Fatherhood: A Fortress For The Family, Part 5

I want to welcome you once again to our time on Wednesday evenings where we have a chance to address the topic of fatherhood, a fortress For the family It's a great time to address it, to bring people up to date in terms of their responsibility and to understand the impact of fathers in their homes On Sundays, we're looking at abolishing anxiety. I'm having a great time with that, and I trust you are too, as we gather together and look at what the scriptures say

This Sunday will be. unique. I'm going to tie it into to mothers and a mother's anxiety and tie it into how she as a mother can abolish anxiety this Mother's Day And so it's all going to come together really well when it's all said and done And I trust you'll be with us Invite others to come with you To hear, to watch, to listen, and to be able to experience the truth of God's word as you are, as you gather your family around And we trust that you're doing that You're having the opportunity to train your children to sit, to listen, to watch. I think all that's so important

And so, as we gather together this evening, I just want to remind Mind the men that as fathers you are that bulwark, that rampart, that shield for your family We were having devotions with our kids last night, and we were in Psalm 1. 2 And the text begins this way, Those who trust in the Lord are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion Mount Zion is what I believe is the original Garden of Eden, but abides forever because God Himself permanently dwells there And there's something about trusting the Lord that makes you permanent

But also it says in verse number two, As as the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people from this time forth and Forever Not only is there permanency about Mount Zion, but there's protection surrounding Mount Zion And I think that that portrays our God in His relationship to His people, which in turn should portray us as fathers and our relationship to our families They should be protected They should be provided for permanently as long as we live. that they can see us as their guide, their protection, their providers, because we are a bulwark, a shield

That cannot be moved And that's my prayer for you And so we're looking at some principles that will help us go that direction And so we talked about principle number one, which was to focus on life's priority What is to live for Christ? Philippians 1:2 Don 't live for yourself, live for Christ Number two, it's abstain from all iniquity That's what we should be doing We should be running away from sin Number three was last week was treasure your legacy Realize that what you leave behind is so important

And you want to leave behind more than money, more than houses, more than cars, more than that which is tangible and temporal, but leave behind something that's eternal That is God's Word invested in God's people And we trust that you're receiving a benefit from this It's been a great reminder for me To understand my responsibility in my home, whenever I study scripture, there's this high level of accountability that I find myself facing day in and day out, realizing that I must be living the principles of God's Word Or I'm a hypocrite, and my children will see that

And I want to be able to live for the Lord and honor Him And I trust you do too That's why you've tuned in That's why you're watching That's why you're learning You want to be true to your God, and you want to be strong for your family Tonight, our fourth principle is this: honor your family Honor your family Say, well, wait a minute Aren we supposed to honor God? Yes. 1 Samuel 2:3, He who honors me, I will honor, right? But you can't dishonor your family and honor God You can't respect God without respecting your family You can't esteem God without esteeming your family

If I'm in the process of lifting my family up, That's because I want to honor God If I'm in the process of tearing my family down, I'm dishonoring God And we know, and I've quoted this so many times over the years, in 1 Samuel 2:3, He who honors me, I will honor That was spoken to Eli, a priest. who had chosen to honor his sons above God He cherished his relationship with his sons more than he cherished his relationship With God If I could tell you how many fathers I've encountered over the years who value their relationship with their sons and daughters

More than they value their relationship with their wife and with their God, you'd be astounded It's amazing to me Because what Eli did in 1 Samuel was he elevated his sons so much so that he chose their relationship Over God's revelation, the truth Whenever you choose relationship over truth, you always compromise truth. I can't say that enough If you choose relationship over truth, you will always compromise truth If you choose truth over relationship, Then you'll never compromise the truth because all relationships, true relationships, true meaningful relationships, are based on truth

If your relationship is not centered on truth, It's just merely an acquaintance, but it's not a relationship of true value And that's what we want So we want you to honor your family So important There's a phrase that's attributed to Abraham Lincoln. I don't he didn't say it first Many think he did say it first, but it's been quoted many times over And the phrase is this, that the strength of a nation derives its strength from its homes Confucius said that he died in four ninety-seven B He believed that the morality of the family taught and lived in that family

