We are continuing our series in marriage and family, and we are looking tonight at fatherhood and raising boys, but it will be very applicable for everybody here in one sense or another, because Because if you're a mother and you have boys, you'll still be needing this. If you are a young lady that isn't married yet, this will be helpful for you because you will begin to see what what a godly man should look like by this, so this will be helpful for you in that sense. Fathers, of course, you'll be helped by this. The elephant in the room is that I don't have boys, so if I have personal illustrations, I will be drawing from my childhood, because I was a boy. Believe me, I was a boy. I was all boy and so And so I don't think I have totally no experience in this area for that reason. And I don't know why, but people often tell me that, I guess not everybody's this way, but people often tell me that I have an unusually good memory of my childhood. People will say to me, your illustrations, you're like talking about illustrating like when you're like seven years old and you remember this stuff. I don't know, I just do. So anyway, so I can actually remember a lot of my childhood as well. which is, I thought everybody did until people keep telling me that that's not the case. So, anyway. Somebody's trying to find their phone, I guess. Anyway. So, I think it will be helpful for all of us in one way or another. Let's begin this way. There are many things that we've been talking about so far that have been specifically for either boy or girl, human nature, but there is much that is specifically for one gender or another. Our focus this, not this morning, will not be on describing observable gender differences between boys and girls, but between fathers and mothers. Now let me also mention this, that this lesson, it's taken almost entirely from a lesson that was given at Capitol Hill Baptist Church on this subject. I've taken almost, I didn't take everything, but I did some adjustments and things. But most of the material is from that. It's also from a book on biblical manhood and womanhood. written by John Piper and Wayne Grudem. It's a classic work on that subject, and I would highly recommend it as well. And so that's where, of course, the Bible as well as our primary source, but that's where this lesson is coming from. I can't draw from personal experience when it comes to raising boys, but of course, it's not a far stretch for me being male. So anyway, understand that. We're going to be talking, though, about, we're not just talking about gender differences, like, there's this story, for example, this story of a lady who was trying to raise her child gender neutral. So he gave, she gave, he probably wouldn't be offended by that, she gave her girl, her little girl, a train and said, and the girl apparently wrapped it up in a blanket and put it in a stroller. Anyway, it's actually happened, apparently. So we're not talking here about gender differences, specific observable. More, we're going to be looking at God's purpose in making boys versus girls, because he did. He had very specific purposes in why he made the genders the way he did. There are distinctions. And of course, boys and girls become fathers and mothers, most of them. Gender differences are a portrait, remember this, of a gospel embedded in creation, teaching us about the Trinity, in which different roles do not signal lack of equality among the persons, but instead complement one another. I'll just mention that, I've mentioned it on several occasions before. But you've got the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are co-equal, but they are different. They are complementary. And actually, the genders, we find that from 1 Corinthians 9, I didn't make this up, 1 Corinthians 7 explains this, that the man-woman relationship, that kind of thing illustrates complement how the Trinity is actually complementary, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So that gives us our understanding that when we're talking about gender differences, we are not talking about gender inequality. In fact, a lot of the cultural problems that we are finding today is a lack of understanding of this. When it comes to gender differences, And frankly, the liberal feminism of the 1960s, 70s, maybe earlier, 50s maybe. Honestly, some of that is actually the fault of of a male, sort of a misunderstanding of the male role as being superior and sort of a reaction to that in the culture. And so we need to be biblicists here and realize that neither gender, and we've talked about this a lot, but neither gender is superior to the other. They are complementary. They're equal and they are to complement each other. What's God's big picture on gender? God intends to display his image differently through men and women. It says, and we'll look at this, God created us in his image, what? Male and female. So God intends to display his image differently through men and women. This point about equality is critical. In the very first chapter of Genesis, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him male and female. We see that from Genesis 1.27. So you don't want to remove the idea of the distinctiveness between male and female. Hopefully I'm preaching to the choir. is wondering about this, but