Fatherhood: A Fortress For The Family, Part 3

It's great to be with you here in the middle of the week, the opportunity for us to open the Word of the Lord again and to understand some things that God has for us You know, the middle of the week is like a refueling time It's an opportunity for us to kind of refocus and redirect our lives We can refocus our attention on the Lord, and we can redirect our aspirations Toward the Lord All that is so important You know, we get so busy throughout each and every week and doing this and doing that

Of course, maybe not as busy now as we have been in the past, but still, there's those things that come upon us To take a moment in the middle of the week just to refuel the jets, is to be able to once again look at the word of the Lord and see what He has for us So important And I hope that you're with us on Sunday mornings as we study God's Word together, abolishing anxiety, looking at what the Bible says concerning how it is we can eradicate all those anxious Emotions that we have, no matter what's going on in our lives

And we're looking at what the Bible has to say about that. I trust you're with us, that you can study the scriptures on Sunday mornings with us, and you gather your children around with you to worship the Lord Of course, don't forget that on Thursday, our young people are with Patrick at 3:4 to look at the book of Ephesians Then again, on Sunday after our service At 10:30 to be able to flesh out the scriptures with our students

Great opportunity to be able to once again look at the Word of the Lord. I also want to remind you that on May 2nd, Roger Flores, one of our elders, is doing a Bible study for our men, and that's at 8. 30 in the morning You can contact Roger to figure out how to zoom in on that That you might be a part of that study You can have your breakfast, you can have your coffee, your bagels, whatever you want to have, and study scripture together with the men of our church That's May 2nd

And so please be aware of those opportunities and how it is you can further your knowledge of the truth of God's Holy Word On Wednesday nights, we're looking at fatherhood and how fatherhood is the fortress for the family It's a fortress that provides stability Security It provides a solid foundation Fathers are to be rocks, ramparts, bulwarks We're to be like the hiding place for our family, the place of refuge for our family And I hope that over the last couple of weeks you've learned more about that so that you are able to Apply those principles to your life to be used by the Lord

So important Fatherhood is a great gift That God has given to men to lead in their homes and to be able to be used by God in a mighty way This is an opportunity for you to rise to the occasion To take advantage of the opportunity you have at home, to take advantage of the more time you have with your family And to rise to the challenge, the occasion before you, to make the most of every opportunity, to seize the moment For the sake of God's kingdom and God's glory

That's what we're hoping is going to happen in your life as you anticipate your leadership and how God wants to use you with your family And we have looked at one principle up to this point, and that is the principle of focusing on life's priority If you want to be a father that is the fortress for your family, you have a priority That's to live for Christ In the last couple of weeks, we've looked at that with you. I'm not going to go back and review that You can go back and view the videos or receive the audio about that. and to look at that once again

But not only does the father who is a fortress for his family be one who focus on life's priority, but he's also the man who abstains From all iniquity He abstains from all iniquity Not just some iniquity, but all iniquity He understands Ecclesiastes 9:18 that one sinner destroys much good One sinner He knows that his sin is going to infect and affect his family in negative ways He understands that He understands Paul's principle in 1 Corinthians 5, verse number 6, where a little leaven leavens the whole lump

In other words, sin is like that which permeates the whole household, or in the church, the whole church And so you have to be careful of your life and knowing the effects of sin. and how it's so detrimental to those round about you Nobody ever sins solo, right? When you sin, it's going to affect you down the road, some way, somehow, but it also affects everybody around you, especially those who are close to you And it affects them in a variety of ways But the man who's a fortress doesn't want there to be any weakness in the foundation that he's built He knows that sin weakens the foundation

And sin is that which makes the fortress very, very vulnerable And so he wants to abstain from all iniquity Having focused on life's priority, to live for Christ, because Philippians 1:2 says, For to me to live as Christ and to die is gain He also realizes that living for Christ means that he wants to be like Christ and he doesn't want to engage in sinful behavior Remember what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5 In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul makes it very clear about the things that we are to abstain from He gives a variety of exhortations to the church at Thessalonic

He tells them that they need to rejoice always in verse number 16 They need to pray without ceasing in everything and give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you And then he says this in verse number 19: Do not quench the S Don't dampen the Spirit's work in your life He says, Do not despise prophetic utterances When you hear the words of God, don't despise them Listen to them Observe them Follow them He says this, but examine everything And the context deals with the prophetic utterances But it also deals in a secondary application to looking and judging everything

Examine it, judge it Put it under a microscope Judge everything carefully Hold fast to that which is good And abstain from every form Of evil Abstain from it Abstain from anything that even hints of ev Paul would say, or excuse me, Peter would say in 1 Peter 2, verse number 11, he says, Beloved, I urge you as aliens because we're strangers We're not. acc to this world because we're citizens of another country. I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which war again the soul