Would be the strength of how a nation would govern itself And to some degree, that's true. you know, we're only as strong in our church as our weakest family, right? And so we want our families to be strong That's why you have so much emphasis on your marriage and your parenting, because you want you to understand the importance of that And Joshua did too Way before Confucius, there was Joshua And Joshua told us, I mean, he had led the nation of Israel out of Where they were into the land of Canaan

Moses led them out of Egypt and they wandered for 40 years, and God told Moses that he couldn't lead them in, but Joshua would And Joshua would be that commander that would lead them in to the promised land And Joshua died when he was 1 years old But before he died in Joshua 23 and in Joshua 2, he addressed the leaders in 2 He addressed the whole assembly in chapter 24 He said these words, and you know them well You probably have a plaque in your house It says, Now, therefore, fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and truth That's how you serve the Lord without hypocrisy And complete veracity

He says, and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves to-day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served, which were beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living For me and my house, we will serve the Lord And the people answered and said, Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods Joshua knew, Joshua knew that his house needed to serve the Lord

That as he was trying to model to the nation, God is a priority He was going to honor God in his home and serve in sincerity and truth Goes on to say, as the nation said, Far be it from us that we should serve other gods, for the Lord our God is He who brought us. and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and who did these great signs in our sight, and preserved us through all the way in which we went, and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed And the Lord drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land

We also will serve the Lord, for he is our God Look what God's done for us Of course, we're going to serve him Joshua says this Then Joshua said to the people, You will not be able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God He is a jealous God He will not forgive your transgression or your sins If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you after he's done good to you Why would Joshua say you can't do that? Well, you can't do that

Well, we know Psalm 127 says, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain to build it, right? So God has to do it through you But Joshua has history He's got the history of the nation, right? And so he's going back to Exodus chapter 19 in his mind He's going back in the history of Israel, realizing that the base of Mount Sinai, they all said We will serve the Lord And a few weeks after that, they began to worship the golden calf And forsake their God and to live in idolatry They all said, Yeah, we can do it, we'll serve, we fear the Lord

But the first chance they got to serve and worship another God, that's exactly what they did And so In the back of Joshua's mind, he experienced that, he knows that, he understands the frailty of man's commitments You can verbalize something, but it must be materialized in your everyday life We can say we love someone, but we must live out that love for that person, or what we say means nothing, right? They said, Oh, yes, we will do this That's what we're going to do But God is a jealous God, He doesn't want divided loyalties You can't serve two masters God wants undivided loyalty to Him

People went on to say, Yes, we will serve the Lord Yes, we will serve the Lord They reiterated three times And Joshua set up a stone, a memorial stone, as to their commitment In that generation, they served the Lord their God They honored him And there's a reason why God did not. A sign of successor after Joshua There was Moses, right? And God told Moses that Joshua would be the guy So Joshua led them into the nation, the land of Canaan, led the nation into the land of Canaan But when Joshua died, God didn't tell Joshua, okay, Joshua, now we're going to give the nation into this person's hand

Why? Because he gave it into the hands of the fathers, the leaders of their home, the elders of a nation That they would be able to portray to their children what it means to serve the Lord in sincerity and truth And so when you come to Judges chapter 2, Joshua dies And the next generation, it says there arose another generation. after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel The fathers had forgotten to honor the L by honoring their families By investing in their families, by loving their families, by serving their families

And he goes on to talk about how the generation forgot their God And because they forgot their God, they forsook their God Having forsaken their God, they would forfeit a relationship with God Thus they would fail as a nation But it was the fathers Because you see, the strength of the nation Derives its strength from the homes And as fathers lead, the Old Testament principle, like priests, like people, right? As go the leaders, so go the people As goes the Father So goes the family That's why you need to be a fortress, str, a shield, a protector So important

You know, a number of years ago, I wrote a book called God's Hope for Your Home If you come to me for counseling, I take this book, I give it to you And I assign chapters in this book specifically for you to read that you might understand what it is you should do This book was written because it takes people from engagement To grandparents It gives instructions for in-laws It gives counsel for couples It gives wisdom for wives It gives hallmarks for husbands It gives challenges For children It gives foundations for your family It shows you the value of vows, the meaning of marriage

All that is in here And over the years, everything that I've taught about the family, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, is all in this book Because I wanted to put something into print that I could refer back to over and over again, because people don't remember But I could say, take this, read this, come back to me Discuss it among yourselves, that we might discuss it together, that we can begin to work through the principles of Scripture, that you might follow them in a way that honors the Lord That's what we want to see happen Because the only hope for your home is God Himself