the truth is our world is. Our world is very confused about this and they are advocating, the world is advocating males, people that are born male having the choice to whether or not they want to become female and females having the choice whether or not they want to become male. or just gender neutral somehow or all of these different things and this is totally against what the Bible says about these things. Yes? So you're saying in this verse it doesn't specifically say that a female was created in God's image. It clearly says male was and then it just says God created the male and the female. But you're saying that it's implied that he created male Oh, definitely. Not implied, I think it's explicit. He created, I mean, he created, the image of God created him male. Him there, the word him is just a pronoun, then him is explained male and female. So, no, I think it's explicitly saying he's created male and female in his image. but with differences. So they're displaying God's image in different ways. Does that make sense? Yeah. Good. I appreciate you pointing that out. Wayne Grudem, who co-founded the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, who also wrote the book, along with John Piper, wrote a book on this subject, says, every time we talk to each other as men and women, we should remember that the person we are talking to is more like God than anything else in the universe, any person, because they're in the image of God. And that men and women share that status equally. Therefore, we should treat men and women with equal dignity, knowing that men and women have equal value to God. Men and women are not interchangeable, though. This is the thing that we need to understand. Instead, the biblical idea is that they complement one another. By the way, teenagers a couple weeks ago. Compliment not compliment. There's a spelling difference and a very different word. To compliment somebody, compliment somebody is to say that they're a nice person, they've got nice hair or whatever. Compliment is different, that means you're complimenting each other, they fit together, they work together, they complete each other, each other's counterparts. So that's what we're talking about. My phrase is that she finishes my statements. OK, right, so she compliments your statements, hopefully. All right, so, or the other way around. So in God's design, the weaknesses of the man are not weaknesses, and the weaknesses of the woman are not weaknesses. They are compliments that call forth different strengths in the other. Did you catch that? So God created man with apparent weaknesses that are filled by the woman. They're fulfilled by the woman. And God created woman with apparent weaknesses that are fulfilled by the man, so that there would be each other's strengths. Yes? Are we talking here about lack or lower capabilities? Are we talking about something related to sin nature, where there's sin natures? They all have sin nature, but somehow different where you can kind of help. each other, fortify one another against the sins, or is this purely relating to capabilities like, I can't cook? I can't think of a place where, I can't think of anywhere scripturally where we would see that the flesh or the sin nature is any different for a man and a woman. Yeah, right, but not all, right. It's just more talking about the weaknesses within the gender differences. So it presupposes, we're talking about differences in gender. That's the presupposition of this statement. And you have, okay, so what are the differences? Well, one may look like an apparent weakness, but it's actually allowing strength of the other to come forward. And it, you know, of course, we have to be careful about this because the fact that you can't cook doesn't mean that somebody, I can't either, but somebody else, another male can't. So we have to figure out what is actually gender specific and what is just, you know, you know, not incompetent, you know, incompetence basically. And I've talked about myself as much as Jeff in that area. Not quite as much, no, actually. But anyways, so I can cook eggs and a few other things. Anyway, all that to say that we need to understand that our strengths and weaknesses complement each other. Authority, now let me say this, authority and submission, this is usually how it's sort of framed in church. It's the area of authority and permission. But understand that only goes so far. We're talking about more than just that. They do not tell you what men and women are to be doing while the man occupies a position of authority and the woman submits. Yes, that's in the Bible. But it's because of the complementary design of men and women is also fleshed out in their activities and their role. So we're not going to really focus too much on the whole issue of authority and submission. That was another lesson, and we've dealt with that. We're really going to look more at activities and their roles and those kinds of things, which I think helps to answer Jeff's question a little bit as well. This is the area in which we're looking at. John Piper writes that differentiated roles for men and women are never traced back to the fall of man and woman into sin. Rather, the foundation of this differentiation is traced back to the way things were in Eden before