Fatherhood: A Fortress For The Family, Part 4

It is so good to have you back with us again this Wednesday night, to be able to discuss once again the truths of Scripture. I'm excited about what we're going to talk about tonight It's dear to my soul, and I'm excited about it, and hopefully you will be too when it's all said and done But just before we get started, just a reminder that this Saturday, Roger Flores is doing Zooming through the life of Christ You want to be a part of that? Just contact Roger, and you can be a part of that gentleman this Saturday at 8:3

And you can have your coffee and your bagel and enjoy time with other men of our church Then again on Sunday, abolishing anxiety, we'll look at point number five What a great study It's going to get better and better as we go We have four more points to cover And when it's all said and done, you'll be able to have in a nutshell the things you need to understand in order to eradicate all your worries and to be able to move on and live a life free of anxiety That's my prayer for you and for me as we understand God's call upon our life And I'm excited about that opportunity

But before that, we have tonight And tonight is something that's so dear to my heart Because it's point three of our outline in terms of fatherhood, a fortress for your family We told you point number one is that you need to focus on life's priority Focus on life's priority Philippians 1:2, for to me to live as Christ, to die as gain, the priority is living for Christ And if you don't focus on that, then you can't be that foundational refuge for your family Number two is abstain from all iniquity And that is Proverbs 3, verse number 7 By the fear of the Lord of one keeps us away from evil

And we need to abstain from all those things that cause us to fall away from the Lord, that tempt us to sin and turn our backs on the Lord Hate evil, you who love the Lord Psalm 97, 10 That's the way we ought to be Once you begin to sin, one sinner destroys much good It affects your whole family It infects your whole family in such a way it begins to permeate the entire house, and one little leaven leaven the whole lump So, gentlemen, you need to abstain from iniquity In fin is point number three

And if you want to be that foundation, that bulwark, that solid rock for your family, you need to treasure your legacy That 's point number three Treasure Your legacy Told you a couple of weeks ago on Sunday morning about my father when he was diagnosed with ALS Today is the day, April 28th. I'm recording this on a Tuesday You're going to see it on a Wednesday But on April 28th, seven years ago, this day, my dad was diagnosed with ALS And the unique thing about my dad is that he taught me how to live with pain He taught me how to work through anxiety

For those 17 months that he suffered through ALS, and before he died, I was able to see a man living with pain But on top of that, I realized that throughout his whole life my father taught me so many valuable lessons that he passed down to me That I might be able to carry on the legacy that my dad began He began it because his father wasn't saved His father didn't know the Lord His mom didn't know the Lord But when my dad gave his life to Christ, he purposed in his heart to change the direction of his family And so he passed down to me and to my sister the legacy of truth, a lasting legacy

That would impact our lives, so that we could then impact our children, so that then, in turn, our children could impact their children. I ask you tonight, what legacy will you leave behind? Not a legacy just for now, or even for tomorrow, but forever The Bible tells us in Psalm 112, verse number 6, that the memory of the righteous lasts forever Will you be able to pass down a legacy that truly, truly lasts forever? Because there's only two things that last forever: God's Word and people Nothing else does Everything in the world is going to pass away

And we want to pass down to our children our finances, which you can do. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, right? Or you can pass down your car, your home, all that as a part of your legacy But the real legacy Is in that which lasts forever And that's God's wor and people And so you want to be able to invest God's word into people Because those are the treasures of your legacy And the man of God is going to treasure that legacy in such a way, he's going to build a stronger for For his family

My dad would build a fortress for his family, and he would build it so it would be strong and stable And he did it in a way that I think for the most part he didn't even know what he was doing But when I'm able to look back on his life and when I preached his memorial service I began to outline for the people what it is my dad had taught me over the years that I lived at home and beyond that And that was my dad's legacy It was all about a legacy of truth His favorite verse was 3 John 4. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth No greater joy That was his joy