Our homes, every one of them, have been attacked by the adversary The devil works overtime to divide your home because your home is a picture of Christ's relationship to the church So, if Satan can divide that, destroy that, he will All of our homes are attacked by the adversary Our homes over the years not only are attacked by the adversary, they are man by the media in ways we can't even imagine, more so now than when I first wrote the book back in the nineties

Manipulated by the media, because especially in the day of social media, where we're on social media so much. it really begins to mold the way we think Our minds are manipulated by the media We see things on Instagram We see things on Twitter We see things on our phones. and then we see how f we f short But what you see in your phone, just as a little piece of advice Is it necessarily the real thing? It might be the ideal thing, but it's not the real thing Because what's behind the camera is what's important But we're so manipulated by the media that it's controlled the way we think

In fact, we're even controlled by our culture more so than by the Christ, right? Our families are controlled by the culture because we're manipulated by the media and because we're attacked by the adversary If you go through and you begin to understand that our homes are divided By divorce And that's so unfortunate Devastated by the demands we put on one another Afflicted by the attitudes we portray in the family We are corrupted by so much compromise, and our homes are truly ravaged with revenge And there's so much that's there that our homes face every day

How many times have I told you over the years that when you get up in the morning, you go to war, you're going into combat? Every day is a day on the battlefield You must be prepared And if we're going to be, fellas, a fortress for our family, that's what fatherhood is We need to be strong And one of the ways we exemplify this strength is to elevate those round about us. A strong man lifts others. A strong man builds others. A strong man is able to support others, right? And we have so many weak men today

So many men who are frail in their manliness, instead of strong for the Lord, be strong in the Lord in the power of his might We need manly men, strong men, uncompromising kind of men, that will stand strong, that their families can get a hold of and they can be lifted up because of his strength And that leads them into the strength of the Lord as they learn about the Lord through the example of their Father And one of the ways we do that is just to honor our families Honor our families How could you do that today? In the few minutes that we have left, let me give you just a few things

If you want to honor your family, make sure you forgive. your family You forgive one another in the family Forgiveness is such a key part of any family unit Number years ago we did a a series called Found That fortifies the family They were foundational elements, building blocks that could help you strengthen your marriage In the first night we had our time together, the auditorium was packed with people It was packed And we talked about the very first principle, and it was all centered on forgiveness Ir, the following week, the numbers were almost cut in half

Simply because people realized forgiveness is not something they want to do But forgiveness is our responsibility It's not a feeling, it's something we're commanded to do by the Lord In fact, over in the book of Ephesians, we are to be tender, forgiving one another, even as our Lord has forgiven us He provides the model for forgiveness And so while we understand that repentance on the part of one person would require me to be forgiving toward others There is an attitude of a forgiving spirit that is so important that is often overlooked

As fathers, we need to lead the way in forgiving one another When was the last time you said to your wife, Honey, please forgive me? My attitude was wrong Please forgive me for the way I responded Please forgive me for how I treated the children When's the last time you went to your children and said, you know what? I need to ask your forgiveness My attitude just wasn't right And I was preoccupied with this or with that, and I didn't put time into it Please, please forgive me Forgiving one another is the way you honor your family

You see, mod is never modeling perfection, it's modeling the biblical response to imperfection When you model a biblical response to imperfection, your children know how to respond to their imperfections When you go back and ask for forgiveness, that speaks volumes to your children Forgive one another On top of that, accept and admonish one another Accept and admonish one another The Bible says that in Romans chapter fifteen, verse number seven We are to ac each other We don't accept sin, but we accept people for who they are Because we can't change anybody

We pray that God would change people's hearts, but we can't change anybody But we accept them And on the flip side of that, we admonish them Colossians 1 talks about how we are to admonish one another Ephesians chapter 5 talks about admonishing one another That there is this admonition that comes through the exhortation of Scripture that keeps people on the straight and narrow And if we're to lift our family high, respect them, honor them You say, Well, who's going to honor me? See, that's the wrong attitude You're already off on the wrong foot You're already thinking about yourself

