Well, good evening. We’re going to be in Genesis chapter 4, verses 17-24.
If you would turn there with me in your Bibles, Genesis chapter 4, verses 17-24.
Starting in 17, Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch. Enoch was born Arad, and Arad fathered Mahujel. Mahujel fathered Enoch. Enoch fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Zillah. Ada bore Jabal, and he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jabal, and he was the father of those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal Cain. He was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal Cain was Nama. And Lamech said to his two wives,
Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, you wives of Lamech. Listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold. I read that passage earlier this week. I had been going through Genesis on my own. And so I was studying that, and I felt moved upon by the Lord to preach that. And I decided that earlier in the week. And then a very dear lady, she serves at the Pregnancy Center, and she said, it’s Father’s Day this weekend, what are you preaching? I said, oh, a Father’s Day sermon actually. So I totally… I totally did not plan that out. I’m not that thought through. But it seems like the Lord wants us to have a Father’s Day sermon on Father’s Day. And a lot of us went to the men’s conference, which was hugely encouraging about what it means to be a godly man, husband, and father. And I want to ask you that this morning. So this is a sermon, I think, mostly directed at men, at fathers. But at the same time, it’s a word for us. It’s all here. But what makes a happy Father’s Day happy? What makes a happy Father’s Day happy? I don’t think it’s necessarily a card.
Maybe a gift you get. Those are happy things. But I think really the only person that can really say if Father’s Day is happy is your wife and your children. Your children.
Father’s Day isn’t inherently happy, you are one. What kind of father do you want to be? What kind of father are you? Where are you looking to, to be the father that you are?
What does it mean to really be a father?
Verse 17 again.
It says, Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. So here’s the reality. Every father has a father. You can’t be a father unless you have a father. Someone shaped you, informed you, and kind of made you who you are in a lot of ways. Even if you didn’t have a father around, someone or something kind of filled the role of what informed you what it means to be a dad.
And Lamech is no, you know, different. There’s no exception. Lamech’s heritage is Cain. That’s his great-great-great-great-grandfather. So he’s not that far removed. This is his lineage. This is his line.
And when we look at who Cain is, we look back and we remember that Cain is someone who
gave an unpleasing sacrifice to God. We see Cain as someone who, for his own purposes, murdered his brother in the New Testament. Cain is really personified as the man of evil. Cain is the one who, Jude says, these false leaders, they’re like Cain. They’ve gone in the way of Cain. Cain is, in 1 John, the evil person, the evil man.
Cain is impulsive, and Cain is violent, and Cain is for Cain, and Cain is a law unto himself.
And Cain is, so we see starting there in 17 to 24, and there’s surely many more families that Cain’s responsible for. He’s the father of families. He’s the father of an entire culture and city.
So it’s true that whatever you are as a father, you will produce in someone else. Your parenting will impress upon someone else. And in the same way, your children will, like a sponge, kind of take in, they will absorb who you are. And it doesn’t matter, you know, what phrase or what word we say around the house. There’s like a little parrot in our house right now. Now, Josie’s at that stage where it doesn’t matter what you say or how you say it, she’ll just kind of verbatim say it back. And she likes doing it, and she’s good at doing it. She’s realized she can do it. It’s just how God has made father, son, and daughter. It’s a conversation I have to have a lot of times, and I’m glad I get to have it, but I have at the pregnancy center. I, you know, and I know you understand the nature of the work we do there, but I meet with men. Who, you know, often had no dad at all, or a horrible example for dad. And I have to say that, hey, look, the universe is wired for your child to essentially grow up to be just like you. You see, you know that. We’re sitting in this room, and you know you didn’t have a good example. You’re going to have to fight tooth and nail to be a better father. And I praise God, because a lot of times you’re like, yes, I know that, and they’re hungry for that. And, you know, they want. They want to do it different. But even if you had a godly father, and praise God, if you did, you and I as men are still sinful, and none of us are finished products, and we’ve got to constantly be looking to an example of what it means to be a godly influence in our families. No one’s got it figured out, even if you had the best, you know, godly parents. You’re still in need of someone, something to look to.