He couldn't wait to hear about the things of God in my life and to hear about how God was working in my life and my family's life That's what made my dad so excited That's all that mattered to him And I would trust that that's all that matters to you. I want you to treasure your legacy. I want you to value your legacy Wh you treasure something, you treat it with great care and protection, because you want it to last for a long time Well, you want your legacy to last beyond your life To the next generation and to the succeeding generations

David said it this way in Psalm 7, or ex me, Psalm 7, verse number 17. O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth. and I still declare Thy wondrous deeds and even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Thy strength to this generation, Thy power to all who are to come David wanted to declare to this generation and all who are to come after that The power of God, the strength of God, the providence of God He wanted people to know His God He was a king He wasn't interested in people knowing about his crown, or even his credentials as a soldier, and a warrior, and a singer

That wasn important to him, as great as he was at those things, and he was great at them He just wanted to pass on the truth about God That's what mattered most to him, and that's what should matter most to you and me So, my challenge for you, for me, is to ask ourselves: how are we passing that down? You know, my dad lived a complete life Colossians 2. 9 We are, or you are, complete in him About being in Christ means that you are complete positionally and you are complete with all the resources you need to live a goddamn life You are complete in Christ

And my father understood that completeness He understood that a completed life Is a continuing life Those who are complete in Christ continue on with Christ, and therefore they pass on to others that work And that's what I want for you That's what I want for me So you got to ask yourself: what are you passing down to your children? What is it they see you valuing the most? I want you to treasure your legacy

And I want to show you how it is you do that. I'm going to explain to you in the time that we have left about how it is you can actually treasure your legacy so that when you are called home to be with the Lord You can have something left behind that lasts forever That's what really makes difference So I want it for you. I want it for me. I want the men of our church to understand these things And I would trust you'd be able to pass this on to your children and they through to their children because this really truly matter

And these principles are the principles I shared when my father went home to be with the Lord. I shared it as an introduction to my sermon that day It's quite lengthy, but it was a long introduction And those of you who know me, that's a lot of times what I do anyway So, this is what it means to be complete in Christ so that you're in the process of treasuring your legacy Okay? Those who treasure their legacy Number one, are favored by God Favored by God Not because of anything that you've done, because you haven't done anything to gain God's favor But you truly have been graced by God

Remember Moses? I'm sorry Noah Sorry, wrong guy Noah, in Genesis chapter 6, it says in verse number 6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart And the LORD said, I will blot out man, whom I have created from the face of the land. from man to animals, to creeping things, and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made him Why? Because everything in the heart of man was only evil continually So he says, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord But Noah, those but of Scripture Oh, are so huge But Noah

Every man did that which was. right in his own eyes, every man was evil in his own heart, every thought, every every motive of a man was evil He was continually filled with iniquity But Noah found favor Noah was graced by God Noah was just like everybody else, filled with sin But God chose to grace him It's the first time the word grace is used in the Bible God would stoop down and show favor to Noah And then it says, These are the records of the generations of Noah Noah was a righteous man He wasn't favored because he was a righteous man He was a righteous man because he was favored by God

He was positionally right with God because God chose to fav He was blameless in his time, and Noah walked with God. A favored man is a graced man. A graced man is a merciful man, because he has found mercy in God For by grace are you saved through faith, not yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast He had received the gift of God's grace To be complete in Christ, so you can treasure your legacy, you must be favored by God And I wonder if you have found God's favor Not because you've done anything great, but because you have truly Receive the gift of grace

It's the gift of God that grants men eternal life And it's God who chooses you, not by works of righteousness which you have done, but by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Spirit of God How the grace of God appeared to man Titus 2 And I would trust that you have found favor with God because that's what it means to be complete in Christ And once you are, the legacy that lasts forever is something you treasure dearly He was favored by God Number two, he was forgiven by God Forgiven by God My father understood the essence of forgiveness What it meant to be set free from your sins

