Well, thank you for that leadership and worship. You know, it is at the cross where we discover about ourselves that we are far more sinful than we ever thought before because it is through our sins that Christ was slain. We killed Him. At that very location where the worst thing possible about us is disclosed, God moves towards us with grace and with forgiveness and with love, and we discover that we are far more loved than we ever dared to imagine. And so at that one spot, we discover the most unsettling discovery and the most glorious of discoveries. Thank you for taking us to the cross just through that worship this morning. If you guys will look at your notes, we'll be looking at the second session for today, which is amazing grace for dads who have failed. and fall short. How many of you are dads? Raise your hand. All right. And of you dads, how many of you have fallen short? Okay. So we're in the right place. And we need a lot of encouragement. Let me start off with, this isn't on your notes, but let me give you the seven pillars of our men's ministry at Cornerstone. These are the seven things that we as men rally around, the seven things that we all have in common, the bond that unites us. Okay, here's the seven pillars of our men's ministry. Number one, weakness. Weakness. Number two, ignorance. And number three, failure. How you guys doing on these? These are 100% so far. This is what unites us as men. These are the first three pillars of our men's ministry. And then the fourth pillar is a humble willingness to confess the above three. To confess our weakness and our ignorance and our failure. kind of like King Jehoshaphat did in 2 Chronicles chapter 20 when the enemies came against Judah. Long story short, he became very troubled and he prayed a public prayer in front of women and children and all the people of Judah. And in front of everybody, he did exactly what you see on the screen. He said to God, he said, we are powerless. Neither do we know what to do, but our eyes are on you. Here's a man in front of all of the people of Judah, a man who gets paid to know what to do and to have the power to deal with enemies that come against them. And in front of everybody, especially women and children, he publicly says, I don't know what to do and I am weak. but our eyes are on you. So he was willing to confess as we should be. The fifth pillar is a great savior. In fact, that's what makes us willing. That's what gives us the courage to confess our weakness and ignorance and failure because there's a great Savior that we can confess those things to who can give us the wisdom and the insight and the strength and the forgiveness that we need. And so it is to Him that we pray. So the sixth pillar of our men's ministry is prayer. We come crying out to this great Savior on a regular daily basis And we do that together with one another and therefore coming forth from our belief in this great Savior and crying out to him We have hope for ourselves and for those that we lead So we're bursting with hope we've been to the valley of repentance and seeing our weakness and our ignorance and our failure and We have beheld our great Savior, cried out to Him. And coming forth from that, we are bursting with hope for ourselves and for those that God has called us to lead. And those seven pillars essentially make up the foundation of what you could call leadership. You could put the word leadership over the top of all of those pillars because our leadership of our wives and children and other people should be based upon those seven pillars. Amen? I know there have been times where I've tried to lead my wife on other pillars. Like I've tried to approach her and confess to her, her weaknesses and her ignorance and her failures. And it never went well. Like she never responded by saying, I really want to follow your leadership. I am behind you. So that strategy doesn't work. And then there are times where I've tried to lead by confessing my strength and my wisdom and my righteousness. And that never went well either. But I'm telling you, I've never had a woman come to me and complain about a man who lives by those seven pillars. Pastor, you've got to do something about my husband. He's confessing his weaknesses to me. in front of me, in prayer, his ignorance and his failures, and he's crying out to Jesus Christ, you've got to stop this. Save me from this man. No woman ever talks that way. Any woman with an ounce of godliness in her, a man who operates by those seven pillars, that woman will follow that man wherever he goes. And that's what the people of Judah did to King Jehoshaphat. He's confessing all that in front of the people of Judah. I don't know what to do. And I have no power against this multitude, but our eyes are on you. And so a prophet steps forward and says, here's what to do tomorrow. Go to this lookout spot, and the enemies are going to be there. And just stand and watch the salvation of the Lord. And so Jehoshaphat speaks to the people of Judah and says, hey, follow me out there. We're going to go out where our enemies are. and we're going to set up a choir, we're going to sing, we're going to praise, we're not taking any weapons with us, and the people are like, okay, we'll do whatever you say. And they followed him out there. And when they began to sing and praise, God routed their enemies. God has the back of a man who operates by those seven pillars. And God's people will follow that type of man as well. So just in this session with the time that we have, I want to encourage you guys. Any encouragements that I give you here are designed to point you to living your life consistently with one of these seven pillars. We as men in the church do need encouragement. H.B. London in the book Pastoral Leadership for Biblical Manhood and womanhood shares that 75% of men are dissatisfied with themselves as dads. 43% have a deep sense of failure and not just kind of like, yeah, I fall short, but a paralyzing sense of failure about themselves as dads and as husbands. 