Fatherhood: A Fortress For The Family, Part 2

Good evening, church family. It's great to have you with us again. I'm so excited about the opportunity God's given to us to spend time in His Word together. What a joy we have. To be able to open God's Word together. Even though it's in the middle of the week, it's an opportunity for us to once again pursue the Christ and understand more about His plan and will for our lives.

Before we get started, just a couple things by way of reminder that tomorrow at 3:45, Pastor Patrick will once again be with our young people from 3:45 to about 4:30, 4:45, right before the dinner hour. Just to go through that inductive Bible discussion in the book of Ephesians, looking to answer the 10 questions that we have that we've given to you about Bible study, and so he does that with our young people. On 3:45, right at 3:45 on Thursdays.

And then also later that night, Tim and Aaron are going to do once again a worship live time at 7:30. So if you have Instagram, you can be a part of that. We'd love to have you. That'll be a great time.

And then, of course, Friday evening, the young adults are getting together for a Zoom conference. That's at 7 p. m. on Friday night.

And then of course on nine o'clock on Sunday morning, we'll be back again together looking at abolishing anxiety, looking at point number three, understanding how it is God wants to rid anxiety in our lives.

And then after that, Patrick will once again be with our young people doing a discussion concerning the morning sermon on how it is they actually draw practical application from what it is we've talked about. And that's at 10:30 with our young people. So, parents, encourage your students to be a part of that opportunity.

And then, of course, don't forget if you have children. They're able to get on with you throughout the week on Facebook to be able to look at the opportunities for them to study the The lessons that they would be studying normally if they came on a Wednesday night. So, those are opportunities that are available for you and your family. We want you to be aware of so that you can readily access them and understand more about how it is you can study God's Word via Facebook, Instagram. some kind of social media mechanism.

Tonight though we want to continue our study on fatherhood, a fortress for the family. Fatherhood is not the fortress for the family. It is a fortress for the family. The fortress is the Lord God Himself, our Heavenly Father, who is a shield, a stronghold, a bulwark. A hiding place. He is our protector.

And as fathers, earthly fathers, we want to be able to portray that to our wife and to our children. We want to be able to flesh out. God for them. That is, we want to be able to help them understand who God is by being that stronghold for them, being that bulwark, that rampart, that hiding place for our family. And when we do that, they are able to understand more about their Heavenly Father and how He is that ultimate shield and protector of them.

As fathers, we are providers and protectors. We provide for them the opportunities to grow and to understand how they can walk with the Lord, and we protect them. We are their protectors, and there's no better way of doing that than at this time when our country is going through this pandemic, and to be able to provide for them the strength that they need.

Now, the great thing about this is that God has provided us a unique opportunity to do this. We have basically less distractions than ever before. There won't be another time like this in history for you to be able to sit down with your family and have the time that you do. If you don't learn it now, You're not going to learn it later on. This is your opportunity. I told you last week it takes 30 days to develop a habit. And if you do this consistently for 30 days and you walk your family through the The scriptures and practice being that stronghold for them, it becomes more natural to you.

And so, my prayer is that during this time where there are less distractions than ever before, listen. It it takes me an hour to an hour and a half to get to work and to go home every day. Some of you, even longer. Now I'm getting to work in twenty five minutes. And so I've cut an hour off the front end and the back end, which gives me two more hours. to do things with my family. When you think about no sports on T V, no basketball, no baseball, maybe not even football in the fall. And so you think about all that extra time in which you're not watching sporting events and you're not taking your children to sporting events. There's no Little League, there's no gymnastics. There's no children's choir. There's no musical theater. There's no basketball. Nothing to take your kids to. Nothing to coach them in, which again gives you more time. With your family. And you're not even traveling to church. Think about how many minutes or how many hours for some of you to even get to church on a Sunday morning, right? We're not even doing that now. Or a Wednesday night. So, I mean, we're cutting hours off of our daily rout routine on a regular basis. The question is, what are we doing with that? Are we truly redeeming the time? Are we, as Paul says, walking wisely or walking foolishly? The wise man redeems the time. He buys it back for eternity's sake. And I would pray that that would be you. That at this point, you are truly buying back every moment for the sake of eternity. You're redeeming it for a kingdom's purpose, not your own purposes. In taking advantage of this time to truly be the fortress for your family.

And so we're looking at what that means, and we gave you principle number one last week. If I'm going to be a fortress for my family, I must, number one, focus on life's priority. I must focus on life's priority. And we told you that priority, Philippians 1:2, for to meet to live as Christ and to die is gain. My priority is to live. For the living God. That was Paul's priority. That should be our priority as well. So I have to refocus that. I have to go back to living that priority in front of my family. So important.

