Before we begin, I was asked by the elders, would all the perfect parents please stand up? I wanted people to get in their seats and that did it. Let it show that I'm just kind of squatting down. OK, so if it's presumed that I that I am the perfect parent and the expert, let it be shown that that's not true. And my wife and children can say amen. Amen, Matt. We're going to do six weeks together, Lord willing, and these first two weeks I'm going to be covering what I normally cover in a marriage class. So we're going to be looking at the first two weeks. Biblical parenting begins with being biblical parents. Shazam! You didn't know that, did you? But I've discovered over the years of working with students and working with their parents that a lot of times problems with children are actually marriage problems worked out in the lives of the kids. So we're going to begin today by alienating all the men. So everybody who's a father today will want to meet me out by the dumpster and talk about this class. And then next week, the women aren't going to even wait that long. They're just going to string me up. So I will be an equal opportunity alienator. But as I went through this material, it's very convicting. Amen, James? Amen. So, okay. I think we should pray. By the way, as we get to the handout for where the classes are going, the last class will be, who is sufficient for such things? I mean, who can do this? Really, who can do this? And the idea is, well, none of us can be Faithful parents, which is the goal. I'm not looking for perfect parents in a fallen world There aren't any there are no perfect marriages in a fallen world. There are only faithful people and unfaithful people and So we need to look to the adequacy of the Lord in the last class is on what resources does God give us? To be faithful parents So we just don't go out and slit our wrists or jump off a bridge because we say I can't do all this Well, that's yeah, that's a given. I don't expect any of us in the flesh to to be the kind of people we need to be. We can't be Christians in the flesh. That's why God indwells us by the Holy Spirit. I think we should pray. So let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you that you give us children, you give us marriage, you give us a spouse, that person who's appointed for us to be your best gift to us on this planet. Thank you for this time we have this morning. Would you make it profitable? Help us not to waste this time. I ask in Christ's name. Amen. A word to you also, the temptation will be to re-read ahead. It's like, oh, this guy's kind of boring. I'll read ahead and see if I can find something good. Just stay with us and it'll help you. Because maybe I'll give an illustration that will help the material be better. So resist the temptation to read ahead. OK, biblical parenting begins with biblical parents. And so, by the way, we have a number of folks in here who like myself, who have adult children. And we will get into some aspect of parenting adult children. And we will get into parenting teenagers. So, teens, you'll thank me one day for this class. God created man to fulfill a certain calling in life. We're going to be dealing with the men today. Biblical manhood, man's high calling as God made him. And so we'll be spending most of our time in Genesis 1 and 2. And first of all, man is a creature. What does it mean to be a creature? It means that you were created. You kind of go, I'm paying for this. No, actually, this is free. But we don't remember many times that we are a creature. God made us. We did not make ourselves. Even our parents did not make us. God chose to give us to our parents, but we did not make ourselves. We are not self-existent creatures. Man is a creature created by God in his image. Man is not self-existent. So in Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 and 27, then God said, let us make man, which in that case is plural, in our image after our likeness and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image In the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them. So three times in those two verses it says that we're created in God's image. Man is called by God to be vice-regent or vice-president. You're under his authority, accountable to God and exercising dominion over the planet. Man does not own the earth. You don't even own your yard. I'm not saying the bank owns it or the state owns it. I'm saying ultimately God owns everything. Man does not own the earth, but is to be a steward of it, Genesis 1, 28 to 30. And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed and its fruit. You shall have them for food. and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given you every green plant for food." And it was so. So, we have been given the job of managing planet earth under God's authority. That's given to man, and man as man and woman so far, when he talked about, in verse 27, So God created man in his own image, male and female he created them. Adam can be a plural or a singular and both God entrusted a man and woman to take care of the planet. But as we'll see, God created man first and gave him certain responsibilities. Number three, man is created and called by God to labor at the work that God gives him to do, Genesis 2.15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. God gave Adam work to do. It wasn't as a result of the curse of the fall. There was work to do, meaningful work to do, enjoyable work to do. Work without thistles and mosquitoes and triggers and difficult co-workers. Work that was enjoyable was before the fall. And we are created to work. That's why the fourth commandment, six days, shout out labor. were to work six days and take one day a week to practice for heaven. Number four, man is under the authority of God as his creator, king, and lawgiver. Genesis 2, 16 and 17. