We're going to focus this time on fatherhood. It was just occurring to me after we just dealt with this matter of the design of the family, of husbands and wives and children, and particularly marriage. This book just came out, Building a Godly Home, a Holy Vision for a Happy Marriage. William Gouge. It's a book that I edited with Joel Beeky last year. It has some of the most remarkable, detailed advice for the most unspoken of problems in marriage I've ever seen. And I think probably this year I'm going to sit down and do a webinar on different parts of this book just for husbands. I read this section on husbands to my son and my son's-in-law about a year and a half, maybe two years ago. And they got pushed ahead. They advanced 20 years, really, in their marriage. And it was such a blessing. But in this book, you'll find really a vision for a tenderhearted shepherd and a dutiful wife that you find in the Scriptures. Gouge was writing in 1620. And though the language is maybe more difficult than a lot of books that you read today, we've tried to tone the language down a little bit. But there's gold there, there really is. Okay, we're talking about fatherhood. I'd like to speak about the doctrine of fatherhood. Yes, there is a biblical doctrine of fatherhood. I'd like to speak of it in a number of different ways. I'd like to speak of fatherhood and the story of redemption. I'd like to speak of Fatherhood's grasp of the meaning and the sacredness of a household. I'd like to speak about portraits of fatherhood in the Old and the New Testaments. I'd like to talk about fatherhood in terms of the great and marvelous plan of God to bring many sons of glory, that a household is really designed for redemption. And the father is really the one leading the charge. for the redemption of sons and daughters. I'd like to speak about the way fathers walk with their children. And I'd like to finally summarize what fatherhood is all about in one word. So that's where we're headed. You know, I want to make it clear Whenever you speak of a matter of life and godliness, we need to always remember two things. And you can't really survive the exercise without keeping both things in mind. First of all, there are commands of God for fathers. There's a will of God for fathers. You're either in rebellion, to that will or you are in harmony with it. You are either sinning against God as a father or you're walking in harmony. That's true. And there are specific commands that God has designed for you to obey. The second thing is that we are, by nature, sinners. We fall short in many ways. And so, whenever we engage a subject like this, Such a matter of life and godliness where there's so much potential for failure among men. We need to recognize our weakness, to acknowledge our sin nature, to come to Him with humility and repentance, with a desire to grow. You know, it means that you come to Him as a father. Fathers, come to their Father. And to come to Him, recognizing that He knows your frame. Recognizing that He saved you, just as you were, to take you to the place where He is. And that takes your whole life long. It's a life long of sanctification. And thankfully, God is patient. And God moves one step at a time as He sanctifies His Fathers. So, on the other hand, we should recognize the mercy of God and the grace of God. If you're overwhelmed with the whole matter, then perhaps you're not recognizing the mercy of God. If you're underwhelmed, then perhaps you're not recognizing the authority of God and the danger that you're in by rejecting his commands. Those two things must always be held in balance. You know, there's so many sins that you can commit as a father. The absence, the lovelessness, the anger, the abdication, the apathy, the laziness. There's so many sins of fatherhood. But we have to recognize there are commands for us on these matters. And there's also the mercy of God toward us. So as we consider this matter of fatherhood, I just want to remind us to come to Him as the Father of mercies. and to cry out to Him for help. Okay, I want to speak about first fatherhood and the story of redemption because fatherhood always must be seen in light of the larger story of redemption. And fatherhood is important, but it's really only important in the sense that it is really the divine means for redemption of sons. So, fatherhood is designed as an earthly tool for redemption. To bring many sons to glory. That is the practical, earthly function of fatherhood. So, we always have to talk about fatherhood in light of the larger story of God the Father's plan of redemption. So you have to know right off the bat. that your life as a father, as small and maybe even microscopic as you think it might be, it's actually part of a great plan of redemption because God has called fathers to preach the Gospel and to bring many sons to glory and to create a culture, to create a world, to create a kingdom where there is this matter of bringing many sons to glory. And you can see you can see this in the imagery that God gives us regarding the sacredness of a household. You know, the Bible in the Bible, there is this imagery of a household and the householder. You know, family, you know, family reformation, people didn't make this language up. They got it from the Bible. And there is there's this doctrine of the household. And God has established fathers as heads of households. Why? Well, we see households in a number of places. We see that there is a household in heaven. And out of that household of heaven, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, they create the world as it is. And what's the first thing they do? They create a household. They create Adam and Eve. They create a home. That's the first thing that God does after he creates the world. A household is a very sacred thing. It begins with this household in heaven, this perfect and beautiful household