We looked at 2 Corinthians 5, 14 and 15, where it tells us that Christ died so that we no longer live for ourselves, but for Him. Who lived and died and rose again on our behalf. Christ died for us to live for Him.

I didn't get a chance to get to that on Sunday, Resurrection Sunday. Remember on Great Friday we talked about celebrating the crucified Christ, and we spelled out the word crucified for you. Well, on Sunday we talked about celebrating the risen Christ and we spelled out the word ris for you. How important it is for us to understand that we celebrate the risen Christ because it radiates His glory. It illuminates His st. All history. It stipulates my victory, escalates my joy. and then it necessitates man's responsibility. And we concluded with talking about the unbeliever's responsibility to rep. I didn't even get to the point where I want to talk about the belie's responsibility. And our responsibility was to live for Him. To honor him, to glorify his name.

This is how Paul said it. I love this because it really talks about the life we live for Christ. Listen to what he says. You know the verses. He says in verse number 20 of Galatians 2, I have been crucified with Christ. That's what we're going to call the exting life. My life has been extinguished. I've died to self. It says in Luke chapter 9: if any man come to me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. There is this self-denial because I have. sacrificed my ambitions, my dreams, my aspirations to do what God wants me to do. I've given my life to Him because He died for me. So Paul is saying, for me to live as Christ, to die is gained. To live for Christ is to live the exting life. I've been crucified with Christ. And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me that is, the rel life. Although my life has been extinguished, I still live in the flesh. And I live a relinquished life because I've relinquished everything to him. The life which I now live, I live by faith. I walk by faith and not by sight. But I am totally dependent upon Him. So the life that the belie lives, the life he lives for Christ, is the exting life, is the rel life, is, thirdly, the dist. Life. For he says this: I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered him up for me. He lives the distinguished life, and that's characterized by dependency and by devotion. That's how Paul summarized Living for Christ.

And I wonder if that's us. That's our responsibility. If we're celebrating the risen Christ. We live for him because he lived and died and rose again, so we would no longer live for ourselves, but simply for him.

And as fathers, being that fortress for the family, we need to live for Christ, and that means we focus once again on life's priority.

And we took you back and said, okay, now how do we do that? What does that mean? What does that look like? That's very important to understand. Well, that means I listen to him, I'm going to listen to what he says. Remember Luke 9, verse number 35: This is my beloved son, listen to him. Christ said in John chapter 10, verse number 27: My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. But we hear the voice of God. We are listeners. Let every man be quick to Hear the Word of God, slow to speak and even slower to becoming angry at the Word of God, which leads us into how is it we listen?

You know, sometimes we can talk about listening, but we don't hear very well. And so the question comes: Do you listen quickly? Are you a quick listener? James tells us: let every man be quick to the hearing of the word. Are you a quick listener? Do you listen quickly? Do you, with quick, run to hear what God has to say? You know, we want to quickly get the score on our phone. We want to quickly get the update on our phone. We want to quickly hear what's going on in the news world on our phone. And the quicker We get it, the better it is, but that's the way we should be with the Word of God. We should be quick to hear. And so, one of the ways we listen we listen quickly.

Another way we listen is that we listen quietly. Quietly. Listen to what the psalm said in Psalm 62. Psalm 6, verse number 1: My soul waits in silence for God only. Waits in silence. From him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold. I shall not be great shaken. Listen, if you listen quietly, you understand that the Lord is your hope and your salvation, your stronghold. You will not be greatly shaken. Those who are greatly shaken are not good listeners. They don't listen quietly. And we need to be those kind of people. You know, so many times we want to talk to God instead of listen what God has to say. But you can't effectively talk to God. Until you first of all listen to God, because then you don't know how to say what you need to say. Your prayer life is based on the Word of God. That means you are quick to hear it and you are quiet. In listening.

So you listen quickly, you listen quietly, you listen expect or eagerly. For this, the next Psalm, Psalm 63, he says, O God, thou art my God, I shall seek Thee early, earnestly, eagerly. There's an expectancy there. I'm expecting God to speak. And He speaks to me through His Word. And so I go to the Word quickly. I sit and listen quietly because I'm expecting God to speak to me, tell me about Himself. that I might learn to live for Him. Living for Christ means I listen to Him. That means I listen to Him quickly, quietly, expectantly. I listen to Him open. Psalm 119, 18, open my ears, open my eyes, that I might behold beautiful, wonderful things out of thy law. Do you listen open? Or do you listen guardedly? You shouldn 't guard what you hear the Word of the Lord say. You should listen openly. Lord, let me see you. Let me hear you. So if you're going to listen properly, You're going to listen quickly, quietly, expectantly, eagerly.

