The God Who Fathers - Part 2

Bryan Chapell: But if we are actually saying by faith in Christ, faithfulness to Him, here is true courage and true love on display, as the grace of God has profoundly changed me enough that I can confess to you my need of it, my child, and have the child know there is grace when they themselves fail. What would it change in us?
Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today’s Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today’s episode, Pastor Bryan shares the second half of a lesson from Psalm 78. Dr. Chapell shares the importance of fathers and the example our Father in Heaven is to us. You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. And while you're there, look for Pastor Bryan’s book, The Promises of Grace. Dr. Chapell offers a careful look at the beauty of grace and all it brings to believers. These blessings come with the understanding that because we cannot hang on to God, He hangs on to us. Let’s hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the second half of the lesson, The God Who Fathers.
Bryan Chapell: As I looked at this Psalm, I was reminded that Pastor Greg is serious when he talks about the calling of this church to focus on children and how we are making a renewed and very special effort to make the wonders of really what happened in vacation Bible school this week. Not just lots of kids coming and not just lots of volunteers helping, but hearts turning to the Lord, which we recognize is true not just for children, but then begins to echo generation upon generation as they fulfill their calling, even as those of you in this church have fulfilled yours to reach them. I was struck by the power of that when a week ago I was at the Global Proclamation Academy in Dallas, Texas, engaged in the training of young pastors from 29 nations. To qualify to go to the Global Proclamation Academy, you have to be recommended as a future leader of a distressed nation's church. In other words, they are people who could not ordinarily afford to be in this country, many of whom would ordinarily not be permitted to be in this country unless special arrangements have been made. And yet as I listened to testimony after testimony of these future leaders of Christ's church in distressed nations, as it were the future fathers of the church in those nations, over and over and over again, they talked about the priorities of the developing church being developing fathers for the children of the next generation to worship Christ. It’s so much of that that the Psalmist himself captures when he says, "We will not hide from the children, but tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, His might and the wonders that He has done." As you’re turning to Psalm 78, let me pray for us that the Lord would inspire and help us be such a church of fathers for the generations to follow. Heavenly Father, you give us a privilege even of calling you by that name. That what you have established for families to give relational guidance and respect and a focus on who you are is how you privilege those in the church that you have called to father, either by their biological relationship or by the way in which they help others within the life of the church. You are doing this because you are a father, and you care deeply and profoundly about the souls of your children for eternity. Help us to do the same, to reflect who you are by learning and being what it means to be a father in the faith for the sake of your children. So guide us this day, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen. This last week, when I was at our general assembly for this church, so pastors from all over the nation are gathered, and I met with an old friend for a lunchtime. And he put me off a little bit when he said, "I’ve discovered a new way to evangelize." I thought, "Oh brother, what is this going to be?" He said, "Most of our evangelism is people telling how God saved them from something in the past. I was wandering from God, I was addicted, or I was career-focused, or my marriage fell apart. Those are good and helpful stories." But he said, "What I recognize is we’re always so proud, unwilling to say the dark things, that we always talk about our salvation in the past tense, our need of grace for something back there somewhere." He said, "I discovered that what really touches people is if you talk about your need for Jesus today." "Give an example," he said. "On the plane on the way here, sat next to a lady, well-dressed, coiffed, professional. And asked what she was doing on a business trip, she asked what I’m doing. I’m a pastor, sure to shut down the conversation. On the way to a national meeting. 