So what we see in Genesis chapter 4 here, starting with Cain, kind of this, again, this kind of personified person throughout the Bible is the one who’s against God, is the gift of replication ruined. It’s the gift of replication ruined. God wants us to reproduce ourselves in other people. But He wants us to replicate that which is of Him. And like Him. And that’s the difference. That’s the difference. So what you see really, I think, ruined in Cain, and ultimately Lamech here, is masculinity.
Masculinity. This is very much so, I think, in Lamech, a picture of false masculinity.
And so the question is, are you striving towards an idea of masculinity that you saw maybe in an earthly parent, or just kind of what you’re making up on your own? Or, are you doing this? And these are our two options. We can do that, or we can look to the Father. And the wonderful thing about the Father is He gives us a perfect example in His Son, Jesus. So if I really want to know what it means to be a godly father, I can see the Father. And where did Jesus tell us I can see the Father? Jesus said in Him. Jesus said to see Jesus is to see the Father.
Violence is not manly. That’s my first point. Because Jesus said, turn the other cheek.
Violence is not manly because Jesus said, turn the other cheek. And I think that’s a very stereotypical way we think about men. Like, don’t cross me. Push my buttons. Like, I’ll puff my chest up. We’ll get even. Right? I’ll use strength. I’ll use force. I’ll be aggressive. But that’s not at all really what manhood looks like. That’s not what it means to really be masculine. You’re masculine in God’s way. If you look in verse 23, He’s talking to His wives. And He says, I have killed a man for wounding me and a young man for striking me. So Lamech is in all things a brute. And He wants His wives to know it. That He is fully prepared not to get even with His foes, but to go beyond in measure. If I get pushed, I’m punching. I get stabbed at, I’m shooting. Whatever somebody does to me, I’m going to take it further and I will kill them. Even if it’s a young man. If it’s a young man, I will outdo him in strength. I will not forgive his youth and his stupidity and his immaturity. He says, I would kill and I have killed even a young man.
Lamech defends. Lamech protects. Lamech. He’s for himself. And he either has really bad theology or is being profane on purpose. Because he says, if Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, Lamech’s is sevenfold. Now, why did God tell Cain, you know, if anyone hurts you, you know, they’ll be repaid sevenfold. Well, Cain’s punishment for having murdered his brother Abel was that he had to be a wanderer. He had to be a fugitive and a wanderer. Which he didn’t even obey God in that because he builds a city that we see and he names it Enoch. He wasn’t even able to obey God in the punishment. So, that was something of God saying, hey, I am judge, I am justice, and this is the punishment I’ve given Cain. That was not some badge of honor, as Lamech’s taken it to be, either that God is, you know, he’s given Cain and Mylon some special sense of protection and I can do what I want to do and we’re protected. No. Or was it, and I probably think so, it’s lame. It’s lame being profane and saying, hey, if Cain who was a murderer would be avenged, I’ll avenge 77 times. Lamech’s a man of violence. He’s a man of violence.
That man is a proud man. That man is an angry man. It’s a boastful man. And he’s a man with a heritage of that and he’s not sorry for it. But I want you to think about with me the man Jesus. The man Jesus. And the man Jesus… The man Jesus in Matthew chapter 5,
he tells us, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Jesus says elsewhere to love your enemy is to prove that you are a son of your Father in heaven.
So, so Jesus has shown, you are not quite clearly what the Father is like. And Chase talked about it a second ago in worship. We, we all of us have raised our fists at God and we all were picking fights with God through sin. We were all in open rebellion and we all really justly deserved to get a good hit on the head. We all deserved God’s punishment. We deserved violence against us for going to war against God. Yet what happened is Jesus came and Jesus showed us that God is love. Love and God is forgiveness and God is gentleness and God is kindness because Jesus was gentle and Jesus was kind. Remember when Jesus is going to the cross and he says, you realize I could call down like army angels and like wipe all of you out if I wanted to do that. So understand manliness, masculinity isn’t the expression of violence in one’s life. Rather, it’s the self control to refrain from it. That’s what Jesus says. Manliness is it’s it’s the ability to be violent. It’s an ability to take matters into my own hands, but to not do it. Blow for blow. Nasty word for nasty word.