There 's a war going on internally, and that war is the fleshly lusts, and we are to be aware of them, to abstain from them As Job said, he's made a covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully upon a woman It's a covenant that he made But if we're going to be a fortress for a family, we need to be the kind of men that abstain from all iniquity Over in the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 5, Paul says these words Ephesians chapter 5 He says in verse number 3, but do not let immorality or imp or greed even be named am you As is proper in the saints Don't even speak about it

And there must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting which are not fitting but rather giving thanks Earlier in Ephesians 4, verse number 17, Paul says, This I say, therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk In the futility or the emptiness of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart And they having become callous, have given them over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity and greediness

But you did not learn Christ in this way Since indeed you have heard Him, and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life You lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind And put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness in the truth We are to be men who ab from all iniquity And I would ask you to rise to the great occasion

Of exam everything, holding that which is good, and ab from every form of evil Think back with me, if you would, to the men of Scripture Men who were great fathers, men who were great leaders And a good question to ask is: can I be a great leader? And a bad father? Can I be a great leader and a horrible husband? Good question to ask Because there are a lot of men who have led armies, who have led nations, who even have led churches But the families are in shambles Their marriages are horrific

Does that make them great leaders? Because they were able to accomplish great feats? Or does the way I am at home matter? Well, I think if you value integrity, it does Think about it that way Do you value integrity? Because integrity speaks about the things that no one else sees but the Lord him And what does the Lord say about your life in the dark when no one else is watching? Your wife knows you better than anybody So do your children

Would they say that you were a great leader because of how you led in your home? If you can't lead in the most intimate of circles, your wife, your children, how can you effectively lead for the Lord in public? You have to ask those questions And so when you think about people who were magnificent leaders Think about how they were at home And there are a lot of godly examples in Scripture And there are a lot of godly men in Scripture You can go back and you can look at Moses and Abraham and Adam You can go back and look at Joshua, Caleb, Nehemiah, Gideon

You can go back and look at Solomon, King David, look at the Apostle Paul, look at the Apostles, look at those men And you can learn a lot about their lives and begin to understand how it is God wants us to live our lives in light of who He is But if I had to pick one man that just kind of blows my mind away, one man that's kind of unique in the way he provides for us biblical manhood He provides for us a kind of manly life, who was not just a leader, but was know in the community By having a great testimony

And that man not only was known in his community, but known in his family as a great leader, as a great man It's a man was Job Job Job 1 reads this way: Job chapter 1 Verse number one There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God And turning away from evil What a testimony Now Job didn't write Job We don't know who wrote the book of Job It's the oldest book in the Old Testament, written over 4,000 years ago And some say Moses was the author of the book of Job Some say Solomon was We don't necessarily know for certain

But we know that this man was a unique man And when he lived, we know that the Old Testament was not complete, was not even written yet And so we learn a lot about Job by understanding that about him But the unique thing about what was said of Job By the author, whoever it was, and how he was viewed in his community, is the same thing God said about

Because when Satan would go out and roam the earth and then come back and present himself before the throne of God, and God asked him, Have you considered my servant Job? And the Lord says this in verse number 8, The Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth Blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil So the writer of the book tells us something about Job and how he was viewed in his community, but he also tells us about how God viewed him, same way Blameless, upright Fearing God and turning away from evil

The book of Proverbs says something unique because this is what Solomon would say He would say in Proverbs chapter 3, Proverbs chapter 3, verse number 6. 3, verse number 7. I'm sorry Do not be wise in your own eyes Fear the Lord and turn away from evil As Job feared God and turned away from evil, Solomon would say, Fearing God causes you to turn away from evil Then over in Proverbs 16, verse number 6, Solomon says this: By loving kind and truth, iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord, one keeps away From evil That's so enlightening So here, Job was a man who was blameless

It wasn't that Job was sinless, but he was blameless Because Job, I'm sure, sinned on many occasions But there is no character flaw in his life that you can hold to his account that would say this man was a sinful man Because he was a blameless man There was nothing to charge to him, nothing to hold to his account that would make him be viewed any other way than a blameless man So he was blameless, he was upright, he stood erect, not just physically, but spiritually, and he was a God fearing man, which caused him To want to turn away from evil In fact, he turned away from evil He despised evil

He hated iniquity so much That when his wife compelled him to curse God and die, he wouldn't do it It says in verse number 10 of Job 2 When his wife came to him and said, Do you hold fast your integrity? In verse number nine, curse God and die But he said to her, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks Shall we indeed accept good from God, and not accept adversity? In all this Job did not sin with his lips. I like how it phrases that Did not sin with his lips Did not curse God