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden. This whole place is yours. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now, some people think, well, God's being a cosmic killjoy. Look at this. Here's something he won't let them do. Oh, what a terrible God. Well, this one tree is a symbol of God's authority. I gave you this work to do. All of this is yours to enjoy and manage. But as a symbol of my authority, this is one thing you're not to go against. You're not to touch it, meaning you're not to disobey me. So the tree was a symbol of God's authority, an everyday symbol of God's authority. And they were to submit to him. Man is to recognize that he is not complete without the appropriate woman. Genesis 2, 18 through 20. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should live alone. I will make a helper fit for him, a helper suitable for him. Now out of the ground that the Lord God had formed every beast in the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. So, what happens? God says, you were not created to be a solitary creature, so I will give you a helper that's commensurate to you, that's suitable for you. You need this person. Okay. Now, what did God do? He did a thing that we could learn from His parents. He didn't simply say, sit down. You need a lecture on the fact that you need somebody. That's not what happened. What does He do? So, He gives Adam He has authority over all the animals of the field. And so here they're paraded before him. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. Hmm. But for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable for him. There is nothing here that corresponds to me. Giraffes? No. Hippos? No. Storks? No. There's nothing like me. God, I don't see, and the man was, I think, given by God to see that in the whole creation there wasn't anything corresponding to him. There wasn't found a helper fit for him. The phrase, there wasn't found, does involve, I'm looking for something, but I don't find it. Adam senses he's not complete, but he doesn't see anything commensurate to himself. So, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with the flesh, and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, for she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. In other words, here's something that corresponds to me. So man is to recognize that he's not complete. And now again, we can go back to the New Testament and say there's such a thing as the gift of celibacy. How many of you have the gift of celibacy who are currently single? Do you have the gift of celibacy? You guess so. Well, the jury's not in. It could be later. We'll see. But she might have the gift of celibacy. That's a whole other discussion. Some of you had the gift of Skele-celibacy and took it back to the Christian bookstore and wanted to trade it in for another gift because you didn't want that gift. Man is called to be the head over his wife, God's ordained helper in accomplishing the goals for which God created them and their marriage, 2.18-22. OK, and I've been reading that. The point is, is that both by creation, God created man first and took the woman from him, and then by later New Testament teaching, the husband is to be the head of his home, he has a helper suitable to him, and one of the things we'll see, and sometimes I can remember it was helpful to grasp this and explain it, the orientation of the man and the woman is different. The man's orientation is to his calling that God gives him from God, God gives him, period. And the woman's orientation is to her husband. She's to help him in the job, in the thing that God's called them to do as a couple. His orientation is to his calling, personally. Her orientation is to him. That's the biblical perspective. It's not today's egalitarian 50-50. Okay, you run on this track, and I'll run on this track, and we'll each do our own thing, and we'll be happy. And nobody will be the boss, and nobody will be in charge, we'll each do our own thing. That's called egalitarianism. Everybody's equal. And the scripture says men and women are equal before God as to who they are. And we could use big words like the ontologically, which means before God as to your very essence, a woman is not less important, or less meaningful, or less made in the image of God than her husband. But she has a different calling. Do you see the Son as less than the Father because the Father sends the Son? Because the Son says, I always do what my Father tells me. Is Jesus less God than the Father? Jehovah's Witnesses and the early Arians thought so. You have to be 100% equal on everything or it doesn't count. But the Scripture says that Jesus is equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit is equal to the Son and the Father. And they're not less something because they have different responsibilities. We need to motor on. biblical manhood, a Christian husband loves his high calling. He loves what he's called to. I usually say when I teach this, the hardest job description in the world is to be a Christian husband. The second hardest job description is to be a Christian wife. Me? Follow and submit to him? That sounds pretty rough. He's a fallible human being. I know he's following Jesus, he said so, but sometimes I wonder. But, as we'll see, it's even harder. You have a higher, more difficult calling to be a Christian husband. Because he has to love his wife sacrificially. So we need to turn to Ephesians chapter 5 here. It's the longest sustained passage in the New Testament on marriage. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 25 through 27. speaks to the husband, loving their wives sacrificially. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. I am to sacrificially love this woman like Christ sacrificially loved his bride, the church." Wow, what an incredible job description. Is there any higher or harder job description in the world? I am to love the woman that God gave me like Christ loved his church. Review with me for a moment how Christ loved his bride and gave himself for her. For example, he gave up his rights for her. Philippians 2. Even though he was God, he gave up the right to be treated as God. There's pictures in the Old Testament of the heavenly scene. Here's the Father and here's the Son sitting to his right, and the Holy Spirit is there. And they're up in like the stands, so to speak, of this heavenly, glorious place. There's multitudes upon multitudes of angelic creatures. Any angelic creature is many, many times more glorious than any human being. It only took one angel to slay 23,000 Assyrians, so you get the figure they're much higher than we are. They are supernatural beings. So here's God the Father, God the Son, the Holy Spirit's there, and then here's multitudes of angelic creatures sitting with them in judgment, in worship, in surveying all that God is and is doing, and they were giving glory to the Son. He says, I don't need to be given glory. I don't need to be worshiped. I'm going to set aside all the glory I have, all the honor and accolades I have, and I'll be just coming to planet Earth, be one of you guys. No pomp, no ceremony. People will question who I am, where I came from. Question my parentage. I'll be born of a poor, despised race, a carpenter, all these different things. Jesus gave up all the rights we would think he would have as God. And it says he didn't cling to his rights. You know, sometimes you can cling on to something with a death grip. I will be treated as God. You will not strip this from me. And he said he didn't cling to his rights as God. He was willing to give them up to accomplish his goal. He gave up his comfort and his ease for her. Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. Life wasn't always easy for our Lord. Life wasn't always comfortable. He gave up his personal agenda for her. In Matthew chapter 26, that's where Jesus is saying, Father, if in my humanity I forgot plan B, and if there is a plan B, I would really like to know it right now because I know what hell is like. I know what judgment is about. If in my humanity I have forgotten a plan B, now's the time. That great phrase, that prayer that's always answered, but not my will be done. I will be done. I came to do what you asked me to do. I came willingly. I volunteered for it. But not my will be done, but thy will be done. He gave up this world's fame and fortune for her. Can you imagine when that was? Can you think of the New Testament when he gave up fame and fortune? Remember the temptation by the devil? Here's the world. It's yours. It's the pearl. Serve me and you don't have to go through the cross. You don't have to go through any suffering. It's all yours. You can have it all. And Jesus said, that's not what I'm about. And ultimately, he gave up his life for her. The means through which the Christian husband expresses his sacrificial love to his bride, first of all, is by dying to self. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. To give yourself up. By washing his wife with the word. Another means that the husband expresses his sacrificial love is by washing her with the word. What does that mean? Well, For every deal in life that requires a conversation, for every problem in life, we have a revelation from God and it's the husband's responsibility to say, okay, this is the deal that's facing us right now. What does God's word have to say? Because it may be you or it may be your spouse, but one of you may be going ballistic over whatever this issue is. And what's the solution? Calm down. Well, that's not the solution. And the solution is not to chatter about it unendingly without ever reaching a conclusion. Does God have anything to say on this subject? Maybe we can go to the Lord, and if the husband's to lead his wife, maybe he's... and sometimes you're only a millimicron. Don't push. I'm trying to lead. A millimicron in front of your wife. But you need to be able to take her to the Scriptures and say, you know, this comes to mind. Or, you know, go away for an hour. Get in your Bible. Pray. Look at a concordance. But Lord, do you have anything to say on this? Well, maybe it requires something that goes on for a couple of days or a couple of weeks and you're digging in the scriptures. Lord, help us as a couple to deal with this. It's not simply her problem. Because if it's affecting her to the point that she can't function as she should normally, then it's your problem. You know, your wife's hangnail may be her problem. But if the issues is something that is so life affecting for her, she's having difficulty fulfilling her calling. Then you need to step in as the head of the home and say, you know, Lord, you must help us and to wash her with the word. This is what Christ says about this. And as I think you wives know, it's a great comfort to know that the Bible, that the word of God has something to say and that your husband doesn't simply say stifle Edith like Archie Bunker used to in that old TV show, but that he says, you know, I think the Lord has a word for us. Let's read it. Let's talk about it. Let's pray over it. With new insight, let's commit this to the Lord. Guys, I said this wasn't going to be easy, right? OK, moving right