The Bible says in Psalm 32, verse number 1, Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven Whose sin is covered Blessed, blessed is the man whom the Lord does not impute Iniquity, who does not charge to man his sin That's the forgiven man It's like those in Acts chapter five who repented and found the forgiveness of sins It's like Abraham in Genesis fifteen He was one who belie God and it was reckoned unto him as righteousness He was forgiven of his sins You see, once you're forgiven of your sins, your legacy begins to loom large Because you are free from your guilt

Because God has set you free from your sin. A favored man is a forgiven man. A forgiven man is a friend of God Those favored by God, forgiven by God, are a friend of God You know, in the book of Genesis, we realize about Abraham, and James tells us in James 2:2 that Abraham was a friend of God He's the only person in the Old Testament called the friend of God It's not that David wasn't a friend of God, it's not that Solomon wasn't or other Old Testament characters weren't friends of God But Abraham was called a friend of God

And Jesus said these words in John's Gospel, the 15th chapter, in verse number 14, You are my friends If you do what I command you, no longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends For all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. A friend of God God calls us his friends Those who have found favor with God have been forgiven by God and are the friend of God That's the basis for the legacy That's the foundation for the legacy That's where it all stems from

And the number four is this: a man who treasures his legacy fears God He truly fears God. I'm really astounded at the number of people who claim to know Christ as Savior who are. living lives of fear during this pandemic That that baffles me because we should be those who fear nothing Let alone fear death, because that's all been removed from us, right? And the fear of God is so important Years ago, we wrote a book called The Fear of God Best little pamphlet ever It's so good

Because it spells out for you what it means to fear God, how do you know you fear God, and what are the consequences of fearing God? If you don't have this book, I would encourage you to get it If you don't have it, we'll give it to you for free All you can do is let us know We'll make sure you get it It's a great little booklet Something you can do with your children And it's based off of what Solomon said What does Solomon say in Ecclesiastes 12:13? The end of every man is what? Fear God, keep his commandments That's it That's the end of every man Fear God, keep His commandments

In Solomon, who wrote the book of Proverbs Speaks so much about the fear of God In fact, over in Proverbs chapter 14, let's look at what he says in verse number 26 In the fear of the Lord, there is strong confidence In other words, if you fear God, you have tremendous confidence Tremendous boldness, tremendous courage, because your fear is in nothing around you, no circumstances, no situations, no virus There is strong confidence In the fear of the Lord, there is strong confidence, and His children will have refuge Wow His children will have refuge His children will have protection

His children will have a place of security and safety Why? Because they know that Dad Is strong When you fear God, you have strong confidence And your children find a place of refuge Sol would write that And Solomon to write the book of Proverbs because he wants your son to understand the truths of Scripture and wants to pass down a lasting legacy of truth And then over in Psalm Psalm 112 Psalm 112 these words are written Psalm 112, verse number 1 Praise the Lord How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments

Those who fear the Lord greatly delight in God's commandments His descendants will be mighty on earth His descendants will be mighty on earth You want to leave a legacy? Fear the Lord, delight in his command Isaiah 8, verse number 13, The Lord of hosts shall be your fear He and He only shall be your dread If you dread the Lord, you'll delight in his commandments and your descendants Will be great upon the earth And that's what the psalmist said He says, His generation of the upright will be blessed Wealth and riches are in his house And his righteousness endures forever

That's where it goes on to say verse number 6, for he will never be shaken, the righteous will be remembered forever This man is unshakable because he's so strong, there's strong confidence in the fear of the Lord He will never be shaken He will not fear evil tidings His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord His heart is upheld He will not fear He went off for his surroundings How great is that? Psalm 128 Psalm 128 picks up on that The psalmist says this

How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, whether you're a son, a daughter, father, mother, how blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy, and it will be well with you Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like olive plants around your table Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed who fears The Lord ind, he says, May you see your children's children, because they will prosper They will be successful because you feared the L