sin warped our relationships. Differentiated roles were corrupted, not created by the Fall. And that, again, answers a more just question. These are differences that are pre-Fall. These are things that God created prior to that, the Fall. So, what role does God intend men to play and how do we cultivate this role in boys and live out as fathers? Of course, as you might be anticipating, we will be talking about raising girls in the future as well, either next week or the week after, so we need to understand that that will be happening. So what role does God intend men to play, and how do we cultivate this role in boys and live it out as fathers? John Piper puts it this way, at the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead. We're going to really kind of dissect this phrase, what he says here. At the heart of mature masculinity is the sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for, and protect women in ways appropriate to a man's differing relationships. So just kind of get that in your mind. We're going to break this apart a little bit. At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for, and protect women in ways appropriate to a man's differing relationships. So let's look at that. What we're not talking about is this. Here's what we're not talking about. Number one, we're not talking about, we don't want men to be wimps. So we're not talking about wimpy men. We're also not talking about goofballs stuck in protracted adolescence. We're not talking about goofballs here, think dumb and dumber, that kind of thing. So that's not what we're talking about either. But we're also not talking about thugs. That's not masculinity. Masculinity is not being wimpy, it's not being a goofball, and it's not being a thug, where you're domineering, insensitive, authoritarian, condescending. So what we're talking about is biblical masculinity, and you don't find these kinds of things involved in biblical masculinity. I know these are great technical terms here for you tonight. Anyway, but I think they're descriptive of some of the things that we run into when we're talking about masculinity. Sometimes we are... We think in terms of masculinity being anti-masculine. So we're raising wimpy men and we don't want to do that. But we also think in some of these other terms and we'll just kind of put that out of the way. Yes. Yeah, I think that's probably helpful. When I think of a model of biblical masculinity in my life, my dad some, but really my grandfather, to be honest with you. My mom's dad, he was a gentleman, a very gentle man. He was a colonel in the army, too. I mean, he was the guy, you know, he fought in battle in two terms in Vietnam. But he also, I mean, he's the kind of guy, very thoughtful. I mean, very, opened the door for my grandmother until he couldn't anymore. I mean, that kind of a, so we're not talking about, you know, We're not talking about these things. The picture I think of of someone with a lot of masculinity, most of you don't know my grandfather. You've seen him here before on Easter or something, but most of you don't know him, but that's what I kind of have in my mind. But anyway, so yeah, we're talking about that. Fathers and mothers hold out a biblical vision of mature masculinity for your sons. When you see in the culture an adolescent being held out as a man, whether it's on a sitcom or an advertisement for a movie, ask your son whether that looks like the Bible's picture of a man. It's a good thing to do, men, fathers, when you're sitting next to, when you're just observing roles. I encourage women to do this as well, when you're watching something. I'll give you an example of this. Hopefully nobody has a problem with this. If you do, then it's okay. My family has been watching that on Netflix, that Lost in Space. We just got a free subscription to Netflix because we cancelled it because we hated it, and Netflix, and then they offered us for free with something else we got. That was too much information. But basically, have you guys seen that series Lost in Space? So far, it's been pretty clean. My dad watched the whole thing through. I didn't have time to watch the whole thing through. He told me it was pretty clean, so I'm kind of going on his thing. Yeah, yeah, it's a new loss. It's not that old, yeah, weird, antiquated thing with the box. But it's overall pretty clean. I mean, it's a little spooky and scary at times, but not, you know, it's pretty clean. Anyway, in the episodes, the roles are a little weird, though. I mean, she, this woman, is pretty pretty masculine, the wife. And he's pretty subservient, almost feminine. He's not effeminate. He's actually a Navy SEAL. But I'm explaining, you know, my wife actually, I was glad, I didn't even have to. My wife is explaining to our daughters, hey, you know, something a little strange is off about her. Remember when she did that yesterday, the other day? You don't remember that? Oh, OK. My wife needs to speak up a little bit, apparently. Anyway, so I heard it immediately. Anyway, because I noticed it, but I didn't really want to say anything until somebody else did. Anyway, so that kind of thing we should be doing. We should make observations. We should compare things to the Bible's picture of, in this case, a man. Ask how that compares with