75% in a survey said that they have feelings that they don't share with anyone. He goes on to say this, I think I have this, yeah. Christian men feel insecure, ganged up on, beaten down, and unsure what to do. Many carry a load of guilt and failure about their lives. Men are afraid to talk because they believe people will think less of them. Many feel bullied by their backgrounds, wounded and angry and visionless. Most have no concept of what it means to be a man. They feel bullied by the political correctness of our culture. Social confusion exists between men and women as a result of the gender revolution. Men feel paralyzed by feelings of inadequacy plus family and work pressures. You might want to note that word inadequacy. Because men do struggle with feeling inadequate. The only problem is that there's not a guy on the planet who will admit that. Two words that you just won't hear coming out of a guy's mouth is inadequacy and the word fragile. Like guys just don't say, you know, just lately I've been just feeling inadequate. I've just been feeling fragile lately. We just, we don't, we don't confess those kinds of things. We don't share those kinds of feelings with each other and especially with with our wives, but that doesn't mean that those feelings are not there. And as men, we need encouragement. We need to encourage one another. We need to be encouraged in the gospel. I'll never forget a number of years ago, I got a phone call from a wife in our church who said, Pastor Milton, my husband is drinking again. Can you go get him? And I said, well, where is he at? And she told me the bar where he had gone to. And she said, can you go get him? So I had never been inside a bar before. I'd been in the ministry for just a few months, fresh out of seminary. And so I get in my car and I go to where this bar was. And I walk inside and there he is sitting at the counter drinking. And he, just so you know, he had been struggling with, he had been an alcoholic and had a whole history of drunkenness. This was not social control, temperate drinking. But I walked in and he looked up and saw me and I was the last person he was expecting to see. And he said, what are you doing here? And I said, well, I'm here to ask you that question. And he got up out of his chair and he walked out side with me and we stood there on the gravel parking lot in front of this bar and I said, bro, what are you doing? And he said this to me, he said, Pastor Milton, I came here tonight to drink because when I drink and start getting drunk, I start popping off. And when I start popping off, I get people mad. And he said, I came here tonight to get drunk and start popping off to somebody and then they would beat the living daylights out of me. I came here tonight to get beat up. And then he's standing just a couple feet away from me and totally serious, he looked at me in all earnestness and he said, Pastor Milton, please punch me. And I was just out of seminary and I, I didn't know what to do. I'm kind of going back through my notes from our seminary classes, because I honestly thought in that moment, like, Lord, am I supposed to punch him? Is that what he really needs from me? But after thinking about it just quickly, I just said, bro, that's not what you need from me. Let's go home and let's talk." And we had a lengthy conversation that night encouraging him in the gospel. This was a man who felt like a complete failure as a dad and as a husband and as a Christian man. And what he wanted was to just get pommeled by somebody. But what he really needed was encouragement. My ministry as a pastor anymore is really, other than sermon prep, all I really want to do is just spend time with men. They are the heartbeat of the church, the power centers of the church. They are the ones that I want to invest in. And in terms of investing in them, the lion's share of what I need to be communicating to men is encouragement. So let me do that just with the time that we have. in this session. I want to try to give you eight encouragements. We'll see how far we get. Eight encouragements to you if you are a dad who is frustrated, guilty, broken over the fact that you have failed and continue to fail and fall short in your role as a dad and as a husband and as a man. Here's the first encouragement. If you feel inadequate, I'm not going to ask you to admit that you actually feel inadequate, but if you do feel inadequate in your role, that's okay. So that's the first blank, put okay, and that's spelled O-K. So that's okay. If you feel inadequate in your role, that's okay. In fact, that's great. That's the second blank. In fact, that's a miracle. That's the third blank. It is actually a phenomenal miracle for a man to observe and conclude that he is inadequate. The problem with most men is not that they feel inadequate, it's that they think that they are adequate. in their role as a husband and as a dad. The truth is, as a dad, you should feel inadequate. There's a problem if you don't feel inadequate. In Psalm 51.5, the psalmist says, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin. My mother conceived me. I was born in original sin. So the children that you're called to parent and be a father to, They are born in original sin. Solomon says foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. And so this is how your children come to you, and God says, here, disciple that. Bring that up in the nurture and discipline of the Lord. And any man who embraces that task without feeling a desperate sense of inadequacy is blind. to the reality of what his task is and the odds that are stacked against him. Look at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2.16. He was all about the business of reaching out to those who are dead in their sins and having God regenerate them to believe in Jesus Christ. He knew how high the stakes were and how impossible this is that through him preaching the message of the gospel that people would believe it and get saved. How do dead people