A Vision for Men on Mother’s Day

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the moms that are in this room today. And for all the work they do, the labor that they render day in and day out, and so much of it goes unnoticed, it goes unappreciated. But we just thank you, Lord, for these moms. Some of these moms, Lord, are young, some are older, some have young children in the home, others have older children in the home.

Some have children out of the home. Some have grandchildren, and I would imagine some have great grandchildren. Lord, many of these moms have husbands by their sides, to help and support them, but there are some moms in our church family who have, no husband by their side, and they must labor, on behalf of their children alone, as a single mom. but Lord, I just pray for all of the moms that are here that you would take the good that they have done and the strength that you have provided and that you would bless, multiply the good they have done like you did Jesus, the loaves of, of bread.

And cause great fruit to be produced. In their children's lives. I pray that for in any way where there has been failure and sin, that these moms would drink deeply of your grace and know that that's what Jesus died for and that they would enjoy and savor the forgiving grace that is theirs in Christ and that they would also realize that While perhaps there have been weeks and months and years wasted, you are the God who restores the years that the locusts have eaten. You have a way of making up for even lost time, and I pray that You would do that in the lives of these mothers.

I pray, Lord, that You would help these mothers to mirror your image to their children, help them by the lives they lead, the example they set, by the things they do and the way they relate to their children. Help them through all of these things to show their children what you are like. I pray that you would use these mothers to bring up a godly generation of men and women who will, who will know their God and who will be champions of the faith. We live in an increasingly dark and cruel culture, and Lord, our desire is that the children of this church would rise up and serve as lights and as beacons of hope and life.

To a dying world and help us as moms and dads to do our part in raising up this generation that's going to stand strong in the days to come and accomplish great things. And when they accomplish those great things, Lord, we're going to sit back and say, man, what a privilege that we had a part. And so we ask all of these things, Lord, not just for the moms, but for us as dads in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen. Let me have you guys turn in your Bibles this morning to 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy chapter 3 for a time of study in the word and there should be Bibles in the, on the rack of the seat in front of you if you If you need one. but 1 Timothy chapter 3, ladies, let me tell you what I'm going to do today. I really wrestled long and hard over what, to do for Mother's Day. What's the best way I could bless moms on Mother's Day?

Normally on Mother's Day, I seek to bless you by speaking to you as women, and I preach to you. however, I've gotten feedback over the years that that's a double-edged sword because while it's good to be spoken to and good to be instructed and challenged, there have been moms who have said those Mother's Day sermons are really convicting, and it's a downer on my Mother's Day experience. In fact, totally true story, I preached a Mother's Day sermon several years ago. And there was a woman who came into the service.

She was already just devastated as a mom, just feeling like a total failure, and I'm preaching all this stuff from the Bible about you've got to be this and this and this. She was so crushed with guilt. At the end of that service that she, she left, didn't greet anyone, got in her van and drove her children home and got to their home. She got out of the van without saying a word to her children, goes in the house, goes down the hallway into her bedroom, closes the door behind her, and stayed there the entire Mother's Day.

And she told me that a few weeks later, and I was blessed to know that I could contribute to her Mother's Day experience. No, I felt awful about that, but it's just that Mother's Day can, it's great to hear a sermon, but also it can be convicting. So just this year, I'll probably never do this again, this year, mothers, my Mother's Day gift to you is that I'm not going to preach a message to you, alright? I'm going to preach a message to the men, OK.

Maybe I'll do that every year, OK. And here's the deal. In doing that, I'm not bypassing you, but here's what's going to happen today rather than speaking to women. I'm going to speak for women.

And what I'm going to express from God's word, I believe anyway, is the heart's desire of every godly woman anyway for her man, for the men in her life. And so today as we look at 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 4, I want to speak to you on the subject of a vision for men on Mother's Day, a vision for men on Mother's Day. But moms, pay attention. Don't let yourself get too convicted.

But pay attention, take notes, because if you've got boys that are growing up, you want to train them in this. And also, if you are a helper to your husband, this is the thing you want to be an encouragement even to your husband in and help him. Let me start off with this, guys. 1776, what do you think of when you hear that year?

Declaration of Independence. some of the stuff that happened in the formative years of the United States of America. Something else happened during that year that proved to be extremely significant. There was a man named James Taylor.