on. This is too convicting. We need to move on. OK. Through prayer, presenting her to the Father in intercession. His ultimate goal, he said, was that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. Christ intercedes for us. I'm here today because Christ has prayed for me. I wouldn't have persevered, I wouldn't have made it without the indwelling union with Christ that I have by the Holy Spirit and without the ongoing intercession of Christ. The reason why we make it is not because we're the most sterling examples of Christianity, but because Christ prays for us. Remember Peter boasting, these knuckleheads, they may deny you, but I'll die for you. I'll go to prison for you. Really, Peter, you don't know your own heart. Before this day is over, three times you're going to deny me. And Peter did. And he felt about this tall. And then when Jesus restores him, he says what? Actually, Jesus says this when he promises that he's going to fall. He says, and after you have turned, after you have repented, you will minister to your brothers, but I have prayed for you. I prayed for you that this fall wouldn't be a fall that you don't get up from. There's falls and then there's falls. There's falls when you skin your knees, there's falls when you bump your chin, there's falls when you kind of get hurt, but then the Bible talks about the fall that a person never gets up from. I prayed for you that this would not be the terminal fall, the last fall, but you'd get up and keep on going, and Peter did. So we need to pray for our lives. Lord, help her. This is a besetting sin in her life. Help her. This is her weakness. It's not like, help this poor creature to get with it. A, God, that phrase is just wrong, period. And Lord, you know me. I've got my issues. But my wife and my love has her issues. And as I understand it, this is what they are. And would you help her in this? Would you help me to help her? But you have to work on her heart, too. It's not simply a matter of me. Sit down, dear. I'll explain it to you. By the way, well, ladies, how many of you like to be fixed by your husbands? You know how husbands will put a wrench on a leaky pipe and just a couple of more tugs and I'll fix this and we're done with it. I can walk away. OK, honey, what's the problem? Here's three verses. Let's pray over it. You're fixed. Let's move on. I want to ask how many have been fixed by their husbands. But I've tried to fix my wife early on in marriage, and I learned with no hair, that it doesn't work, and people don't like to be fixed. In fact, have you ever been fixed by your wife? I was going through a difficult time early in our marriage, and I can still picture it. We were standing in a certain place in our kitchen on 51st Street in Indianapolis, and my wife's standing over by the sink and the windows, and I'm standing over by the table, and I'm kind of telling her something's bugging me, and she says, well, honey, what about these scriptures? And she names a couple of scriptures, And she fixed me like I had habitually been fixing her. I go, ooh, this doesn't feel good. This doesn't feel right. I got a dose of my own medicine, which was my wake-up call that probably people don't like to be fixed. They like being helped, listened to, prayed with, but they don't want to be fixed like we're leaky pipes and that's the end of it and we can get on with life. Praying for our wives. So what are the goals of a husband's sacrificial love for his wife? Well, to see her in heaven, to see her in heaven, and to see her become a holy woman, that she would be a radiant bride. Now, point C. Biblical manhood. A Christian husband loves his high calling by loving his wife practically. Ephesians 5, 28-30. Well, let's read verses 28-30. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body." Now, what does it mean to love yourself practically? What does it mean to love yourself? Well, I don't know if some of you guys, when you get up in the morning and look in the mirror, do you blow kisses to yourself and kind of say sweet things to yourself in the mirror? You have serious issues if you do that. But I doubt if anybody in this room does that. Because that's not what it means to love ourself. We don't do that unless we have serious issues. God gives an example of how to love your wife practically. He says, take care of her like you already take care of your own body. How do you already take care of your own body? Well, you feed it, you make sure its needs are met. Verse 29, for no one ever hated his own flesh, his own body, but nourishes it and cherishes it. What is it to nourish a body? Well, provide food, clothing, shelter, and reasonable safety. I mean, none of us men in this room are God. I cannot keep a meteor from falling on your head. I can't keep you out of a traffic accident. I can't stop a cell from your body start exploding and morph into what we call cancer. But we can provide reasonable safety. No people aren't breaking into our house every day. No, this isn't going to happen. I've tried to provide reasonable safety along with food, clothing, and shelter. But what is it to cherish a body? Well, it implies meeting other needs our attentiveness reveals to us. Our wife may have another need. I'm nourishing her, I'm building her up, but I'm also cherishing her. 1 Peter 3.7, Christian husbands are to live with their wives in an understanding way. This is my wife. She's not your wife. Your wife and my wife are both women, but they may have different needs, different issues. So I need to be attentive to my wife. What are her needs? How can I be sensitive to her? And what she perceives as a need may not be a valid need. If your wife's going, I need a mink