where the father loves the son and the son likes to do the will of the father. The Holy Spirit glorifies the father and the son. The father draws saints into this fellowship of love. It's this harmonious family in heaven. It's a it's a family of delight and honor and authority and submission. and collaboration, it's and creation. It's a family that makes things happen in the world. This this is this is the role of the household of heaven. And what God does in his first act after he creates the world is that he makes a family in the earth, in the world to bring heaven down into the world, to go and replicate that same world that's in heaven, because because the household is a sacred thing in the world. Homes are sacred. They're wonderful resources. That's why it's so tragic when people turn their households into flop houses and people just kind of they kind of sleep there and they roll out and they go live their life everywhere else. And they're disconnected from one another. The families are just going in every imaginable different direction. There's no unity and there's. There's really no true household like there is in heaven. But what God does is he he makes the household, first of all, and what's the second thing he does? He creates households to be fruitful and multiply. So those households would replicate, in other words, to make more households. The first command of the Bible is to be fruitful and multiply. Why? God wants to make more houses. He likes homes. He likes fathers and mothers and children creating this kingdom that replicates the kingdom of heaven. And then after telling his His children to be fruitful and multiply. He makes another household. He makes a household of Israel. A people, he makes a people, a household and. And he and he establishes heads of the households, the 12 tribes of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and so forth, you know, down to the 12 heads of the households of Israel and much of the Old Testament is really structured around this imagery of the household and what God is doing with his household, the rebellion that's in the household. the brokenness of the household, the relationships of the household. You can trace this through the families in Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and then on through all the way through the prophets, you see the household of Israel. And the purpose of the household of Israel is really to declare the glory of the grace of God, to bring the commandments of God to be applied in the households so that God would be seen in real terms in the household of Israel. Then what happens? God sends the Lord Jesus Christ to be born of a virgin. And He lives and He's crucified. And He is laid in a grave. And He is raised to His Father's right hand. And what does He do? He creates another household. He creates the household of God. He creates the family of God. And He says, you are a family. And you can look at the New Testament imagery about the church and what Christ did is He made a family. He made a new household. It's the household of faith. So God is in the business of making households, but He just doesn't stop there with the household of faith called the church. He's also said to his disciples, behold, I go to prepare a place for you, says in my father's house are many dwelling places. There's a house in heaven. Well, we already knew that because everything started with that household in heaven, with the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, that holy family with their love and submission and delight and authority. And they're working together in collaboration. We saw that in heaven. And then we saw how God called his children in all eras of redemptive history. And now we see him creating a household in heaven. He says that he has prepared this household for them. He worked to create another household in heaven. So really, in one way, you can say that everything about your fatherhood is designed around a household and what you do with your household, because your household is designed to replicate the household of heaven. And God has given many commands and images in the intervening eras of history from the Pentateuch all the way to the end of the book of Revelation, where you see this matter of the household. And finally, you know, before the judgment, of God, you find that people from every tongue, tribe, and nation, all the people from whom the families of the earth were blessed, all the families of whom received their name, as Ephesians 3 says, are gathered together before the throne of God. And there's this one big household. History, as we know it, ends with a very, very big family. from every tongue and tribe and nation. So when you think about your role as a father, remember that you're the head of a household, but you're not the head of something that lacks significance. It has extreme significance because the purpose of your household is the same purpose of the household of God. To bring many sons to glory. That's why God made you a father. So that you would set yourself to bring many sons to glory. What a wonderful thing God has done. It doesn't matter how much money you have or what kind of house you live in or what kind of car you drive. You can bring many sons to glory. You can do your work in the world with finery, with all the gusto that this household was intended to receive. You know, the Bible says the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish these things, the redemption of mankind. In the same way that the zeal of Jesus Christ for His church is the force that brings many sons to glory, we need zealous fathers who say, my zeal has caused me to do these things. And one of the greatest tragedies that happens in a father's heart is when he doesn't have any zeal. And he has to fan that flame to renew the zeal that he used to have maybe. To get it back so that he would set himself to