You're going to listen openly.

You're going to listen reverently. Reverently. Remember Samuel? Speak, Lord. That means you're listening reverently, you're listening submissively because you're bowing in subjection to his Lordship. This is the king of kings who's speaking. This is not your neighbor. Okay? And God is not your buddy. God is not your buddy, prior to what many pastors tell you. He is not your buddy. He is the Lord of the universe. He is the King of all kings. And we are to listen to him reverently. We are to bow before him submissively, and we are to listen gratefully. Listen gratefully. The psalmist, once again, in Psalm 63, is to it this way. He says, Because thy loving kind is better than life, my lips will praise thee. So I will bless thee as long as I live. I will lift up my hands in thy name. You know, it's always good to listen gratefully, to thank the Lord, to praise Him for what you've heard, and to say thank you, Lord, for speaking.

If you want to live for Christ, you need to listen to the Christ. And I would hope that you, as a Father, are a good listener. A really good listener.

I think if you're watching this evening, you'll want to listen. Tuning in, you want to hear what God has to say. So I would assume that you are quick to the hearing of the word. But are you listening openly, reverently, to what God has to say? Are you listening quietly? Say, well, I my kids running around and I got the TV on in the other room.

Take away those distractions. Just sit your children down next to you. We've told you before, this is a great way to teach your children how to listen. Children are very active, but they need to learn to be quiet and to sit quietly. And this becomes a monumental time for you to teach your children, because you're still at home. And so there are distractions, yes, but to teach them on Sunday mornings, even on Wednesday nights, if you've gathered your children with you tonight as the head of your home. If you gathered your wife with you and you're sitting down and you have your children with you, this is a great way to teach them that they might learn to listen. Quietly, quickly, reverently.

Those first seven years are the most formative years in your child's life. And so after seven years, they are beginning to live out readily what it is you have molded them into and taught them with those first seven years. So those first seven years are so formative in their lives. Teach them now to listen quickly and quietly, eagerly and expectantly. And as you do, you're going to reap great benefits down the road.

So, if we're going to live for Christ, we need to listen to him.

Number two, you need to love him. To live for Christ means that I love the Christ. I love him more than anything.

Peter says it this way. Peter in 1 Peter chapter 1 says this. He says, In this you greatly rejoice, even though for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials. Peter speaks about trials and the truth about trials. He tells us that trials are temporary. They're for a little while. They don't last forever. But they're temporary. On top of that, they're very timely, he says, even though now for a little while they're temporary. If necessary, they're timely. You know, none of us wants to go through what we as a country or a world is going through at this time. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody likes to do that. But God has designed this. It's very timely. In how timely it is, we don't always know in the moment. We'll be able to look back on and say, wow, that time of that trial was the perfect time. For me and my family. Because trials are temporary. They are timely. And by the way, they are taxing. They are taxing. For he says, You have been distressed by various trials. Trials can be extremely taxing. For some of you, they're taxing financially. And I understand that. There's a financial tax upon your life. No pun intended. Sorry about that. There's also an emotional stress, right? It's taxing you emotionally and mentally. And so you have this time. And if you have the virus, it's taxing on you physically. And so they are very, very distressing. But listen to what he says: that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire. may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ, and though you have not seen him You love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible. And full of glory.

That tells us that trials are not only temporary. Are not only time, are not only taxing, but a real. God is doing such a great work that those trials are thr. Because even though you don't see Him, You love him. Remember what Job said? In the midst of his trial, he was struggling because they were distressful. But when God spoke to him and realized the timeliness of his trial, because he had already realized how taxing his trial was. He realized how thrilling the trial was. Because what did he say at the very end? He said I have known you with the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes have seen thee. He had heard of God. He knew God. But he had never seen God. His trial allowed him to see God. Not with a physical eye. Job didn't see God with the physical eye. But we saw him with a spiritual eye. He had spiritual vision. He had spiritual 20-2 vision because he was able to see that God was at work. Even though you might not see him, you love him because you know he's there. You know he's there. And so there is this aspect where we love the Lord.

Wasn't that what Peter was questioned about in John's Gospel at the end, in John chapter 21, when Christ had met Peter there on the shores of Galilee? If you've been to Israel with me and you know the shores of Galilee and you know, presumably the vicinity in which it would be in, you don't know an exact location, and that's okay. But the fact of the matter is that the Lord had had breakfast with Peter and he asked Peter, he said, Peter, do you love me more than these? What are these? Are they the nets? The fishing business? Is it the other disciples that are there? The question for Peter was, do you love me, Peter, supremely? Do you love me supremely, Peter, more than anything else?

