On Father's Day our thoughts drift into the past where we mull over our childhood and early adult experiences. We remember the good things that our parents provided for us and we thank God. We remember the insights that we gleaned from their experiences and the invaluable lessons they taught us, lessons that we treasure to this day. We remember the seemingly monotonous advice that our parents dispensed and we smile every day as we more fully appreciate its simple truth.
From my earliest recollection I always remember my Dad doing woodworking. In the evening after a day's work, he would spend hours working in our garage. All night long our house would be filled with the scream of his table saw, the steady hum of his drill press, and the pounding of his hammer. Late in the evening when he finished, he would come in from the garage completely covered in sawdust from head to toe. The sawdust made him look a hundred and fifty years old.
When I reached a certain age I remember my Dad teaching me about all his tools. He taught me how to use his shop tools: the table saw, the band saw, the drill press, the sander, the lathe, the shop-vac, the broom, and the dust pan. He also taught me how to use his outdoor tools: the garden tiller, the lawnmower, hedge trimmers, the lawnmower, and the lawnmower, and the lawnmower! And with each tool my Dad would always give me a warning in the disguise of fatherly advice. He would say, "Don't get too comfortable with this tool. Don't get overconfident. Don't let your guard down. Always pay attention."
My Dad is a highly skilled craftsman. He was passionate about this advice because he has worked with tools all of his life. He shared stories with me about people who got hurt being careless. On several occasions he injured himself with his tools. He would say, "It happens to even the best of us. Beware!"
So last week I was out trimming my bushes with electric hedge-trimmers and was doing a pretty good job, at least by my standards. But I got a little too comfortable with that tool and for the first time ever I injured myself. I cut my finger open and had to get five stitches. I know what you're thinking. You are thinking, "Jon, that's what preachers do." You should know that I have been around tools all my life and am very skilled with them!
I haven't mentioned this incident to my Dad yet because I know what he will say. He will say, "See, I told you so. You should have listened to my advice."
King David was a father as well as a king.
Are these not the kind of things we remember every Father's Day? We remember our parents' advice and cringe at the truthfulness of their words. This week I have been thinking about King David whose story is told in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles and numerous Psalms. King David wasn't just a king. He was also a father. He was a man who had weathered some pretty fierce storms in life. He was a man who rose from the humble depths of poverty to the heights of kingship. He was a man who exhibited extreme faith, but who also at times descended into the dark crawlspaces of sin and failure.
One moment he would experience a major spiritual breakthrough, while the next moment he would digress into pride and secret sin. One moment he would receive God's tremendous blessing and special anointing, while the next moment he was plunging into sexual immorality and even murder.
At the end of his life King David the father drew from his experiences and deposited his best wisdom in the life of his son Solomon. Solomon would later draw upon that wisdom as he penned many of the proverbs in the book of Proverbs and in the book of Ecclesiastes which he also wrote. Before his death King David had this to say to his son Solomon.
In 1 Chronicles 28:9 (NIV)David says, "And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever."
A father's legacy.
At the end of his life and just before his death, King David essentially said, "Son, put God in the middle of your life. Put God in the middle of your thoughts. Put God in the middle of your activities. Make God your passion. Make God your first love. Acknowledge him. Serve him with your whole heart. Devote your life to him. He is your destiny. Never forsake him. Never reject him. Never squeeze him out of your schedule. Never put him on the shelf. Seek him. Pray to him. Call on him. Reach out to him. Embrace him. Solomon, nothing else matters if God doesn't matter first."
What great advice to leave a child! It's the kind of advice that a child lives or dies by! It's the kind of advice that captures the legacy every father should leave his children. King David's advice can be summarized like this, "Solomon, love God." King David's life is a case study that every father should study. His life demonstrates why loving God is the legacy every father should leave his children.
King David's humbling childhood.
Charles Swindoll points out that David was a nobody. Nobody noticed him. He was the youngest of eight brothers. His family assigned him to the back forty all by his lonesome self to tend sheep. He was not particularly strong, or tall in stature, or handsome. There was nothing desirable about his appearance. He was just a dirty, scrawny, shepherd boy. He was insignificant, overlooked, forgotten, and left out. From an early age David was on a search for significance. He wanted to be valued.