Dads. Are we like Jesus in this? Are we able to love? Are we able to forgive? Are we able to show a better way? God’s way. And I’m not talking about to be clear, I’m not talking about war. I think that the government has a place to defend a country that’s not outside of biblical prescription. I’m not talking about you’re laying in your bed and three o’clock in the morning, a drug addict bust up in your house with a gun and you shouldn’t defend your family. That’s that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about discipline, disciplining your children. That’s biblical and good. What we’re talking about first here is you’re in my heart because Jesus says, if you hate somebody in your heart, you are a murderer. You’re no different than laymen. So so in the home, men, dads. Are you a hard man? Are you a cross man? Are you physical?
Are you hateful and violent with your words? And no, I’m not. I’m not sitting around all week wondering like, oh boy, I hope you know I hope someone this week doesn’t get so mad and they kill somebody. That would be terrible. Now crazy things happen. That’s not the concern. Here’s the concern. Here’s the issue for you to discern. It’s a long day and you’re exhausted and you come home and you’re at the dinner table and your child knocks over the tall glass of milk and it goes and it ruins your dinner. And then it goes away. It goes across the table through the cracks and you have a cold wet lap. What do you do? That’s where you find out if you are like this man of violence. Lame. Do people at work really just walk on eggshells come into your cubicle because they all know don’t cross him or he’ll let you have it. And to be clear.
Husbands verbal emotional abuse can be just as awful as physical violence. Don’t think because you rip your wife’s heart apart with words is somehow, you know, that’s permissible. Those can cause lifelong wounds and struggles just as much as physical violence.
What kind of man are you in your heart?
And if there is that voice in you that says, well, doesn’t God care? I mean, if somebody wrongs me, like, am I supposed to just be a doormat? No, you’re not supposed to be a doormat.
The word of God says to us, though, beloved, never avenge yourselves. Leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he’s thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will keep burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, evil, but overcome evil with good. Cain was overcome with evil, so he killed. Lamex overcome with evil, so he’s a man of violence.
Again, I say to us, men, and I’m not saying that women can’t struggle with aggression. You know, I’m not saying that, but I think she’s written in nature. Men, men are generally more aggressive and violent.
Are you going to be like the man Jesus and show mercy because you’ve been shown mercy by God?
Are you going to be aggressive and overly harsh with your wife and children or gentle because Jesus is gentle? Are you going to defend your name and self at all costs? Are you going to believe that God is the chief justice who sees all things through to the end and who’s in whose court? Or all things are balanced and right? And I want to be clear, I’m not talking about like, just be a good dad, just be really nice, because that would just be, I think, empty moralism for me to tell you to just try your best to be a better dad. And I’m not saying that. I really just want to say one thing to you in this whole sermon, and that is, dads, if you’re going to be a dad like your heavenly father that pleases him, here’s what we’ve got to do. And that’s look to and believe in Jesus, because only Jesus is the true man of peace. Only Jesus can love, and be kind, and be gentle, when the sinful flesh wells up to be violent, and aggressive, and cross. You don’t need some special magical book on how to be a great parent. What you need is Jesus. You need Jesus. I need Jesus. You need to choose Christ, and in choosing Christ, you will find self control. In choosing Christ, you will find gentleness. In choosing Christ, you will find forgiveness.
Someone has said, the end never justifies the meanness.
There’s never a reason for meanness. Never at all. And so I want to invite you, fellows, again, to do soul searching here, because I think sometimes we can let things be passive, like, well, you know, when dad gets mad, he throws keys across the house. Or when dad gets mad, he kicks a hole in the wall. And everybody knows, when dad gets mad, he’s going to raise his voice, and slam doors. Like, don’t let that be okay. Like, don’t let those little things, like, oh, that’s just a personality fault. It’s not a personality fault. It’s evil. It’s Cain. It’s you not surrendering to Christ when and where you should be. And I think we grasp for, like, excuses. You know, like, look, I’ve got Irish blood in me. Like, no, you don’t. You’ve got Cain blood in you. Like, stop. Stop sinning. How about that?