Because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, right? So your lips are only going to speak what's evident in your heart That's how, by your conversation, I can know the condition of your heart By listening to you speak, because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, I can determine the condition of your heart Your words speak volumes to your spiritual condition In all this, Job did not sin with his lips

Which is very important because Job, because he feared God and was a blameless man and was an upright man who loved God, he understood the sovereignty of God. A un thing about Job is that Job he had no Bible, no church to attend, no small group to be a part of No men's study He had really no biblical resources like you and I have today He was a unique man because there were no books on marriage and family And yet Job was unique with his family It says in verse number, His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day

And they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them And it came about when the days of feasting had completed their cycle that Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all For Job said, Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts Thus Job did cont So habitually, continually, Job would offer up prayers on behalf of his family He would offer up burnt offerings on behalf of his children, his sons and daughters All this before Moses, all this before the Levitical system

So how did he know how to do this? How did Job learn this? Job didn't have somebody come alongside of him and disciple him and nurture him Which tells us a lot about this man's character He didn't have anybody hold his hand or necessarily hold him accountable He was a man who feared God, who knew God enough to fear him, who wanted to listen to what he said and follow him And just obeyed God He did what God said He had learned from the very beginning how Adam and Eve had offered sacrifices How Cain and Abel knew how to offer the proper sacrifices to their God, and Abel did, and Cain did not

It was passed down to Noah so that after the flood, and everybody was destroyed, and Noah began to multiply and fill the earth That Job, having come from that, would learn because Noah would offer sacrifices after the flood So he had learned well He had listened well Because the Lord was a priority in his life And with the resources that you and I have today, Job was a great man of God He was a great family man He loved his family enough to pray for them, to lead them spiritually

To be the kind of man to his wife he needed to be, that had a great perspective on God's sovereignty, because when the Sabaeans came and the Chaldeans came and wiped out everything And when their fire came down from heaven and destroyed everything, and a great wind came and destroyed his house and killed his children When Job found out about that, he arose and tore his robe, shaved his head, fell on his ground and worship When adversity came Job's way, his response was to worship It wasn't to question God, it wasn't to complain to God It was simply to worship God

And he said, Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord Through all this Job did not sin, nor did he blame God See, Job teaches us that character is king Character reigns supreme And Job would be the kind of man who demonstrates to us the kind of character That amidst his pain, amidst his adversity, he never turned his back on God He never walked away from God He feared God He was an upright man He turned away from evil He wanted to live for the Lord

The compelling question for you and me is, are we men who abstain from all iniquity? You know, during this time in our country's history, we've come to realize several things We've come to realize, number one, that domestic abuse has has risen to double digits over the last three to four weeks, all across the country So we know that, you know, you marry somebody for better, for worse, but you don't marry them necessarily for lunch, right? And so husbands are home all the time now, and all of a sudden, domestic abuse is on the rise Child abuse is on the rise Al is on the rise

We realize, too, that pornography is on the rise And are you one of those men who hates iniquity, who, as Psalm 97, 10 says, All you who love the Lord hate ev, hate iniquity Do you hate it enough to abstain from it? To run away from it Over in First Timothy chapter 6, the Apostle Paul says these words to young Timothy But flee from these things, you man of God What a great phrase, man of God Nobody in the New Testament is called a man of God Paul was a man of God, but he was never called a man of God Peter was a man of God, but he wasn't called a man of God

Timothy not only was a man of God, he was called a man of God by the Apostle Paul But you, O man of God, we know from the Old Testament that David was called a man of God, that Daniel was called a man of God So here is Timothy being called a man of God But you, Timothy, oh man of God, you flee these things Flee what things? What's he supposed to flee? Well, in verse number 9, it says: Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare. and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge men into ruin and destruction for the love of money, is the root of all sorts of evil

And some longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pang But you, O man of God, you, Timothy, you flee you flee the love of money You flee these things, Timothy Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 6, verse number 18, we're to flee immorality Flee immorality In 1 Corinthians 10:1, flee idolatry Make sure you don't have another God that reigns supreme over the one true God Flee anything that is rising in your mind and heart above the living God Flee idolatry Flee immorality In 2 Timothy 2. 2, flee youthful lust And here, flee the love of money

And the word is fue, which means to run from In other words, Timothy is to be a running man He is to run away He is to be a fugitive from evil That's what fueg means We get our English word fugitive You were to be a fugitive from evil, running away from evil. I wonder if that is what characterizes you As fathers, how do we provide that fortress for a family? Well, if you're not running away from evil, Your children won't be running away from evil You're either running from it or running towards it