On February 1st of 1776, who was going to get married. He was not a Christian man, did not know the Lord. In fact, he was somewhat antagonistic. There was a revival movement happening in his city, and he was speaking out against that and trying to stand in the way of what God was doing.

But nonetheless, he had fallen in love with the woman, and now it is February 1st, 1776, and he's going to be getting married later that day. He hadn't thought much about the seriousness of it. It's just he loved the woman. He was going to marry her.

However, he got up early that morning and was doing some basic chores and threshing some wheat and gathering some wood, and suddenly God visited him. And he was crushed with the magnitude of what was about to happen in his life, and he was like, Oh my goodness, I'm going to marry a woman. I'm going to be responsible for her, and no doubt we're going to have children, and I'm going to be responsible for them. And the full weight of that responsibility just came crushing down upon him, and he realized, I can't do this.

I can't do this. He knew very few passages from the Bible, but one of the passages that he had heard recently were the words of Joshua in the Old Testament, where Joshua basically said to the people of Israel, I don't know what you guys are going to do, but as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. And he was speaking for himself and all of his family when he said that that was Joshua's determination. And this man with a rudimentary understanding of Jesus Christ and the gospel and an understanding of that passage and realizing the magnitude of what he was about to step into, he knelt down in the hay that morning and he surrendered his life to Jesus Christ and asked him to be his lord and Savior and he made a vow and he said, as for me and my house starting today, we're going to worship God.

We're going to serve God. Well, he's now a Christian and he's got to go get married to a wife who doesn't know that he's just become a Christian. So he decides, well, I'll tell her after the wedding. So they, they get married and after some of the ceremonies he says, Hey, I want to let I became a Christian this morning.

She freaked out and didn't know what to make of it. She thought she's got some fanatic on her hands, but he stuck to his guns and true to his vow that night he said, I want us to read the Bible and I want us to worship God and to pray. She didn't want anything to do with that. And as the days rolled by, he kept true to his vows and wanted to worship God every single day.

She refused every single day, and it was a great frustration for him. She tried to make life as difficult for him as possible. this is the beginning of their marriage, and it's starting off so poorly. And just trying to strip away at his faith and discourage and irritate him, but one day he got so frustrated with her, I'm not recommending this guys, but he got so frustrated with her that he walked over to her when she was being really fussy, and he grabbed her.

He carried her up the steps to their bedroom. Then he went to their bed. He knelt down by the side of the bed on his knees, holding his wife so that she can't get away, and he started praying with tears, praying for his wife's salvation, praying for their home, that God would make their home a place where God is worshiped every day. And the wife is there as a prisoner in his arms, and she's like, man, he really cares about this.

And feeling his tears and feeling and hearing his sobs, God began to soften her heart, and the next day when it came time to read the Bible, she was like, Yeah, go ahead, and she was willing to listen. And within a couple days she too had received Christ as her Lord and Savior, and thus they began a journey together of every day worshiping and serving the Lord. I mention that event in February 1st of 1776, that day that James Taylor made that vow, because it proved to be extremely significant.

James.

Taylor was the great grandfather of the great Hudson Taylor, the missionary to China whom God used to touch literally hundreds of thousands of lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if you go to Hudson Taylor's classic biography, it's a two volume biography of Hudson Taylor's life and ministry, how his biography begins. On that cold wintry day, February 1st, the wedding day of his great grandfather. You don't know Hudson Taylor, and you don't know his story unless you go to 1776 and see what God did in the heart of his great grandfather on his wedding day.

Me, I want us to understand today the power of a man who responds to the call of God. I want you to dream like Man, what, what could life be like in, in my marriage and in my home and in the future generations? What could things be like if I would just step up to the plate and respond to the call of God upon my life to be the man that he calls me to be? We should never underestimate the power of a man who diligently applies himself to doing what God has created him to do and has called him to do, and that is to believe in Jesus and to to lead his household as we're going to see today in the way that James Taylor did his household many years ago.

What we're going to do is we're going to look at verse 4 of 1 Timothy 3. And all we're going to focus on today is verse 4, and what we'll do with the time that we have is we're going to observe Paul envisioning men doing 4 things in their homes. Alright, the list for Pastors and elders that we find here involves a lot of other things, but the focus on verse 4 is on the man and what Paul envisions the man doing inside the walls, as it were, of his own home. Let me read verse 4 to you.