And if you’ve had a bad example, okay, guess what? Jesus gives you power over your bad examples in life.
Seek to be like Christ. Repent. You know, the interesting thing about David, when he does what he does with Bathsheba, he doesn’t say, Lord, I’ve sinned against Bathsheba, which surely he had. He sees his sin as chiefly against God. He says, Lord, against you and you only. So repent to God for what you have done and ways you’ve been, you know, just a barbaric buffoon in your own home. And then go to your wife. And children and say, guys, this has got to change.
Bear the fruits of the spirit, not of the flesh. And you do that not by trying harder, but by believing in Jesus and asking Christ to fill you up. What kind of father husband do you want your son to be? Because let me tell you, you’re making them who they’re going to be right now. We are making our sons right now.
What do you want to be remembered as? What do you want to be remembered as? Now, look, no one’s perfect. And just as sure as I’m standing here, you know, if my children are adults, they’ll have, you know, you know, some unpleasant memories perhaps of something I said or did or some, some bad, you know, trait in me. I get that. No one’s perfect. But wouldn’t you want over, over that dads for your children as adults to say, man, dad was gentle and kind. Dad was like Christ. He wasn’t a harsh, aggressive man.
So Lamech’s the man of violence. But I want you to see, secondly, Lamech is a man of self-serving pleasure. He’s a man of self-serving pleasure. Notice in verse 23, it says, Lamech said to his, not wife, he says to his wives.
How quickly has Lamech disobeyed God? It was only a few generations before him that God had said to Adam and Eve, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. He didn’t say men and women, a man and women, or women and a man. He said a man and a woman, shall become one flesh. That’s God’s good design and when you think about polygamy or polymory, those things in the Bible, they never work out. Ever. Because it’s not a part of God’s plan. You look at the life of Solomon, and Solomon gets more and more wives, and what’s it do? It leads him into idolatry. You look at Abraham and his wrong decision to try to get an heir through Hagar, and that causes so much conflict for Sarah, and she sends Hagar away and treats her wrong. There’s these obvious romantic problems when you get involved with more than one woman.
Think about King David. I think it was Charles Swindoll. Charles Swindoll or Stephen Davies, one of them had said this, I thought it was really good. You think about King David. King David, he already had six wives by the time he got to Bathsheba. Now, you could think, well, if I had more wives, well, that’s more satisfaction.
It’s not true. It’s the opposite. The more you have, the more you want. The more you have, the more you want.
And what we see in David is a just one more kind of mentality. And it’s not God honoring, and it’s not God’s plan. And you know what? Sin’s like that. Isn’t it? Sin is never enough. Just one more time. Well, let’s make it a little more creative. I’m bored with that. Let’s do something else. Let’s do something different. Sin always perverts itself into a worse kind of sin. More and more and more and more. Think about Jacob and Leah and Rachel. Now, Jacob didn’t ask for that, but he got himself into that mess. His life was full of turmoil. Leah and Rachel are at a constant battle for his affection. They’re at a constant battle to see who can have more kids. It’s a mess for Jacob.
God gives marriage, then, for a quite different purpose than Lamech’s trying to use it. Marriage is that arena where husband, yes, wife too, but again, I’ve got men in mind here. You learn to lead your families by dying to yourself. You learn to serve others and do what’s best for them and die to momentary pleasure. You’re living for their welfare, not your own. It’s in that singular devotion that a man says to a woman, I will give up me for you, which preaches the gospel. Because one man being committed to one woman, Paul tells us, is that beautiful story of Jesus being committed to his church and that church surrendering to his wonderful spiritual leadership. So that’s the beautiful picture. Marriage, unfortunately, exposes our sinfulness, men. Because when you’re asked to die to your sinful nature for the sake of someone else, you’re constantly finding that sinful nature saying, no, let’s do it my way. I want what’s best for me. So marriage between a man and a woman, what’s it do? It makes us holy when we see Christ in it. Lamex is something completely different. Marriage is a means of pure pleasure and selfishness. He takes more than one woman, which I think immediately objectifies them as objects, and it’s for pleasure. It’s not for them. It’s not what’s best for them, two women to be married to. Amen. It’s what’s best for him. And hear how he talks. Now, look, I just preached against violence, so I’m not trying to go back on myself. But if I ever talk like this to my wife, I think it would be just fine if I got a smack upside the head. All right? I’m just saying. He says to them, Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, you wives of Lamex, like their dogs, like their possessions. And it’s disgusting because he doesn’t cherish and love them. Listen how differently Adam talks about Eve in the garden before the fall of man. Listen how he talks about her in Genesis 2.23. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. There’s this great wow there. Wow.