And we lead by example, right? And 1 Timothy 4:1 says that we're to be an example in our purity, in our holiness, in the life we live for the living God And so Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy, you need to be a running man Like Joseph, when he was tempted by Potiphar's wife, he would flee He was a running man He ran away from Potiphar's wife because he wanted to flee immorality Paul knows that loving money would lead Timothy the wrong direction, because loving money is the root of all kinds of evil Money is not wrong, and having money is not wrong

But if you desire it and you love it and you aspire after it It's going to cause many, many pains, not only in your life, but your family's life, right? So he says, flee from these things, you men of God But if you're running from something, you've got to be running towards something, right? So he says, you, Timothy, you flee these things and you pursue Righteousness, flee sin and pursue, follow after spiritual virtues He says, you want to be a pursuer of spiritual virtues, Timothy If you're running from sin, then you need to run towards something, and that something is right

That's something that is godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness Timothy, run after these things Don't run after sin Run after the spiritual virtues that made you and make you a man of God Be that kind of man, Timothy And so he wants him, and the word to pursue is a hunting term It's a word used to track down something So you're hunting after righteousness You're hunting down godliness You're hunting down faith Your commitment and your conviction To the promises and precepts and plans and purposes of God You hunt that down, Timothy You hunt down a goddamn lifestyle

You hunt down righteous living That's not positional righteousness, that's practical righteousness You hunt down how to live or how to match how you live with who you are in Christ Timothy, you hunt down perseverance Hup mon, to bear up under pressure Oh, that's just such a good thing Timothy, you need to hunt that down You need to strive for that, Timothy, because you need to be able to bear up under the pressure of circumstances and the events in life We've told our children that pressure is pleasure, right? So pray for pressure that you might be able to Play with pleasure Pray for pressure

So you can play with pleasure Because pleasure com from pressure If you understand how to bear up under that pressure and live for God, and then he says, pursue gentleness, lowliness of mind These are things you run toward, Timothy You abstain from evil You run from evil You run from all kinds of iniquity Just be a running man But pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, perseverance, gentleness And then he says, fight the good fight of the faith Get a grip on eternity And then he goes on

Say these words: that you may keep the commandments without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ Timothy, I need you to be this kind of man And so he echoes the life of Of Job Job was a running man He wanted to flee evil He wanted to be an upright man, pursue righteousness But it's because he truly feared the true and living God. I remember the words of John Wesley Who said these words? Give me a hundred men Just a hundred men, not a thousand men, not a million men, just give me a hundred men. who fear nothing but s and desire nothing but God

And he says, I care not a straw Whether they be clergymen or laymen such alone with those such alone I will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth Just a hundred men Who fear nothing but sin, desire nothing but God They desire God so much that they just run away from sin Give me a hundred men who will do that and will shake the gates of hell Will set up God's kingdom on earth People know that Christ is king People see the kingship of Christ in your life That's the kind of fathers that provide a fortress for their family Those are the kind of fathers that wives run to

They run to a man Who's like a strong tower that they can find a hiding place from sin Same for your children, who face temptation every day Can you, as a father, be able to provide for them a way to overcome temptation? To show them how to defeat the wiles of the devil by putting on the whole armor of God and living for the glory of God You see, your children need to find a solid rock Because you see, you are providing for them a picture of the ultimate rock, the rock, the refuge, the bulwark The stronghold, the Lord God Himself

And as you provide that framework for them, as you provide that model for them, they then in turn will learn to trust That fortress for their lives That's my prayer for you That's my prayer for me That we focus on life's priority to live for God Live for him, desire him, honor him And that we abstain from all iniquity We don't love the world, neither the things that are in the world Why? Because if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you But you love the true and living God So much so that you want to turn away, run away, flee sin, abstain from all iniquity

And provide for your family a framework that says, this is how we live for Christ That's what we need And I would trust that you'd be that man. I'm going to pray that you'd be that man, that fortress for your family Let me pray with you Father, we thank you for this great and glorious day In the middle of the week, where we can recharge the batteries, that we can refuel our lives Refocus and redirect our attention and aspirations above My prayer for the fathers, for the men of our church, they'd be strongholds

Fortresses for their families, and that they'd be the kind of refuge that they can run to, their children can run to, their wives can run to And they, like Job, even though am adversity, he would still stand strong, he would still fear God, he would still seek to be an upright man And provide for his wife, who lost everything as well Provide for his wife The strength that she would need to take her through her loss We thank you, Lord, for the biblical examples you give us May we heed your word May we obey your word because we truly want to focus our hearts and minds above and not below

As you live the rest of this week, until we meet again this Lord's Day, go before us We pray in Jesus' name Amen Thank you so much for coming Being a part of this time with us this evening Have a great rest of the week.