'Well, why do you all do that?' And he had just a little opportunity to talk about what a church is and how people want to serve God together. And she said, 'I believe in God and I’m part of a church back in my background somewhere.'" And he said, "What we believe is that we need the grace of God to make us right before God. It’s not how good we’ve done, well we’ve done, works we’ve done. It’s actually loving Jesus because He loved us first. And then we live in response to that." Well, she kind of nodded, sounded kind of good. And he said, "Do you want to know what that looks like today, that I believe I need to be saved today?" He said, "Our plane was delayed and there were complications. And so I went up to the person working at the gate desk. And I didn’t yell at them, and I wasn't ugly. But I’m a pastor, I really know how to make people feel guilty really well." And so to get a better flight schedule, I began to say things in such a way that that gate attendant there would feel bad enough to help me out in a special way. I tried to manipulate her by guilt. The woman said to him, "That’s what you said?" He said, "I did." He said, "That’s why I need Jesus today to forgive me for what I did." She said, "I do that all the time. I hate my tongue, and I don’t know what to do about it." He said, "Maybe the grace of Jesus will help." If we are willing to say what God has done for us today, the dark things that's not just in the past, to say to child and to neighbor, to father for the sake of Jesus Christ as a church as well as individuals, that God has worked in our behalf, it is powerful for the sake of the church. And that is why God is speaking to fathers here and says, "I will tell you to teach with the dark sayings as well as the glories of God." Tell people why you need God, is your hope in Him, or is it just in how well you’re doing? Because when your hope is in Him, you are giving people something they can cling onto and then they want to serve Him. It’s the end of verse seven, it is the proper gospel order. I mean, just think of how this is said, "So that they would set their hope on God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments." It’s hope first, it’s grace first, and then we live out of response to that because we’re not depending on our obedience. We’re not depending on our keeping His commandments. We are living in response to His goodness by wanting to walk with Him. It’s the change of the affections, not the change of behavior that ultimately God is after. Because if we want to walk with Him, then we will delight to keep His commandments. It will change us if we are obeying God out of the response that He has already made for us. I listened to a Romanian pastor explain how it became so important to their church now to emphasize this aspect of fathering. In Romania, remember, a former Soviet state, families largely undone by the communist system. So that a father’s role and purpose in a home, unclear, un-plain, fathers lose hope, and in ways this nation has trouble identifying, alcohol became the primary escape of a nation. What do they do now as a church with a young pastor trying to establish a ministry in Romania? He said, "Two goals for our church. Number one, to train a generation of churchmen to be fathers again. Number one goal, to train churchmen to be fathers again. Second goal, to establish an orphanage to father the fatherless." "Our goal," he said, "is to show our nation our Father in Heaven by being fathers of hope." I love that. Being fathers of hope, whether it’s in our home or what our church is doing to become fathers to the fatherless. Whether it’s vacation Bible school or your helping in Sunday school. I think of when my family was in such tension when I was growing up, the fathers in my own Sunday school, the men who went to Sunday school class and were training little guys like me. And my most significant male influence aside from my own father was my third-grade Sunday school teacher, who was there week after week for me, continued to pray and minister to me even after I was out of third grade. And to say if we are really serious about this, we begin to believe God is doing profound things through fathers. He is providing, yes, through fathers, support, relational, material for our families, but nothing more important than spiritual. So that when the relational and the material are struggling later in life, they still know their Father in Heaven. They still have hope, they still have strength, they still want to walk with Him.
Guest (Male): You’re listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. Have you thought about the fullness of God’s grace and the role that it plays in your life? You can hear and understand that you are saved by grace, but what other spiritual benefits can an understanding of grace reveal? And what has God promised to believers that His grace will provide? In the book, The Promises of Grace, Pastor Bryan offers a careful look at the beauty of grace and all it brings to you as a believer. God's Word does not promise more money and fewer headaches, but His grace provides a confidence in our relationship with Him. Pastor Bryan wants to help you focus on the promises that you can expect God to fulfill. Promises of assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, and perseverance in trial. You can request your copy of The Promises of Grace when you go online at unlimitedgrace.com or by calling 844-41-GRACE. That’s 844-414-7223. And now, more from Bryan Chapell on today’s Unlimited Grace.