See the difference?
Cain’s sacrifice served self, not God. Cain’s murder served self, not his brother. Lamex polygamy serves self. And it’s wicked pleasure. And we see where this goes because just in a few chapters in Genesis 6.5, it says the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
But the man Jesus said, I’ve come not to serve or to be served, but to serve. Jesus says, I’m God in the flesh, but I’ve not come here to have people attend to me. Jesus says, I have come to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. Jesus was a man of selflessness. Jesus was a man of selflessness.
Now, I’m not saying and I didn’t say men that you shouldn’t lead and it’s not masculine to be in charge in your home. It’s not masculine to make decisions in your home. That’s your God-given responsibility. Everything from that leaky shingle on the roof to, hey, you know, your kid got in a fight with a kid at school or there’s bad grades going on or get up out of bed on Sunday mornings and come to church. You set the tone for order in your home and you should and must be doing that. Stop deferring to your wife to be husband or to be father and mother. Play your role. Do what God wants you to do. Lead in your home. That’s your responsibility. But here’s the thing. You can’t lead in your home if you’re not willing to show and model what your leadership’s all about.
Jesus didn’t just say serve and love one another. Jesus got down on his knees and he washed feet. So being the spiritual head of your home means getting involved in the difficulties of your marriage, getting in the difficulties of your children’s lives and saying, hey, what I’m going to do is lead us towards Jesus’s solution. My authority is going to be under his authority and we’re going to find Jesus’s solution. And that takes energy and effort. It’s much easier to just, I’m going to go in my whatever, if you got like a man cave or an office or whatever, I’m just going to let my wife deal with it or I’m too tired to like use words and talk tonight or I don’t want to have like a really long drawn out conversation about where my wife is spiritually, how I can help her like run the home better or finances, financial burdens. I don’t have time to play with my kids. I don’t have time to read with them. I don’t have time to do parenting and discipline because I’m so important. I’ve got all this going on. That’s you saying yes to you and saying no to the people that God has called you to lead.
And again, I’m not saying you just be a better dad because you can’t.
Seek Christ. Ask Christ to lead you in his selflessness. That’s the only way. That’s the only way.
Someone has said one half of our problems comes from wanting our own way and the other half comes from getting it.
The good news of the gospel is God doesn’t give us what we want. He doesn’t let us have what we want. He breaks in and says, hey, living for self, living for sinful pleasure. That’s that’s so momentary and it’s so empty. But the gospel reorders our hearts and lives and it shows us that loving God and loving people, that’s what it’s about. There’s satisfaction. There’s fulfillment in loving God and loving people. And again, I want to say to us, men, your home is the first place where you should be doing this. We’ve got to be doing this. John says that that’s really a proof if you’re really a child of God is if you love well. Are you like the man of selflessness or the man of selfishness?
Selflessness, selfishness.
Same thing. When you think about being an old man, what do you want your kids to remember?
Dad did his own thing. You know, we were more like roommates. We lived under the same roof. We talked, but he wasn’t there. You know? He wasn’t there. That’s a lot of people’s story. That’s a lot of people’s story.
Brothers, God has called us to something far more weighty and of eternal significance. And that is parenting our children. Giving up self to invest and to pour into them. Are we doing that?
Last point that I want to make to kind of attach to that. I want you to look at verse 16 in chapter 4. So we read, we did 17 through 24, but I want you to have a 30,000 foot view of this passage, okay? And in chapter 4,
verse 16, it says, Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. And I think that that’s such a terribly sad verse. It’s a terribly heartbreaking verse. Because it necessarily means it was away from the presence of the Lord that Cain was married. It was away from the presence of the Lord that Cain worked. It was away from the presence of the Lord that Cain had children. It was away from the presence of the Lord that he erected his city. It was away from the presence of the Lord that they decided on their government and how their government would function. It was away from the presence of the Lord that Cain lived his life. And so his son lived his life. And so his son lived his life. And so his son lived his life.
