SERMON: 

FATHER’S DAY MESSAGE 

June 25, 2023 Numbers 6:22-27 Peace Lutheran Church, 

By Glenn Stocker

 Dear Friends in Christ. I’m so glad you’re here on this weekend after Father’s Day to hear about the amazing blessing your heavenly Father wants to give you. Father’s Day was last weekend, but since Rev. Griesse, who was your fill-in pastor last Sunday did not dwell on the Father’s Day message directly, so I want to take up on a follow up to that important message this Sunday. I assume that Rev. Griesse will not mind this followup to his very important message to what he spoke on, that was the children in the Old Testament of the Heavenly Father. Today’s message is based on the Old Testament book in Numbers, Chapter 6, verses 22-27. It reads: (Read the text of Numbers.) There was a dad, whose ex-wife didn’t want him to be involved in his son’s life. But the dad still loved his son, so he set aside several thousand dollars per year to give to his son. When the boy graduated from high school, the father gave him this huge blessing. He said, “I’ve saved enough to pay your tuition at any college you choose.” For years the son had his father’s name, and now the father gave him a big blessing. That reminded me of the story of God’s people in the Old Testament. They were kept as slaves in Egypt for 400 years, and they knew God was real, they had his name, but they didn’t hear from him very much. They felt like that son, who grew up without hearing from his father, but then God set them free from slavery, and he brought them through the Red Sea and into the desert. The word of Numbers chapter 6 is like their graduation party. After living as God’s sons and daughters for a long time, God was going to give them a huge blessing, with some words that he still uses today to give us blessings.  Here’s how God delivers His blessing. He told His representatives, in the desert it was priests, but today it’s pastors, to use words to put his name on his people. In the desert, it was Israelites, but today, we are going to slow down and appreciate God’s blessing. I think this will sound familiar. The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Notice God’s blessing comes in three sections. We’ll take them one at a time. First: The Lord Bless you and keep you. You hear the word “Bless” a lot. But in the Bible context here is what it means: The Lord gives you a successful, prosperous, productive life. “Blessing” comes from the Lord. A friend said he had just graduated from college, and he was all excited. But he had taken out loans to pay for college. And he knew he was going to have to pay those loans back starting within a short time. That’s when his father spoke up. He said, “Your mom and I have decided to write you a check every month to help you pay for your college education. We are so proud of you, that you were one of the first in our family to go and graduate from college. It’s our graduation present to you.” What a blessing! And they kept their word every month for years, and earlier, one year, the final payment was made to pay off the college loan. My friend told me that he looked at his wife and said, “We did it!” His wife replied thinking, “Who’s WE?” She continued, “Your mom and dad helped you do it!” He continued: “You’re right. We paid off the loan, but our ability to do that came from Mom and Dad.” Isn’t that how we treat our blessings from God sometimes? You earn a paycheck. You cook the food. You save  for retirement. But don’t forget your ability to do all those things comes from your Father in Heaven. The Lutheran catechism has a great paragraph about this. It reads: “I believe that God created me and all that exists, and that he gave me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my mind and all my abilities. And I believe that God still preserves me by richly and daily providing clothing and shoes, food and drink, property and home, spouse and children, land, cattle, and all I own, and all I need to keep my body and life.? So, that’s how the Lord blesses me. He also keeps you. Grandparents, if your kids asked you to keep the grandkids for a weekend, what are they asking you to do? To put them in the closet, stuff a sock in their mouth and check on them every three hours? (For some of them you may want to do that.) No! They want you to feed them and take care of them and discipline them, and love them just like mom and dad would do. That’s how God keeps you too. The Catechism puts it this way. It reads: “God also preserves me by defending me against all danger, guarding and protecting me from all evil. All this, God does only because He is my good and merciful Father in Heaven, and not because I have earned or deserved it.” Did you catch that last part? God doesn’t bless you because you’re so good. He blesses and keeps you because He’s so good. So, in the benediction the pastor says: The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.  