Let's pray. We'll study the word. Our Father, we thank you for another hour that we can come together as men of Christ Fellowship Bible Church. Lord, we want to be equipped. We want to be taught. Lord, we know Romans 15 tells us we are filled with all goodness and knowledge, and we are able to admonish. We're able to counsel and help one another. And so God, would you continue the work of equipping us that you would do that good work, that equipping work, that sanctifying work in us so that we would be really a local congregation full of biblical counselors helping one another as we walk with Christ. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right, guys, you have the outline here in front of you. My topic today is priorities for fathers and grandfathers. I think that probably brings most of us into the picture here. There might be a few that it doesn't particularly apply to yet. But nevertheless, it is a very pertinent subject for every single guy in this room. And I've designed it that way for a purpose. My goal today, guys, is not to give you all of the ins and outs of parenting and all the ins and outs of being a godly husband. That will come in due time. Tonight, we're going to sort of kind of look at kind of a big flyover and kind of look at the lay of the land in a big picture. And hopefully it'll be helpful for every single man in this room. Look at the top couple of quotes here by Richard Baxter, just by way of introduction. 400 years ago Baxter said a holy family is a place of comfort a church meaning an assembly a little gathering of God Oh that God would stir up the hearts of people Thus to make their families as little churches That it might not be in the power of rulers or pastors that are bad to extinguish religion or banish godliness from any land in other words the duty for for edification, for the building up of the church is in the home, the context of the home primarily. Matthew Henry next put it like this. Now I know not any good thing that will contribute more to the furtherance of this good work than the bringing of family religion. By that he means family devotions, family worship, more into practice and reputation. Here, the reformation should begin. In other words, it doesn't begin with a big work out there. Really, it begins in the context of our families. Next, William Perkins, the only rule of ordering the family is the written word of God. That is the only rule for ordering the family. Is there another outline up there that we can give to Derek? Okay. Maybe in our day, we might say not Facebook, not Twitter, not the news, not friendships, but the word of God is our ultimate rule and standard. Look at this next one by Henry Wilkinson. The kingdom of Satan is built upon the twin pillars of ignorance and error. So the disuse or the neglect, you might say, of family instruction is regarded as one of the greatest sins to open the floodgates of ungodliness into society. If you're a father, if you're a grandfather, whatever age you may be, whatever age the children may be, whatever season of life, my goal today is that there would be application for every one of us in this room. And if you don't have children or grandchildren or a family in the home, then you know how you can pray specifically. for those in your local church family. So there's application for all of us here in this room. Priorities for fathers and grandfathers. As I was thinking through some common struggles for us as dads, grandfathers, here are a few that came to mind. Just kind of, I'm trying to set the stage before we dig into the word here in a minute. What are some struggles that we battle with? Number one, misprioritization. Alas. with proper priorities. Maybe having an earthly-minded mentality. Selfishness. where the world eclipses the next world. You know, this world, this time, where we are, it kind of eclipses the one to come. Number two, superficiality. Superficiality. And by that, I mean not probing into the hearts of our children. You know, it's one thing to be with them. It's one thing to do things with them, but we don't want to just be superficial in our time together. We want to probe the heart. I think a third struggle that is common in men in our day is passivity, not initiating, devotions, family worship, friendship with our children and grandchildren, relationship, communication, just kind of being passive. Just, I want to let it happen. Well, we need to be active. We need to be proactive, not passive. Fourth, impenitence, impenitence. That is when the children don't see dad repent. When they don't see and hear and observe and learn how dad confesses his sin and mourns over a sin and acknowledges his sin. Number five, recreationism. where church and fellowship and ministry can kind of become a Sunday only thing. It's just kind of, yeah, we do it, but it kind of becomes, it's just sort of what we do at the end of our week. Often you can hear excuses like this. My life is busy. My work is busy. My sports are consuming. A good question might be what role does CFPC and your local church play in your own life is one way to sort of gauge and try to ascertain where is the body of Christ in terms of the priorities in your own life. Number six, another battle for us as men is prayerlessness. We all talk about prayer, but often we can give such little