Introduction
The following Post (and ongoing ones) is from a 2 Part Series Pastor Albert Martin did back in June of 1981 at his home church, Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. This can also be listened to at Sermon Audio. The original title was “The Tragedy of a Vanishing Species — Godly Fathers or The Fundamental Grace and Behavior Pattern Essential for Effective Fatherhood”, but was shortened by Sermon Audio when they provided a PDF of the Sermon. I will be providing bite-size pieces of those two Sermons in the weeks to follow. jh
Please follow in your own Bibles, if you will, a passage from Paul’s first letter to the infant church of the Thessalonians, chapter two and the first twelve verses.
For yourselves, brethren, know our entering in unto you, that it hath not been found vain: but having suffered before and been shamefully treated, as ye know, at Philippi, we waxed bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God in much conflict. For our exhortation [is] not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: but even as we have been approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God who proveth our hearts. For neither at any time were we found using words of flattery, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness, God is witness; nor seeking glory of men, neither from you nor from others, when we might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle in the midst of you, as when a nurse cherisheth her own children: even so, being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were become very dear to us. For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. Ye are witnesses, and God [also], how holily and righteously and unblameably we behaved ourselves toward you that believe: as ye know how we [dealt with] each one of you, as a father with his own children, exhorting you, and encouraging [you], and testifying, to the end that ye should walk worthily of God, who calleth you into his own kingdom and glory.
Now, if you were giving any attention to the reading of this passage, you are already aware that it contains a biographical account of Paul’s ministry among the Thessalonians. And in the course of describing his and his companion’s labors among the Thessalonians, he uses analogies drawn from family relationships. You will notice the very striking one in verse 7: “But we were gentle in the midst of you, as when a nurse cherisheth her own children”. And then again in verse 11: “as ye know how we [dealt with] each one of you, as a father with his own children, exhorting you, and encouraging [you], and testifying”. Now, obviously, the primary teaching of the passage has to do with Paul and his companions, as models for the gospel ministry. However, in the course of this biographical description of the labors of Paul and his companions, he uses analogies, likenesses, comparisons between what they were doing in the work of the ministry and what a father and mother do in the work of ordering an ordinary household.
Now in the light of the special day called Fathers’ Day, and that a few weeks ago the glorious role of women was expounded from I Timothy 2 and verse 15, I felt constrained, and I trust it was the constraint of pastoral concern under the guidance of the Spirit, to speak to you this morning with respect to the subject of Principles of Effective Fatherhood as embodied in the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul. He is setting forth in this passage how he conducted himself as a spiritual father among the Thessalonians, but in so doing, he underscores some of the most fundamental principles with respect to effective earthly fatherhood. And so, by-passing the primary intention of the passage, I want to extract from it some of those secondary lines of the principles which constitute effective fatherhood.
Some of you here this morning are not fathers, and you never will be fathers. You may be mammas someday, but you can never be daddies. And some of you sitting here this morning feel that fatherhood is as far from your mind as night from day. Nevertheless, I urge everyone, no matter who you may be, to realize that, in taking up this subject, there are issues that have a very pressing and personal relevance for each one of you.
For those of us who are fathers, the relevance will be very evident. This word, I trust, will come as a word of immediate direction, reproof and correction. For you who are mothers, I trust it will be a word of supportive instruction that, as you see from the Scriptures what your husband is to be as a father, you will bend every effort to be supportive and helpful as he seeks to fulfill that roll. For you who are teenagers, I trust that what you hear this morning will exercise a powerful formative influence, and that you, young men, who are yet to be married, but aspire to marriage and fatherhood, I hope that you will gain from this passage some clear and solid instruction that will become an instrument in God’s hands to mold you into the kind of men who, alone, can be the kind of fathers they ought to be.
And for you younger women who are not yet married and you single women, as you think in terms of what qualities you will look for in the man who will be your husband and possibly the father of your children, this is where you are to look, even to such a passage as this. And for those of you whose job of fathering you think is done, this has much to say to you, for you have a tremendous responsibility, not only to have your prayers molded by biblical perspectives as you pray for the fathers of our congregation, but you have a solemn responsibility to teach the younger men, many of whom have had no biblical models. You have that privilege and responsibility to instruct them. So no one sitting here this morning is exempt from the pressing personal implications and application of these words found in I Thessalonians chapter 2.