Fathers Day Sermons

Preached at House of Praise Home Church

Kuils River

Fathers day sermons 2010

Title: The blessedness of wretchedness

Was the work of Christ on the cross a complete success? Or put another way – did God achieve what He wanted too?

Yes / No?

What did Jesus achieve on the cross?

- Died for our sins
- Took our punishment
- Broke the power of sin over us, so that we can be free

Now take a moment to consider your own life. Now let’s ask the same question again. Was the work of Christ a success?

Why do I always talk on these matters?

• Well, I believe that God has a lot more in store for us.
• I believe that power is available to us that we have not even started to tap into.
• I feel that that what I have at the moment is far below what was purchased for me.
• I believe that it is possible to live a life that God considers perfect.
• God is constantly challenging a lot of my religious notions leading to a lot of changed thinking.

– let me give you an example …

• I often wonder why HOP (House of Praise Home Church in South Africa) is the way it is. I wonder why it works.
• Yes of course it has a lot to do with the servant leadership style of our spiritual Dad and Mom.
• A lot of the things we do are not what the Church in general will consider ‘Normal’.
• Why is it that when we do a banquet for a 140 people that there is a presence of God that is so tangible.
• Why is it that when the Ladies do a tea that there is this wonderful atmosphere …
• or when we do a breakfast as part of communion that there is an irresistible presence of God? It’s not the normal way? It challenges my notions …

It makes me think,

• what else should be done differently,
• what else needs to shaken free from religion …
• What else am I doing religiously that produces nothing but frustration and failure.
• What else is there in my life that requires a different approach?

Fathers

• I am sure that everyone in the house that is a father can tell us, how much fatherhood has changed their thinking.
• We all want only the best for our children.
• For me that desire extends especially to what I teach my children about my faith.
• I have spent a lot of time on religion, that resulted in nothing and I don’t want to teach my children that.

My Desire

• It is my desire to that my children will know a Christianity that is free from religion,
• that they will walk in a humility and liberty before God.
• That they will recognise attempts to manipulate them, using the words of Christ.
• That they will understand the heart of God.
• That they will be free from pressure to be perfect according to false human standards.

Frustrations

• I am frustrated that in my dealing with my children, that I largely only know how to judge them. I only know how to declare them guilty.
• That the Truth is that Hannah Montana (or whoever else) is probably more important to them than Jesus Christ.
• I am frustrated that teaching them rules has no affect on their personalities.
• I am frustrated because I am largely teaching them powerless religion …
• I am frustrated that I can really see them try (OK that does not happen too often) and watch them fail.
• I am teaching them self effort, not the power of God.

What they need

• Of course we need to teach them the value of discipline.
• Of course they need to be taught manners.
• But what they need more, is to encounter Jesus Christ.
• What they need, is know Him in His power.
• What they need are dads that know the transforming power of Jesus Christ.
• What they need are dads that are 100% sure that the work of Christ was successful in every aspect, because they have experienced its power.

Another Father with Issues

Fortunately for us we are not the only Dads with issues…

Well its Father’s day and so I am obliged to at least look at our Father of faith …

Genesis 17:1
Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him,"I am God Almighty;Walk before Me, and be blameless. Other translations say perfect / complete / wholehearted.

• Let me ask some of you this morning what does it mean to be perfect? No wrong or right answers !
• I want to ask a question quickly … if God were to say to you walk before me and be perfect. What would you think of first?
• I am guessing someone is thinking don’t sin – or be obedient, but to what?
• What teaches us what sin is? - The Law
When did the Law come? – many, many years after Abraham!

Abraham was not perfect by any means, but God was intensely committed to Abraham.

Abraham made mistakes:

• Abraham tried to help God fulfil His word – Ishmael.
• Abraham was economical with the Truth at times.
• Abraham misunderstood God.
• Sometimes it seemed like he did not believe at all… here’s an example

After telling Abraham that Sarah would have a son this is how he responded:

Genesis 17:17-18 (New International Version)
17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?" 18 And Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!"

So we see that by our human standards Abraham was not perfect at all:

• Ultimately it was God that produced Abraham.
• The Abraham that was willing to offer Isaac was a very different man to the one who first responded to God’s call to leave his country and family and father’s house.
• There was something intensely pleasing to God about Abraham and that was not his perfect obedience at the start,
• but rather his willingness to believe God even if it seemed that God was contradicting himself.
• We know that Abraham did not receive any of the land that God promised him, but that did not deter him from believing God.
• Just now I said that God produced Abraham, but Abraham was not idle in the process. There were things God required him to do and he did it.
• What I want you to see though is that God was the primary force, but Abraham was willing to believe and obey.
• God dealt with Abraham in a personal way. There was a real relationship.
• God knew Abraham and did not require what Abraham could not yet give. His first command was not sacrifice a loved one … God knew Abraham could not do that at the start.
• That was the crowning work, after Abraham knew well who God was and that His word cannot be broken.

I would say that ultimately Abraham did walk blameless before the Lord from God’s perspective, God even called Abraham his friend. He was only able to be that, because he allowed God to do the work in him.

Abraham was perfect apart from any law.

Back to the first question -

So now I want to come back to that first question … Was the work of Christ successful in every aspect? Yes we know it mentally, but do we know it by experience?

Here a little riddle for the grownups…Who am I?