time to it in our homes. little time to it in the home. Number seven, passion, passion for God, passion for our wives, passion for our children, passion for the church, passion for the unsaved. And then number eight, pride, pride. I was sharing this list with my wife a couple of nights ago, and I only had up to number seven. And she said, What about pride? Maybe she sees that in me a lot. And she said, pride, you forgot pride. That's a battle, pride, sinful and selfish responses. And she's right. It really is a battle that we as men of God struggle with, caring more for ourselves than for others. Now, on the next page, we all are there, guys. We all battle with those. Those are common struggles for every one of us, whether you're married or not, whether you're a parent, a grandparent, kids in the home, out of the home, we all battle with that. Next page. The topic tonight demands our urgent attention because I am totally convinced in my reading and my observing that parental neglect is commonplace in our day and intentional parenting in holiness is rapidly diminishing. Rapidly diminishing. Now, I put this in your outline Now, follow with me. This is preached by a Puritan, and it comes with quite a sting. As our friend Vody Baucom would say, if you can't say amen, you got to say ouch. Okay, here's that quote. Puritan Richard Mather soberly gave this exhortation to careless parents. Okay, that's what he's thinking of, careless parents, when he imagined when on judgment day, the damned would accuse their parents with these words. All this, parents, that we suffer in hell is through you. You should have taught us the things of God and did not. You should have restrained us from sin and corrected us, but you did not. You were the means of our original corruption and guilt. and yet you never showed any competent care that we might be delivered from it. Woe unto us that we had such carnal and careless parents, and woe unto you that had no more compassion and pity to prevent the everlasting misery of your own children. some bold words to preach, but how fitting they are when we consider the weight and the gravitas, the need of teaching and training and shepherding our children with eternity in mind. Now, underneath that in this page on page 83, I have a couple of headings here, and I don't want to spend much time here and get lost in these, but a couple of headings. What are some ways that we might hinder our children from coming to Christ? And then next, what are ways that we help or we contribute to or play a role in bringing our children to Christ? In that top bullet point, the question should be asked, how do we hinder them? when we ourselves don't trust in Christ is number one. When we fail to foster Christ-centered conversation in the home, I think is, I mean, it's like, well, duh, but how important that is to talk about the things of Christ in the home. When we fail to live with integrity, when we fail to love Christ and the church, when we fail to trust God, when we show little interest in spiritual things, much is, more is, we could say more, is caught than taught in the context of parenting. We must teach. We know that we must, but our children need to see it as well. We don't want to hinder them. We don't want to present a bad example to our grandchildren and our own children, but How do we bring our children to Christ? We understand God saves them. We get that. But how do we serve them in bringing them to Calvary frequently? Number one, we should be convinced that our children need Christ. Number two, realize that our children belong to God. They're His. They're just on loan to us, right? I mean, it's not my five children. They're God's. I'm really a steward of what God has entrusted to me in these children. Number four, we are to speak to and live with them in a Christ-centered way. We are to strive to make a godly impression on our kids with our lives. I think number six is important and I've been convicted of this. We want to show our children and our grandchildren reverence toward God. You know, even in the context of family devotions in the home, this is something I'm trying to work through. You know, there's a time for being goofy and fun, you know, and laughing and playing, rightly so. It should happen. But when we're having family devotions and the Bible is being read or we're praying to God, that's not the time for joking around. And so trying to balance that with You know, family worship is not a bad thing. It's not something that's not fun. It is a joyful time, but we have to teach our kids that we should revere God. We need to honor God. We have to fear him rightly. And so even that mentality in the home, I think can be helpful. Number eight, offer our kids Christ-centered views of current events. Lovingly warn our children about being outside of Christ and of hell's reality. and certainly being mentors for our children. Now, next page, page 84. And as you're turning, we could all say and acknowledge together, well, by the grace of God, we don't want to hinder. We don't want to do anything that would hinder our children or grandchildren. May the Lord help us. Whatever age we may be, whatever ages of the children and grandchildren, that God would help them. to walk closely with the Lord. One man gave his testimony. He said, you know, my