what your little boy sees in daddy, or if daddy is not around, a godly man in his life. For boys of all ages, cast a vision of mature masculinity in your prayers as well for your little one. A father loving his wife biblically. This is another area. giving himself up for her, nurturing and cherishing her as he does his own body, as picturing for his children the good news. That's another area that in leadership, when you're really leading the right way, a leader is a servant, is one who's giving himself up, and we need to set the right example in that area. Are you embodying the type of self-sacrificial, let me, I'm actually, this seems to be out of order or something here, okay. I'll ask a few more questions here, and then we'll get into letter B, which is what I want to get to. Are you embodying this type of self-sacrificial masculinity? I'm just going to go to the next one, because I think that got out of order or something. So remember that John Piper said, the sense of benevolent responsibility. So let's look at this word. When we think of benevolent responsibility first, I think I missed letter A somehow in my notes here. But in letter A, we're talking about benevolent responsibility. So let's just flush that out without going to the notes. Benevolent responsibility has to do with taking responsibility for life, for your actions, for what you're doing. And masculinity, biblical masculinity, Inherent in that is someone who is taking benevolent responsibility. What does benevolent mean? What do we mean by benevolent responsibility? So benevolent modifies responsibility. A man should be learning to take responsibility. By the way, is that not a problem in our age? It seems as though and not just men, but women too, they're getting older and older and older before they're willing to actually take responsibility. It's the kind of responsibility, it's not just responsibility for myself, that would be a good start in some cases, but a benevolent responsibility where I'm looking out for others, where I want to do good to others. Now, letter B is that whole sense. What does it mean by the sense of responsibility? John Piper writes, such a man's sense of responsibility will affect how he talks about women and even the way he relates to pornography and the kind of concern he shows for the marriages of men around him. Now, what John Piper means is this. When we're talking about a sense of benevolent responsibility, we're talking particularly about our relationship with other women as men. And we want to teach our sons, particularly, to respect and honor women, to think of them as image bearers, to regard them that way and honor them in that way. And what Piper is saying, along with in this book, what he is saying is that when you teach your boys to regard and honor women as fellow image bearers, equal fellow image bearers, and you're looking out for them, you have a sense of benevolent responsibility toward them, you begin It's sort of a guard against how, when they're confronted with pornography, for example, which every person probably is at some point, every young man is at some point or another. When they're confronted with that, then they're going to recoil against it because it's treating something that is, it's treating image bearers as an object. So you're actually protecting your child, your son. by teaching them these kinds of things. There's a lot of difference between boys and girls, obviously. But one of the major differences between boys and girls is girls at a very young age begin to care for others. There's this natural nurturing kind of thing. I could see it in all three of my girls. I can see it more in my older two girls than my youngest. My youngest, like, she's fun. But the oldest, I can see more. They have this sort of natural desire to care for others around them. They're more attentive. Women are more, girls are more aware of their environment, and they sort of care what other people are doing around them, generally. This is not always the case, but generally. Men are not that, boys are not that way, are they? They're like, that's a truck. I'm gonna go for the truck. And I want the truck. Give me the truck. They're not thinking about, it's just the way a little boy thinks. Biblical masculinity, we're teaching our sons to think outside of that truck to being aware of their environment, being aware of what's going on around them and how what they do affects others. So I know as a boy, I was a disaster, okay, a young boy, until I came to Christ and that really made a big difference. But I remember being really a pain, my poor parents, okay, And I'm sure you mothers are seeing that in your sons, your young sons, and how frustrating that is. Well, let me just encourage you this way. Think not just about how you can curb their behavior in a negative sense. Don't just think in terms of, OK, I've got to stop them from being bad. I've got to stop them from hitting their sister, for example. But think in terms of not just stop hitting your sister, but begin to teach your boys how to treat his sister positively, how to treat a young lady positively. And being aware, that's a real big thing for little boys. They need to learn to be aware of their environment and how what they do affects other people. And if you can teach them