He’s just a “chip off the old block.” We have all heard that and see it in the flesh. Sometimes this makes our chest swell with pride as we coast along on our fathers' coat tails. And at other times we might feel trapped in a habit or vice that neither our father nor we seem able to kick.
For example my dad worked all his life for one company, Bond Bread (which Hopalong Cassidy ate) in downtown Tulsa. At noon he walked up to the YMCA, to work out and swim. Eventually they gave him the title, TARZAN. Having done nothing at all, I inherited the co-title, TARZAN JR (pure coat tails).
But sometimes through genes, and other times due to patterns of choices, some sons are overcome by “addictions” and such that also plagued their dad. We all know the idiom, “an acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.” But the maturing son learns to discern, claim, and emulate the good traits of his dad, while turning briskly away from those that would drag him down.
I hope some of you at this point are saying, “But it’s not that easy to turn from the bad.” You are in good company, because even after a life-changing exchange with Jesus, (which resulted in the transformation of Saul to Paul and from Christian persecutor to imprisoned personal servant and witness), Paul candidly admitted the following in Romans 7. “I keep on doing what I do NOT want to do, and I FAIL to do what I want (intend) to do!” In the next chapter he revealed that the answer to this universal dilemma is to be “led (inspired, motivated, controlled, managed, filled and transformed) by the Holy Spirit.” But that is getting ahead of our story.
We started by acknowledging the common experience that very often a family demonstrates, “like father, like son.” One obvious reason for this is day in and day out modeling of behavior. Another idiom comes to mind, “monkey see, monkey do.” Sometimes the patterns we saw will carry us far, if we continue those family traits. Today we are going to illustrate that in spades as Jesus explains in John 5, “What the Father Does, the Son Does.”
19-20So Jesus explained himself at length. "I'm telling you this straight. The Son can't independently do a thing, only what he sees the Father doing. What the Father does, the Son does. The Father loves the Son and includes him in everything he is doing.
20-23"But you haven't seen the half of it yet, for in the same way that the Father raises the dead and creates life, so does the Son. The Son gives life to anyone he chooses. Neither he nor the Father shuts anyone out. The Father handed all authority to judge over to the Son so that the Son will be honored equally with the Father. Anyone who dishonors the Son, dishonors the Father, for it was the Father's decision to put the Son in the place of honor.
24"It's urgent that you listen carefully to this: Anyone here who believes what I am saying right now and aligns himself with the Father, who has in fact put me in charge, has at this very moment the real, lasting life and is no longer condemned to be an outsider. This person has taken a giant step from the world of the dead to the world of the living
Gentlemen, in a similar manner to our tendency to mimic our father’s behavior, we can leave an eternal, Godly, heritage for our children. But only as we do what Jesus did, “hold onto the wheel” (from the movie Courageous), and daily put into practice the things that we see God the Father and God the Son doing, as we live our lives aligned with what we see them doing in the Word and in prayer, as we are led and empowered by God the Spirit.