family's all grown up. The kids are out of the home, but if I had to do it all over again, and I just want to draw your attention to that first check mark. I would love my wife more in front of my children. I want to, I'm going to come to that here in a little bit, but what an interesting thought, you know, one way that I would parent my children better. this man said, if I could do it all over again, is to love my wife more in front of them. We'll talk about that. Now, before we dig in here to the Word, middle of the page, page 84, I have a bullet point. We want to teach and model for our children to live for God, right? To me, to live is Christ, to die is gain. A couple of bullet points to help us. Men, we believe that the Bible is the inerrant, sufficient, authoritative, powerful, life-giving, soul-transforming Word of God. We believe that. And as a friend blogged one time, he said, if we really believe that, then why don't we read the Bible more out loud with our families? Sounds so obvious, but yet I need to hear that because I so often can forget that and things can creep in and distract and use up our time, but we want to use the word of God and depend on the spirit. Number two, we want to utilize every opportunity, whether we're driving, whether we're in the bedroom with our kids, putting them to bed, when we're in the car with the kids or grandkids, when we're outside in nature, whatever it could be, we want to utilize opportunities to point them to the Lord. Third, don't abandon your post. Whoever or whatever may happen to your children at whatever age, we ought to never abandon our post to be godly parents and grandparents and prayer warriors for them. Number four, it's never too late to start. I think one of the dangers of teaching on parenting or teaching on grandparenting is There can perhaps be a guilt. I didn't know this. I wasn't taught this. Man, it's too late for me now. I just, I didn't know. And rather than have this heaped guilt upon us, it's never too late. Never too late. And the timing of God and the providence of God, the plan of God is always perfect. It's always perfect. So it's never, ever too late to start. So as I think about priorities for fathers and priorities for grandfathers, as I was kind of putting this together and reading the word and praying, Lord, what would be good to equip men as biblical shepherds, biblical counselors? And come alongside of other men in the church, it's not only Pastor Jeff's job, but all of us to help each other in the context of Christian living. I want to give you three, what we might call unequivocal priorities. I think these are non-negotiable. I think these are clear. I think they're biblical for all fathers and all grandfathers to be faithful to God and to be biblical examples. Notice I didn't put here to convert our kids because we can't. And I just want to acknowledge that. Maybe you know that, but don't put that guilt on yourself. We cannot save our kids. It doesn't mean you're a successful parent if the kids are converted. It doesn't mean that you failed if they're not converted. The Lord, by His grace, is the only one that can save. We want to be faithful. We want to be obedient to what God calls us to, right? And leave that salvation work. to God, right? So three priorities. Number one, worship your God. Number two, love your wife. Number three, lead your home. Let's see if we can kind of walk through these. And we want to walk through the word. And guys, I hope it'll be nothing new. And yet I hope it'll be a blessing. First, unequivocal priority. Every father, every grandfather, He doesn't want to hear this. It's to worship our God, to worship your God. Let me read you this quote written in the 19th century. Your children are not merely to be taught out of some elementary book that they should love God, but you must show them that God is loved. If they observe that no worship is paid to that God of whom they hear, the very best instruction will prove useless. But by means of family worship, that is to say, you leading, you teaching, you living it out, these young plants will grow like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season and the leaf shall not wither. Now let's turn in our Bible to a couple of scriptures. Let's go to one that we're familiar with in Deuteronomy chapter six. Now the book of Deuteronomy, as you're turning there, is maybe easy to remember like this. Here is Moses leading the nation of Israel. Their toes are at the very threshold of the promised land. They've been wandering for 40 years in the desert. The generation has died. There's a new generation that's now been born. They're about to enter the promised land. Moses is giving them a second giving of the law. He's reminding them of what they are to do and how they're to live. Deuteronomy 6, 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. Every Orthodox Jew has that verse memorized. They call it the Shema in Hebrew. That is the very first fundamental. You gotta know who God is. There's one God. We are monotheists around here. There's not two or three or many gods. There's one God. Now notice verse five, you, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And what Jesus will say in Mark chapter 12, with all your soul, he'll add that. Okay. This is important. Know who God is and then worship