Speaking of a pastor, but then we know secondarily all men. Paul is all of these qualities Paul wants every man to look at and say, I want to be this way. And look at what he says. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity.

That's as far as we'll get today. As we look at this passage and break it down, the first thing we see Paul envisioning regarding men and what they're doing in their homes is Paul envisions men taking responsibility for leading their household. Men taking responsibility for leading their household. I went overtime in the first service, so I'm not going to take the amount of time I did in the first service to develop this, but basically the word that is translated manage.

In verse 4, has the idea of leading. It means to take responsibility for somebody, and when he says household, he's talking about a man's wife and his children and everything else related to the household. It's a man saying, I'm responsible for my wife. I am responsible for my children.

And it's a man going beyond saying I'm responsible to provide for them materially and putting food on the table. It's a man saying I am responsible for the Spiritual well-being of my wife and the spiritual well-being of my children. Also, it's my responsibility that I need to tend to. This word that Paul uses that is translated manage has the idea of giving attention to.

It has the idea of leadership, caring, loving leadership, and it also involves instruction, leading in the way that you are giving instruction. Literally the Greek word means to stand in front of. Facing towards like I'm doing right now. I'm standing in front of you and I'm looking at you.

That's literally the meaning of this term. Paul is envisioning men who step up and stand in front of their wives and their children and face their wives and children and give attention to them and take responsibility for them spiritually, physically, and materially, and they are committed to being leaders in their marriage and leaders in the rearing of their children. The men Paul is envisioning do not leave the rearing of their children to Hollywood. They don't leave the rearing of their children to the musicians that write the monstrous lyrics that are out there today.

He doesn't leave the, the, the, the, the leadership of his household even to his wife. Although she's a great help, he doesn't leave the development and the leadership of his household to the pastor of the church or to the church itself or to Sunday school teachers or the youth ministry. As great as all those things are, God envisions men stepping up to the plate saying, I am responsible. I'm going to stand before God one day and I'm going to give an account for the job I did in leading my wife and leading my children.

There's times where my children will ask me, Dad, can, can we do this or can we see this movie? And I'll go and I'll research it and find out the content of it and, and frequently, my standard line is, I'm going to stand before God and give an account for the father that I was to you, and I don't want to stand before God and give an account for having allowed you to see this movie. I know I have to answer to a higher authority that I'm under. That doesn't mean every movie's bad, but it means that I'm responsible for what my kids see, what I permit them to see.

God wants men to step up to the plate and assume responsibility for standing in front of, protecting and leading and caring for their family physically, materially, emotionally, and spiritually. There's a second thing that Paul envisions men doing. In this verse, and that is, he envisions men taking responsibility for leading their household well. All right.

See, it's one thing to do the right thing, it's another thing to do the right thing well or with excellence, right? Isn't there a difference?, some people say anything that's worth doing it's worth doing right, and that's definitely true. Some say anything that's worth doing is worth doing poorly as long as it's getting done. That's actually true also.

I want you to think in terms of four categories of action. Category A is someone who's doing the wrong thing. That's the bad place to be. Category B is someone who's doing the right thing but they're doing it poorly.

That's OK as a start. But category C is someone who's doing the right thing and doing it well or with excellence. And you say, well, good grief, what's the fourth category? What would Paul say to someone who's doing the right thing with excellence?

He would say go to category D and excel still more. All right? Paul would say we need to be relentless. Paul is very concerned in this passage that men not just assume leadership of their homes and caring for the spiritual well-being of their wives and their Children, but he wants us as men to be good at this and to be always growing and learning so that we can develop and become better at it.

In fact, Timothy, who had already been discipled by Paul, he traveled with Paul. This guy knew way more than we know. And had experienced a lot of things alongside of the apostle Paul. He had every reason to rest on his laurels and say, I think I've attained to enough knowledge.

But Paul in this book is saying, Timothy, take pains with these things, be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all. Yes, Timothy, you're excelling, but I want you to be even better. Keep pressing on and become better. Look at what Paul says in verse 5.