You already forgot principle number one, right? Focus on life's priority What's that to live for Christ? But you're saying, hey, wait, what about me? What about honoring me? Honor the Lord You honor the Lord? You will honor your family You will serve your family The Lord said in John 12: if you serve me, you honor my Father So important And so forgive one another, accept and admonish one another, minister to one another Acts Matthew 20:2, the Son of Man came to be served Came to serve and not to be served Excuse me He came to serve That's why he came

When we minister to our family, we serve our family So many times as fathers we want to be served We want to be served our meal We want to be served convenience We want people to come in and wait on us How about mod the way in serving them? That's a way to honor your family Go out of your way to help them To come alongside of your wife when it comes to doing work around the house Do some laundry, do some cooking, do some ironing, do some cleaning, do some mopping, do things that will help serve her

With your children, serve them in unique and special ways, looking for ways to come alongside of them and say, Hey, let me help you with that Let me assist you with that Let's do this together Serve one another, having forgiven one another, having accepted and minister, minister, I'm sorry, accepted and admonishing one another, minister to one another Serve one another And then make sure that you intercede one for another Intercede one for another, pray for one another Romans 12:12, we need to be devoted to prayer, right? All throughout Scripture, this is about prayer

We need to pray one for another When was the last time you sat down and prayed for your children in the privacy of your bedroom, in the privacy of your study? In the wee hours of the morning or the late hours of night, just pray for your children Pour your heart out for your children that God would work in their heart, challenge them to live for Christ Praying for your family, praying for your wife, praying that God would strengthen her, cause her to stand strong, that you could be the man you need to be for her, the father you need to be for your children But you need to pray

Intercede, one for her That's what made Job so great And Job 1 He would offer burnt sacrifices on behalf of his children He would intercede on behalf of his children Because he wanted his children to know the Lord and follow the Lord So forgive one another, accept and admonish one another, minister to one another, inter For one another, love one another Love one another Love is not a right Love is not a reward Love is a responsibility that you fulfill in the life of others

Once you see love as your right, once you see love as your reward, you're not loving, you're manipulating, you're serving yourself Love is a responsibility where you unself, uncond, in a very unus kind of way, reach out and serve and minister and touch someone in need Love is never giving someone what they want. I shouldn't say never But love is giving people what they need Sometimes you give them what they want But more importantly, do you give them what they need? What they need That's so important They need a relationship with God

Is your children's relationship with God more valuable to you than your children's relationship with you? That's a question you need to ask yourself Do you want your children to walk with God, talk with God, live for God, serve God? That should be your passion So, you intercede for them and you love them so much You want to love your wife as Christ loved the church, right? You want to make sure that she's treated as 1 Peter 3:7 as the most treasured possession that you have Ephesians 5, 1 and 2 say that we're to walk in love That's how we imitate God Walk in love

Pursue love. 1 Corinthians 14:1, pursue it Pursue it Hunt it down Love one another and lastly yield to one another Ephesians 5:2 says we're to serve One another in the Lord Submit ourselves one to another in the Lord Yield To one another Listen, good principle: when your rights are first, righteousness always suffers And I've said that for years If your rights are first, righteousness will always suffer Put everybody else first When you lift them up, you're lifting them above you You are yielding yourself to them You want to support them

With your strength, the Lord said, Come unto me, all ye that labor and heavy laden, I will give you strength. I will give you rest, for in that rest is strength, because you understand the humility of our God If you want to honor your family, forgive one another Accept and admonish One another, minister to one another, inter one for another, love one another, and yield to one another And you'll be in the process of honoring your family And in so doing, be that fortress that is so important For all of them, let me pray with you Father, thank you for today What a great day

You have given us this opportunity to listen to your word and to be challenged May we take every opportunity to do that for your glory and honor We pray in Jesus' name Amen Thanks so much for being a part of this tonight. I trust it's been beneficial to you, and I trust that you take these principles, apply them. I could speak on them for hours and hours and hours There's so much there in the scriptures. I just want you to take these things, learn from them, grow from them Invite others, inv other fathers, other men to learn these principles that you're learning

We 're not even halfway through yet And as we go through them, we're going to unveil them for you that you might see how fatherhood is that ultimate fortress for your family Don't forget to join us on Sunday as we look once again at what it means to abolish anxiety, that we might eradicate all worry from our family and for our lives And fathers, you can lead the way in that as well because it's a great opportunity God has given you to lead Thanks so much Have a great, great rest of the week.