God, love God. Verse six, these words, which I am commanding you today, they should be on your heart, not just kind of in one ear and out the other, put them on your heart. Then verse seven. teach them diligently to your children. Do you see that? Oh, we got to teach them. Oh, that's important. But notice the order before that. We've got to know who our God is. And then we want to, we want to love God with all of our heart and the words of God. We want to hide in our heart. It's an important priority that we have that there. We can't teach our kids without loving God ourselves or they're going to see a disconnect in the home. They're going to say, why are you teaching me this? But you're not living it out. We want to worship our God. Turn with me just in front of the book of Psalms to Job, Job chapter one. Another example of a man who clearly taught his children, he was a godly man, but it begins with his own worship of God, his own worship of God. Job 1 verse 1, there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil. Seven sons and three daughters were born to him. And then he had a lot of possessions in verse three, verse four, his sons used to go out and hold a feast in the house of each one on this day. And he would send and invite their sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of feasting completed their cycle, Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all." Now here's what Job said, maybe my children have sinned and maybe they've cursed God in their hearts. Job did this continually. So he had 10 kids, had a lot of livestock to his name. But consider how he's a blameless man. He's upright, he's fearing God, he's turning away from evil, and he's getting up early in the morning and he's offering sacrifices on behalf of his children, which tells us he's living in a time of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that's what they did. Maybe my children have sinned. I've got to come before God on behalf of my children. It'd be like us saying, I got to rise up early in the morning and come before God for my children today. Maybe they've sinned. I've got to seek God on their behalf. I've got to intercede for them. He, he parented them well, but it began with him being blameless, upright, fearing God. and turning away from evil. Another example we see here in Noah, you can even listen as I read Hebrews 11, and you can turn there, Hebrews 11 verse seven, by faith, Noah, he was warned by God about things not yet seen. In reverence, he prepared an ark for the deliverance or the salvation of his household. by which he condemned the world. And he became an heir of the righteousness, which is according to faith." So here's a man who God warns him through this revelation. God warns him. I'm going to flood the world. You got to build a mosque. He obeys God. He obeys God and he is leading his family. He's preparing an ark for the deliverance of his home. He's hearing from God. He's obeying the Lord and he's delivering his family and building the ark. I think there's a good example in that man, Noah. Now guys, nothing I've said has been new to you. Worship the Lord. Just make sure that you're living it out in the home before you teach it to the children and grandchildren. But yet again, I think we need to hear just the simple application. Do we set time aside every day, every day to meet with the Lord personally in the Bible reading, in prayer, in thanking God, in considering the gospel, confessing our own sin, meditating. Maybe there's other books and other material that may come across your path that you can glean from as well, but are we knowing God and worshiping God in our own hearts first? It's kind of a simple means of grace. This is Christian Living 101. We want to live out our faith before we call others to do that as well. Okay, so worship your God, worship your God. That's the first unequivocal priority. I think for a father and a grandfather, because our children observe, they watch, they imitate, they follow, they mimic, they want to do what you do. And if they see you, and if they observe you in the way that you worship God, I think it can have a powerful effect in addition to teaching, but even in your own example that you set. Okay, worship your God. Now, I think another unequivocal priority for us as fathers and grandfathers is loving your wife. I have a book on my shelf and I pulled it off this week and I had to reread it because I remembered it was somewhere in it. And I was right. It was one of the main premises of the early part of the book on parenting. I put some quotes here by William Farley is this, if you're going to be a good parent, then you've got to be a good lover of your wife. And I just think, What an amazingly brilliant concept. And I want to show you some of that. Look at what Farley says here in these opening quotes. The most important example that parents possess is their marriage. Because he puts it, our marriages preach. They preach a message that either attracts or repels our children. Why? Because your marriage is really a visible portrait of what your kids and grandkids see of the gospel. I hear you talk all day long about God and Christ and the church, but the way that a man loves his wife will show them how Christ loves the church. Does that make sense? Look at the next paragraph. Human