believe? Paul felt very inadequate. He says in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 16, who is adequate for these things? Here's what's striking. Paul felt inadequate in his ministry and he confessed that. He's willing to go public with those feelings of inadequacy. But he doesn't stop there. In 2 Corinthians 3, 5, he says not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. Here's the great thing about Paul. Paul would look at what God had called him to and observe, I am not adequate for this. But then he also observed that God is adequate for this and he makes me adequate for this. And so I am adequate for this in him and in the strength and wisdom that he provides. And so I will not shrink from this calling. I will move into it and embrace this task that I ended up myself feel inadequate for. You know, one of the things that I've noticed about myself, and I've noticed this about brothers in the Lord, is that, you know, if there are things that we feel inadequate in doing, we don't go confessing that and sharing that. We just kind of quietly kind of put a wall around that thing that we feel inadequate in doing, and we just stay out. And we go do something that we do feel adequate in doing. Are you with me? There have been times where In my in my home even even somewhat recently where there's just you know real need in either my marriage or dealing with my children and and God is wanting me to step into that but I feel so inadequate I'm frustrated what I've tried hasn't worked and my strategy seems to be falling apart and so this actually happened a few weeks ago, so and I walked out of the house and grabbed my lawnmower and I mowed the lawn, because I can mow. And as I was mowing the lawn, I'm admiring the straight lines and admiring my workmanship. It's like, I can do this. I can feel adequate in doing this. And you know what I did when I got done mowing the lawn? I mowed it again, going in a different direction. And as I'm doing it, I'm like, why am I doing this? But as guys, we do that. If, you know, there's disaster in my home, I am needed, but I feel totally inadequate. And so I shrunk from that. I retreated from that and went out and did some lame thing that I at least felt adequate in. What God wants from us as men is to recognize I am inadequate in this, but by the grace of God I am adequate and by the grace of God I am what I am and God's grace will not prove vain in me and I will step into this thing that I feel inadequate for and I will confess my weaknesses and my ignorance to God and I will ask God to meet me in my inadequacy, show up and do a miracle. Guys, God is waiting for you. Those things you put a wall around and you're like, man, I'm not going to go there because I know I'm not adequate for those things. God's waiting for you inside those very areas. And God's greatest miracles, his greatest miracles happen right in those areas where you and I feel most inadequate. And so if you do feel inadequate in your role as a dad, That's actually a good thing. It's a miracle. In fact, I think when God wants to do a great miracle, the first stage of that miracle is He shows a man his inadequacy. And then, if that man, instead of shrinking, moves into and embraces his inadequacy and does what God has called him to do anyway, in a spirit of dependence upon God, that's where God shows up and does great miracles. So that's the first encouragement. The second encouragement is if you feel as if you have only a little to offer as a dad, know that God can do much with little. We have a God who delights to take a little. and do a lot. We see that throughout history and with Gideon's army. God intentionally whittled down Gideon's army into a little thing and then did much through that. The Apostle Paul, his name was Saul, but he got renamed Paul, which means small. And the irony of that is this guy gets named Mr. Small. Mr. Small Guy, and look at the amazing things that God did through him. Paul embraced that. He embraced that. He embraced that name, but knew that God could do great things through him. And Paul was a champion for the Lord, and touched thousands of lives, and to this very day, 2,000 years later, we're still reading the stuff he wrote. And lives are being impacted. So if you as a dad feel that you only have a little to offer, Bring that little to the table and know that God can do much with little. You guys know the story of the feeding of the 5,000. The disciples see this multitude of 5,000 men plus women and children. And in Mark's gospel, they say to Jesus, Lord, this is a desolate place. It's late. Tell everyone to go home and get something to eat. Jesus, I love this, he says, no, you feed them. and doesn't say anything else. He doesn't say, you feed them and by the way, I'm going to do a miracle and let me tell you how it's all going to work. No, he just, you feed them. And he lets them just kind of twist in the wind with that. How are we going to do that? How are we possibly going to do this? They come to Jesus and say, this isn't going to work. They explain why. And Jesus says, well, what do you have? And so they did find a lad that had five loaves and two fish. And in John's gospel, they bring that lad to Jesus with the five loaves and the two fish. And when Jesus looks at those loaves and fish, what does he do? Does he say, you've got to be kidding me? What is this in the face of so great and vast a need? Five loaves, two fish. Think about it. If you were in that crowd and you had five loaves and two fish, would you have brought it forward? I don't know if I would have. Not because I would have wanted that for myself. I would have been ashamed. Like, what would he think if I just brought this little bit in the face of so great a need? But this lad brings it forward and Jesus looks at it and basically says, this is perfect. Let's thank God for this. And he blesses it. He blesses it. And then he begins to distribute it. And by the time it was all over, everyone in this crowd had eaten. Everyone had eaten to