coat. She may want a mink coat, but she doesn't need one. And for the one day a year you could wear it in Atlanta, it's not the best investment. Men, amen? I'll take that laughter as an amen. Okay. Jeans chainsaw fixing? That's from an earlier class. Okay. I've given my wife tools for Christmas. I've given her sanders and blowers because I'm an understanding wife. I'm an understanding husband with a wife that I know her needs. She likes to do things like this. Attentive... and we'll move right on. I don't... What do you mean by that? You big silly! She's the practical pig and I'm the romantic idealistic pig. Attentive husbands, I didn't give her something romantic and idealistic, I gave her something practical. Because she's a practical person. One of us had to be practical. Attentive husbands love and build up. They never want to be harsh with them. Colossians 319 forbids husband from being harsh with their wives. Don't you get it? You know, and just being harsh. Biblical husbands recognize there is a mysterious connection between their relationship of Christ and his bride, the church, and a Christian husband and his bride, which is his wife. Verses 31 to 33. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall hold fast or cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and his church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. There is a correspondence, there is a mysterious analogy and link between a husband and his wife and between Christ and his bride, the church. Biblical Manhood, Part D, a Christian husband leads in his high calling. Ephesians 5, 22-33. I'll just begin at verse 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Christian husbands are ordained by God to be the head of their wife, their children, and their home. The E dropped off there, sorry. God's Word teaches that the husband is the head of his wife, which I just read. And I know you've heard that before. This is an evangelical, Reformed, Bible-believing church, and you know the drill. And it's not my place to beat up on the wives saying, you must submit. I haven't been going there. I'm talking about Husbands, it's your job to lead this woman. Part of your job as the head of your home is to lead your wife. Headship of the husband was ordained by God in creation's hierarchy. We saw back in Genesis 2 that God created the man first, took the woman from her side. They were given vice regency over the planet, but it was very obvious from the text that the man was the head of his wife and their home. The husband is the head of the home and principal leader of the children. Principal leader of the children. It's not kids when you get to be 16 come back to me I got stuff for you. It's that even when the kids are little Dad's still the head of the home. There's still his responsibility even if he's not going to breastfeed these little kids It's still he's still the head of the home and he's responsible for the overall nurturing of his children Ephesians 6 4 is talks about he addresses fathers as as the head of the home in dealing with their children. He didn't say, women, deal with the little kids, and then later, dad, you can pick it up. No, I'm not going to breastfeed my little children, obviously, but they're still my responsibility. I don't do everything in my family, but I'm responsible for everything that happens. Everything that happens in my family is not my fault, but it is my responsibility. if you have any responsibility in the world. You know that what happens on your watch may not be your fault, but who was in charge of this train wreck? Well, if you were, if this was your responsibility, then what happened here is your responsibility to deal with. Remember Adam and Eve? Excuse me, back up. God's church is structured so wives do not have authority over their husbands in church. That would be really uncomfortable if A couple of you wives were elders and then your husband had to come to you hat in hand and ask you about things. He's supposed to be the head over his family, but you go to church and the wife is somehow now over you. And so there's all kinds of hierarchies listed in the scripture. And one of the places that women are not to have leadership or headship is in the church, which would also make the family very difficult. Remember Adam and Eve, the terrible consequences of a man's dereliction of duty to God. What was Adam doing while Eve's talking to a serpent over here? You walk by and she's talking to a snake over there and you're over here doing your thing and it's like, hello? There's an important book by Larry Crabb entitled The Silence of Adam. What was he doing? What was he doing? A man's dereliction of duty to God and his wife and posterity and a woman's independence and rebellion against her God. It's interesting, man had the responsibility because the Bible says we sinned in whose image? Adam's. But chronologically, time-wise, Eve sinned first. But she didn't have the major responsibility. And so Adam comes along and says, OK, seems fine. And he goes ahead and follows his wife's suggestion. And he, with the responsibility, causes all the dominoes to fall. Christian husbands lead as the mark of their headship. For example, God's example, the head of the body leads and directs the body. He says that in Ephesians 5, 22 through 24. In other places in the New Testament where Christ is the head of the church, we're all members of the body of Christ, but Christ is definitely the head and the head directs the body. Headship leadership means oversight has been delegated by God and a man is to take the initiative and responsibility and later give an account to God for his stewardship. Hebrews 13, 17. Christian husbands