marriage exists to preach the gospel. When a husband is unfaithful to his wife, or if he verbally belittles her, or if he loves his children more than her, or if he takes her for granted, it's kind of like his marriage is saying, you know, Christ's love is not all that great. He loves us only when we perform. You really can't trust this savior. You can't meet his expectations. He doesn't keep his promises. Why serve a fickle despot? His deeds say many things can separate us from the love of Christ. What is Paul's point in marriage? Christian marriage preaches the union. It makes it either attractive or ugly to our kids. When a husband loves his wife as Christ loves the church, washing her with the word, forgiving her, serving her, tenderly leading her, the marriage says, Christ loves his church. You can trust this groom. He is infinitely loving. Serve him, you won't be disappointed. In other words, he's getting in the book that the way that you treat your wife is like a visible sermon to the children and grandchildren. Here's what the love of Jesus is like for his bride. Talk about a convicting, weighty concept to dwell on. Now, I want to give you an example. Now we all know Ephesians 5, and let me just quote that before we turn to Song of Solomon, because Ephesians 5, verse 31 says, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Okay, then Paul says, it's a mystery. What does that mean? God has had a plan all along, but it was kind of formerly not known. What's the mystery? marriage has always been about Christ and the church. Whether a believer knows it, whether unbelievers know it, the marriage union, what is the meaning of marriage? It's the gospel. It's the gospel. It's about how Jesus loves the church and how the church submits to him as the Lord. That's the beautiful union of marriage that points to the gospel. Well, Song of Solomon brings this out, and I just want to give a couple of very practical ways that you and I can love our wives in the presence of our children. I remember in our premarital counseling, one of the biblical counselors said to us, he said, he said, your children need to see that the home life does not revolve around them. And the children need to see that they're not number one. They're important, don't get me wrong. We love them, we care for them, we cherish them, but it's not about them. In fact, that's not even a permanent relationship. I mean, in a sense it is, they'll always be your child, but they're gonna move out, they'll get married, they'll have their own children eventually, but the marriage union stays together. And so that idea of making sure that we love our wives, even in the presence of, in view of our kids. So, practical ways. Verbal affirmation. Look at Song of Solomon four, verse one. We don't need to go into all the details of the whole book. It would be worth doing that. I preached through this book a couple of years ago on Wednesday night. But just look at verse one of chapter four. How beautiful you are, my darling. How beautiful you are. Greetings to you. We have actually an outline right there on the top. And then we got some chairs and some spots there. Notice in verse one, how beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful you are. I mean, just notice the verbal affirmation there in verse one. What if we spoke to our wives that way, even in the presence of our children, and then Let me turn to verse seven. You are altogether beautiful, my darling. There is no blemish in you. It's like you are the only one for me. You are just so beautiful in my eyes. Who cares about what media presents and what's on the cover of a magazine? You are altogether beautiful, my darling, my dove, my love, my wife. Verbal affirmation. Same thing in chapter seven. How beautiful are your feet? How beautiful are the curves of your hips? What's he doing now? You can keep reading there. He's going to talk about her navel and her belly and different body parts. He's being thoughtful. He's observing her and he's verbally affirming her. I think there's something good in us affirming our wives, even in the presence of our children. Number two, emotional attraction. hear me out, guys. We understand love is not built on this. We get it. But there's an element of important emotions. Look at chapter four and verse nine. You have made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride. You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes. In other words, you just drive me crazy. In the good sense, I love you to death. What's common phrases? We could think of all kinds of things. I'm emotionally drawn to you. You captivate me. You capture me. You dazzle me. I think these are some things that we can do to speak well of our wives, even in the presence of our kids. Number three, exclusive affection. Exclusive affection. Chapter seven, verse 10. And I wanna go here just for a sec, because I love this verse, and I think of this verse often. I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me. That's the wife talking. I fully belong to him. But notice this, she says, oh, my husband? Yeah, his desire fully for me. Now, here's a convicting question. Could your wife and my wife say that? His desire? Totally for me. There's no second thought. There's no competition. There's no competitors. There's nobody else. There's no