the full. And there were 12 baskets left over. because we have a God who delights to do much with little. As a dad, you may feel like I don't have a lot to offer to my children. I don't have a lot of gifts. My knowledge isn't all that great. It's not as great as other men in the church. I've not known the Lord as long as other men have. And I definitely can't teach my children the way that my pastor would be able to if he were here. I look at my history. It's so full of failure. and also looking at my children's age. I've only got another year with this child before they're out of the home, or my children are already out of the home, and so my windows of opportunity are so little. Listen, no matter how much you might feel that way, just come to Jesus and say, I can't do much, but here's what I have that you have given to me, And I want to be used by you. And so I bring this little to you. And trust me, Jesus will look at that and say, this is perfect. This is perfect. And he'll bless it. And I think he'll surprise you at the great things that he can do through you if you'll make yourself available. Do not withhold or rob your children and your wife of the contribution you can make because you think it's too small. No, go to Jesus first and submit that to Jesus and let him bless that little and you'll be surprised at how big that can become. There's a third encouragement that I want to give you and that is that if you have sinned and failed as a father, know that you have forgiveness with God. I know I don't want this to sound cliched, In a way, we all know this is true, but on a gut level, for me as a dad, I don't have a huge amount of trouble on a gut level in believing that God forgives me for my private sins that don't affect anyone in a clearly observable way, even though I know that they do affect people. But my sins and failures as a dad, that have hurt my children through my sense of commission or omission. Those hurt me deeply. The guilt I carry for those failings are very heavy and I have a little harder time believing that those are forgiven. My wife recently was working on a Creative Memories album, or she had pulled it out and was looking through it. And I was looking at pictures of my children from about 12 years ago, 13 years ago. And I know where my heart was then. And I know that I was not the dad that I should have been to them. And as I looked at those pictures of my children at that age, my heart just was weeping. As I looked into the eyes of them at a younger age, I'm like, if I could go back and be their dad at this age again, I would do it so differently. I was not the dad that they deserved for me to have been to them. And I've just found that the older I get, there's a weightiness over a history of failure that only grows larger. And that would be a crushing weight if it were not for the gospel. The cross, as a consequence, has become increasingly precious to me. And if I allowed myself to be crushed with guilt over my failures as a father and as a husband, here's the deal, guys. As long as you're bound by the guilt of your sin, you're bound by the sin. That's why we often keep repeating the very sins we feel most guilty about. Because if you're held by its guilt, you're held by the sin. The key to being released from sin is to first be released from its guilt. And that happens at the cross. That's the first step to being released from the sin altogether. And so running to the cross and experiencing God's grace and believing that this forgiveness is mine, taking in that grace, what happens is It's on the other side of that experience of God's grace that we can begin to soar and become something different than what we have been. So know that there is forgiveness with God. In Ephesians 1.7, Paul says, in Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. And you can say, the forgiveness of my father's sins. The forgiveness of my husband's sins. The forgiveness of my sins that have wounded and hurt other people. There is forgiveness. Paul is the one writing this, and Paul was a blasphemer. Paul was responsible for the death of people prior to coming to Christ. There were, no doubt, widows in the church and orphans in the church. Whose lives were forever impacted because of things that Paul did and was involved in before he was saved Paul knew I've done many things that have brought great hurt to other people But I know that I'm forgiven and I'm not going to be ashamed to believe that Don't be ashamed to believe that you are forgiven through Christ for your sins that you have committed against God that it brought hurt and and impoverishment to your wife and to your children. So know that there is forgiveness and just embrace that grace and let that grace be the wind beneath your wings as you can soar from there. A fourth encouragement to give you is that if you have sinned and failed as a father, know that God can use even your failures. God doesn't look at you and me and say, OK, what have you done that's good? All right, I can use that. How have you messed up? OK, that absolutely can never be used by me in any way. That's actually not the biblical picture. We know in Romans 8.28 that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love God and who are called according to his purpose. God can work all things together, including the ways that we fall short. And just one example, there's others in scripture, but one example is Jacob. who had twelve sons, and we know the story that he loved Joseph more than the others. In Genesis 37 it says, Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Bad thing. I mean, if Jacob were at a men's conference on parenting, he would probably be discouraged from singling out one of his children as his favorite and loving that child more than all the others. And then also it says, because he was the son of his old age. That's kind of an odd rationale. And then it says, and he made him a very colored tunic, which in the context here, this garment that he made for Joseph was a visible symbol