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.