Bryan Chapell: We are meant as fathers to have a legacy. The legacy that God gives us is that our children would not be stubborn in their resistance to God, the first part of verse eight, but rather they would be steadfast in commitment to God. That by experiencing this wonderful expression of grace day in and day out in Sunday school, in church, in youth group, that there are men brave enough, courageous enough to say, "Let me tell you the dark stuff, and let me tell you how glorious the grace of God is." And let God begin to use that for wondrous design as He brings beauty to your injury for the sake of those who are injured too and believe there is no hope for them. If we are willing and able to talk in that way, it changes our priorities. We begin to think against the priorities of the culture which says, you know, if you have faith in Christ, that's just not manly, and it won't be helpful to your career, and it’s not particularly fun. But if we are actually saying by faith in Christ, faithfulness to Him, here is true courage and true love on display, as the grace of God has profoundly changed me enough that I can confess to you my need of it, my child, and have the child know there is grace when they themselves fail. What would it change in us? It would change some of our priorities. Maybe how much time we’re spending in certain sports or recreation. Is there adequate time that our children are learning what it means to sacrifice for the sake of another and not just for oneself? Is worship a part of our lives? Is getting our children to Sunday school, having them in church, not just so people will approve, but for this influence of the grace of the gospel touching their lives and framing their thinking? So that as they’re going through difficult things, they know of a God who loves them despite. I think of opportunities where a lot of us who come from kind of difficult father backgrounds are wondering, "What does it mean to be a father?" We just get little starts at time. The church can help with something like family fun night that’s coming just a little bit later in June. Or we get involved with some other men who are learning this fathering thing by life-on-life discipleship and connect groups. Or we bring ourselves to Sunday school and get in one of those groups where there are young parents learning together what it means to be a Christian parent. And just kind of everybody saying, "I’m not sure about all. What do you do when this happens?" And just let the church work together in its fathering of people so that ultimately what is happening is there’s a mission that’s going on through the fathering of the church for generations to come. I just think of that legacy right at the very end of this Psalm. Couldn't get all 78 verses in front of you today. But right toward the end, you recognize there’s this message that God has chosen David His servant and Israel to be His inheritance. The same nation with all the dark sayings, with all the poor design in it, is going to be an inheritance to God, as though God is saying, "You’re mine. You’re what I get after the grace of God has touched you because you talked about the dark things as well as the glorious God behind all that." When that happens, people are changed forever and the mission of God goes across time and space. Young pastor from St. Lucia at the Global Proclamation Academy. St. Lucia, a lot of you know because it's where the cruise ships go for partying and honeymoons, right? And he said all the opulence and wealth and pleasure comes into our island, but people never get beyond the luxury hotels. Where he said beyond the luxury hotels, for those who work in the hotels, it is—his words, not mine—hell on earth. Alcohol, poverty, promiscuity, unbelievable. And yet there he is, planting a church. He says, "Because we have a plan, we are training men, men without hope, to share their faith, to disciple others. And," listen to this, "to teach children to pray." Because when men learn to teach children to pray, what happens? The men learn to pray and they have hope again. And they’re able to disciple again. Because here is what he said. He says the cruise ships come from all over the world. So here is what we believe as a church. "They are bringing the nations to us." Isn't that interesting? We think Caterpillar and the medical training facilities are bringing the nations to us. And here is this pastor in St. Lucia who says, "The nations are coming to us. How are we going to reach them? We’re going to train a generation of fathers who will touch children, who can disciple the nations as they come to us." It is God’s great privilege, dads, dads of biology and dads of the spirit, that God is using us not only to win our children, not only to show them grace if we’ll say the dark things as well as the glorious ones, but to reach generations and nations. It is the calling and the privilege of a father in Jesus’ name.
Bryan Chapell: Hi friend, this is Pastor Bryan. I’m so thankful that you’ve chosen to spend some of your valuable time with me today studying through the Bible. If this message has caused a greater desire for God to well up in your heart, I’d like to pray for you. Heavenly Father, when you sent the love of Jesus into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, you changed us in ways that still amaze us. We love Jesus more than anything. We find ourselves strangely at odds with the world and even with some Christians, because we not only love Jesus, but we love what and whom He loves. We love the unlovely, the destitute, the despised, and the forsaken. How did this happen? It happened by the powerful work of the Holy Spirit that is even now proving His presence by changing our affections. We’re not perfect yet, but we’re on a different path. And we pray that you would help us to walk it. Where we stumble, forgive us. And by forgiving, make us even more intent to honor your Son. For we offer this prayer of thanksgiving and obedience in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Guest (Male): That’s Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you’ve been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you’ve been blessed by this message and would like to hear more from Dr. Chapell, I would encourage you to visit unlimitedgrace.com. In addition to messages from Pastor Bryan, you can explore the many sermons, podcasts, seminars, and more available to you. Also, be sure to request a copy of the book from Dr. Bryan Chapell called The Promises of Grace. We’ll send you a copy right away as our way of saying thank you for your most generous financial support. Once again, go to unlimitedgrace.com or you can give by calling 844-41-GRACE. That’s 844-414-7223. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by His unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.