I think this is one of the struggles people have today, and especially children. We speak of self-esteem and self-value as if it is only a kid's issue. It is not. A lot of our materialistic obsession is really a quest for significance. We want to be noticed. We want to establish ourselves. We want to have influence. A lot of the sexual promiscuity we see in our culture, both in adults and teens, is really a quest for significance. We want to feel wanted. "And if I do this with this person, then I'll feel a deeper acceptance, more valued, and better about myself."
At a young age the insignificant David learned an invaluable lesson about value. David didn't have to become bankrupted by some materialistic obsession in some misguided quest for significance. David didn't have to become sexually broken through a series of empty encounters in order to gain the sense of self-worth he yearned for. David discovered that he only had to look to God to be valued and treasured. His self-esteem wasn't based on his financial standing, a job title, by his brothers' opinion of him, by his physical attractiveness or strength, by how many notches he had in his belt, or by the crowd he ran with.
David was handpicked by God to be the king of Israel for one reason. David loved God. Just imagine what pain we would save ourselves if we drew our sense of worth from our love for God instead of from our love for the things of this life. What pain, what brokenness, what emptiness would we spare ourselves from? David's humble childhood convinced him that he needed to love God. He was a nobody without God. That's why many suffer from low self-esteem.
King David's humbling challenges.
As a teenager shepherding a flock, David faced some big challenges. Lions and bears would frequently attack the flock and try to carry off lambs. David could outrun neither of these magnificent and powerful creatures. And at the end of the day he was accountable for protecting all the sheep in his flock. As a terribly vulnerable teenager with no one to help him face such challenges, David learned to rely upon God for strength.
I would never recommend that a parent put his child in such a dangerous situation. But I see a great problem in the way many parents are raising their children today. We are overly protective when it comes to raising our children. We shelter them from circumstances where they might have to exercise faith. We send them in the other room to play Nintendo as we sweat bullets over how we are going to pay this month's bills. We filter out all the bad news that comes our way, not letting them see how fragile health can be or how difficult life's curve balls can be to handle. We set up a parallel universe for our children that is out of touch with reality. We think we are helping them when we are really setting them up for failure.
David was right out there in the elements, 24-7, with the lions and the bears. He was in a place where he had no choice but to trust God, and he did! And these experiences prepared him for the Goliath-sized challenges in his life. So when the Israelites went to war with the Philistines and no one had the courage to stand up to their most powerful warrior, a giant named Goliath who stood over nine feet tall, David courageously stepped up to the plate.
In 1 Samuel 17:37 (NIV)David says, "The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." While all the other armored Israelites were fleeing for their lives, the unarmed teenager David approached the cocky and heavily armed giant Goliath with a mere slingshot and five round stones. It took just one stone and great faith for David to bring this giant down.
Just make a list of the challenges you have in your life. Of all your challenges, you probably have a Goliath challenge, a monumental challenge! You can handle those challenges in your own strength with your own resources. Or you can overcome those challenges through faith, through loving God.
Parents, a word if I may. If you don't teach your children to love God you are setting them up for failure. You can give them the finest education. You can mold them into the finest athletes. You can fill their heads with knowledge. But if by your example you don't show them how to love God, you are setting them up for failure later in life. Failure when they need victory most. David wanted to leave a legacy of loving God for his son Solomon. Do you?
King David's humbling consequences.
Understand that we are fast-forwarding over decades of David's life and over dozens of rich application stories to look at a well known event in David's adult life. David was far from a perfect father. The only difference between him and us is that his mistakes have been recorded in scripture and are known by millions.
In his adult years after he became king of Israel, David had a series of moral failures. At times his pride got the best of him. His wealth became a distraction. He became guilty of sloth. And he gave into sexual temptation.
One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of his palace. From the roof he could see the entire city, but what he noticed would change his life for the worse and change it forever. In the distance he noticed a woman bathing. The scriptures tell us that she was very beautiful. No further commentary is really needed because where our imaginations are lacking, our image-based culture more than makes up. David immediately sent for the woman whose name was Bathsheba. She was married to a soldier named Uriah who was conveniently off at war. That night David slept with Bathsheba and after some time had passed, she sent word back to David saying, "I'm pregnant."
