god's family if you're sitting out there today and you say keith this really powerful what you're sharing about receiving my father's love and my blessing but my dad is dead he's gone i can't ask him for those things or maybe you're sitting out here and you're thinking i haven't seen my dad in 30 years i don't even know where he is how would i ask him for his blessing here's what i want to say to you okay what i want to say to you is that you have a heavenly father that loves you and that blesses you and that says that he is proud of you and i want you to press into that relationship with god that's so important the greatest healing of our father wound comes from an intimate healthy loving daily relationship with your heavenly father listen here's what's possible you might do everything that you can do you might forgive you might own your stuff with your dad you may go to your dad and ask him for his love and for his blessing he may say no he said no i'm not proud of you i'm not proud of the choices you've made and the things you've done with your life what are you going to do then are you going to stay wounded are you going to stay in that place where i didn't get from my dad what i needed from my dad and so i'm just going to carry that suitcase around with me the rest of my life no you're going to forgive your dad for that you're going to press into your heavenly father and you're going to allow god to be that father that your earthly father is not right that's huge walk daily with your eternal father he will guide you and tell you who you are finally break the cycle of become by becoming a responsible dad if you're a dad make sure you give your sons the essentials we talked about last week if you're a dad have an intentional plan to give those to your sons your son's not going to get these things through osmosis you need to say something you need to have a plan that needs to be part of your manhood plan if you're a dad in the room it's never too late to make amends to start a new relationship with your son you can close this gap all of us who are dads who are part of this study we all know there's areas in which we have fallen short we all know there are ways in which we sinned against our kids and i just want to say to all the dads in the room i know not everybody here is a father but if you are a father and teach you a phrase has been very powerful me in my parenting and that is this son i've sinned against you please forgive me i've sinned against you please forgive me you know you know if you believe in the scriptures that we're all sinners and we know we consent against our kids but there's something in the heart of a man that never wants to admit that he's wrong and that will really jack up your kids if you're listen in all my growing up years i never heard my father say those words never and what that teaches you as a young man is to be a strong adult man is to never admit that you're wrong but that's not biblical manhood biblical manhood is owning it when the spirit begins to convict you and discipline you and say hey when you yelled at your child when you missed that opportunity when you didn't show up for that thing you should have shown up for you need to go and you need to acknowledge it and confess it and ask forgiveness from your your child this is how we close the gap we take responsibility for our failures and our sins we reconcile with our sons we confess our shortcomings we repent we repent before our kids not just in private with god but before our children you mistreat their mother you acknowledge that to them hey i mistreated your mom and the way i talked to her please forgive me for that i don't want you to ever do that i don't want you to think that's okay it's not okay the way i treated her just then if you're a single dad or a dad separated from your sons by divorce or a dad who's inherited a son through remarriage seek help and find a sound strategy you cannot do it alone but we can be honest and get help and we can take steps forward if you're a dad in the room please hear me say your past is not your destiny it's your past you don't have to repeat what your dad did with you you can set a different trajectory there's two kinds of kings in the old testament and i'll finish here in second kings 21 this is a really powerful passage and i just want you to just write this down and make sure you have second kings 21 in your mind about how we're going to respond to our fathers second kings 21 tells the story of two different kinds of kings in the old testament one group are those who sin like their fathers do they follow the pattern they worship the idols that their fathers worshiped we see this in second kings 21 starting in verse 19 talking about the king of judah named eamonn amon here's what it says eamonn was 22 years old when he became king he's a young man he reigned two years in jerusalem his mother's name was machula meth daughter of heroes and she was from jatba he did what was evil in the lord's sight listen to verse 20 just as his father manasseh had done he walked in all the ways his father had walked he served the idols his father had served and he bowed in worship to them he abandoned the lord god of his ancestors and did not walk in the ways of the lord one group are those who repeat the sins of their fathers a second group are those who do not repeat the sins of their fathers but tear down the high places the idols of the generation before and set a different path right after this in verse 25 we read this the rest of the events of aemon's ring along with his accomplishments are written in the historical record of judas kings he was buried in this tomb in the garden of uza and his son josiah became king in his place and if you know anything about the old testament josiah is one of the most godly kings of the old testament so right after the king i just read to you amen who does all the things wrong that his father did now we see josiah and this is what the scripture says in 2 kings 22 josiah listen to this was eight years old when he became king he's eight he's eight his dad has died and been buried he's eight he becomes king he reigns 31 years in jerusalem it goes on to say this in verse two he did what was right in the lord's sight and walked in the ways of his ancestor david he did not turn to the right or the left what kind of man will you be will you repeat the sins of your fathers or will you break from that pattern and say i will follow the lord let me pray for you god thank you so much for this teaching this morning help us help us lord to heal the father wound help us lord to not repeat the patterns of generations before us who have not honored you but god help us to walk in obedience in our daily life i pray lord by the holy spirit right now give us power to forgive give us strength to ask for our father's love and our father's blessing and god we pray as we move forward from this place in this conversation you would show us our next step in this pa in this journey we pray in jesus name amen

Channel: Cityview Bible Church

Views: 144

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: RKBUFKXc9zY

Length: 46min 8sec (2768 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020