Let me say to you, again, dads, if you’re not willing to lead your family, somebody else is going to do it. And the sad reality is, they are. They are. Sometimes it feels like in the church, our kids are raised by TV and social media and peer influence, and they get a Christian perspective at home at best. It’s a sprinkling of religion on the weekends.
Look, I’m your pastor, and I hope that you value hearing me preach, and I hope you teach your children the value of hearing the pastor preach. I should be affirming the things you’re doing all week long.
That’s what I should be doing.
I cannot be everything your child needs spiritually. That’s your role in a really big way.
What kind of dad do you want to be? Jesus was a man who lived in the presence of God. Jesus was a man who spoke
God. Truth. Everywhere he went, 24 hours a day.
You know, I think it’s interesting when you think about
lineages and lines. I don’t think most of us, especially young and young, think about your grandchildren. I don’t think about my grandchildren. I’m still trying to figure out how to have children.
But it’s amazing what you do right now, is going to affect your children. It’s going to affect your grandchildren. It’s going to affect your children. It’s going to affect your grandchildren. The psalmist tells the people, you need to teach your children, so they will teach their children, so they will teach their children.
In other words, if you don’t faithfully preach the gospel, to your children, and raise up a godly generation, you’re not affecting just your children, you’re affecting your children’s children, and their children’s children. And I think that’s a crazy thing. If it so happens, that your child’s child’s child’s child runs from the Lord. Or no. Let it not be, because you failed in your time to raise your sons and your daughters. Do you love your children so little, that you won’t think about what it means to raise them up to know Christ, and to be a godly generation?
Deuteronomy chapter 32.
Well, I’ll read Deuteronomy 6.4.
Hear, O Israel. This is not some new verse you’ve never read.
The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children. Who is it to? It’s to dad.
You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between you and your eyes. Could he be any more poetic and descriptive about how much your home life should involve the word of God? No.
Proverbs 22.6.
Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it. And here I’ll read the Psalm passage I was talking about. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers to teach their children that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep His commandments.
We don’t do Sunday school here. I don’t know if we’ll ever do that. If you’re like me, you grew up in churches where it was heavily programmed. There was a lot of stuff for your kids. And I’m not knocking it and I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m just saying the facts of the matter, if you just look at stats, it’s not making a really big difference in the lives of people. That’s just the facts. The facts of the matter are America is on a downward trajectory and we have not discipled our children well at all. Because I think what we read is and you should drop your kid off at Sunday school and hope the church does a good job. Because I didn’t see that in Deuteronomy. But can we just be honest? That’s how most people live. That’s how most people live. So again, I want, look, we’ve got to live this way and I’m just as serious as nails about it. If we are going, if we are going,
there’s no other way. There’s no other way.
There’s this way. There’s you, dad. There’s you, mom, picking up your Bible and discipling your children. It’s saying, hey, look, I don’t know. We can’t do it. Like you can’t play sports because we’ve discovered at the end of the day, I don’t have enough energy to open the Bible with you. And this has been going for weeks. So I’m sorry. You have to quit basketball. Sorry. Done. Like, hey, I don’t know what it is, but you play video games and that consumes your life. And we are like not in the world. Guess what? We’re going to set it on fire out in the backyard. I don’t know what it is that’s keeping us from caring so little about our children knowing Christ. I don’t know what it is. But I want to say to you that we have to be serious in a providence about this. And part of, you know, saying as elders, we want to pray for you. Like we want to know what’s going on in your life. Something that we will do at the same time. I want to, not in like some creepy, weird way, like looking into, like, you know, your life and like trying to like micromanage you. But I think very much so pastorally, like you should want like me saying or Chris saying or Chase saying, like, hey, when’s the last time like you opened your Bible with your family? Is that something that’s going on in your home? No, you know, we’ve been busy lately.