David, hoping to cover his trail, called her husband back from war. David called Uriah into his palace and said, "Hey, Uriah! Buddy, how's the war going? Why don't you go home and spend time with your wife Bathsheba? David hoped that Uriah would take the bait, sleep with his wife, head back out to war, and that Bathsheba's pregnancy would be pinned on her husband. But Uriah refused to go home to his wife because his conscience was stricken. He said, "How could I could go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife when my brothers are out in the field in war?"
So David sent Uriah back to war with instructions to his commander to put Uriah on the front line of battle where he would surely be killed. And because of David's order, Uriah was killed in battle and David married Bathsheba.
David's immoral behavior had serious consequences.
Now Hollywood would have us glamorize David's immoral behavior. I mentioned earlier how parents set up a parallel universe for their children by sheltering them from reality, from hardships, and from pain and disappointment. I would suggest that in the same way Hollywood sets up a parallel universe for us by sheltering us from reality and from the consequences of immoral behavior. On television, adultery, sexual promiscuity, lying, and violence are glamorized. Hollywood gives us a warped view of reality by teaching us that sin does not have consequences. We never see the hangover after the party. We never see the indescribable pain and financial ruin of divorce. We never see the trauma of abortion. We never see the family fallout that accompanies adultery. We never see promiscuous people contracting diseases and coping with brokenness. We never see pornography shattering marriages. We never hear those reality-invoking words, "I'm pregnant."
When David slept with Bathsheba the consequences were severe. Nathan the prophet rebuked David and pronounced God's judgment on him. In 2 Samuel 12:10-12 (NIV) God pronounced judgment on David for his sins. God told David, "Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own. This is what the LORD says: Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel."
The consequences for David's exploit with Bathsheba were severe. In addition to the death of Uriah and the soldiers that died in battle with him, the child David conceived with Bathsheba died after birth. One of King David's sons, Ammon, tried to seduce his half-sister Tamar and when he failed he forcibly raped her. Another of King David's sons, Absalom, reacted to his sister's rape and successfully hatched a plot to kill his brother Ammon. Absolom then rebelled against his father David and began inciting a rebellion. This rebellion ran his father David out of the palace. He set up a tent on the palace roof in the very place that David saw Bathsheba and in full view of the entire city he made a statement of his disgust by sleeping with David's concubines and his step-mothers. Eventually Absolom was killed by one of David's commanders. God also prohibited David from building the temple in Jerusalem. The consequences of sin just kept rolling in!
Now before you judge David for his sin, look at the secret sin in your own life. What if everyone in this room suddenly became aware of your secret sin. What if we knew your thoughts? What if we knew the impurities of your heart? What if we hung out all your dirty laundry and past mistakes? Perhaps the only difference between what David did and what we have or have not done is opportunity. Perhaps not.
In his later years David failed morally as a father. But even in that dark moment David was rescued because he loved God. The consequences of his sin humbled him to the point that he sought God. He repented. He pleaded for mercy. God forgave him and restored him as king. Praise God for consequences. Where would we be without them? David's consequences brought him back to God the Father. He learned from his mistakes. Reality has a way of making us learn.
A legacy reinforced by experience.
Before his death King David had this to say to his son Solomon in 1 Chronicles 28:9 (NIV). "And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever."
At the end of his life and just before his death David said, "Son, put God in the middle of your life. Put God in the middle of your thoughts. Put God in the middle of your activities. Make God your passion. Make God your first love. Acknowledge him. Serve him with your whole heart. Devote your life to him. He is your destiny. Never forsake him. Never reject him. Never squeeze him out of your schedule. Never put him on the shelf. Seek him. Pray to him. Call on him. Reach out to him. Embrace him. Solomon, nothing else matters if God doesn't matter first."
David did not flippantly reach that conclusion nor was he flippantly dispensing advice. David was leaving a legacy that he prayerfully hoped his son would follow. It was a legacy of loving God no matter what the challenge, no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the consequences, always and forever.
Parents, what kind of spiritual legacy are you leaving your children on Father's Day?