• I am a power.
• I am powerful enough to even oppose the eternal work of Christ.
• I keep you from your destiny.
• I love religion, because religion gives me even more power.
• I am incredibly smart.
• I change appearance in a flash.
• One moment I appear weak and insecure the next moment I am strong and manipulative.
• You have been shadow boxing with me for years.
• Even if you may know my name, you are powerless against me?

Yeah that old foe, self. I know we have looked that this next persons life before, but I want you to see something…

Here a riddle for the Children …who am I?

I gave up all to follow Jesus...

Matthew 19:27 (New American Standard Bible)
27Then XXX said to Him, "Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?"

I submitted to the Words of Jesus

Luke 5:5 (New American Standard Bible)
5XXX answered and said, "(B)Master, (C)we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets." I was a man of great faith…

Matthew 14:28 (New American Standard Bible)
28XXX said to Him, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water."

I was a man of great spiritual insight

Matthew 16:17 (New American Standard Bible)
17And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, (A)XXXX, because (B)flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

OK who is it?

(We know this is Peter.)

• If this Peter lived today, we would have said what a fine Christian he is.
• He knows the Scriptures.
• He probably went to the Temple to pray every day.
• He healed the sick and preached the message of the Kingdom with the others.
• But it is to him that Jesus said these words …

Luke 22:32 (King James Version)
32But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.
33And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.
34And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.

• What I want to get at again is again the role of God in Peter’s story.
• Peter would not have believed it about himself.
• But Jesus helped him to see the self life and his reliance on himself for what it was.
• Peter needed to see the vileness of the self life.
• He needed to see how strong that power within him was, even willing to oppose the will and plan of God Most High.

We know the rest of the story …
Regarding Peter and John we later read in Acts:

Acts 5:40-41 (New American Standard Bible)
40They took his advice; and after calling the apostles in, they (A)flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released them.
41So they went on their way from the presence of the (B)Council, (C)rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame (D)for His name.

• What I want you to see, is the role that Jesus and the Holy Spirit played.
• Jesus warned him, he told him what would happen.
• After the betrayal the Bible says that Jesus looked at Peter and then he went out to weep.
• Later of course Jesus restored him.
• And after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit we see a completely different Peter.
• Peter needed Jesus to overcome the power of self. He could not do it through reading of the Scriptures or prayer. He needed Jesus to be active in his life.
• While we always focus on Peter, the Bible says that all His disciples made the same promise and they all turned away. You can go read it for yourself.

So we have looked at two great men of God in the Bible and both required the active work of God in their lives to become what God intended.

Are we any different?

Can we be something apart from God?
Can we really afford to be Christians that are dominated by self?
What is it we will teach our children about the faith?
Do we even want to overcome self?
Is reading and knowledge of the Scriptures enough to overcome self?

• Self tricks us into thinking that we can live this Christian life in our own power. Yet we continue to fail and every time we fail self is determined to try harder next time.
• WE do not realize that the very thing that keeps us from the power of God is self trying to meet the requirements in our own strength.
• I have come to the conclusion, that I am powerless against the self life within me.
• The power to overcome is not with me. I give up. I have spent just about 12 years reading and studying and searching and thinking.
• I don’t care who you are. No man can conquer self. You can read as many books as you like. You can study theology for 50 years, but you will not conquer self. You have to see that it is impossible for man.
• You have to see that it will take a miracle of the same order of anything else we have expected.
• You have to see the impossibility. We must come to your wits end.
• We must give up trying to figure it out. We have to become convinced of your own inability. I cannot convince you. God does.

In Romans 7 we read of the struggles that we go through trying to conquer self and finally Paul exclaims!

Romans 7:24-25(New International Version)

24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 8:1-14 (New American Standard Bible)

1Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh (trying to please God in their own strength), but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God (because it won’t accept the impossibility of pleasing God); for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10(If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. – But that’s not all – and here is the key

11But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies (this body of death that holds us captive) through His Spirit who dwells in you. 12So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh 13for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

• Now I don’t want this to be abstract. It is done by the active working of the Spirit of Christ. Not in theory, but in reality.
• We must expect it from Him. We must want it from Him.
• Your responsibility is to acknowledge your inability and to believe He will do it.
• I want us to be released from the pressure of performing that which is impossible for us to achieve.
• That is what God is after. He wants us to call on Him.
• He wants us to say Lord I see your standard I want to experience the life that Jesus bought for me, but self is preventing it from breaking forth, help me God.
• I believe I am Holy, but I want to experience it Lord. Only you can give me that.
• I want you to see this morning the pressure is not on you to do the impossible. It is Jesus that does it. That is not a cushion for sin. NO!
• You must desire to be free and God will do it. We must expect Him to.
• He wants us to have life abundantly. He is all powerful.
• That which is impossible with man is possible with God.
• Do you see the impossibility of conquering self? Or are you not convinced yet?
• Do you have to struggle a little longer? Is there a book you feel that you need to read?
• Is there advice you have not yet tried?
• Is there a sermon you first want to listen to?
• Is there a pastor you want to ask?
• Every requirement has been met.
• Don’t be discouraged if He shows you self. Rejoice because He wants to set you free.
• You don’t have to concern yourself with how. He knows you. He knew Abraham, he knew Peter and he knows you.

What will we teach our children?

Powerless religion or life in Christ?

Amen.
Fathers day sermons 2010

You can also study our 2009 Fathers Day Sermon.

Return from Fathers Day Sermons to Our Sermons
Return from Fathers Day Sermons to Fueling Christian Life