of Joseph's favored status. He might as well have made a coat for Joseph that had the words Daddy's favorite on it. That's what it represented. He is my favorite. I really love him in an unusual exceptional way and as a symbol of that I'm going to give him this tunic that is a visible symbol of the special love that I have for him. Again, that's not a good thing. We would not encourage a dad to do that. We all have heard this. It's not good to play favorites. My children frequently will ask, am I your favorite? And I'll always try to figure out some way to say, yes, you're my favorite 17-year-old or whatever. but just kind of ingest, but we all know that it's not good to single out a child as being your favorite. But Jacob did that, and as a result, his brothers saw that the father loved him more than all his brothers, so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms. They were jealous of Joseph and despised him. And they took the opportunity when it presented itself to throw him in a pit and then eventually sell him into slavery, a caravan that was traveling to Egypt. Joseph ended up going to Egypt and working as a slave in Potiphar's house. And one thing led to another. Long story short, he ends up being second in command in the land of Egypt. And there was a famine. or seven years of prosperity and plenty and then seven years of famine in Egypt and also in Canaan where Jacob and his sons were that ultimately led Jacob and his sons to Egypt so that they could be provided for. And I'm sure that Jacob found himself at times in the land of Egypt scratching his head saying, this is just crazy. That I was not the dad that I should have been. I did some things that were inadvisable. And God wove that all together to where here we are. Here we are. and God's good sovereignty. I have a vision that one day I'm going to stand before God at the judgment and he's going to say, Milton, let me show you what I did with the good things that you did. And I'll be like, wow, that is so out of proportion to the deeds themselves. God, you are an amazing God. And God will then say, now let me show you what I did with your mistakes and with your failings. And it's at that point I just see myself falling on my face in utter worship. How God uses the good and the bad and he weaves that in the tapestry of his sovereignty to accomplish his purposes. I'll just say this very generically. There were failings on my part, in my heart, especially years ago, that ended up bringing me to a realization of the capability that I had for sin that frightened me, that left me in desperate need of believing in God's grace and preaching the gospel to myself every day, and hence the Gospel Primer was born. It doesn't justify the failings, but I look back over my history and know that this book would not even be in existence and being a blessing to anybody else besides me. God used even my failures to take me deeper into an appreciation of His grace in the gospel, and good has come out of that. And my goal in sharing this is not for you to say, you know what, actually, that's good to know. So it doesn't really matter how I do as a dad. That's not the point. That's not the point at all. There's a reason God says, here's what I want you to do as a dad and as a husband, and obey me. And there is a harvest to the spirit that you can enjoy. And all of that is true, and we need to be governed by a number of thoughts like that. But in addition to that, this is one of those thoughts that needs to be in our stream of consciousness. That God will use even our imperfections and our failings to accomplish his purposes. There's a fifth encouragement I'd like to give to you, and that is if you have sinned and fallen short, such failures give you the opportunity to do something really powerful. Apologize to those you've hurt and to confess your sins to God, but especially apologize All of us would say, you know, I really wish I did not fail in this way, but you know what? Having failed, I actually have now the opportunity to do something of amazing power, and that is render a truly humble and heartfelt apology. Susanna Meadows, in an article a couple years ago in Newsweek magazine, made this statement about apologies. And I don't even know if she's a Christian or not, but I really love the wording of this. She said, apologies are moral events that have real power to heal. Apologies are moral events that have real power to heal. I like the language there. And I think we can, as dads and as husbands and as men, think to ourselves that, you know what, I really wish that I didn't sin in this way, but having sinned and failed, I now have the opportunity to do something really powerful. I now have the opportunity to bring about in the life of my children a moral event that has tremendous power to heal. I think in your notes there's a list of some qualities of a good and true apology. You all know that there's a lot of wrong ways to apologize, right? Like I was wrong, but so were you. I was wrong, but I was having a bad day. It's kind of been a tough year at work, plus this and that and the other. I was wrong, but I really want you to know the context. I want you to have an understanding of the wrong that I did and why and where I was coming from. We just want people to understand why we did what we did, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that we have so little interest in understanding why other people do what they do when they let us down, right? There's a lot of wrong ways to apologize. How about this? I'm sorry, or if I was wrong, I'm sorry. Or if I hurt you, I'm sorry. Or my favorite, okay, okay, okay, I'm sorry. Man. But a true apology? would involve at least these characteristics you see on your notes. First of all, confessing your sin as sin. agreeing with God and using the vocabulary of scripture and confessing your sin as sin, making no excuses for your sin. So you don't go to your child after you've been in the flesh with them the day before and yelled at them or whatever. You