You can look at the screen if you want. There's something intriguing that would be easy to miss, he says. If a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the Church of God? He doesn't say if a man does not take care or manage his household, he says if a man doesn't know how, and there's a touch of grace there.

Paul understands that there are times where men don't lead their wives and children, not because they don't want to, but because they don't know how, and he's saying this is a skill that needs to be learned. It's something that you pursue, and yeah, maybe you're poor at it, but you do it anyway and then you get better and you grow and you learn how to lead your wife and your children. You say, well, how do I, how do I get better at this? How can I be the leader that God wants me to be of my wife and children?

Well, first of all, believe in Jesus. Put your trust in Him as your Lord and Savior. But secondly, read the Bible. There's a lot of great wisdom in God's word, and part of why God gives you the Bible is, is so that you can live the way he wants you to live and, and as men, so that you can be the leader and the lover of your wife and your children that God wants you to be.

So be in the Bible every day. my dad, I, I was thinking of my dad this week, how that, he came from a broken family, hardly knew his biological dad. Alcoholism was rampant in his family. My dad got saved, I think at the age of 19.

he didn't know up from down spiritually. He just, he really didn't. But, and, and within just a few short years, I think my mom and dad were like 25 years old and they had 4 children. And my dad was in Vietnam ultimately serving 3 tours over there, and they look back and they don't have a clue how they made it happen and raised, 4 children.

But nonetheless, one of the memories that I have in my early years is of my dad. Like every morning I would see him reading the Bible. I'd come out from taking a shower in the morning and I'd walk by a room and I would see my dad in there just poring over the Bible. And as a kid I was like, man, no matter what happens, we're safe because Dad's meeting with God and Dad is getting God's wisdom that ministered so much encouragement to me.

And security to me because I knew my dad was seeking the face of God and seeking for wisdom. So as men, don't trust your own wisdom. You are a danger to yourself and a danger to others when you depend upon the wisdom you wake up with in the morning. You need to replace your wisdom with God's wisdom that is found in His word.

I would also encourage you to read books. There's resources out there. that we could even recommend to you, just grab hold of any books that that that are showing you how from a biblical and a Christian perspective to lead your wife and your children and to have the marriage and home that God wants you to have. I would also encourage you to look to role models.

You'll find a lot of them in the church. People that are further along in their stage of life and who have a good marriage, who are seem to be having success in their home, look to those role models, pick their brain, ask them questions. My mom and dad, again, they were young and, had a lot to learn, but, there was, they had couples. They, they went to the church, they got involved in relationships with other people and other parents who had a lot of counsel for them.

And, and when they were first married, there was an elderly, an older couple that was a, a real help to them. And the name of the man in that couple was Milton and that's where I ended up getting my, my name because they were blessed by the help that this older couple. had been to them as role models and as encouragements to them as parents who had so much to learn. I remember also at times my parents, they would disappear for a few days.

they alerted us in advance, but they, they were going off to some parenting seminar being conducted by a Christian leader to learn how to, how to parent their children. Then they'd come home and they'd say, kids, we're sorry, we've been doing it all wrong. And here's what we're going to do starting today, and, and we learned as we went, and they would be the first to say they weren't perfect, and they did some things poorly, and then they started doing it better and then doing it with excellence.

Another thing I would encourage you to do if you really want to be a good leader of your wife and children.

read the Bible, read books, role models, and so forth, but also ask your kids. How am I doing? what can I do better? you'd probably hear some surprising things from, from your kids.

When I was a kid, my dad would occasionally pull me into his study and say, How am I doing as a dad? And I'll be honest with you and say I never gave him an answer. I, he's like, is there anything I can work on? And I've, I never knew what to say.

What's an eight year old supposed to say? Well, Dad, as I've observed your parenting, I You're not spanking me enough. You're a little too lenient. You need to tighten up.

I'm not gonna say that to my dad, but, But I appreciate the fact that man, he's, he doesn't feel like he knows at all. He's trying to learn and he's asking and another thing to do, ask your kids, but also ask your wife. She's a fountain of wisdom that She would love to impart to you and in fact, some of you are thinking, I don't, I don't even need to ask my wife. She's Already been there and done that and I didn't even ask for it, but anyway.

just the key is be committed to always growing, and I don't want to just be a leader and I don't want to just have a good marriage and a and a good home. I want an excellent marriage and an excellent home. I want to lead my household and I want to lead it well. And if I find that I'm doing it well and with excellence, then I want to do it even better, and I will excel still more, always growing, always learning, never plateauing and ceasing in that development.