flings. There's no... his desires for me, he loves me, he wants me, he longs for me, he desires me, he looks at me, he wants me. I think there's something good about expressing that affection in exclusive way to our wives, even in the presence of our children. Number four, supreme appreciation. Appreciation for them. Chapter six, Maybe we could even look at verse 9, Song of Solomon 6 verse 9, But my dove, my perfect one, is unique. The Hebrew word is one. What does that mean? You are, you are the only one for me. You're not just one of them out there that I picked. You're the only one for me. That's what he's saying to her. And I think to have the supreme appreciation of our wives, I love you. You are the only one for me. And then permanent devotion, permanent devotion in chapter eight, you know, Our love is as strong as death. Telling your wife and telling the kids, I am never going to leave this woman. There's nothing that could break my love for her. I love her, I'm with her, I will be with her, I will not divorce her, I will not abandon her. By the grace of God, we will keep this strong. I think those are good things to do. So we're talking about parenting and grandparenting. What are some unequivocal priorities? Well, number one, worship your God. I think another way that we can teach our children and grandkids is by pursuing our wives and loving them well. Because that is the visible walking portrait of the gospel that our kids are gonna see. Our kids are gonna see. Okay, so worship your God. Number two, love your wife. Number three, lead your home. In the time that remains, we can go through this section. Lead your home. Well, how do we lead our home? Well, by teaching. We could just begin here by teaching. It should be intentional, biblical, dutiful. Remember how and what we are to teach our kids. Let me give you 10 things there. And these are just my typing out of some things. There's much more that you can teach. Teach them who God is. Teach them how bad their sin is, right? I mean, think of how the Bible talks about sin, right? You know, it's like a viper, dead, cold, lifeless, death. I mean, all these word pictures, these figures of speech, young kids, I mean, they can get it. teach them the reality of hell, teach them about the law of God, the necessity of the new birth, the Lord Jesus Christ, atoning blood of Christ. They got to have faith in Christ, sanctification and holiness, the joys of heaven. I think those are certainly needed. We know that we should teach them. Um, Number two, we wanna lead our homes by praying. And I mentioned it earlier in one of the neglects, one of the struggles for us as dads, we often just have a lack of prayer, prayerlessness. Guys, I wanna take you to a scripture in Jeremiah 10. Jeremiah 10, and I want you to follow with me as I read Jeremiah 10, 25, because it's a sobering verse that God gives through Jeremiah to the people of Israel. And hear this, it's a chapter on idolatry. Okay, you and I today aren't tempted to bow down to a scarecrow, right? To a wooden idol. That's just not what we're tempted by today. But we have our own idols that we're tempted with, right? We have plenty of distractions around us in our day. In the context of God rebuking his people, look at verse 25. Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you and on the families that do not call upon your name." Now, that's a sobering, and quite honestly, that's a scary verse. I don't want the wrath of God to come upon homes that do not call upon his name, but that's what the text says. The families that do not call, upon your name." Oh, how many Christians through church history have gone to this verse and said, let our homes be places of prayer, that we would teach our children to pray, teach our grandchildren to pray, before meals, of course, before bed, of course. When we've sinned, when we've gotten angry, when we've lashed out in anger and frustration, when we're thankful to God for the gospel, when we're preparing for church and when we're responding to the sermon on Monday and Tuesday. And there's so many ways, thanking God for our wives, thanking God for their siblings, thinking on and on we could go with thanksgiving and confession and adoration and worship. So many ways that we can teach. to pray, to intercede for the church family by name. Number three, another way that we can lead our family by teaching, number one, by praying, number two, third, by worshiping. Maybe this is just kind of a good place to kind of draw this to a close. Anybody know Joshua 24? I put verse 11. I was wrong. I did it from memory and I had it wrong. It's verse 15. As for me and my house, we choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Yeah. As for me and my house, we... Notice the father saying, we will. I think we need more dads like that. More grandpas like that. And this is not saying that we're not, but we live in a day where, well, I'll kind of let them choose their own path. Forget that. We will serve God in our home. We've got to serve the Lord. We're going to serve God in this home. There's a commitment there. There's continuance there. There's kind of the assembly there. There's a consecration. We're going to serve and a celebration. We're going to serve the Lord. We're going to serve God. in this home. You know Ephesians 6, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up. Yes, in the discipline, that's true, and the instruction of the Lord. It is for parents, but the primary duty falls upon fathers in that verse. Let's see if I think we can do it very, very quickly in the book of Judges. Let's just maybe draw to a close here in Judges 2. So Israel's entered the land. And Moses has died. Joshua is the new leader and they've gone in and they've conquered all the nations and most of them, I should say, and they've gone in, cities are wiped out and they're now repopulating. Judges chapter two is one of the saddest chapters in the whole book because you learn what happens when dads don't lead at home. Judges two, verse 10. all that generation were gathered to their fathers. And then there arose another generation after them. They did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which God had done." Well, how do you not know the work? God just brought walls down. He split the Jordan River. I mean, how do you not know what God has done for you? Well, it wasn't passed on. It wasn't passed on. Verse 11, what happens? The sons of Israel do evil in the sight of the Lord. They serve the Baals. They forsook the Lord God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples. What does that mean? They became like the world. They just live like the culture. They worship what the culture does. Because there wasn't that intentional teaching and training. Maybe if we could sort of bring that into the application here for all of us as dads and grandpas. I think there's a fitting application. We want our children and we want our grandchildren to know God and we want them to know the works of the Lord. And we want to speak of God. We want to speak of what God has done. We want to worship our God in the presence of our grandchildren and children and families. I think that is so important and a sobering reminder here from judges. Next page, on page 88 there, and we've taught on this. The men have looked at it on Friday mornings. We've had sermons on it in the five o'clock hour. Family worship. I am an unashamed cheerleader of family worship. I believe, because I believe the Bible is powerful. Sunday is good, but Sunday's not enough. Sermons are good, but sermons are not enough. If we could take six days out of the week and pour truth into our kids, or as many days as we can, I mean, you know, if it's five days, but as much as we can during the week to pour truth into our children and our grandchildren. in praying and in the reading and teaching of the Bible, and then in singing together. What a legacy we have. What a opportunity for God by his spirit to work through the word in the saving and sanctifying of our children, our grandchildren, and those in our family. There's a prayer there on the bottom of the page. I found this, I don't know who wrote it, But guys, it's a wonderful prayer. It's a father who is pouring out his heart to God on behalf of his children. For fathers, for grandfathers, I think it's a good prayer. I mean, just honestly, you know, humbly coming before the Lord. And you can, you could take this and make it your own. You could take it and embellish it and add more. And you could, you could just pray your heart out for your children and grandchildren. So, unequivocal priorities. Number one, worship your God. Duh, we get it, but let's live it out in the home. Before we teach it, let's live it. Number two, love your wife. Let's never underestimate the power of loving and pursuing the gift that God has given to us in our bride, in our wife. Kids are gonna move out, they'll have their own kids, they'll have their own family. Our wife, by the grace of God, will be here to stay, right? Let's love them well, let's pursue them well. And if you're not yet married, pray. Pray for those that are married. And have that resolve in your mind that when I do get married, if that's what God has for me, I wanna do that. Worship your God and love your wife. And then third, lead your home. Lead in the teaching, lead in praying, and lead in worship. Yeah, question or comment. When I was just married before we had kids, someone told me, and I think it's true, whether you like it or not, If you're absent, if you don't love, if you're arbitrary in your punishment, that's how they grew up viewing God. You know, years of the Holy Spirit can change that. But, especially for a non-believer father, you know, his kids are starting from a real heavy hindrance. Yeah, that's good. So, you know, as my kids grew up, you know, sometimes it grieves me when I go, That's their view of God. They got that from me. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good comment. Great sobering reminder. May the Lord help us. It happens whether you like it or not. Yeah. Good. Thank you, Jeff. It's a word of wisdom. Thank you, brother. Well, may we give them accurate representations of our great God, huh? Well, let me pray, guys, and then we'll go and prepare for corporate worship. God, I love these men. I'm thankful for them. Father, would you help us by the power of your Holy Spirit that we would emulate our Savior Jesus, that we would be men of God, men of integrity, men of holiness, to be fathers and grandfathers for your glory and for the good of our homes and the good of our children. In Jesus' name, amen.