don't come to them the next day and say, hey, daddy had a bad day yesterday. Sorry. No, Jesus didn't die for bad days. He died for sin. What was your sin? Confess that. Don't say, hey, I'm sorry I was uptight with you. No, Jesus didn't die for uptightness. Use the vocabulary of Scripture. and confess your sin as sin, making no excuses. Along with that, make a big deal out of your sin. Don't make light of your sin. Don't minimize your sin. Paul Tripp says, when you minimize your sin, you minimize what Jesus died for. You're stealing glory from Jesus, but when you magnify your sin, you're magnifying what he died for. Amen? We all have sounds that grate on our nerves, right? Like fingernails on a chalkboard. You have sounds like that? Or like the sound of a fork scraping against someone's teeth when they're eating. That gives me the willies. We have sounds like that. And I bet you that Jesus has that too. The sound of us minimizing our sin. that he died for. When you apologize to someone, you just need to remind yourself Jesus is in the room and he still bears the scars in his hands and feet and side for the suffering that he endured for my sin. And I will not minimize what he died for. I'm going to make a big deal out of it. Make a big deal out of your sin, a way bigger deal out of your sin than anybody else's. And thirdly, take full responsibility for your sin. Take responsibility for your sin. Don't be like Adam. You know, the woman that you gave to me, she gave to me, and I... What's he doing? He's acknowledging his wrong, but not before pointing to her. and then to God, and then back to her. Rebecca Manley Pippert rightly says, Adam is so smooth in his wording there that no one would ever guess that he is a rookie at sin. And we can be the same way, very sophisticated. avoiding admitting wrong, or if we admit it, we try to dish off as much responsibility as we can. But you know what a real man does? He owns it and takes full responsibility for it. And I underline the word taking because, guys, I don't think any of us realize the degree to which our children walk around assuming responsibility for our failings. Children's consciences work in funny ways. If your child is four years old, and you get in the flesh, and you're angry at them, and saying stuff you shouldn't say, and behaving in ways you shouldn't, your four-year-old is not going to watch you and say, you know what? Dad's been under a lot of pressure at work lately. And you know, the economy is tough, the market's been taking some hits, and his retirement is not what it was a couple years ago. I think I need to pray for dad. Your four-year-old's not thinking that. They'll never voice it out loud, but they're quietly assuming responsibility. Your teenage son and daughter are quietly assuming responsibility. And so when we go to our children and deliver a true apology, what we're literally doing is it's an act of rescue. We're reaching into them. and we're taking any responsibility that we've put on them or that they are carrying and we lift that off of them and we put it on our shoulders. That's what a real man does. And we should be motivated by the gospel to do so, right? If Christ was willing to say, hey, I've never sinned, you have, I will take your sins and I will put them on me and I will take the fall for those sins and die for your sins." If He was willing to assume responsibility, as it were, for your sins at the cross, in that sense, and paying the penalty, then the least that we can do is assume full responsibility for our sins and lift responsibility off of the shoulders of anyone else and to allow that to be on our shoulders. Another aspect of a true apology is desiring to enter into the hurt of another person. So it's not just, hey, I'm sorry. It's no, think about the hurt you caused and try to give voice to that. Think about it and say, you know, here's how I think what I did would have hurt you, but you know what? I'm giving voice to it here. I'm probably not even capturing the half of it. Can you help me to understand the hurt that I have caused? And your desire should be to be a student of that hurt and to want that hurt inside of you. And then lastly, ask for forgiveness from the one that you send against. Don't say, I'm sorry, or even I hope you will forgive me. The only thing my wife and I settle for in our relationship is, will you forgive me? Ask the question and leave yourself at the mercy of the other person. When that happens, a transfer of power occurs. What you're doing is, even though not literally, you're bowing before that person that you've offended, you've apologized to them, you've asked them for forgiveness, and in asking them, will you forgive me, you have just granted them the power to reach out their hand and extend forgiveness or withhold it. If you just say, I'm sorry, there's no transfer of power. If you just say, I hope you'll forgive me, there's no transfer of power. But to humbly say, will you forgive me? And to grant them that power to forgive or not forgive, that's an amazing thing, an amazing thing. And as a dad, to go to your children when you have wronged them, and to do what we're talking about here, and then to say, will you forgive me? That's a tremendous gift that you can give to your children I meet with about 30 guys on Tuesday mornings, and we were talking about this subject a couple years ago, and I asked the men, grown men in the room, I asked them, how many of you have even one experience of your dad, when you were growing up, ever coming to you and apologizing and asking your forgiveness for some failing of his? And out of 30 guys in the room, two men's hands went up. Two hands went up. You may have blown the opportunity of being an example of a perfect dad to your kids, but that actually now positions you to do something I think even more amazing than perfection, and that is to model humility, and to go to your child and apologize in this way, and to ask for forgiveness. And you may say, my children are out of the home. It's