that at an early age, it will help them in all kinds of areas of their life. By the way, young ladies here that are single, that's one of the things that you can be aware of when you're considering, you know, when you're 30 and considering dating somebody. You can think about, you ought to think about whether that young man is aware of his environment and he's aware about how his actions affect others and is he considerate and courteous and caring for others and those kinds of things or is he just kind of concerned about himself. I'm going to play my video games, I'm going to drive a car, I'm going to eat a burger or whatever. Or, right, is he just focused on getting the girl, getting you, if you're a girl, okay? And he's not really focused on anything else around him. Now, men tend to be single-focused, but you should look at that. You should pay attention to what's going on there. There might be some things missing if that, yes? I've heard said that if you take the name of the person you're considering and substitute it for the word love in 1 Corinthians 13, so-and-so is patient, so-and-so is kind. Yeah, good, sure. That's a good example. So, another area to consider in this whole idea of a sense of benevolent responsibility is would your wife say, you're working, fathers, you are working for good, Concerned for and aware of the good of your family and even when time is against you When you are busy or traveling are you really always thinking about the good of your family? That is a that is a masculine that is a bit that's biblical masculinity John MacArthur says this He says that the Bible, he says that Ephesians, it uses a different word, love. The word responsibility is the idea of love. And he sees masculinity not as like a right, but as a given, a trust, a given trust. Like God entrusted you with being a man. and it's a sacred trust that you've been given, rather than this right of authority or leadership or power. Obviously, men are, in most cases, physically stronger than women. That's a trust, not a right, and we should see it as men that way. It is less a prerogative than a calling. It is a duty and an obligation and a charge. The man will be uniquely called to account for his leadership, provision, and protection in relation to women. So here's a biblical distinction between men and women. Notice who's sent first in Genesis. The woman sent first. Who was held accountable first? Adam was. Genesis 3.9, God says to Adam, where are you? Eve sinned first, but God talks to Adam first. He holds Adam accountable first. And that really shows us, we see that all the way through Scripture, by the way, where God holds the leader accountable. And we need to understand that in our families as husbands and fathers. Adam must give the first account to God for the moral responsibility of life. So, one of the things, we're trying to raise our sons to have a sense of responsibility. Well, husbands, do you have a sense of responsibility? Do we have a sense of responsibility that we're able to pass down to our sons? Or, if you don't have sons like I don't have sons, Am I emulating this well enough that my girls will be able to identify a young man that has that in his life because they've seen it in their dad? Or are they going to be totally lost when it comes to that? I hope they're not totally lost. And we need to share this with our sons and daughters. We need to share this. Leadership is a sacred trust. Whatever God gives leadership responsibilities, it's a sacred trust, not some sort of prerogative. And we need to understand that. Leadership involves service and sacrifice. So we're getting into this area of leadership. Now, we're not talking about authority and submission. We're talking about leadership here. Leadership involves service and sacrifice. John Piper writes this. It's not a demanding demeanor. It is moving things forward to a goal. I think that is a great summary of leadership. It's moving things forward toward a goal. It's not driving somebody or forcing. yanking or pulling. It's moving things forward toward a goal. Jesus led his bride to holiness and heaven on the Calvary Road. He looked weak, but he was infinitely strong in saying no to the way of the world. So it will be again and again for mature men. That's in biblical masculinity as well. I think if we as men can think in those terms of leadership, that it's our responsibility in our homes to move things forward to a goal, then that will give us an idea of what our role is. I think men are really struggling, young men, Christian men even, are really struggling with what is my role in leadership. I know that thug domineering thing is not biblical and it's not right. I'm understanding that. But it's very hard, if you don't understand this concept, it's very hard to know, okay, where do I lead then? How do I lead? Am I supposed to lead at all, or am I just supposed to be passive? Bill of Masculinity is not passive, it's active. And it's important to understand that. Leadership does not presume superiority, but cultivates and mobilizes the strength of others. We want to train our boys not to demean or ignore girls, who will be women, but to nurture them in the service of Christ. As a former pastor put it, we want to teach our boys to lead through nurturing. This usually does