We Believe in Fathers

So today I got to speak in church with my brother, which was fun.  Most people don't think speaking in church is fun, but we are both weird that way.  It's Fathers Day so we'll blame Dad. He likes speaking, too.

Stan was actually the visiting speaker from the High Council and traditionally they bring a recently returned missionary with them as a companion speaker.  When he said he was speaking in our ward, I volunteered myself.  Two years returned may not be recent if you are 20 but, two years is nothing when you're 48.

The topic from the Bishop was the youth lesson topic for June, which is priesthood and priesthood keys.  Since it is also Fathers Day, I wanted to say something about that, because fathers are awesome.

So here it is.  It's my speaking draft, not a polished article so the quote sources aren't footnoted or hyperlinked, but you can go to www.lds.org and toss the quotes in the search bar if you are curious.

We Believe in Fathers

[Apostle] Elder D. Todd Christofferson made an interesting statement in last year’s April conference.  He said, “As a Church, we believe in fathers.”   I am intrigued by this.  If “as a Church” we believe something then have I taken the time and effort to personally receive a witness that I personally believe in fathers?   Let’s break it down a bit.

1.  We believe in fathers.  Because my first go to on anything is snark, if you asked , “do you believe in fathers?”  you may get the answer “yes, I believe that fathers exist.”  And fathers do exist.  Unfortunately, in today’s world there is a vast range of what we as society refer to as fathers.  From a brief biological encounter all the way to being “a good dad.”  So fathers exist, not new news to anyone but I thought we should get that out of the way.  In fact, the Lord declared that His work and glory was “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life” of His children.  To me there seems to be an earthly parallel.  To bring to pass the mortality and life of children.  The partnership between mother and father brings mortality and brings life.  Together they are responsible for this vital step in the plan of salvation.  Without fatherhood (and motherhood) the whole plan of salvation stops. But it doesn’t stop.  Because of fathers.  We believe in fathers.

2.  We believe in fathers.  It isn’t unusual at a sporting event, or before some other performance for the phrase “ I believe in you” to be used as encouragement or confidence that the person is up to the challenge of what lies ahead.  So, when we believe in fathers we are encouraging and confident that Dad is up to the challenge of fatherhood.  Dads, we trust that your love will be there 24/7.  We are grateful for hard work at home and at work.  Especially at work.  As I frequently remind my children “if work were fun it would be called fun, not work.”  While there is satisfaction and enjoyment to be found on the job, for the most part it’s plain old work.  Thank you, fathers, for getting up at o’dark thirty to provide your families with food and shelter. 

In the words of President Linda Burton, “Today I wish to honor husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, and uncles who know who they are and who are doing their best to fulfill their God-given roles as described in the family proclamation, including righteously presiding and providing for and protecting their families.”   Unfortunately, such honor and respect is becoming increasing uncommon in the culture.  When not being shown as a bumbling idiot or creepy philanderer on the screen,  society routinely debates whether fathers are even needed beyond conception. On lds.org,  Chad Phares writes, “I’m not the dad you see on TV.

You know the one I’m talking about—the one who is more concerned about remote controls than report cards. The guy who spends more time bowling with his buddies than brushing his daughter’s hair. The dad who can name each of his football team’s top draft picks but can’t remember his kids’ birthdays.

Yeah, that dad.

Well, I’m not him—and neither are most of us. Sure, we’ve got our quirks, but the majority of dads are infinitely more nuanced than the two-dimensional cardboard cutouts we are depicted to be.”  The truth about dads, is that they are amazing.  They worry, the work, they agonize, they encourage, they teach, they are exhausted!  And they don’t quit.  To quote Elder Christofferson, “We believe that far from being superfluous, fathers are unique and irreplaceable.” Thank you, fathers.  We believe in fathers.

