PASTOR’S CORNER: Will you be the man?

Last Sunday we celebrated “Father’s Day. The day is set aside nationally to recognize fathers.

Last week we talked about “saving the family.” Because if anybody can save a family the father can. If anybody can pull the family back, establish the home and put it back in the place where it needs to be it is the father. If any man can change the community and society and make the world a better place to live I tell you, it is the father. If anybody can build up confidence in his son or daughter by speaking a positive word to their children, the father can and nobody can tear down a child and kill their self-esteem by their negative words more than a father can.

In his distinct role by God, the father is the leader, thus everybody in the family looks to the father including the mother. Even if the mother and father are not married. Not taking anything away from the mother, for she is the glue that keeps the family together, but the father is to lead the family in the direction that the family is supposed to go because that’s what a leader does.

The mother is the heart of the family but the father is the head of the family and his role is unique, it’s different! And, may I add that it is a God-appointed role. On Father’s Day this message was a call for volunteers; somebody, some father who is willing to stand in the gap; that will say “I will make a difference! I will be the man!”

The family needs some help this morning. If we are going to save the family it has to start with the head, the father. The mother can’t do it but thank God for them, for without the mother there would be no family. Where would we be without our mothers? More often than not, the mother is the one who has a straight head.

It is she and her sacrifices that help her children to survive but with all of that the mother can’t save the family by herself. Her children can’t do it. School teachers can’t do it. Mentors can help but they can’t do it. Only a father can. Children need a man, they need their fathers, and there’s no substitute for that. And children reading, even if you feel that your father is not a good one, he’s still your father! Reach out to him. Show him love and respect, and let God deal with him.

But before I go any further, let me take the time to salute, recognize, and lift up the fathers who are the men who buy the bacon and cook it too! Those who have always been involved in their children’s lives and who have never had to be made to pay child support because they know that if it took two to tangle or make a mess, it ought to take two to clean it up! One mother can’t make a child by herself. She shouldn’t have to raise it by herself! But some fathers have stepped up to the plate. I hope your children recognize what they have in you.

Children are a gift regardless of how they come here. They didn’t ask to come here. God needs a man who is willing to be the man. Are there any takers this morning? You don’t have to be perfect, but just be willing to be the man.

What is a man in the biblical sense? He is one who first of all is a father, indeed and one who has a relationship with God the Father! I’m not saying that you can’t be a good one apart from God, but it is impossible to be the father that God calls us to be without God the Father in our lives. I know, because my father died when I was young, so I didn’t have a father to instruct me, teach me and show me the way; but because I had Christ in my life, when I had my sons, He showed me how to be the father that I should have been. I wasn’t perfect, and still not, but God did that and I give him all the glory!

Now this may be foreign to those of you who have a good father. He’s there doing what a father is supposed to do. If you know you are blessed to have the father that you have, don’t just send or give him a card or a tie pin or cheap cufflinks. I say it like this, if you love your father and you think that he’s a winner, show him some love today and take him out to dinner.

Fathers be the men. Be the father that tells your sons how proud you are that they are your sons! Coming from you will build up their confidence. I don’t care if he is not what you want him to be. Tell your daughters how beautiful they are and what to look for in a man. If you do, they won’t fall for the first guy to come along and say “I love you” just to get them to do what they want them to do.

I firmly believe that if every father were the man in his children’s lives, a lot of what we see today would not be seen. Gun violence would not exist.

David said to his son Solomon, I’m getting ready to die. Be strong and show yourself a man (1 Kings 2:1-2). Fathers, will you be the man?

The Rev. George Ellis is the pastor of Union Grove Missionary Baptist Church and can be reached at [email protected].