A third thing that Paul envisions men doing in this passage is he envisions men assuming responsibility for the obedience of their children, men assuming responsibility for the obedience of their of their children. Look what he says. He must be one who leads his own household well. What does that look like?

Keeping his children under control. Now that translation in the new American standard sounds cold, like, I've just got to keep my children under control and you stay over here, don't mess up, and see I've got my children under control, but that's actually not the idea of this term. It's, it's richer in its meaning. It means keeping your children in obedience.

Keeping children in obedience. What that means is as a dad, you realize obedience is extremely important. It's important that I obey God. And, and so obedience is very important for my children.

Yes, I want my children to grow up. I want them to find a good job and be able to make some money, and I want them to have a rich and happy life and be able to have vacations and Have nice cars and all of that's great, but as parents, one of the things that we really want for our children is for them to learn, amongst other things, this thing called obedience. It's absolutely important. you want your children as the head of your household to learn to obey you, that when you speak and you give an instruction that you expect that to be obeyed, and you also want them to obey mom when she gives them an instruction.

And why is obedience important? You say, Well, because it's irritating when they don't obey. No, it's not about you. Alright, it's not about you.

Obedience is important for this reason. God says to children, Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your mother. This is the first commandment that I give you.

God says, with a promise your days will be long upon the land. What he's saying is, I will bless you if you obey and honor your mother and your father. And so as parents we read that in the Bible and we're like, well, I love my children. I want them to experience God's very best.

I want them to experience blessing and hmm, it seems like obedience is the place of God's blessing. And if they're in disobedience to me or their mom, that means they're outside of the place of God's blessing. And I love them, so I don't want them to be in that place where God's blessing is not. I want them to be in the location where God's blessing is.

So therefore, because I want them to experience God's best, I want them to learn to obey me. And their mother. We also want them to learn obedience to the authorities, the laws of the land, and by the way, Dad, you can help. And teaching your children obedience to the governing authorities by you yourself obeying the laws of the land.

Also, you want your children to be in obedience to God's word. You want them to value the word of God, to hear the word of God. To read it themselves, but also to hear it from your own lips and say this is what God says. This isn't me talking.

This is what God says and God loves you and He created you. God could not imagine this world without you in it, and so He created you and out of love he gives you this, this book that has these guidelines and this counsel for you, and you need to obey this if you want to experience God's very best in life. You take disobedience to God's word very seriously in your own life and in the lives of your children, and also you want your children to be obedient to the gospel. Now, that sounds weird, doesn't it?

Obey the gospel. We think, no, you believe the gospel, you don't obey the gospel. But there's actually some times in the New Testament where Paul speaks of obedience to the gospel. And we need to realize that the gospel is amongst other things, an imperative.

It's a command. What's the command? Believe. All right.

That's not just something God shares. Here's something you might want to do. No, it's a command from the sovereign King of the universe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's a command. And we obey the gospel when we say I will believe, I will look to Jesus, and I will put my trust in Him to be my Lord and Savior. I won't trust in myself or my own works, my own righteousness to save me, but I will believe in Him to be my Savior. And so keeping children in a place of obedience involves their obedience to the gospel, which means they believe in Jesus.

You might want to write down Titus 1:6, a parallel passage where Paul words it differently that brings this out. He says in verse 6, If any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, all right. And so Paul would say, I'm saying the same thing in two different ways. Children in obedience are children who are obedient to the gospel, and when God tells them to believe in His Son and put their trust in Him, they obey that, and they are believing children believing in Jesus.

So as a dad, we assume responsibility for the obedience of our children. Paul envisions men who care very deeply about this. And then fourthly and lastly, there's another thing that Paul envisions. men doing in verse 4, and that is he envisions men not just leading their households, leading their households well, keeping their children in a place of obedience, but he envisions men actively engaged in parenting their children with respect, with respect.

look what he says in verse 4. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control. And now look at this, with all dignity. Some of your translations say gravity, mine says dignity, some say with reverence, some say with respect.