Like, what do you, what are we doing? Like, what are we doing?
Deuteronomy 32.
Deuteronomy 32.
Verse 45.
He says, doing this, it is your very life. It is your very life.
So men, I don’t know what you’ve been doing. And don’t take me as someone who,
oh, we’re not like you. I have failures in this. I just know it’s important. I want to read a couple different things to you. One is from a man named Don Whitney. He says, yes, it should and does happen in unplanned, teachable moments in the car at bedtime and so on throughout the day. That’s wonderful. But it should also happen purposefully and without some regularity, structure and purpose. Bringing up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord is one of those things that we can assume we are doing, but never actually do as well as we might think. Okay? So he’s modern. Let’s go back a few hundred years to Richard Baxter. I willingly appeal to the experience of all the holy families in the world. Whoever uses these duties seriously and found not the benefits.
What families be they in which grace and heavenly mindedness prosper but those that use these duties? Compare in all your towns, cities, villages, the families that read the scriptures, pray, praise God with those that do not and see the difference. Which of them abound more with impiety, with oaths, with cursing, with drunkenness, with whoredom, with worldliness and such? And which abound with faith and patience and temperance and charity and repentance and hope and such? And this is how I love this sentence. The controversy is not hard to decide.
The controversy is not hard to decide.
Friends, God makes things simple. It’s funny how we’re the ones that make it so confusing and messed up. It really is. It really is. So I’m begging you men, I know we’re missing some guys today and hopefully they listen. I’m begging you to see your God-given responsibility as much as I am in the fear of the Lord trying to take that up in my own home. I don’t want to play church. I want you deeply to see your responsibility again in the words of Martin Luther to see your home as your first church. It’s on your shoulders. It’s on your head. So let me, I want to make it real practical. Real practical, okay? I didn’t technically have a budget line for this and I did it without telling Kathy so I didn’t get in trouble yet.
But look, I don’t think it’s fair. I don’t think it’s fair for me to say family worship is like the next, it’s just as important as Sunday morning worship and then say go figure it out everybody. I don’t think that’s fair. At all. So what I have here are, I did some research and found a few of what I think are the best resources to assist you in family worship. Alright? And I think it’s okay if it looks different for everybody. That’s okay. What’s the recipe for family worship? Sing the word of God, teach the word of God, pray the word of God. I’m singing two or three worship songs or just sing an acapella or you can pull up YouTube, do two, three songs with your kids and then, you know, the Bible or some resource like this to help you kind of teach the word and you talk about it for 10 minutes and you pray that truth with your kids and you do it every day and you do it every day and you do it every day and after two, three, four, five, six, seven years, you have godly children and it all amounts to how Christ is working in your home. It’s God’s plain plan. It’s really, it’s amazing. Someone at the conference was talking about God’s made it really simple. He just, here’s his book and it just, it’s written out, like just do it. Just do it. Just do it. So, here’s the deal. Alright? Here’s the deal. If you, if you have children, alright, certainly living in your, in your home, pastoral authority, you’re not allowed to leave today until you’ve looked through these. Okay? So, these are models to be left here. You’re not allowed to leave today until you have perused these. Now, if you, if you’re like, hey man, I got it. We’re doing family worship and we’re just soaring. Cool. I bet that everybody could use a resource though to, you know, sometimes, and I know I could. I have a great variety. Okay? This one is called Family Worship Bible. If you’re like, oh, that’s cool, but I’m, I’m like biblically, you know, I’m not there. I’m not sharp. Great. This is for every chapter of the Bible, like a two, three paragraph summary of what that chapter means for your life. And it’s, it’s called the Family Worship Bible Guide. It guides you through Bible study to worship your family. Okay? It’s super simple. It makes it that easy for you. That’s one. Okay? Second one, Charles Spurgeon. I’m convinced that the use of a good catechism in all our families will be a great defense against the increasing errors of the times. He didn’t know about trannies. Look, you do.