not come naturally to boys who are interested in serving themselves. They have to be trained to be attentive to others, especially those who are weaker, and to foster their growth. And that is one of the things that God says, for example, to a husband, he is to dwell with his wife according to knowledge. He's to be attentive to his wife, who is the weaker vessel. Let's talk about physically weaker. He needs to be attentive to that. And that is part of biblical masculinity. Leadership does not have to initiate every action. Understand that, he doesn't have to initiate every action, but feels the responsibility to provide a general pattern of initiative. So dads, men, husbands, are you the one in the home that is providing a general pattern of initiative? Or is your wife the one providing the general pattern of initiative? It's a very important question to ask. So John Piper puts it practically. He says, the leadership pattern would be less than biblical if the wife, in general, was having to take the initiative in prayer at mealtime and get the family out of bed on Sunday mornings and gather the family for devotions and discuss what moral standards will be required of the children and confer about financial priorities. If it's the wife in the home that is doing all of these things, then there's something that's not right in the home when it comes to leadership. A wife may initiate the discussion and planning of one of these, but if she becomes the one who senses the general responsibility for this pattern of initiative while her husband is passive, something contrary to biblical masculinity and femininity is not right. There's something wrong there if that is the case. Now it doesn't mean that women and husbands and wives don't work together on planning, but when it's always the woman that is initiating and the husband is sort of passive, there is a biblical masculinity problem. So how do we nurture this in our sons? If you have sons. Now, I don't. But if you have sons, how do you nurture this kind of leadership? Anybody have any ideas? How do you nurture this kind of leadership in your younger sons? Or as they grow up, maybe early teens, that kind of thing. Yes? My son, how he treats me, I use that as an example all the time. We have a sister in the family, obviously, so how he treats his sister, I always tell him, you don't treat girls like that, you don't treat little girls like that, you don't treat mommy like that. Big girls, you know, it's a good balance. Good. Treatment of, yes, Lisa? For the father to model those things, and then slowly I know of one family that when the son was 13, 14 years old, the father just let the son lead the family in personal devotions every once in a while, just to sort of teach him how to, you know, just give him an opportunity to do that. He's obviously there and he's guiding him, but, you know, just that kind of thing. I know of one situation where there were several kids in the family, and there was a son who was older, and he just said to his son, I want you and your brothers and sisters to go rake the leaves in the yard. You're in charge, just go get it done, get the leaves taken care of. What do you suppose you would be looking for if you watched your son do that? What do you suppose you'd be looking for to see good leadership and not good leadership? Jeff? for himself, is he allocating it appropriately, age appropriately, the little kids do something small and easy, but he's definitely taking the lion's share as the leader. Yeah, is he just sitting back on a drinking lemonade button letting everybody else do the work, or is he doing the work with them? Is he setting the example and leading an example? Is he delegating appropriately? Yeah, those are the kinds of things you'd be looking at. And of course, you're gonna give him guidance as he's doing those kinds of things. Those are the kinds of things that you can do You start small in your work. Yes. Good. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually really good. That's a very, very good idea to have your boys just look out for that. Even if they're younger than your sister, like in science games, even if the boy is younger, your boy is younger, right? No, your boy is older. Sorry, I goofed. Anyway, so even in a case where the boy is younger and the girl is older, you could still say look out for your sister. Watch out for her. That's still a very good A good idea to do that. So those kinds of things are important. Another area, if your son follows the crowd, he'll have trouble leading his family. So just ask him, do you fear what people think? First of all, do you as a husband? If you have a fear of man, the Bible says a fear of man is a reproach and a snare. then that can get passed on to your sons. Be very careful about that. If you watch your sons and your son is just kind of following the crowd, whatever the crowd does, he's just following the crowd, you need to talk to your son and say, look, you should not be one who's just following the crowd. You need to think on your own. I'm not sure, I frankly think you teach your girls that too. I've taught my girls that as well, frankly. But you particularly need to make sure that your sons understand that as well. This isn't about personality. Not all boys have a leader personality, sort