How about you? You fear the Lord? You want to leave a lasting legacy? You're favored by God, forgiven by God, a friend of God, and fear God That is a man who treasures his legacy because he's going to pass on from generation to generation the beauty of his God. I'm reminded of the words of the psalm in Psalm 103 In Psalm 103, the psalmist said in verses 18 and 19, I believe it is Psalm 103. I'll pick it up in verse 15 As for man, his days are like grass As a flower of the field, so he flourishes When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer

In other words, not going to live long Man's life is Is like the grass Here today, gone tomorrow But another one of those but But the loving kind of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him and His righteousness to children's children to those who keep His covenant, and who remember His pre To do them, there's something about the legacy passed down to your children that happens in a profound way when you fear the Lord And I would trust that that would be you So the man who is complete in Christ understand that being completed in him allows you to continue on with him

And for your legacy to continue from generation to generation, you're favored by God, forgiven by God, a friend of God, and fear God Number five Fix on God Fix on God Psalm 57, verse number 7, says, My heart is fixed, O God My heart is fixed On thee Your heart is completely fixed When you fix your gaze on something, when you stare at something, so as to have your eyes penetrate that which you're looking upon That's the man who is able to pass on to his children the importance of being fixed and focussed upon the Christ

That's why the right of Hebrews says in Hebrews 12, fixing your eyes upon the author and creator Of your faith Fix your eyes on Him, the author and creator of your faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame Fix your eyes upon Jesus Remember 1 Corinthians 15:5? Be ye fixed, steadfast Immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord

How come you do that? Because you're fixed on the resurrection of Christ. 1 Corinthians 15 is all about the resurrection of Christ and how, because He is that which has taken on that which is imperishable, so now we become imperishable Because there's no victory that death has over us We've gained the victory over death And because when we focus on the resurrection and our eyes are fixed on the resurrected Christ, we are steadfast Fixed, immovable, unshakable, abounding always in the work of the Lord That's what we want to do And so you need to be fixed upon the Lord Christ

Fixing your eyes on something is a trust issue So many times our eyes are moved away from the Lord We ought to set our affections on things above, fix our eyes on things above Why? Because that's where Christ sitt at the right hand of God the Father But there are so many distractions that come our way It's like driving down the down the freeway, eyes are supposed to be fixed in front of you, knowing what the traffic's like in front of you, to the side of you, in the rear of you, being fixed on where you're going

But there are so many signs along the way, so many conversations that take place in the car So much music that's being played, it distracts us from our undivided attention We need to have an undivided attention upon the Christ When we do, we are slowly but surely passing on to the next generation the import of the Lord Jesus Christ, that nothing will take our gaze off of him Those who are complete in Christ are favored by God, forgiven by God, are friend of God, fear God, fixed on God, they are, number six, fed by God They're fed by God

Matthew 4, verse number 4, Christ said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God Peter said in 1 Peter 2, verse number 2, As newborn babes desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby There is this feeding process that takes place in our lives That causes us to grow inwardly and to grow spiritually for the sake of our relationship with the living God The Bible says that we're to taste and see that the Lord is good Jeremiah said, Thy words are found, and I did eat them, and they were the joy and the rejoicing of my heart

Jeremiah understood that That even though everybody else around him rejected him and nobody would listen to him, I mean, the Lord told him, you're going to be my spokesperson, you're going to speak for me, but no one's going to listen But yet, it wasn't the fact that people listened It was that God's word was everything to him It was a joy of his heart Job said it this way In Job 23, verse number 12, I have not departed from the commandments of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food

Job, who was suffering with boil, having lost everything except for his wife, said, I don't wander away from God's commandments. I treasure his words I treasure them more than my necessary food In fact, God's word is more necessary than my food My spiritual health is more important than my physical health How many people do you know like that? Where you are spiritually with the Lord is so much more important than where you are physically But that was Job And he suffered greatly

It would be the psalmist who said in Psalm 19, after talking about the law of the Lord, the commandments of the Lord, the testimony of the Lord, and How they restore the soul, and how they are that which may clear the mind And there's just such a beautiful portrait of the Word of God He says these words: He says, They, the word of God, is more desirable than gold, yes, and much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb Moreover, by them Thy servant is ward in keeping them, there is great reward There is great reward in keeping the commandments of God

