Sermon Notes: Father’s Day 2024 – Being a Son

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2 Timothy 2:1-2 Let’s read it!

We will come back to 2 Timothy 2:1-2 in our 5th point, so just hold on to it. We will be all over the Bible today. 

The family is the first and holiest institution in creation. 

As fathers, we get to work with our wives to raise and release image-bearers from the family unit and within the church family unit to be on the mission of maximizing creation and discipling the nations. 

We have the missional honor of producing generations to get after this mission for which we were created and which provides the ultimate fulfillment for a human being, particularly those who are our immediate family and by extension our church family. 

As sons, we play a vital role in the work of generational succession to carry on that work.  

The family unit is woven into creation as a given. The Lord designed creation to operate in certain ways: 

Sowing and reaping. 

Prayer. 

Family connection and attachment. 

These are just a few of the created glories woven into the Lord Jesus’ universe. The Bible unpacks many of these and also has a host of Proverbs 25:2 “Easter Eggs” for us to discover as we get after this work.  

But the family. The family is a powerful means for the mission, and the family extends beyond physical descent to include, just as powerfully, spiritual descent. 

Paul calls Timothy his “child”. In other places, Paul will refer to Timothy as his son in the faith. 

Fathering is disciple-making. 

The Bible uses the father and son relationship as a way to describe the special relationship of a discipler to one being discipled from familial sons to spiritual sons. 

So, on Father’s Day, it is appropriate to think about the father/son relationship in all of its aspects. 

Father and son relationships are all over the local church. 

Today, however, I want to narrow that down to what it means to be a son. 

What is it like to be the son of a father who strives to live a life worth imitating in the nuclear family or spiritually through the local church family?

Who is your physical dad? 

Who is your spiritual dad? 

Are they the same man? 

Do you have more than one spiritual father?

All good questions to unpack in your time with the Lord and in fellowship. 

I recognize that there are fathers who have failed miserably who don’t care and who have hurt and wounded their kids with no effort at repentance. I’m not talking about them or that situation. 

There is a place to work through that in a healthy and holy way, but that’s not what we are going to do today. 

What we will do today is mine from Scripture some principles of what it looks like to be the son of a worthy father who strives to work out his salvation with fear and trembling. 

NOTE: Dads, if you have failed at being your best recently, we all fail at fathering in a multitude of ways. It’s ok. We have to work at being better each day because it is normal on this side of the fall and before the restoration of all things to fail. But failure does not define us if we are working out our salvation in fear and trembling. In other words, when we fail if we respond appropriately through repentance, it will be ok. Let your kids experience you admitting wrong, confessing, and repenting. Then receive the work of the cross for you, get up, and get back to the work.  

What does it look like to be a son?

NOTE: Each of these points could be a sermon by itself, and I will not be exhaustive. I will leave room for you to work this out in your personal study and RL groups.

Bob Roberts taught me about sonship as a spiritual father from the Bible. My father did the best he could to work out his salvation with fear and trembling and passed on these ideas in actions without ever articulating them. I have learned about the practical honoring of headship as a son and spiritual son and the covering of authority in the Bible from my African American pastor friends like Kevin Brown. I have adapted what I’ve learned from them as taught in the Bible for my personal use and our use today. 