3. We believe in fathers.  Fatherhood has a spiritual component, or in other words, an eternal component to it.  We believe, i.e. have received personal revelation or a testimony of fathers.  Our understanding of fatherhood is more than just a helpful social construct that increases the odds that small humans will be provided for and protected long enough to grow into adult humans.  We believe that fatherhood is “divinely designed” by God for the salvation of his children.  We believe that the family is the basic unit not only of society, but of eternity.  As fathers strive to provide the earthly necessities of life, to provide shelter  and protection from the storms and dangers, they also are tasked with providing the spiritual necessities of life.  Of providing spiritual shelter and protection from the storms and dangers to their children’s spiritual lives.  In past times, life was more of a nasty, brutish and short proposition.  Starvation, attack, storms and untreatable medical problems consumed family life.  Not so much today here in Hidden Valley.  While working to provide is still very stressful, the brutish physical aspects of life are not as looming.  What is looming is the starvation of our spirits.  The attacks and storms of the adversary are not slowing down, they are increasing.  I doubt any of you fathers have sent your children off to school here and hoped and prayed that Johnny and Janey won’t get eaten by a bear on the way to the bus stop.  But I know you have hoped and prayed  that they will not get devoured spiritually by pornography, immorality, drugs, or even idleness.  The dangers are different in 2017 than 1017 but the damage has longer repercussions.  Because we believe that what we do and what we covenant affects us spiritually and eternally, God has given us fathers to “protect and provide” for the spiritual necessities of life. 

I love these words of Elder Christofferson, “ For men, fatherhood exposes us to our own weaknesses and our need to improve. Fatherhood requires sacrifice, but it is a source of incomparable satisfaction, even joy. Again, the ultimate model is our Heavenly Father, who so loved us, His spirit children, that He gave us His Only Begotten Son for our salvation and exaltation. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Fathers manifest that love as they lay down their lives day by day, laboring in the service and support of their families.

Perhaps the most essential of a father’s work is to turn the hearts of his children to their Heavenly Father. If by his example as well as his words a father can demonstrate what fidelity to God looks like in day-to-day living, that father will have given his children the key to peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come.  A father who reads scripture to and with his children acquaints them with the voice of the Lord. OR to put it in scripture,  “And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.”

This is why we believe in fathers.

We started with the proposition that “as a Church we believe in fathers.”  We’ve gone over a few of the ways we believe in fathers, but the original thought says that we do so “as a Church.”  Why? Why “as a Church” do we believe in fathers? Simply put, it is because “the family is ordained of God. It is the most important unit in time and in eternity. Even before we were born on the earth, we were part of a family. Each of us “is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents” with “a divine nature and destiny” (“The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Ensign, Nov. 1995, 102). God is our Heavenly Father, and we lived in His presence as part of His family in the premortal life. There we learned our first lessons and were prepared for mortality (see D&C 138:56).” 

            In fact, let’s just go full on Handbook summary:       

“Because of God’s love for us, He prepared a plan that included our coming to the earth, where we would receive bodies and be tested so that we could progress and become more like Him. This plan is called “the plan of salvation” (Alma 24:14), “the great plan of happiness” (Alma 42:8), and “the plan of redemption” (Alma 12:25; see also verses 26–33).

The purpose of God’s plan is to lead us to eternal life. God declared, “This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Eternal life is God’s greatest gift to His children (see D&C 14:7). It is exaltation in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. Through the plan of salvation, we can receive this blessing of returning to God’s presence and receiving a fulness of joy.

In order to gain exaltation in the kingdom of God, we must overcome two obstacles of mortality: death and sin. Because we cannot overcome either obstacle by ourselves, Heavenly Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Savior and Redeemer. The Savior’s atoning sacrifice made it possible for all of God’s children to overcome physical death, be resurrected, and gain immortality. The Atonement also made it possible for those who repent and follow Him to overcome spiritual death, return to God’s presence to dwell with Him, and obtain eternal life (see D&C 45:3–5).

As part of our Heavenly Father’s plan, we were born into families. He established families to bring us happiness, to help us learn correct principles in a loving atmosphere, and to prepare us for eternal life.

Parents have the vital responsibility to help their children prepare to return to Heavenly Father. Parents fulfill this responsibility by teaching their children to follow Jesus Christ and live His gospel.

The Church provides the organization and means for teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to all of God’s children. It provides the priesthood authority to administer the ordinances of salvation and exaltation to all who are worthy and willing to accept them.”

To recap, we lived as a family before coming to earth, we live as families here in mortality, and because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ we can live as families for eternity by the power and keys of priesthood ordinances.