Because the psalmist knew what it meant to feed on God's word Listen When you teach your children, when you're able to sit around the table and talk about the things of the Lord, you know, your children can't drink water from a dry cistern They can't drink water from a dry fountain There has to be this running water, this flowing river, where there's fresh water all the time, so that when they come to drink of it, it's always fresh, it's always pure, it's always clean That only happens because you're being fed on God's Word And as you're being fed on God's Word, you're growing spiritually

And the river that flows from you is a clean, flowing river of truth Your children need that from you You know, I look back at my life, and I can remember, you know, my father never taught me how to study the Bible He never did. I didn't really understand how to study the Bible really until I went off to college and seminary But my dad always studied the Bible He always studied the Bible He was always in the word And although my dad didn't have the tools and the techniques by which to teach me how to study the Bible He always studied the Bible, which taught me I need to be studying the Bible

You see, fellas, this is what you need to be doing Modeling to your children what it is they need to be doing As you are constantly feeding on the Word of God, your children will know you're growing spiritually They're going to know you're, for lack of a better phrase, gaining weight spiritually Because they're going to be feeding from you They're going to be learning from you They're going be drinking water from the fountain that flows with fresh water

Are you fed by God? Are you studying God's Word? Are you in the Word of the Lord each day? You know, we have so many mechanisms, tools here by which we teach you to study the Word of God. I hope you take advantage of those things Those who have been involved in our TC program have learned so much over the last two years Looking forward to our third year together But they've grown so immensely because of the truth of God they're learning week in and week out And we, as a church, want to help you grow in your walk with the Lord

And I would trust you to take advantage of those things. I want you to be complete in Christ so that you can treasure your legacy, protect your legacy, value your legacy, because there is no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth That happens when a favored by God, forgiven by God, a friend of God, fear God, fixed on God, fed by God And then number seven, fuel by God Fueled by God Those who are fed by God, well, they're fueled by God Colossians 3:16, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly Let it be at home in your heart That's the same equivalent

To being filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5:18, being controlled by the Spirit of God, being moved by the Spirit of God, walking in the Spirit of God You are fueled by God's Spirit How is that? When the Word of Christ dwells in you richly, it's the Word of God that moves you, it propels you, it compels you To live for Christ And when that happens, wow, you're fueled by Him And a man fueled by Christ is a man of prayer So important. A man of prayer Because that's that fuel that energizes the soul Because you're fed by God

You know how to communicate and pray to God because you know what His Word says And again, I'll go back to my Father He never taught me how to pray He never said, Son, when you pray, pray this way He never did But my dad was always praying He always took me to prayer meeting And I told you a story for some of you who know this, that we used to go to prayer meeting every Wednesday night, and there was only me, there was no other high school student or junior high school student at a prayer meeting My parents made me go Parents need to make your children do the right thing

They might not want to do it, make them do the right thing Going to church Right thing Be involved in youth ministry, right thing Be involved in children's ministry, the right thing Make em do the right thing They do so many wrong things anyway Make em do the right thing My parents made me go to prayer meeting. I was the only one there But I sat in a room on those little itty bitty chairs that little kids sit in That's what we kneeled on and put our elbows on'em So uncomfortable We prayed for an hour every Wednesday night And I prayed with all these old guys around me

They were so much older than me But I learned to pray, because prayer is more caught than taught You catch prayer, and listening to my father pray, listening to these men pray, I learned how to pray That was the fuel behind these men The man of God who's completing Christ is fueled by Christ He treasures his legacy so much, he wants to be fueled by the Christ He wants to be fed By the Christ He wants to be fixed on the Christ He wants to be fearful of the Christ That's the man of God who's complete in Christ And next, you want to make sure that you're faithful to God Faithful to God