Make His face shine on you? What does that mean? The Hebrew language uses the word “face” for intense communication. And you can see why. It’s easy to disagree with someone behind their back, but it’s intense to say it to their face. It is nice to get a text message from someone who loves you, but it’s so much more meaningful face to face. Like if a friend sends you a text on your cell phone and says; “I love you.” But if that same person is standing next to you and looks into your face with a smile and says: “I love you.” Isn’t that much more meaningful? God’s most intense interaction with you isn’t anger. He’s smiling. It’s like He is next to you, looking at you with His face smiling! You dad’s here: I know that the smile is not always the most comfortable shape for your face muscles to make all the time. And that’s OK. But if you’re walking around with an angry heart, you gotta know that it affects your kids. We’re been quoting a lot from the Lutheran Catechism today, but this is true: Dads, you are the most important theologian your kids will ever meet. You have an opportunity to form their hearts like wet cement before it dries. So, if you’re walking around with a grumpy heart, then this is the part of the blessing you need to hear the most. Because even if you lose your temper at your kids, the Lord is not angry with you. His face is still shining on you! Moms, Dads, kids, some of you are thinking, “God’s smiling on some people, but not me. You don’t know how dark my heart is. I’m a lost cause. I should be condemned.” But maybe not for any of us that are right here. And maybe you’re right, one way or the other. However, all of us sinners deserve to go to hell. But the next line of God’s blessing changes everything. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. Grace is God’s smile for people who don’t deserve it, even for the  grumpiest of us. Do you know how I know that? Because of Jesus. One of Jesus’ followers wrote, “God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory. (But let me ask: But how do we see God’s light!?) Its displayed in the face of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). You want to know if God loves you, look at the face of Christ. Can you picture Jesus as he dies on the cross to take away all your failures? God gave His only son for you. You can’t even imagine how much He loves you! Yeah, He’s smiling on you — on lost and condemned creatures like you and me. Read and listen with me: “He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death.” I remember when I was a young teenager, I had to go to my dad and with sort of a whimper, said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” And he’s like, “Now slow down, what are you sorry about?” Well I took the car back home from the field as you told me to do. And as I was practicing driving the car around the large driveway area between the house and the barn, I decided to drive the car back into the garage. I got the passenger side of the car too close to the side and scrapped and put a big dent into the fender of the car. (That probably never happened to any of you.) But I went to my dad to confess the situation. Why did I go to my dad? Because I know he loved me. I knew he would forgive me. That was only one situation of several. This week you’re going to have “Sorry, Sorry!” moments. Take them to your heavenly Father. He’s smiling on you. He’s gracious to you. A father who doesn’t love his children, who abuses them verbally or physically, is not representing God’s love. And that type of personality will be transferred to the children, to then do the same to their family and their children later in life. But if you have a loving relationship with your children,  then know that your heavenly Father would never do anything to hurt you. Today you can celebrate how much He loves you. But did you know that an inattentive or disinterested father is also failing to represent God? The last part of the blessing goes like this: The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace. Sometimes it seems like God is an inattentive Father. When we get sick, or our relationships break down, or we are urgently asking for God to help us out of a difficult situation in our lives, it seems like God is too busy doing something else. He’s not. He says he turns his face toward you. We often think God should step into our lives with His mighty hand, or with a miracle, and if He does, then praise God! But often, He turns his face toward us in a different way — with His word. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. He is fully God, all powerful and gracious, and He comes to us in our struggles, not by a miracle, but by the gospel; not by taking you out of the struggle, but by keeping you in the faith. Here is another confession for us to listen to. “I believe that I cannot by my own thinking, or choosing, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel; enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” The Holy Spirit makes God’s blessing your personal possession through faith. Did you know that at the end of the service when you hear God’s blessing, every time you hear the word “You” it’s singular. It’s not “The Lord bless all y’ll”. It’s “The Lord bless you, and you, and you, and you, individually.” That’s because he’s turned His face toward you. He’s paying attention to you, and whatever you are going through. That’s how He gives peace. Do you see what an amazing blessing God is giving you? And I want you to live in that blessing all week long. I want you to remember how safe you are in God’s hands, how gracious Jesus is to you. I want you to have peace in your struggles. So how can I make sure you have it? Should I command you to remember? “Don’t forget!” That puts all the responsibility on you! God’s got a better way. “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” At the end of every service, God puts His name on you. You are the people of God. You are the people of Christ. You are the CHRISTians. You are the people of grace. You are the people of Peace. You are the people of God’s blessing; people this world so desperately needs. And refers not only to Fathers, because this is Father’s Day, but to all of us. So let’s be who we are. Children of the Heavenly Father. We pray: Dear Lord, we thank you for the privilege of calling on your name as our Heavenly Father. We are blessed to be in your family and to have a loving Father like you. Remind us daily of your name and love for us as your family, through Jesus. Amen!

By Glenn Stocker