bring many sons to glory. This is the role of a father. So, fatherhood must grasp the meaning and the sacredness of a family. It's interesting the way that God operated. in the creation of a household as a father. Let me just run you through the Pentateuch and help you see this vision of fatherhood. In Genesis, God creates a perfect home for His children. It's called the Garden of Eden. Fathers should learn from that as they create a home for their children. In Exodus, a father calls his son out of Egypt and rescues him from bondage and he carries his son proving His love for His Son by communication and provision in the wilderness, bringing manna from heaven and the pillar of fire and cloud to lead His people. This is what the Father does for His children. He says, out of Egypt I have called My Son. That's what God says. He's calling his son out of the bondage of slavery, slavery to sin. So Egypt is a picture of being under the ministry of the devil, the pre-conversion life of the believer. And then and then in Leviticus. a father makes a place of worship for his son. And what God does in the wilderness is He establishes the tabernacle, and He gives extremely detailed commands about how to build that tabernacle. And what God does is He commands them to build the tabernacle, and then He says, place four tribes of Israel to the north, four to the east, four to the west, and four to the south. So all the families of Israel, all the tribes have this in their center, the worship of God and all of and all of their activity is to support the worship of God. Each family has a particular role to promote the worship of God in the wilderness by the tabernacle. And it shows what a father is supposed to do. He's supposed to center. All the members of his family on the worship of God. Fathers are worship leaders. They're not only prophets and priests and kings. They are also worship leaders. And God has designed a household to have its center in the worship of God. It's the most defining thing that a family ever does is to worship God. And so you're as you're bringing many sons to glory, you have to recognize that in Leviticus, a father makes a place of worship for his son. In the book of Numbers, he brings the families together for service and for fighting and for worship. And the book of Numbers begins with heads of households and reciting their genealogies. And it's really a remarkable section of Scripture. And in Deuteronomy, a father gives his children laws. He gives them details about how they should live their life. And he calls fathers to walk beside their sons and their daughters to teach them when they sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down and when they rise up. And they are to be teaching his laws. So you can see the development of the way that God treats his households and his fathers as they lead. And that's why after Moses dies, he's taken up to Mount Pisgah and he's ushered into glory. And Joshua turns around and he says, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Hey, a household is a big deal. A household is a sacred thing. Don't underestimate the significance and the power of your house. Because if you read your Bible from Genesis to Revelation, you'll see the meaning of it. And you'll see how godly men like Joshua understood it. And he said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And so with all of this, we understand that a father's role is to be a co-worker in redemption. And so, a father is one of God's means of redemption of sons in the same way that God the Father has set Himself to redeem sons. And these elements that I've already spoken of, of the relationship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in heaven, form the definitional explanation of the kind of culture a father must create in his house. So when you see the culture in heaven, you're seeing the culture that God desires you to replicate in the world. You know, one of the greatest problems men have is they don't know God. Because if they don't know God and His Kingdom, they can't create His Kingdom on earth. You know, Jesus told His disciples to pray, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Because what human beings are supposed to do is to bring heaven down. To bring His kingdom down. To create such a kingdom of love. Now, there are five elements of that kingdom, and I've mentioned them just offhand. I'm going to mention them a little bit more systematically. Delight. It's a kingdom of delight. The delight of the Father and the Son together in the work of redemption. At Jesus' baptism, There's a voice from heaven from God the Father and He says, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. That really helps you understand the kind of culture that you should build in your family. Every son needs to hear his father say, I delight in you. Every daughter needs to understand that the heart of her father is a heart of delight. There's also the element of love. It's a fellowship of love. In eternity past, God was loving His Son and His Son was loving to do the will of His Father. It was a community of love. And it was a community of love that had so much love in it that there was room for more. And so what did that community of love do? That community of love got into adoption. Adopting sons and bringing many sons to glory. There was so much love in that family that they just wanted to spread it around even broader. And so they determined to adopt sons. There's also submission. The third element of this kingdom is the element of submission. The son submits to the father and the spirit submits to the father and the son. One of the reasons that you have families in disarray and particularly wives who bring disarray into their families because they cannot submit is because they don't understand the beauty of submission. And they don't understand the beauty of submission because they don't understand