So important to be trustworthy The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 4, verses 1 and 2, it's required of a steward that he be found faithful You know, I've learned in life that it's always more important to be faithful than it is to be successful God values faithfulness. I've also found out that those who are fueled by God and fed by God are those who are the most faithful to God Because those are the ones who fear God the most

Are you faithful to God? Are you faithful in your discipline? Are you faithful in your duty? Are you faithful in your diligence? Are you faithful in your dev Devotion and dedication Are you completely trustworthy and loyal and faithful to God? Oh, your children need to see that You are unwavering in your commitment You're faithful to God Next, you're fruitful for God Fruitful for God And this is my Father glorified, John 15, verse number 8, that you bear much fruit What fruit? Fruit of the Spirit Love, joy, peace

Are you fruitful for God? Do you exude the joy and love and peace of God? During this pandemic, are you at great peace with God? Do your children see that fruit? Do you love God? Are you the kind of person that's completely joy founded in God? And then it goes on to talk about the fact that you are patient and kind and gentle, that you are the kind of person that's self-controlled Wow Just read an article the other day about how pornography has escalated during this pandemic It's gone off the charts

Are you self-controlled? Do you control your thought life? Do you control your emotions? Do you control your temper? Do you control your words? That's the fru You want to build a lasting legacy? Be fruitful And then be fulfilled by God Fulfilled by God is God your great reward Remember what God told Abraham in Genesis 15, verse number 2: I am your great reward Abraham, I'm your reward. I'm it And God's our, we're satisfied with God alone Matthew 5, verse number 6 It says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they and they only shall be satisfied

The only ones ever satisfied in life are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness Because they hunger, yet they hunger all the more, but they're hungering for the right things And once they're filled, they just want to be more filled with righteousness They hunger and thirst for it Because you're satisfied with Christ in Christ alone Christ wants you satisfied only in Him Do your children know that what satisfies you the most is Christ? That what satisfies you the most is the will of God and the work of God and the ways of God? Your children know that? See, you passed all this stuff on

This is your legacy It's a legacy of being complete in Christ, which is a life that continues on with Christ The person complete in Christ is favored by God, forgiven by God, a friend of God, fears God, fixed on God, fed by God, fueled by God, faithful to God, fruitful for God, fulfilled by God Follows God Follows God This is the only time you get an F, you succeed All these F words You follow God You follow God That was Christ's great command You just want to follow God Just follow Him Be true to Him If any man come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me

Mark 1, Christ said, Follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men When you follow Christ, he makes you into what he wants you to be So important And when you follow Christ, you will finally and forever be home with Christ And that's your legacy That's those who are complete in Christ That's what I want for you. I mean, each of these points could be a sermon on in and of themselves But I'm just giving you a sketch Of what I want to be to my children, so I can pass on a last legacy to my children That 's all that matters. I have eight children

And what I pass down to them is what really matters. I want them to understand who God is because they see in their Father God characteristics Are you a fortress for your family? Are you strong for your family? Are you the refuge for your family? Well, if you treasure your legacy That is, you want to protect that You understand what it means to be favored by God and forgiven God? And to be a friend of God And those who are a friend of God fear God They fear nothing else Because their eyes are completely fixed on God

Fix so much that when you be fed by God, fueled by God, faithful to God, fruitful for God, follow God So one day they can finally and forever be with God Wow That's some great stuff right there Let's pray together Father, thank you Thank you so much for your word. I pray for the men of our church, Lord, that you would use your word in their lives That they'd be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might That they would truly treasure their legacy Now they can leave behind material things and temporal things, and they'll last for a while, but they won't last forever

What lasts forever is what really matters And I pray that their greatest joy would be to see their children walk in truth That's my prayer this evening We pray this in the name of our coming King, Jesus Christ, our Lord Amen Thank you so much for tuning in We trust you'll be with us this Sunday and every week after this, as long as we're in the situation, because we want to feed you the Word of God We trust you'll invite others to be with you, to tune in with you, to listen, that they too might experience. the joy of the Lord Have a great rest of the week Thanks for tuning in.