too late. Oh, no, it's not too late. It's not too late. This is the perfect time. And maybe what your children need is for you to go to them and do exactly this, and own the hurt that you've caused, and even search out that hurt in them, and to ask them to forgive you. There's a sixth encouragement that I would give you as dads if you fail and fall short, and that is that if you have sinned, such failures give you the opportunity to do something really powerful, and that is grow. realize that growth is powerful. We've already, as men, blown the opportunity to be examples of perfection to our children, right? We've already ruined that. But now, having ruined that, we can be a model of something I think even more powerful, and that is a model of progress to our children. I honestly think our children don't want perfect parents. That would freak them out. They want parents that are progressing and we can give them that gift and show them what growth looks like. And however significant our past failures are, that's how significant the power we can wield by the growth that they see in us. Paul is telling Timothy in 1 Timothy 4, 5, take pains with these things, be absorbed with them so that you may progress and so that your progress may be evident to all. I want people to see you grow, Timothy. I want them to observe that. I don't have time to get into this story that is identified here in the notes. I encourage you to read that it's from a daughter of a man in our church. who, after 30 years of marriage, his wife walked out on him because this man, in part, had deified his wife and was putting tremendous burden on her to live up to certain things. And he was not finding his happiness in the Lord and was putting his wife under this burden of being the one who makes him happy. And she got fed up with that and walked out on him. But after several months of soul-searching and gospel-centered counseling, they came back together as husband and wife. Just an absolutely marvelous story. I wish we had 20 minutes to talk about it. But shortly after they got back together, this daughter, she had been away at college, she was moving back home. And she was real worried. Yeah, I know mom and dad are back together now, but What am I going to see when I get back home? I told you guys I wasn't going to get into this, but I'm getting into this. So let me read to you what she said. She wrote me an email about a month or two after she came back home from college and listened to part of what she said. She says, from my point of view, I hated seeing the way my father treated my mother. I saw her in constant pain and never speaking up for herself. She constantly allowed verbal abuse to attack her until she couldn't take it any longer. So when they broke up, I felt like there would finally be peace in the house and that everyone would finally relax a little and that the tension of walking down the stairs every morning would surely disappear. And it did. She actually was glad that they had split. So she says, you can imagine when I was starting to move back home in August, How scared and anxious I was about seeing them in the house together. But they were different. Completely different. They were boyfriend and girlfriend. My mother asks my father for kisses when he gets home, which I have never seen before. Those are her caps. My dad is so much more patient and his temperament has completely mellowed out. The man that I used to walk on pins and needles around can laugh. And she later said, I'm writing this email with tears in my eyes. I'm so grateful for what I am seeing in my mom and in my dad. She goes on to share how when she sat in our church youth group, she'd hear me preaching and hear her Sunday school teacher teaching. And she's saying, this all sounds good, but is it true? Is it true? Is this real? And what she's conveying in this email is I know it's real now. I know it's real because I see it evidenced. In my parents, I see it evidenced in my dad. And so let's be growing men. Though we've failed in so many ways, if our progress is evident to our children, it will give them hope for their failures and pave a road that they can walk on in the days to come. And that is the walk of grace. Well, a final encouragement. My goodness, there's two more. Let me just give you these, and we'll try to treat these very quickly. Realize that God chose you over all others to nurture and instruct your children. Be encouraged by this, men. God does not say, you know, I am only speaking to perfect fathers when I tell you to bring up your children in the nurture and discipline of the Lord." God's like, listen, it doesn't matter, I'm speaking to dads, no matter how much you failed, I'm calling you to be the one who brings your children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. That's basically the instruction that we find in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4. And I just want to encourage you with the thought that God shows you over anyone else to be the one who brings up your children in the nurture and discipline of the Lord. God chose you over your seminary trained pastor to be the one who brings up your children in the nurture and discipline of the Lord. And I don't want you to see this command and go, oh my goodness, here's another responsibility that I gotta live up to. No, I want you as men to feel honored by this. God is like, hey dads, and you're like, me? Yeah, you. Bring up your children in the nurture and discipline of the Lord. Imagine the Ephesian church, they're assembling together, and one of the things they've noticed is that there's a growing number of children in the Ephesian congregation, and the children need to be ministered to, they need to be discipled, they need to be instructed. And what is the children's ministry going to look like? And how are these children going to be instructed and discipled? How are the needs of these children for discipleship going to be addressed? And so all the churches huddled together in a church