how beautiful it was for the Son of God to submit to His Father. While there is equality In the father and the son, there is still submission and authority. Those things exist together in the kingdom of God. You can have both. The feminists say, no, you can't have both. The feminist says, if you have authority, then you've destroyed love. But the Bible says, no, you can have authority and submission and love and delight and happiness all in the same package. And so the people who rage against authority in marriage, they really don't understand Jesus. And they don't understand how Jesus Christ, the perfect sinless son of God, would submit to his father. They can't understand that. They can't understand that there is love in authority. So not only is there submission, there's also unity. This is a community of undivided, co-equal persons. So the fourth element of this kingdom of love is the unity. They are distinct persons. They are co-equal. And they are not divided. And they have different roles. And they are separate persons. So, the Father is not the Son. And the Son is not the Father. This is the doctrine of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is not the Son. And the Holy Spirit is not the Father. There is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And that is this kingdom of unity. And then the final the final element of this kingdom is is is adoption. And, you know, the New Testament speaks about adoption. There are three New Testament letters that speak of it, Ephesians, Galatians and Romans. But that's the kingdom of love that exists in heaven. And that's the kingdom that God has designed for us to replicate. Here's another aspect of fatherhood that we need to recognize. And it really comes under the heading of leadership, headship, or kingship in terms of the role of a father. And that is this, that as God the Father is the pattern for earthly fathers, So then his pattern of creating a future for his children is the same thing that an earthly father should do. So God creates a plan of life and he executes it. He is sovereign over it. He takes authority over it and he creates elements of life and he prepares a house in heaven. But he also he also makes the pathway throughout life. He ordains a path through life. And earthly fathers are charged by God to do the same thing. Earthly fathers need to know where they're going. They need to know where they're taking their family. They need to be like God the Father in heaven who's taken his family to the promised land. And then he will carry them there, but he is going to take them into the promised land. A father needs to know where he's going. He needs to see the destination and he needs to mark out how you get to that destination. A father needs to be a man of the plan. His father in heaven is like that, he goes and he prepares a place, he defines the pathway and he carries it out to the end. And He plans it out in advance. I really am convinced that one of the great roles of a father is to be a planner. Really to plan every part of life. To take your family somewhere. To take your family into the promised land. You know, one of the most dangerous things to a daughter is a father that has no vision. Because then she doesn't really know what her purpose is. She doesn't know really where she's going. And she so easily gets discouraged because her father doesn't have a plan. I just want to urge you fathers to have a plan. You need to create a big life, especially for your daughters. Create a big life, bigger than anything that they can conceive of on their own. More beautiful than anything the world offers to her. More exciting, more fantastic, more holy. Better. A better kingdom, a better covenant, better promises. That's what fathers do. They always serve the best wine last, like Jesus did, because they're involved in creating a beautiful kingdom. You understand what I'm talking about? Being a planner. Charting out the way. Marking out the pathway. Being, as it were, a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. Speaking words of life. creating a big life for your family. This might be one of the most difficult responsibilities of a father is to make sure that his family has a real life. A big life that's consistent with his kingdom. You know what? If you're part of a local church, you've got yourself a big life. You do. There's enough to do in a church to make your life as big as Texas. Sorry for you who live in Arizona. But you know, hey, God has designed that that there would be a vision of life. That's what God the Father has done. Think about God and His grand vision of His glory. Fathers are supposed to replicate that same vision of glory. And then, fathers really are supposed to walk beside their children. This is perhaps my most urgent concern for fathers is that they really walk beside their children because they're commanded to do that. You know, one of the things that I'm becoming aware of. is that there are a number of men who maybe a few years ago, God opened their eyes to their role as a father, that they should walk with their children. And they started doing it, and it changed everything. I mean, it completely transformed their whole life. Their whole family was transformed. All they did was they started opening up their Bible and reading it to their family. And everything changed. And they ended up with a different kingdom. remarkably fast. It was amazing. And they saw enormous, wonderful transformations. You know, I got a letter from a guy. I was in California a few months ago. And this guy wrote me a letter. He said, I've been a Christian for many years, but I did something last night for the first time I'd never done in my whole life. I sat down with my family on the couch and we read two chapters of the Bible. I'd never done that before. And he said, you know what? Oh, my girls loved it. My kids loved it. I thought it