  1. A son cares about his father’s success and treats his father’s success as his success. 1 Samuel 22:1-4
    1. David tied his family’s well-being to his well-being because God inextricably connected them in created order.
      1. That connection cannot be violated without negative consequences. 
    2. If David considered his success ahead of his family, he would not have received them when they came to him, and he would not have worked to see that they survived and thrived while he was being hunted by Saul. 
    3. A son thinks like this because he has, by God’s design, a corporate identity before an individual identity.
      1. The Lord designed us to be a part of a family way ahead of individuality. 
      2. 1 Corinthians 12:27 (ESV) 27 Now you (PLURAL) are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
        1. Paul said it before Herb Brooks in “Miracle”.
          1. The name on the front of the jersey is way more important than the name on the back. 
        2. The dark kingdom’s reversal of God’s order is to put the individual identity ahead of the family identity.
          1. That’s what is called self-centeredness. 
    4. Because a son thinks in terms of the family and about his father’s success and the success of the whole, a son thinks in terms of obedience and responsibility (responsible’s synonym is accountable).
    5. Listen to Jesus, the Son, speaking to the Father in John 17:4 about obedience and responsibility.
      1. John 17:4 (ESV) 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
        1. The Father and Jesus the Son are the baseline of the father/son relationship, and in this relationship of oneness and distinction the Lord Jesus expressed his responsibility to obey what the Father gave him to accomplish.
          1. It cannot be less with a son and a father who are image-bearers of this Triune relationship. 
        2. As sons, we are to think about our father’s and family’s success first with obedience and responsibility. 
  1. A son honors headship and does not seek to uncover his father’s failures and do him the harm of dishonor. 
    1. NOTE: We are not talking about overlooking the need for mandatory reporting if a father commits a crime or the need to make public what the Bible says to make public with the process the Lord outlines in Matthew 18.
      1. We are talking about the typical failures that come with being a son of Adam in a broken world while trying to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. 
    2. In a “right/wrong” worldview, we often have a transactional approach to relationships that does not account for what the Bible says about honor and shame.
      1. Honor is something that many of us would have a difficult time defining and how to show it in spite of the fact that one of the 10 commandments calls us to “honor our father and mother”.
        1. Honor is the sense of value and quality that is contained in one’s reputation.
          1. To honor is to add value and quality to someone. 
          2. Honor takes into account avoiding public shame because a father has innate value and a positional influence that should not be violated by certain public attention. 
    3. Exodus 20:12 (ESV) 12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
      1. Jesus makes a value-added application of Exodus 20:12 in Mark 7:9-13.
        1. Mark 7:9-13 (ESV) 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother’; and, Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
          1. In other words, one of the ways we honor fathers is by adult sons adding value if needed rather than giving those finances to some other cause and calling it worship. 
          2. That’s how a son would honor his father in obedience to the command. 
    4. Genesis 9:20-27 records an enigmatic event in which Ham “uncovered Noah’s nakedness”.
      1. This is not metaphorical. This is a literal event, and it’s a little unclear in English exactly what happened.
        1. But what has happened is that Noah has done an inappropriate thing by getting drunk and passing out, yet Ham has taken advantage of his dad’s failure and done something shameful to Noah, and he has gone to tell his two brothers what he did.
          1. Why he did what he did, and why he told Shem and Japheth, we don’t know. 
          2. But he made public a shameful act he did due to his dad’s negligence, and it cost Ham dearly in the cursing of his line of sons.
            1. Ham took advantage of his father’s failure, dishonored him, and then made it public in a way that shamed Noah and himself.
              1. A crescendo of sin. 
              2. Ham is the opposite of what a son should do. 
    5. We are not talking about holding fathers to appropriate accountability for flagrant sin.
      1. We are talking about a son’s intent to uncover his father’s weaknesses for his temporary gain or just to be spiteful because he despises his father’s discipline. 
    6. Honor for our fathers builds their value and quality, and it’s a practical way to love them. Listen to what Peter says love like this accomplishes:
      1. 1 Peter 4:7-8 (ESV) 7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
        1. The Scripture Peter is working from is Proverbs 10:12.
          1. Proverbs 10:12 (ESV) 12 Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.
            1. There are sins the Bible tells us to deal with publicly. We are not suggesting that sin be swept under a rug. 
            2. However, hatred stirs up strife by trying to uncover and make public every error a person makes. That’s a form of hatred.
              1. Love for a person does the opposite.
                1. Love seeks to let it go if possible. 
                2. Love seeks to deal with what needs to be dealt with as privately as possible. 
    7. Sons, let’s honor our fathers because whatever we sow we will reap for generations.
      1. There is more on the line than my immediate situation.
        1. We have to think about multiple generations beyond our years. 
  1. A son honors authority and receives his authority from being under authority. 
    1. Luke 7:1-10 recounts Jesus’ healing of a centurion’s servant.
      1. The centurion came to Jesus because he recognized that Jesus could help, and his frame of reference was his own existence as a centurion.
        1. That frame of reference was that his power as a centurion was connected to his relationship with authority by being under it. 
        2. The centurion, no matter how much he didn’t know theologically, saw enough to know Jesus was under authority, and therefore, his power was connected to his relationship with authority.
          1. Jesus said that the centurion’s observations and concluding he could come to Jesus for help because Jesus was under authority was great faith!
            1. Jesus affirms the centurion as being correct. 
    2. Jesus, as the Son of God the Father, operated under the authority of the Father, and the Father was pleased with the Son, and the Son exercised all of his authority under the authority of the Father.
      1. It is beyond human explanation how Jesus is equal Creator with Father and Spirit and at the same time, God, yet under authority.
      2. Jesus did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped. So, he took the form of a servant. And in taking the form of a servant he became obedient to the point of death on the cross. 
      3. As a result, Jesus was highly exalted and had bestowed on him a name above all others so that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father (See Philippians 2:1-11). 
    3. As sons of human fathers, who are we to think we should not imitate submitting to the Lord’s established chain of command in the family?
      1. Jesus operated like this although he is the Creator with the Father and Spirit. 
      2. When we live under authority we will discover that through submission we will find exaltation to a place of authority as the Lord directs. 
  1. A son trusts his father, shares the mission, and is ready to obey his father for what is best for the family and themselves. 
    1. I recognize some fathers are not worthy of this, and we are not saying one should receive foolish abuse at the hand of a sinful father. We are talking about a father who strives to do good and right and models repentance. 
    2. Matthew 26:39 (ESV) 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
      1. The Lord Jesus displays his trust in the Father as he wants to bypass the cross, yet shares the mission from the heart, is confident to come and express his fear, and expresses his willingness to do the will of his Father.
        1. This is deep inter-Trinitarian water, yet it is the framework of the image we are created in as fathers and sons. 
    3. So, as sons, we trust a good father (not a perfect father), but a good father.
      1. In trusting him, we share the family mission. 
      2. In sharing the mission, we make it our aim to do what is best for the family and thus ourselves. 
  1. A son has a generational vision. 
    1. Genesis 1-2; Exodus 6:8; 2 Timothy 2:1-2
      1. Multiply. Fill the earth. Maximize it with the generations you produce. 
      2. Exodus 6:8 has this implication built in as the Lord reminds Moses and the people of the land he swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
        1. This is huge because even though they are not walking with Moses and the people but are living with the Lord (Jesus said they were living when he said he is not the God of the dead but the living. They are just living in the intermediate state with the Lord before their resurrection.), it is counted as theirs and they will receive it through their descendants receiving it as the Lord promised.
          1. I don’t want to get too far down this road, but suffice it to say that the Lord has a generational vision we need to not lose sight of.
            1. The Lord intends to build through a generational vision of succession of fathers and sons. 
      3. Paul gave Timothy a model of 4 generations to build succession.
        1. What I’ve entrusted to you, you entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
          1. Paul to Timothy to Faithful men to Faithful men. 
    2. The father must believe, hold, and cast this generational vision.
      1. A son then needs to see his place in the chain of receiving the honor of his father and being ready to pass it on to the next faithful son. 
    3. Key in this is being a faithful son who is aware of what we are sharing this morning.
      1. He needs to avoid being a fool who seeks first their own thing to the destruction and shame of their father and the lineage of succession.  
  1. A son must rest in his father’s love, and accept discipline (training), so he can grow into righteous fatherhood. 
    1. Hebrews 12:1-15 describes a son knowing this relationship between understanding a father’s love through accepting discipline so that he can grow in righteousness.
      1. Sons, don’t regard lightly the training of your father. 
      2. Don’t become weary when he reproves you.
        1. Bear up and take it like the man you are capable of being. 
      3. Why? Because a good father disciplines those he loves.
        1. NOTE: Pay attention to the work of the Lord. If he keeps catching you in your sin, he’s displaying his love. If he lets you get away with it, you’ve stepped into the passive judgment of the Lord and are storing up wrath for the day of judgment (See Romans 2:5).
        2. It’s a grace that we get caught and take the consequences. 
      4. Endure because you are being treated like a son. 
      5. It’s ok for it to seem unpleasant. Discipline is unpleasant. 
      6. A father’s discipline produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness so that a son can become a righteous father. 
    2. An undisciplined son is a rogue son who is unfit for fatherhood in any way.  