of a strong personality. Some do, some don't. But they don't get a pass because of their personalities. Al Mohler said this. To be a man, every boy should have a number of qualities, including verbal maturity, sufficient to communicate and articulate as a man. This is an interesting concept that he brings up. A man must be able to speak, to be understood, and to communicate in a way that will honor God and convey God's truth to others. Obviously, if he's a father, he's going to have to learn to do this. Beyond the context of conversation, a boy must learn to speak before larger groups, overcoming the natural intimidation and fear that comes from looking at a crowd, opening one's mouth, and projecting the words. Though not all men will become public speakers, every man should have the ability to take his ground frame his words, make his case when truth is under fire, and when belief and conviction must be translated into an argument. So that's leadership. A man needs to be able to stand up and lead. He needs to be able to articulate his beliefs and be willing to stand on his beliefs, those kinds of things. How do you teach a boy that? Well, part of it is you teach them as they're growing up and rubbing shoulders with friends. You teach them, you know, I don't know where I got this idea as a teenager, but I remember thinking to myself, you know, if I'm not influencing my friends, they're going to be influencing me. And so I either, and I remember as a teenager thinking to myself, and I must have gotten this from somewhere else, but I want to make sure the right people are influencing me. And if they're not, I better be influencing them. I remember, that I homeschooled for my first year in high school, and then my parents put me in a Christian school. And the influences there were not good, actually. They were very bad. And I immediately recognized that they were. It did not affect me, though, because I thought to myself, I was always thinking, I'm either going to influence or be influenced. And so I was thinking in those kind of terms. So I chose to be a leader in that environment or to stand alone, which in some cases I did. I had to stand alone. So that kind of environment is good. When a young man gets his first job, like with my girls, I'm going to be pretty protective of them when they get their first job. I think a young man, kick them out there and let them get it done. I'm serious. I appreciate my dad. So I was working in trial event and fellowship when I was 15 and 16 and finally my dad said you need to go get a real job. And so I worked in carpentry and tree work and that kind of stuff. And I mean I got you know, all kinds of things happen when you work with tree guys. They're like sailors. So it gives you kind of an idea. Dave is not a typical sailor. OK, anyway. So anyway, but and so, you know, putting them in those kinds of environments and seeing how they do is something that is that, you know, as they are able to is something that they need to they need to be able to stand alone. Boys must have character, maturity, sufficient to demonstrate courage under fire. This is biblical masculinity. By the way, this is something that Adam didn't have, in the sense that when Eve took of the fruit, he should have been able to stand up and say, look, and showed leadership. He didn't. We don't have time to go into this here, but there are a lot of different marks. I didn't actually provide that link for you. I could do that some time. All right, let's move to this. Ask the following assessment questions. Husbands, how are you leading your wife? Are you nurturing and cherishing her as you are commanded to do in Ephesians? Surrounded with care, warmth, guidance, to equip her to do the work of God that God has for her. Because if you're doing that with your wives, you're setting up a good example for your boys. How are you leading your children? Are you leading them tenderly, sharing yourself with them as a father does with us? Are you enjoying them, not just instructing them? Are you taking time to set priorities and instruct your family? This is an important one. Are you taking time to set priorities and instruct your families? Where are you leading them? So when you plan your year's events, including traditions and those kinds of things, Is it the wife that's just doing this? Is it your wife just planning all these events? Or ideally you should be doing it together, but who is leading in these things? Who is directing in these things? Passive fathers raise passive sons. If you don't know whether you're too passive, ask your kids. Who seems to lead our home, mommy or daddy? Hopefully, who leaves our home? Anyway, it's okay. Anyway, a truly masculine father is actively, deliberately, thoughtfully leading his family in God's ways. So that, any questions about this? Leading with biblical masculinity and how we teach our children, our boys, these kinds of things. Yes, sorry. Do you not feel that that's so And an at-home mom, I feel like a lot of younger children, maybe mine, like 10 and under, would say a mom does because a mom's there all the time. And a mom's doing it. Even if dad's following all these guidance rules you're giving, I feel like children would still think the most present parent is the one that does it. Yeah, I think