must give an account to God for their headship leadership of their wife, their children, their home, and their work. And finally, common problems regarding a husband's headship and leadership. A headship exercises authority, but it's not authoritarian. Like if you wear a crown around the house that's kind of over the top, okay? If people come into your presence and they bow down or get on one knee, that's tacky. And that's probably not happening in this room, but there are men who can act like that's what leadership and headship's all about. Headship is not omnicompetent. I know everything. I am a mini demigod because I'm the head of this home. Because you've been given this responsibility doesn't mean that you're omnicompetent. You have responsibility for everything. But hey, you can get help. It could ask for help. It can delegate, but it doesn't dump. OK. My wife has saved our family from a prison ministry by her taking care of the finances. I did it for years. It wasn't terrible, but as we made more than $1.50 a week, it got more complicated. So she's the bookkeeper. We talk about our finances. I don't make major purchases without consulting and things like that. But I can delegate that to her, but I shouldn't dump it on her. Excuse me, headship is not a democracy determined by counting heads. Okay, how many of you want to go to Six Flags? And how many of you want to go to a museum? And then you count heads and that's what God's will is for your life. Well, being ahead of something doesn't, I mean, getting input's fine, but the buck stops with you. It's not simply a matter of the most votes wins. Headship communicates. It explains itself and can be asked questions. So your wife goes, honey, I'm getting what you're saying. You want to move to Alaska and start a new career. I'd just be interested to know why you'd like to do that. Why we're moving out in the boondocks, and you want to start being a fur trapper, considering now you're a jeweler, OK? I mean, how's this going to work? Do you really like cold weather and guns and log cabins? Headship knows that sometimes it will be unloved and unappreciated. For some of us men, this is hard. Because for some of us men, the worst thing in the world is conflict. And you have a problem with, I cannot live with people being upset with me. So I'd rather give in for the sake of peace than have somebody upset with me. In the fallen world, that's just not biblical. It's not realistic. You need to be prepared that sometimes your wife, your small children, your teenage children may not appreciate the prayerful and conviction-led decision that you made, it may not be right, you may have to go back and change it, but you need to be prepared that sometimes everybody's not going to cheer with every decision that comes out of your mouth. And finally, headship calls rebellious, unrepentant family members to account before God, and if it gets really bad, necessary before the church and its duly constituted leadership, the elders. I have over the years of 31 years as a pastor and a decade before that, working with teens and their parents, some people will just not repent and submit to their biblically appointed responsibilities. And I remember talking to a man who broke down and started crying. She will not submit to me on anything. Right, but that doesn't mean you can quit. It doesn't mean that you can abdicate. Why is biblical manhood critical for biblical parenting? Like I said at the very beginning, many problems with kids are actually family problems that the kids are acting out. Years ago, we had a situation in my student ministry days when a particular man had been captured during World War II by the Nazis and was a German prisoner of war camp. Not as grim as Japanese prisoner of war camps, but awful nevertheless. He got through it by adopting a certain steely, hard, cold persona. which is how he lived the rest of his life. Somehow he got married and had children, but he treated his wife like they're still in a PW camp. It was cold and hard, and his wife was constantly being run down by him. And as the children got older, his daughter was beautiful. She was on the homecoming court as a freshman, sophomore, and junior, and everybody expected her to be homecoming queen. And she did become homecoming queen, but then she stayed home from school because she was so ugly. Wait a minute, let's rewind that. She stayed home from school. Well, I'm so ugly and I'm so stupid and I'm so terrible. And then they took her to a psychiatrist who put her on all kinds of things that really messed her up. And finally, she was just getting worse and there was no help, so he took her to a biblical counselor. And he said to me, as he was going to say to them, we need to bring the whole family in. This girl is acting out a problem that's true in the whole family and we need to deal with it. If your father is nuking the person who you're supposed to grow up to be like, women are stupid, dumb, ugly, because that's how your dad treated your mother, and you're growing up in your mom's image, what message do you pick up all of your life? So the dad said, fix my daughter, but the counselor's job was to help the dad see he was helping to create his daughter. Passive Christian husbands who do not leave their wives and children and an unsubmissive wife will model rebellion to their children each and every day. You can go through this class a hundred times, but if you will not submit to your delegated responsibility by God, it'll be for naught. Both husband and wife are modeling that they will not submit to God's appointed roles. Such parents always produce rebels as children. Why? because they each model rebellion 24-7 at