So “as a Church” we believe in fathers because families are the hope and substance of eternity. 

I have a confession to make.  My talk today is not supposed to be on fathers.  It’s on priesthood and priesthood keys.  Because “the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven,” and heaven’s foremost concern is for our returning as families.  To do so requires the power and authority of God, (that is priesthood) and those ordained to act in his stead to administer the ordinances and officiate in covenantal ceremonies (priesthood keys). 

I have read/heard/recited the “the family is ordained of God” more times than I can count.  I’ve given talks, taught lessons, pinned cute memes to pinterest on it, but it has always been just an obvious truth to me.  An important truth, but certainly not startling revelatory or anything.  And yet, after merging the concept of families, in this case specifically fathers, with the purpose of priesthood and priesthood keys, the word that jumped out to me was not family, it was ordained.  The family is ordained of God. 

In writing the Family Proclamation the word the apostles used was ordained.  Not organized, not created by, but ordained.  To ordain is to set in order according to the law.  To ordain in a church setting, it is to set in order according to the law of God.  When you are  ordained to the priesthood you are authorized within that office to do the duties of that office.  Not just that you are able to fulfill those duties but that you are obligated to do so.  In effect you are being legally set apart to act in an official capacity as God would act if he were physically present.  No wonder priesthood holders start as deacons with very limited assignments! 

As the bishop of our ward, Bishop Johnson has the keys, which means the rights and the obligations to direct the work of salvation for the Hidden Valley Ward.  One of his duties is to prepare the young and not so young men for ordination to priesthood offices.  Those twelve and thirteen year old young men who weekly pass the sacrament are acting in their official priesthood capacity.  Passing trays of bread and water may seem pretty mundane, but there is more to it than that.  As ordained deacons they are learning that priesthood service is just that: service.  They are offering the sacrament to us, literally bring the symbols of the atonement to within our very reach.  It is an offering from the Savior, delivered by the deacons. 

At fourteen a young man may be ordained to be a teacher, and indeed he begins to train as a teacher with his home teaching companion.  Every month, this ordained teacher has the opportunity to pray for his home teaching families, to prepare a gospel message for them, and then to sit there nervously on the couch wishing his senior companion would stop with the small talk so he can give his lesson before he dies of anxiety.  Instead of bringing the sacrament to you in church, he is bringing the gospel to you in your very home.

At sixteen he may be ordained to be a priest.  Every week the priests sit at the sacrament table.  While we sing, they work to make the final preparations for the ordinance of the sacrament.  Then the priest will kneel and plead to heaven on our behalf.  “ Oh God, the eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify.” Etc.  The sacrament is vital to our commitment and repentance.  To our sanctification.  To our salvation.  And these priesthood holders petition on our behalf.  As priests of the order of Aaron, they are also authorized, under the keys of the bishop, to baptize.  Many of you have had the privilege of watching a 16 year old son, nephew or grandson raise his arm  to the square and with authority from God, boldly (and it is a very bold statement to make) “Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” 

Around 18/19 there is the opportunity to prepare and then be ordained to the office of Elder in the Melchizedek priesthood.  We could spend all day on this, but let’s summarize it by saying, Elders preach the gospel.  They go and preach to every kindred, tongue and people.  They may be as anxious as that 14 year old home teacher but they go.  They bring the message and ordinances of salvation to the world.  They act as representatives of Jesus Christ.  They do this regardless of whether they are a full-time missionary or not.  The call to preach of an Elder is not contingent on a black name tag. 

Elders also have the privilege of attending the temple.  There they receive the ordinances and blessings of the temple which are ultimately crowned with the sealing of husband to wife for time and all eternity. 

And there it is.  That’s the point.  That’s the point of priesthood, of priesthood keys.  To enter into an eternal covenant as husband and wife, to bring children into this covenant by birth and instruction.  That is the point.  Priesthood service, starting at 12 and continuing through eternity is to prepare young and not so young men for the privileges and obligations of being a family forever.  For being a husband and, as I may have mentioned, to be a father.  As a Church, and individually, we believe in fathers.  Because we have a Heavenly Father who loves us beyond our comprehension, he has blessed us with the opportunity to have, or maybe even be fathers.