And that's a question all of us can be asked. Do we love the Lord more than anything or anyone else? Because that was the question our Lord asked: Do you love me more than these? And he says, Oh, Lord, you know I love you. And Christ comes back again and says, Peter. Do you really love me? In other words, not only do you love me supremely, Do you love me singularly? Am I the single focus of your love, Peter? And Peter says, Lord, you know that I love you. And then he comes back a third time. He says, Peter, do you really love me? Not Peter, do you love me supremely? Because that's a question we must ask and answer. Do you love me singularly? Am I the sole person you love? Peter, do you love me sincerely? Do you really love me, Peter?

And that's a question all of us need to be asked.

Because you see, our love for Christ must be un. Und and un. That is Our love for the Lord must truly be unparalleled. I must love Him supremely. There should be no parallels to my love for Christ. If I'm going to live for Him, I love Him supremely. My love is unparalleled. I must love him singularly. My love for him is undivided. You can't love two masters. You can only love one. Do you love me singularly? And Peter, do you love me sincerely? Is my love for the Lord un? Is it an un love? I would pray that that would be you and me, that that's the way we would truly love the Lord.

The Lord said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Do what I say. You see, love is always more visible than vocal. Is it not? It's more visible than vocal. I can say I love you, but never show it to you. But if we show it to the Lord, if we demonstrate it to Him by keeping His commandments, by following Him obediently. He knows that we love him. And everybody else knows you love him. And your children know you love him.

I wonder if your wife knows, if your children know, that you love the Lord. Supremely. Your love for Him is unparalleled. If you love Him singularly, He is a single focus of your love, it's undivided. Not that you don't love your wife, you don't love your children, but your love for Christ is supreme. It's singular, it's very sincere. It's unhypocritical, unfe.

You know, I've come to realize that your children know what you love, right? Absolutely. They know whether or not you love the Lord. You can't fool your children. Can't fool your wife. And you certainly can't fool the Lord. That's why the Lord came back and questioned Peter. Can't fool me, Peter. What did Peter say? Lord, you know all things. Because he does, right? He knows all things. Then he says to Peter, what? Peter, you follow me. Follow me, Peter. Because Peter would learn to live that extinguished life. For he would die for the Lord, that relinquished life, that distinguished life of certainly and solely living for Christ.

How do you know he lived for Christ? You listen to him. You love him.

And then, number three, you learn all you can about him. You want to learn about the Christ, right?

I love what the Apostle Paul says. He does, oh, that I may know him. But it goes beyond that because when he was in the Mammotine prison in Rome in 2 Timothy chapter 4. He told Timothy, When you come, come before the winter. And when you get here, bring the scrolls, bring the parchments. Paul is about to die. But he still wanted to learn about his God. You see, his whole life was about living for Christ. He wasn't going to stop living for him at the end. He was going to continue to live for him. He loved him so. And because he loved him so, he wanted to learn all he could about him.

And that's the way we should be. Taking every opportunity, every advantage that we can, and now more so than ever, you have time to learn. You have time to sit and study. You have time to sit and read. You have time to sit and exercise your mind. Discipline yourself unto godliness. Now is your time. Now you can Because if you can't do it now, you certainly won't do it. When everything returns to normal, whenever that may be, or whatever the new normal might be, you certainly won't then.

Do you learn all you can about him? Remember Daniel 11:3? Those who know their God Are the ones who take act and display strength They display strength. They take action. They're active people. They're active doing the things of God. Those who know their God display strength and they take action. They do what they do because they know God, and their strength comes from their knowledge of God. Because God has infused them with His Word.

Oh. Remember God said to Jeremiah, Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. And let not the mighty man boast in his might. This is Jeremiah 9, 2 and 2. Let not the rich man boast in his riches. Don 't glory in this. Don 't be heavy in this. Don 't shine bright in this. If you want to shine bright in this area, that you understand and that you know me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kind and righteousness on the earth, justice and righteousness on the earth. For I delight in these things. Do you know me?

If I'm going to focus on life's priority, I'm going to live for Christ. To live for Christ means that I listen to Him, I love Him, I learn Him, and I lean on Him. I lean on Him. He is my sole means of support. He is my fortress. So my wife can lean on me, so my children can lean on me. Because in doing so, I'm going to teach them how to lean on God. If I'm learning about Him because I love Him so, then I'm leaning on Him, and they too need to learn and love Him and lean on Him as well.