The basic bottom line idea of this term is respect. And so you need to realize, alright, I want my children to be in a place of obedience. And so how do I make that happen? And if I stop the message here, you might say, I know I'm going to go home today and I'm going to sit my kids down and man they're going to get an earful from me and I'm going to yell at them.

I'm going to scream at them, and I'm going to get them under control. They're going to see a tantrum from me that will put the fear of God in them, and I will have them under control by the end of Mother's Day. That's not, that's not what Paul is envisioning here. He he says dads who keep their children in obedience, but they do it with all respect, with all dignity, not just some, but in other words, in an environment of respect and reverence.

So what does that mean? Well, part of what that means is that as a dad, You want your children to value the words that come out of your mouth. So one of the ways of causing that to happen is getting your children to respect you. If they respect you, they will respect the words that come out of your mouth.

So you live before your children in a way that is designed to, to earn the respect and to keep the respect of your, your children. And let me just say this to encourage you, Dad. You may say, Man, I've totally messed up. I've blown it.

I'm sure my kids, they would have every reason to not respect me for all the ways I've failed., the person I respect more than any other. It's not a perfect person. They, they freak me out. I don't even know what to do with people who seem like they never mess up.

The people that I respect and I suspect that you respect more than any other are those that are far from perfect. They stumble in many ways, but when they mess up, they're humble enough to admit it and to apologize and to take ownership of the hurt they've caused. And make it right with the person that they've hurt. Don't we respect people like that?

Hey, I sinned. I'm not making any excuses. I'm not going to blame you. I'm not going to blame my parents.

I'm not going to blame my circumstances. I blew it. I was wrong, and I know that hurt you. And in fact, tell me how that hurt you.

Listen, I, I want to, I want to do better and I want to ask your forgiveness for that. If, if as a dad, you're like that in front of your kids, That's huge. Kids respect humility. Perhaps more than any other quality, so you can earn their respect.

With just humility, and then by seeking to grow and letting them see your progress and becoming the man that God wants you to become, they would look at you and say, my dad is not perfect, but my dad is a different man than he was a year ago. I've seen God working in his life and what a testimony that is to the power of God for them to see God changing you little by little, day by day. So as parents we live before our children in a way that earns their respect, but also to keep them in obedience with all respect also means that we give our children respect.

We speak to them with respect.

We don't belittle our children. We don't disrespect them, but we, we behave towards them with great respect. And I know there's probably teenagers here today saying, yeah, preach it, Pastor Milton. In fact, I would say that the number one problem in our household is that I don't get the respect that is due me, and that's why I have problems with obedience here.

Be careful what you wish for. Because if your parents really respected you, they would raise their expectations. You want, you want me to move on? Let's linger here.

If they really, really respect you, they will raise their expectations of you. Respect, when someone respects you, there's responsibility that goes with that. We as parents disrespect our children when we have such low expectations of them. That's the ultimate in disrespect.

this is extreme, and none of you ever talk this way, but imagine Billy comes home and he got a 45 out of 100 on a math test. What are you going to say? Oh, that's good, Billy. That's good.

actually, you exceeded my expectations, and that's better than a 30, isn't it? So we can be really encouraged by that, can't we? what? Your child's not going to go, Man, my parents respect me, man, I'm feeling the respect.

No, if you really respect them and you expect more of them as a result of that, you're going to say, and I say this to my kids, I respect you so much that I know that you are capable of better than you have done. And I have to tell them that because it doesn't feel like respect to them when you raise the expectations or express them in that way, but it really is respect. And so kids, when you want to demand respect, just think twice before you ask for that, because with that comes extra responsibility.

So as parents we, we keep our children in obedience.

We, we parent them in an environment of respect, and that means we earn their respect so that they respect us. So the words that come out of our mouth are given that same respect that they give to us. We give our children respect. We speak to them respectfully.

We don't want to unduly provoke them to anger. We don't belittle them. We don't demean them. we don't lash out at them, but we, we speak to them with respect.