that, ideally, you're going to have both parents doing it. It's not just the father or the mother that is helping. Ideally, that's what you're having, is both working together for this. I think in some cases, the mother is going to be able, for instance, like teaching your son to be attentive to things around them. That probably is going to be more, a father should be doing it too, but equally or more, maybe the mother's going to do that when she's around, that kind of thing. But on the other hand, going to work and working a job and providing for your family is setting a good example for your son to do that. So that's not wrong. Of course, when the dad comes home, what does he do? That's going to be very telling to the boy. If the dad comes home and doesn't interact with the family, isn't attentive to his wife, isn't attentive and just kind of does his own thing all night or whatever. That's going to tell something to the son. That's going to send, well that's what my dad did, that's what I do. So I don't think it's so much, I think it's more what is he doing when he is around more than how much. You're working together on that. multiple boys would it be difficult if they kind of are competing for the leadership growth That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that because I was in a family of two and I have three girls, so I don't have an answer for that one. Zach, you could probably speak to that. Thanks. Sorry for putting you on the spot. I was the second oldest, so it was always me competing with my older brother who was going to take care of the kids, like when the parents went off babysitting. I think a lot of it does tend to fall, especially if you have the oldest son, it tends to fall on him, but I was also very much involved with that. We had a buddy system growing up, too, where I was in charge of one of the younger kids. There were so many they could keep behind, but it also taught me how to take care of a kid growing up, how to keep an older brother, and almost like a sort of parent figure when parents weren't Actually, a bisism is a great idea in a situation like that, because you are, it's not putting all of the responsibility on the oldest. That's great. I'm glad I asked you. I'm glad I put you on the spot. Yeah. In a similar vein, you also, depending on the age difference in your boys, I was one of three boys, so we have different circles of friends, and so how are you Again, showing that malevolent responsibility to your friends. With us, it was kind of also a little, our dad was the pastor, and so we were kind of de facto the leader of our group of friends. So each of us had a different group of friends, but we're kind of in a leadership role there, and sort of, but, you know, among the house, it was dad in charge. But it, we weren't, me and my brothers never really competed to be in charge in the house. Dad was always in charge and he made sure we knew that. It was more like we, in terms of how we interacted with our friends and how we interacted with others, are you showing that benevolent leadership in what you do? I would imagine that a parent would actually need to, you know, the natural thing is the oldest. is going to end up leading in a lot of cases. But the parent would actually, particularly with boys, would need to actually focus on giving responsibility to those that are younger in order to give them the ability to lead. I mean, that just seems normal to me, I think, and I think that's kind of what Jeff was... I think a parent would have to consciously do that. Yes? Brother enough and that respectively they should have made him do more because he can't make eggs and But he didn't have to because I did it and then my brother did it and so yeah by the time I got to him it was cereal and So like retrospectively we should have made him cook yeah, even though you guys were around because he really he's really quite pitiful and so but there's like He'll admit to this too You know it's so like they'll tell you now Retrospectively we should have made him do more even though, but it was just easier to have yeah, we do it Yeah. Even when my older brother went off to college and I was now the oldest one for like two years at home, there was a significant shift of my responsibilities. That's true. They're always getting older and getting, yeah. Good. Yes, Jim. Well, the one thing that she was bringing up there is that each child that comes along, they're different. Yeah. They're not the same. They're not going to grow up the same. Each one of my brothers, we did not follow the other. We each had our specialty. Well, this guy wants to go to that ear, so I'm gonna go this way, here. Somewhat reduced competition. Because no one wants to be in the shadow of the other one. As well as the parents move on in age, when you first start out, you're a little bit poorer. And the older children may not get as much And so lifestyle changes as each child comes along, too. Yeah. Pretty sure my third has a whole lot more than my first at her age. Anyway. No matter how much you try to treat them the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Good. Good thoughts here. Let's go ahead. And teens, you're dismissed downstairs for a few minutes here. And Enrique, you can come on up. Hopefully this has been helpful.