And so now as I lean on the Lord Christ him, he is my tower of strength. Remember Proverbs 18, verse number 10? The name of the Lord is a strong tower, and the righteous run to it and are safe.

This Sunday, we're going to talk about what that means. We're going to talk about relying upon the Lord, what it means to lean on the Lord, and we're going to show you some magnificent things in Scripture that are going to overwhelm you. But they are going to be so valuable to you. So you learn to rely solely, depend solely upon the Lord, because that's going to abolish your anxiety. Because you have a stronghold to lean on.

Well, if we live for Christ, we lean on Him. Remember Proverbs 3, 5, and 6? Trust in the Lord with all your heart? Lean not on your own understanding? How many times within the crisis that we're facing, within this coronavirus, this epidemic? Do we lean on our own understanding? Do I go get another job? Do I stay with this job? Do I take all my money out of my 401k? Do I keep it in there? Are we going to lose money? What's going to happen next? And we begin to lean on our own understand. Lean on my own creativity, my own ingenuity. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understand. In all your ways acknowledge Him. He will make your paths smooth.

Listen, your path becomes very smooth when you lean on the one who takes you through that path. Our Lord is the one we are to lean on. He is our tower of strength. He's our fortress. He is our hiding place. To live for Christ, you listen to everything he says. You love him. You learn all you can about him so you can lean on him all the more.

And then you long. You long for him. You long to be with him. Psalm 63, we read earlier, the first portion of the text that says, God, Thou art my God. I shall seek Thee earnestly. My soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh yearns for Thee, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. There's this longing to be with God. There's this longing to know God. There's this yearning in my soul. That's what it means to live for Christ. I long to be with him, I long to hear him, and I long to be with his people.

Listen, you can't separate the two. If you long to be with God, you long to be with his people. When this whole virus is subsided and we're back at church, I'm praying that you're longing to be with the people of God. I would pray that this time away would increase that longing, increase that yearning to gather together because God inhabits the praises of his people. And so when we gather together with the people of God, we are able to understand more there is about God because we're the body of Christ who's come together to worship Him. You long to be with him. And that's evidenced by longing to be with his people. Those who don't long to be with his people I'm not talking about through social media, that's all we have right now. But when that's all said and done, it's really tangibly being with people, sm people. They give off an odor, not in a bad way, a good way, but you smell the beauty of people. You touch the people. You look eye to eye with people. You can sense the emotion in the people. Oh, it's just such a great time. But you'll want to be with the people of God because you'll love God so much. They are the body, He's the head of us. We are us. And we long to be with Him, and we long to be with one another.

And then there's this looking to Him, this constant looking above. eagerly anticipating the return of Christ and fixing our eyes solely upon Him, as the writer of Hebrews say in Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Fixing your eyes on Jesus. As Paul would say in Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 to 4, because He is our life, we set our affections on things above. We're constantly looking up. We're constantly looking vertical, not horizontal, but vertical, because that's where Our Father is in heaven. We are constantly looking upward, because in doing so we live in anticipation of his soon return. We long for him so much. That we look to him constantly, saying, Maybe this is the day. Maybe this is the time of my Lord's return. That's what it means to live for Christ. To focus once again on life's priority. For me to live as Christ, to die as gain.

Are you living for Christ? How do you know you are? You can't wait to listen to Christ. You can't wait to love the Christ all the more. You can't wait to learn all you can about him so you can lean on him, so you can long more and more for him, so you'll constantly look. For his return, if you're doing that, now you can lead for him because you're loyal to him. Those who are loyal to him lead for him. And the only way you can lead for him by being that fortress, by being that stronghold, that bulwark, that rampart, that shield, that hiding place. Is to listen, is to love, is to learn, is to lean, is to long. And to look for him.

My prayer for all of us is that truly We would focus once again on life's priority and live for Christ.

Let's pray together. Our Most Gracious Heavenly Father, what a great joy. What a great joy we have to study the Word of God. It's a brief moment, but it truly is a beautiful moment. It's a valuable moment because for these brief moments we have redeemed the time. We have bought it back for eternity's sake. We have purchased it for glory. So much so that we can now take what we've learned and flesh it out. And I pray for our fathers, our mothers, they would live these principles, and might teach them to their children. So all will know that Christ reigns supreme. Lord, we want to live for you. Help us do so. All the more, not just tomorrow, not just this week and next, not just during this pandemic, but forever. In Jesus' name you pray. Amen. Thank you so much. Hopefully, we'll see you this Sunday. Have a great night.