home, regardless of their church attendance and their public profession. I will not be what God's asking me to be. I just can't be that. And the other spouse is saying, I will not be what God's appointed me to be. I just can't be that. And so they both rebel. And so regardless of the smile you paint on your face at church, you're modeling rebellion to your kids. So what do your kids learn from you? Rebellion. And I can empirically say that, being in the ministry for 40 years, I've seen that it's nearly a hundred percent of children who grew up in those kind of homes become spiritual rebels. Children cannot get over the double-talk confusion of father and mother modeling the opposite of what they profess. And the biblical verse is, God is opposed to the proud, which is what a rebel is, but gives grace to the humble. Passive, compliant Adam and rebellious, independent Eve had an ungodly rebel of a son who murdered their godly son after they had already plunged the planet into ruin. Passive, compliant Adam and rebellious, independent Eve. I'm not giving Eve the worst note here. It was her husband whose fault it was and whose sin we are accounted as sinners. The Word of God and empirical evidence show the overwhelming importance of a faithful father to the life and well-being of his children. Dads, you probably know this, but you have the biggest impact on your kids in ways you don't even realize. Passive-compliant, not complaint, but compliant fathers create passive-compliant sons who look for a strong woman to tell them what to do, and they create daughters who are looking for a weak man to control. That's sad, but I've watched that acted out. I told two parents that this is what they were doing, and we worked with them for four years, and they would never repent of what they were doing. And as each of their kids reached puberty, they became rebels, and then as they grew up and they were looking for someone to be serious with, who were they attractive to? I want some weak guy that I can be the boss of. I want some woman who will tell me what to do. That's not the biblical role model. Unloving, harsh fathers spoil their image of manhood to their sons and daughters. True biblical manhood is so distorted as to make it unattractive or even repulsive. There's all kinds of psychological problems, all kinds of self-image problems if you're in a home with a really harsh, unloving father. Fathers who are unfaithful to oversee and be involved in the development of their children impair their children's personal growth, and harm their future lives. Let me give you an example of the power that you have as a father. Dr. Meg Meeker has written two books, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, which you ought to read, and Boys Ought to be Boys. And she's a pediatric doctor in Michigan. She's a Christian. She's an evangelical. If you read her two books, in the footnotes she has evangelicals like James Dobson and C.S. Lewis and things like that. But she writes as a pediatrician and the books are written to anybody who reads them. They're not written to Christians, so she's not always using Bible verses to make her point. But her points are still biblically valid. And she begins with the story of the importance of a father to children. She'd gone to college and she was magna cum laude and she wanted to go to med school and be a doctor like her dad. And she applied to like six med schools and heard nothing. And she was crushed. And she was deciding that she was going to give it up and try to find some other occupation. And she went into her dad's office in their home, and she went to his office, and the door was ajar. And she grabbed the knob, and just as she started to go in, she stopped because she heard he was on the phone. And he was talking to a friend in another state who was also a doctor. And he goes, he was saying, oh, Meg's done a great job. She's really done a fine job in college. It's just a matter of time, which of the graduate schools, which of the med schools are going to accept her. I know she's going to do well. She didn't go in and tell him that she was going to quit because my dad believed in me and he's my dad because he believed in me. Hey, I can do this. A couple of days later, she got acknowledgement from one of the med schools that she was accepted and she went on to be a very successful pediatrician who's written two great books. But the power of a father, because you're kind of like God, Well, that's my next point. Studies show that children think that God is like their father, only greater. How's that, guys, for a big burden on your shoulders? How sad that a father who is not faithful, nor repents when he does sin, greatly distorts what the father is like. God the Father is not like any human father. Rather, human fathers are to be like God. The only basis we have for judging whether a father is good or bad is our Heavenly Father, not vice versa. You know, some people say, oh, I can't believe in God because my father was so terrible. And do you know that how? What standard do you have to evaluate whether your father was a good or a bad father? Our Heavenly Father. And He's the perfect one. So that's why I was able to say He's a bad father. But it doesn't mean I write Him off. It means that I need to pray for my not-so-great father. So a word to disappointed children, even if your earthly father was far from perfect, you can only know that because you compare him against a standard he did not meet, and that standard is your perfect loving father in heaven. Guys, we have a big responsibility, and when we get into the nuts and bolts of parenting, who you are will be as telling as what you do. So, I'm done.