One of the things that helps me as a dad, and I'm not perfect at this, in fact, just yesterday I had to apologize to one of my sons for, a way that I spoke to him. but I, I like to imagine my kids, especially when they were little, I like to imagine them as adults. One day, my boy's going to be taller than me. Bigger than me and he's going to be able to beat me up one day and I'm going to be looking up to him.

And when that day comes, how will I wish I had treated him when he was little. And that helps. That helps for me to To treat them with the respect to see their future self. And to ask myself how well I wish I had treated them in that future day.

Also to parent our children, to keep them in obedience with all reverence, with all respect, also means that yeah, we want respect from our kids. We give respect to our kids, but also our kids see that Dad has great respect for certain things. Dad respects the things of God. Dad respects the word of God.

God speaks. Dad cares very deeply about that. I see the respect that he gives to God's word because I see him reading it and he speaks about it and he's trying to pass that on. And so they see that as a dad there are things that you care very deeply about and that you value very highly.

They see that you value God. You revere God, who He is and what He has done, and they see that the passion of your life is that that God who created me and who sustains me every day, who's been so good to me to sustain my life and then especially through Jesus to save me and forgive me of my sins, that God is worthy of my worship and that God is worthy to be worshiped in my home every day. Is God worthy to be worshiped in your home every day? And even Christian homes, there's certain TV shows that we will not compromise.

We will watch this every week. they're even Christian families that are downright religious about certain things, they're never going to compromise or sacrifice. We've got to watch these shows. And those same Christian families, how many times did the family come together and worship God?

How many times did they gather together to just open the Bible and read it? Without deliberately doing so, we're basically saying, God, you're not as worthy to be worshiped as these things are that we're more committed to. And, and so we, by the choices we make, seemingly innocent choices, we're letting our kids know, what, I have no respect for God. I don't care about his word.

And we're not, we're not raising our children in that environment of respect for him. that in reverence for him that we should have Just as we round the corner here and, and wrap up, let me just say this. Paul has a great vision. This is a bright vision just in verse 4 here, and it's just captured my heart this week.

And think about it, dads, we live in a dark, and a cruel and a fallen world where the stakes are so high. I want you to realize that when God gave you your children, Those were eternal souls. Your children will live somewhere forever. 1 trillion years from now, your children will be alive somewhere.

And God says, here, parent them. That's like, That's like one of the most imposing, amazing responsibilities that could ever be given to anybody. Parent these eternal souls and know that what you do and don't do is going to reverberate through all of the eons of eternity, trillions and trillions and trillions of years from now. The stakes are very high, and are we as dads committed to this task of being leaders in our marriages, leaders in our homes, leaders of our children, raising them in a way that gives them the tools they need to survive in this cruel and darkened world and even to thrive spiritually and not just thrive but make a lasting difference that is going to survive the fires of Judgment Day.

In a positive way for the glory of God. I started the message this morning talking about James Taylor. Let me end the message this morning by talking about a woman named Mary Prevett. who I believe is still alive, living in New Jersey.

She was born in 1932. she was the child of some missionaries in, in Asia. during World War Two, she was separated from her mom and dad. I think she was 9 years old, 8 or 9 years old at the time.

She, she ended up in a concentration camp apart from her parents for 3 years, and she was away from her parents for 5.5 years of her life. Talk about hardship that this woman had, this little girl had already known. after they were reunited when she was 13 years of age, they moved to the United States and, after they moved to the United States, this woman, this little girl at the age of 14, somehow got tangled up in an electric saw and it cut off her hand. And so she then had to live with that disability the rest of her life, but nonetheless, her parents, she in her testimony, she said, my parents raised me to see God's purpose in everything, and she had a faith that was strong and that was able to see God's hand in this, and she continued on and says, I want to live for God.

I want to make a difference. And she went to college and then she became a high school teacher in Camden, New Jersey, in one of the most depressed areas of New Jersey. And made a difference in the lives of these broken kids that she was teaching at this public school. One of the students ended up going on and making a great difference and having a heart for juvenile delinquents.

He later asked her, his former teacher, if she would be willing to be the director of the Camden County Youth Center. which was basically a delinquency center for juveniles that were awaiting trial. These were juvenile murderers, rapists, prostitutes, drug addicts, lives utterly broken, utterly unlovely to anybody. But she took the job and she began to just clean up this place.