Application

All of this has been application, so I’m not going to add much here. 

  1. As a son, assimilate what you’ve heard today and reject the world system’s values that oppose God’s word.
    1. This will be an active resistance because the enemy doesn’t want generational succession in righteousness. 
    2. The enemy does want generational succession in dark dark things and has a strategy.
      1. “After the Ball” lays out this dark strategy that has succeeded in normalizing deviance through control of media sources that propagate their tactics of 1) desensitization with volumes of information counter to traditional norms, 2) jam it in people’s unprepared faces so they are surprised and don’t know how to respond, 3) convert people to their religious worldview. 
      2. Just like the enemy has employed this modern strategy for winning, the enemy has been selling individualism since Genesis 3, and individualism has been destroying young men ever since.
        1. Clue in, reject it, connect yourself to your father, and seek out other men who will affirm a good father’s labor and join in the work of preparing you for the mission. 
  2. If your father has passed on to be with the Lord, then honor all the good he did. Don’t tear him down. 
  3. If you are a son, in the proper time, become a father, and become a spiritual father to other young men. Show them the way to 2 Timothy 2:1-2 kingdom succession. 
  4. Some of you men need to take on some spiritual sons inside TRC in addition to your children, and some of you young men need to get under the authority of a spiritual father.
    1. If you don’t have sons or daughters yet, some young men are behind you, and you need to invite them to journey with you to maturity and multiplication. 

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