This is, and catechisms really were, weren’t just a Presbyterian thing or a Catholic thing. They were a Baptist thing for centuries and we, we’ve stopped it about, I don’t, I don’t know the exact time, but it stopped many decades ago. But there’s scriptural truths. For example, when did our first parents continue to live in the condition in which they were created? Our first parents were left to freedom of their own will, but fell from their position by sinning against God. It’s basic Bible truths and you teach them to your children so when you do that, you do these questions and they grow up. They get all this awesome doctrine in their head because you spent just a few minutes a day going through catechism. Okay? That’s one great way. Here’s something about Nancy Guthrie. She’s a, she’s a great Bible teacher lady. It’s called Dinner Table Devotions. It’s like a devotion with a scripture and there are questions. You could do that while you eat dinner. There’s 365 of them, one for every day of the year and she’s got multiple versions of it. There’s one. This one’s really cool. It’s called Theology. So ology means the study of. So like theology is the study of God. Ecclesiology is the study of the church. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it’s in really cool kid form and you’ll learn from this. It might be on the justice of God. It might be on what is a covenant and there’s a cool picture kind of explaining it and just a few words teaching you about it. So it’s, it’s a really neat with some really cool art and it goes through like all, like systematic theology like at kid’s level. That’s really cool. And then you may have heard of the Jesus Storybook Bible but it’s, it’s the major themes stories of the Bible in kid form and there’s pictures and you, you just read it and there’s some, there’s something else there. This is a book by a guy that he writes and talks about this a lot. It’s called A Neglected Grace. It’s a short little book on why family worship is so vital in the Christian life. Okay. So that, that’s a book you can buy. Here’s the deal. If you’re like, I want one or all those resources but I just, I can’t stretch my money right now because I’m paying for gasoline. Okay. You let us know
what you need. So, so I say these things to you. Again, I’m talking to everybody. But brothers, I’m talking to you. I’m talking to you. No church, I don’t care how healthy that church is, no pastor, I don’t care how good that pastor is, can carry the discipleship of your family on his back. It cannot happen. It cannot happen. It’s your calling. It’s your calling. Fulfill it. Fulfill it. And I’m not saying it’s easy, but again, we talk about this all the time. That’s the beauty of community in the church is we’re like doing it together and we’re leaning on one another. So wake up, wake up, like whatever stupor you’ve been in, whatever like selfish thing you’re doing or just aimlessness and say, today is the day that Father’s Day is a happy Father’s Day because I am going to teach my children about Christ in my home every day and we’re going to do it and that’s going to be the centerpiece of our family life. Okay. Okay.
And we’ve got to obey Jesus in this. We’ve got to obey Jesus in this. We’ve got to see the Father manifest in our families. How do we do it? Looking to and obeying Jesus because Jesus shows us what that looks like and His Word teaches it so plainly and clearly. Okay. All right. I’m serious. You can’t leave until you do that. Okay. But let’s pray and we’ll worship with the song.
Lord,
the Bible was full of big things. Big stuff.
Lots of concepts and stories that just reveal to us, Lord, just how great and awesome You are.
Lord, we neglect it. We neglect sitting at the feet of Jesus. We neglect sitting at the feet of Jesus with our wives and children. Father, forgive us. Father, forgive us for living as though we don’t know who You are. Father, forgive us
for being like it’s just a small part of life. Lord, stir up in us just a special grace to teach Christ in our homes. And, Father, if there’s somebody in here that just feels like, well I don’t know how to do that or I feel weak to do that, Lord, remind us that it’s not about our strength or our wisdom, it’s about You, Lord. So, God, I’m just praying for a mighty generation generation of children to come up from Providence because we didn’t do something big and flashy. We didn’t have big, flashy programs. We just had faithful parents that were willing just to open the Bible every day when it’s inconvenient or they didn’t feel like it or they were tired or life pushed in. God, would you give us strength and power for this kind of obedience? We know that this pleases you and we know that you would get all glory from it.
But so, God, we give you ourselves and God, we give you our children.
Would you give us children so that we can give them right back to you? So that’s what we want to do. We just offer up our children to you and say, take them, raise them up to be a mighty, godly generation of disciple making disciples. You fulfill the great commission, the great commandment, bring all the glory. We pray that in Jesus name. Amen.