It was formerly run down, rat infested, and And no hope, no life, but she breathed life into this place with her love for Jesus. She sat knee to knee with these kids, and she loved them. She spoke hope and the love of God into them. She brought order and security and peace to this place and to such a degree that this detention center became a model for other detention centers across the country to to look at.

She became the president of the New Jersey Juvenile Delinquency. association, a member of the National Coalition for Juvenile Justice. She became an advisor to presidents and our United States Congress. She served 4 terms as a New Jersey legislator.

was legislator of the year. one particular year, she wrote a book in 1994 entitled Hungry Ghost, talking about these lost juvenile souls and, and the difference that the love of Jesus was able to make in their lives. why do I share this at the end? Number one, to let you guys know as parents that you can make a profound difference in the lives of your children that gives them the tools to handle hardship and to make a difference in the lives of many other people.

But I have another reason for telling you about Mary Prevett, who lives in New Jersey, and that is for this reason. I started the message talking about Hudson Taylor's great grandfather. Mary Prevett is known as Mary Taylor Prevett. She is the great granddaughter of Hudson Taylor.

And a few years ago she was being interviewed by a Christian magazine. And the interviewer asked her, You're the child of missionaries and you've got that all in your lineage, lineage seven generations back. Do you see your ministry here in New Jersey working with these juvenile delinquents as missionary work? And she said, Yes, I do.

I definitely view myself as a missionary. And then, amazingly, in reply to that question, she made reference to something in her family history. She said this to the interviewer, Hudson Taylor's great grandfather made a vow on his wedding day in 1776. He said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

I have watched with interest how the family passed on that vow and that legacy from one generation to the next, and it's a beautiful thing to see the vow of one person in 1776 rippling through generations. after generation. I want to ask you if you think, do you want the world 230 years from now to be a different place and for people in your lineage to be making this difference in the lives of people and for them to be remembering the legacy that you left them. What I would love is if the men of this church would rise up and look at verse 4 and say that's God's vision, that's my vision.

I want to step up to the plate. I want to lead my wife and my children. I want to lead them well. I want to teach my children obedience.

God and to the gospel and to authority, and I want to do so in an environment of respect for them and them respecting me and paying great respect to the God of heaven living in fear and reverence of Him and teaching my children to honor God, to honor God, and thereby to give them the tools necessary. To survive and thrive in a broken and cruel world and to go on to make an eternal difference that on Judgment Day it'll survive the fires of Judgment Day and that my children will be able to take those blessings with them into eternity.

Do you want that? Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning.

We're going to be taking up an offering, and I just want to encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give. And there's a comment card in your bulletin you can fill that out. You got any prayer requests or praises, and you can put that in the offering bags as they go by this morning. If you're here today and you're like, man, I, this is what God wants me to do.

I can see that, but I can't do that. Well, Jesus says, hey, I'd love to help you. I'd love to help you. That's what I'm here for.

You say, well, I've already blown it. I, I need forgiveness. Jesus says, hey, that's what I'm here for. I, I will delight to forgive.

I will be pleasure to forgive you for every failure, every sin, and then I'll be your friend and I'll walk with you and just help you little by little. To be the man that I call you to be. I prayed for the moms earlier in our service. Let me just take a minute to pray for the dads.

Lord, even words that have come out of my own mouth today have been convicting to me. I have failed in In so many ways, but I thank You, Jesus, that you don't wait until we're perfect to befriend us. But that you choose to be our best friend when we are so far from perfect and it's that friendship and that love and that grace that, that works within us in such a way that makes us become better over time. I pray for these men, Lord, that wherever there may be guilt and conviction that you would just wash that away with your grace, that they would know that you are a God for sinners like us, and you.

You would be pleasured to forgive. But I also pray that they would just look to you and say, God, I want to be this. But I'm not, but I want to be. Would you help me?

Will you be my savior from what I have been and transform me to be something that I've never been. I pray, Lord, that You would work in their hearts and that they would humbly seek that from you, and I know that you would answer. Help all of us as men in this church to rise up and to be men of God, fulfilling this vision that we see here in verse 4. Thank you for the privilege of giving our offerings to you, Lord, take these offerings, Lord, multiply their usefulness.

For the glory of Jesus and accept our worship as well. We ask this in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said,