“Following in Dad’s Footsteps” – FBC Morning Light (6/14/2024)

Well, a good Friday morning to you. Looking forward to the good weekend and this coming

Lord's Day, we're going to gather together as God's people in Sunday school.

We're studying the subject of depression in our adult Sunday school class, what

God's word has to say about that very important matter. And in Sunday morning service,

I just recently started a series in the Gospel of Matthew and Sunday evening wrapping up the

Song of Songs. So I hope you can make it to God's house on this Lord's Day. This coming

Sunday is also Father's Day, how appropriate given our Bible reading plan for today.

We're reading in 1 Kings 15 and also in 2

Chronicles 13 through 16. And I want to zero in on two contrasting verses in chapter 15 of 1

Kings. One of them has to do with the son of Rehoboam who became the king but didn't last very long, comparatively speaking, as a king.

He only reigned three years. And then his son who came to the throne after him.

So what we read in chapter 15 verse 3 regarding Abijam, the son of Rehoboam who became king over Judah, says he reigned three years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Mechah, the granddaughter of Abishalam. And he, that is

Abijam, now listen to this, he walked in all the sins of his father which he had done before him.

His heart was not loyal to the Lord his God as was the heart of his great -grandfather

David. All right? So Abijam saw the pattern that his father

Rehoboam had established, a pattern of sin, of rebellion against the

Word of God, against the right worship of God, and he followed in his father's footsteps.

This reminds me of a television commercial I saw in childhood.

Maybe you remember this too if you're gray -headed. But it was back in the day when cigarette commercials could still be aired on television.

But it was also a time when the dangers of cigarette smoking started to become more widespreadly known, widely known.

And so there were television campaigns warning against smoking. And I remember this one particular commercial where a father and his son, probably a five -year -old boy, were walking together and they come and sit down underneath a tree.

And they're just having a good time while in a way, the day, the hour.

And then the father reaches in his shirt pocket and he pulls out a pack of cigarettes and he pulls a cigarette out of the packet and puts it to his mouth, lights it up, and he takes a cigarette packet and lays it down on the ground between him and his son.

And the dad's just looking off into the sky, you know, just enjoying the scenery, puffing away on his cigarette.

And the little boy looks up at his dad, looks at what his dad's doing, looks down at the pack of cigarettes, looks back up at his dad, looks at the pack of cigarettes.

He picks up the pack of cigarettes and looks in it like he's about to take one out. In other words, he's learning something from his dad.

And we're going to see this repeatedly in the Kings and Chronicles, where this statement comes out that says, "...X,"

whoever it is, "...walked in all the sins of his father."

Rarely, rarely, will we see an expression like you read in verse 9 and 10, where it says, in the 20th year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Asa, Asa was the son of Abijam, who followed in the footsteps of his father, in all the sins of his father.

Well, his son, Abijam's son, Asa, became king over Judah.

Verse 10 says, "...he reigned 41 years in Jerusalem." And verse 11 says, "...Asa did what was right in the eyes of the

Lord, as did his father David." So it would have been his great -great -grandfather,

David. So Asa looked to a different example for a pattern to follow, rather than his immediate father, which was a good thing.

Now this is Father's Day weekend. This is Father's Day weekend. And what all this does for us is it highlights the critically important role that we who are dads have in leaving a pattern, an example for our children that is worth following, that will be for their welfare, for their good, for their spiritual good, not just their material good, but for their spiritual good.

We need to be dads who provide examples that our children can look up to and say,

I want to be a man of God, like my father.

I want to be godly, like my dad. I want to follow in those footsteps, far be it from us that we provide examples to our children that, if they follow, will lead them further and further, deeper and deeper into sin.

Oh, may God help us dads. And so, our Father and our God, we do thank you for this challenge today that we who are fathers would be the right examples for our children to follow.

We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. All right, once again, have a great weekend, especially you dads.