would be boring to them. No, they loved it. But I mean, He just started a spark that will warm that family for a long time. But here's my concern. How many of you here used to be Deuteronomy 6 dads? But you've kind of softened up a little bit. And it was so exciting to you like five years ago. But you've kind of moved on. Is that possible? Is it possible that's happened? You know, I talked to guys to whom that's happened. And what do you do? You just get back. You just get back on the train to glory, to bring many sons to glory. Get back on it. Just start right back up again. And be a dispenser of wisdom, not a depository of it. Keeping your mouth shut. God's designed you to be a dispenser, not a depository. You don't hear truth and just keep it to yourself. You open your mouth in a parable. You utter dark sayings of old. You speak of it when you sit in your house and you walk by the way. That's what fatherhood is supposed to do. Fathers really walking with their children. You know, one of the things that concerns me too is that when you have a family that changed everything, and you have a father who decided to be the head of the house, and you had a mother who really wanted to be a keeper at home, and they've made enormous changes. What happens sometimes is you have children, they look at their parents and they say, Well, you're not doing this right. In fact, I heard that guy say that you're supposed to be doing this and you're not doing it, Dad. And you have children sometimes who are ungrateful and they're insolent toward their parents because they see the flaws in their parents. And they say, you know, you're not really the leader that I hear people talk about, Dad. When is my dad going to be a leader? And you have wives doing the same thing sometimes. Here's what I want to say to you children, if you might be in that spot, where you think maybe your dad's not that hot. Because he started to change a lot of things, but you still see that a lot more progress could be made. And you see it, and you know the reality. You know, I think probably most of you have no idea how difficult it was for your parents to make these changes. And I don't think you have any grasp of the sacrifices they had to make just to change that one thing in their life. Do you know how many friends you lose when you just cut a few things out of your life and you start sending your family on the Word of God? Do you know what happens? You lose friends when you do that. Do you have any idea what your parents have suffered as they've tried to have their lives transformed by the Word of God? Do you have compassion on them? Do you have any idea how many broken relationships have issued just because your dad said, hey, I think wives should be keepers at home? Do you know how much shame and slander was thrown at them because they just did that one thing? Your mom, who's at home, is a total aberration to the whole society. And women all over the place hate her for it. Do you know that? Do you know that that one change cause enormous hardship in their life. And they lost a lot of friends. Because you know what? One day, your dad woke up and he said, I'm supposed to be the head of this house. What am I going to do? And he started changing things. And your mother said, I'm supposed to be a keeper at home. How am I supposed to do that? Nobody else is doing that. And so they received enormous resistance. And maybe even some of your families have been really disrupted because of that. And you have in-laws and out-laws and all kinds of people that are breathing down your neck and you don't know what to do about it. You want love to be the mark of your whole extended family. But is it possible that you don't really understand what your parents have suffered? And if you are a young man or a young woman here today, And you're looking at your dad and you're kind of in your heart pointing your bony finger at him and saying, you're not the leader you could be. Here's my appeal to you. Have mercy on your parents. You know what? They're just like you. Trying to figure out how to walk with God. Trying to figure out how to be faithful to God. Trying to figure out how to apply this book that makes you a peculiar people in the world. That's all they were trying to do. I just want to encourage you to have mercy on your dad and have compassion on your mom about the stuff they've had to suffer. Because I know, one thing I know, if they just did two things, they suffered. And I want to know if you appreciate it and how hard it was. Have mercy. God has delivered a doctrine of fatherhood. He has very specific commands and patterns and principles that govern it. It's all really, it's all really summed up in one word, love, love. Fatherhood is really all about love. Do you know the very first place that the word love appears in the Bible? It appears in the book of Genesis. The very first mention of the word L-O-V-E happens in the context of a father's love for a son. God says to Abraham, take your son, your son whom you love. The first mention of the word love is a word about a father's love for a son. Did you know that the very first words of a father to his son in the New Testament were words of love. When the Lord Jesus Christ was being baptized, God the Father said, this is My beloved Son. Fatherhood is summed up in one word. Love. Would you pray with me? O Lord, that You would create such a kingdom of love. O that these many kingdoms, these many households, these places bringing many sons to glory, that You would make them such places of love. O Lord, that You would anoint them by the Spirit of love and the Word of truth. Oh, Lord, that You would give them compassion and mercy toward one another. Households of mercy and compassion. Oh, I pray that You would fulfill it among us so that the glory of Your Gospel would be declared in a house where many sons are being brought to glory. Amen.