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Sermon Illustrations: Fathers and Fatherhood
Anecdotes
Three boys were boasting about how fast their fathers were. The first one said, "My Dad's so fast he can shoot an arrow and run and catch it before it hits the target." The second one said, "Well, my Dad works on high-rise buildings. He's so fast he can drop a brick of the veranda of the tenth storey, and run down and catch it before it hits the ground." "So what!" said the third boy. "My Dad works for the City Council. He's so fast that he finishes work at 4pm but gets home by 2:30pm."
Have you read the story in the first couple of chapters of Job? It's a glimpse into what happens in heaven. It tells us that all of God's sons presented themselves before Him - including Satan. God: "Hey Satan, have you seen My kid Job? There's nobody like him. He's a good man." In other words: "Hey loser, you haven't had a lot of success with him have you?" You know the story. God allows Satan to take all of Job's children and his livestock. Next time Satan came with the sons of God: "Hey Satan, still haven't had any success, have you?" Don't you think God does the same with us? I can imagine God watching and saying, "Hey Satan, look at this man / woman. You've given them a lousy week, made the boss unreasonable, given them unexpected bills, made them feel really bad. But look they're still praising Me." And I can imagine the enemy slinking away in the corner and muttering.
A teacher teaches, and then the kids go home. At the end of the year, he gets a new batch of kids. But a good father carries the care and concern of his children all the time. He longs to see his children succeed and achieve great things. He even wants to see his children do better things than he does.
A nun was involved in prison ministry. One day, a prisoner asked if she could get a Mothers' Day card for him so she got him one. Pretty soon a lot of the other prisoners asked her to get them Mothers' Day cards too. She had an idea and telephoned Hallmark who sent her five hundred cards which she distributed among the prisoners. Later in the year, she realised that Fathers' Day was coming up. Once again, she telephoned Hallmark and they sent her five hundred Fathers' Day cards. Fathers' Day came and went but there wasn?t a single prisoner who asked for a card. To this day, she still has the five hundred Fathers' Day cards.
Quotes
Whatever your gifting is, if it isn't mixed with the spirit of fatherhood, then your ministry is likely to be a baseball bat. Bill Hilbig
My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We are not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We are raising boys." Harmon Killebrew
Tie a boy to a good man, and he almost never goes wrong.