service. And here's this letter being read from the apostle Paul. And Paul is now going to address the issue of children's ministry and how the children can be properly discipled. And here's his words, fathers, fathers. And dads ought to sit up and say, me? Yes, fathers, don't provoke your children to anger, but you are having this responsibility delegated to you by God and delegated to you by the church. Fathers, you bring your children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This is a marvelous thing. And one of the things that I've noticed as a pastor is that God has called fathers to do this, and God always knows what's best. He's called fathers to be the ones who instruct their children and train them in the ways of the Lord, because dads have a power over the hearts of their children that a seminary-trained pastor does not have. I repeatedly tell our men, what you see at the top of page 83, that one pound of godly father is better than a ton of clergy. a father's most fumbling and woefully imperfect attempt to lead his family and the things of God packs more punch and wields more power than the flawlessly executed ministry of a seminary trained pastor." And I tell dads, listen, I can meet with your children, with their issues, and I can maybe help a little bit, but I don't have the power that you have over the hearts of your children. God has given you a unique power that you uniquely possess over the hearts of your children, and you can actually do a far better job than I can. And even your most inadequate, fumbling attempt at leading your children is actually more powerful in the hearts of your children than any seminary-trained pastor stepping in and trying to do it for you. I used to do, you know, if a teenager came to me for counseling, I used to try to meet with them, and however long it took, and try to help them. Any more, I might meet with them once, And then it's like, I'm bringing the dad into my office and it's like, what can I do to help you? Because I don't have the power in this teenager's life that you possess. What can I do to help you in repenting or in ministering to your child? As a pastor, our men, I'm seeing our men, they're walking around yoked with a unique power that God has given to them. That's a father power. And I want to speak that reality into our men to where they realize the power that God has given to them, and then me as a pastor and all of our pastoral staff and elders, that our number one job is actually to invest in these men and helping them to be the dads that God has called them to be and helping them to be the husbands God has called them to be. I've mentioned in the other workshops that we tell our men that if you are a husband and a dad, then welcome to the pastorate. You have an official ministry position here in this local church. And our job as pastors is to invest in you and resource you and equip you to be the dads that God has called you to be. There's elders in the church, and then the next tier of ministry is the ministry of the dads and the husbands. And we as elders pour into them to help them to discharge this most important ministry that God has called them to. This is the best thing we can do as a church for their wives, And the best thing we can do for their children is to minister to them in this way. We tell the people in our church that the most important part of our church's women's ministry is the ministry of the husbands to their wives. The most important part of our church's children's ministry is the ministry of the dads to their children. And we can't just say that and talk a great game and then do nothing about it. We need to speak that way and speak that vision into our men and then structure our ministry in such a way to where we now as pastors are available to our men, and we're pouring into them, training them to be pastors in their homes. And that'll lead to the final encouragement, and I'll just read this, and that's on page 84, that realize that there's no ministry position in the church that's more important than yours. I wanna encourage you men, if you've got children in the home, just whatever power you think you possess, multiply it by 10 and you start to come close to the power that you're wielding. Whenever you sit down with your child and talk eye to eye with them or play with your child or pray over your child or with your child or read the scripture with your children, whatever power you think is being wielded, multiply that by 10 and you might be coming close. And so as you get up in the morning, just realize I have a God given unique power. How will I use that power in the lives of my children today? Well, hopefully I feel like we've scurried over some parts and lingered over others But I'm going to trust that God has directed in that and I pray that you are encouraged by these thoughts from scripture Well, let's let's bow in prayer. Let me pray over you as men Lord we we thank you for making us men and putting upon us this calling that shows our bankruptcy and our desperate need of you. I pray that these men would find their adequacy in you. I pray that these men would learn to relish confessing their ignorance and their weakness and their failures before you and before their wives and children and that they would find in those very spots your miraculous power ready to be displayed. Use these men in a mighty way. May they drink deep of the forgiveness and the grace of God that is found in the gospel. And may they soar in ministry to their children. May they be honored by the fact that you chose them above all others. You could have said to the church in Ephesus, dads bring your children to the church so that the elders can train them and disciple them But you didn't say that. You say, dads, you bring them up in the nurture and the instruction of the Lord. May these men be ennobled by that calling and then seek to be equipped to do this most important ministry that you've called them to. I just ask all of these things, Lord, in Christ's name. Amen.