Do you have a biblical vision for a godly family life?

In this message, Scott Brown shows us what a godly family look likes and he gives us a vision on how we are to begin to reform our families.

I was very moved sitting here thinking about what was it that brought us all here. What are we doing here? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And as God desires that for all of His people, He did something to us. He did something that we never could have done on our own.

He did a work in our hearts that was irresistible, and we're here because of that work. It was prophesied in the last lines of the Old Testament that God would pour out his spirit and the hearts of fathers would turn toward their children and that children's hearts would turn toward their parents. Notice, they didn't turn themselves, they were just going on in life, and God poured out a spirit. And honestly, We are here at this camp because of that particular work of the Spirit. There are many facets of the work of the Spirit, but we are here at least as an expression of that outpouring of grace toward us, He turned our hearts.

And it's a marvelous thing that He has done. And so we're here because of a mighty work of God. We're here because of a reformation that's taking place all across our land. Nobody's really leading it, it's just popping up everywhere. And God has brought us to this camp as a result of it.

And this family camp is about renewing the family with a biblical vision for family life For the glory of God to all generations that the next generation and the next generation would rise up and praise the Lord Jesus Christ He's done this so that the whole earth would be filled with his glory. He's done this to keep love alive in the world. He's done this so that a father would preach the gospel to his children when he sits in his house, when he walks by the way, and when he lies down, and when he rises up, that the glorious truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ would be found in the hearts of people on the earth so that the light of the gospel wouldn't go out in the earth. You know, we think that the light of the gospel has gone out in Europe. We think that the light of the gospel is going out in our own nation, but it's not true.

The light of the gospel is burning brightly. And it will burn brightly from one generation to the next. God is doing this work by the power of his own might. There isn't anyone here who has deserved or founded on their own but the love of God in working in mankind has come to raise up an army of love and truth and the testimony of the gospel that So that's why we're here and I really am so delighted to be here with you and I thank the Kevin and the men who have invited me to come. I really am so grateful to be able to stand here and say the things that I will say here tonight.

Now tonight and tomorrow, I'd like to bring before us two particular historical periods that have to do with family reformation. And then I would like to make applications for us. We too are in a time of reformation, like the times of reformation that I'm going to refer to here tonight and tomorrow. And there's so much that we can learn from those times of reformation. The men that experienced this outpouring of grace in these two historical periods have much to teach us.

They learned things that had been lost. You know, the lost book of the law was found in these two particular historical periods in the same way that it was lost and found in the days of Josiah. And whenever the lost book of the law is found and is applied, a reformation happens. And all of these reformations, including the one that we are in the midst of now, have the same qualities. They have the quality of the finding of the lost book of the law.

There's a desire for the glory of God. And then there's a revival of love in the hearts of parents for their children and in the hearts of children for their parents. So I'd like to take these two periods of Reformation and use them as jump-off points to talk about the Reformation that we're experiencing now, which is a glorious Reformation. So tonight we're going to take a journey back to Geneva during the Reformation, particularly John Calvin's Geneva, and then tomorrow morning we're going to take a journey into the family reformation that took place among the successors of the reformers. That would be the Puritans.

Matthew Henry, Philip Dodridge, Richard Baxter, Increase Mather, Jonathan Edwards, we will go and take a look there and we'll look and see what we can learn because in their time they recovered the lost book of the law as we are today and so they have glorious things for us. Now, one of the problems that we have is that this book of the law is always being found and lost and found and lost and found again. And every time that it is found, there are troubles. God's people are always tested in the times of finding the lost book of the law. And we know of the difficult times that the Reformers experienced in John Calvin's Geneva.

The burnings at the stake. The terrible murders of God's people. And we must, as we look back at these times, not look back with rose-colored glasses and think that everything was just beautiful, because whenever there's a time of reformation, there are always times of trouble. And I'd like to talk about what happened in Geneva when John Calvin was there. There were six powerful forces at work in Geneva, and the first thing that happened in Geneva was that a church was reformed through a return to scripture.

Something happened in the hearts of these men, and they could not turn their backs on it, and they had to go back to Holy Scripture. And they desired to take this book of the law and apply it to absolutely everything. Another thing that happened in Geneva was there was the practice of expository preaching. John Calvin engaged in this practice of preaching that shook the world. John Calvin was almost maniacally devoted to the practice of going line by line, book by book, section by section, through Holy Scripture.

He was so dearly devoted to it that at one point when he was banished from Geneva for three years to Strasbourg, he was finally invited back to the church in Geneva there and he walked into the pulpit and he opened up his Bible and he turned to the next verse that he left off three years before. John Calvin believed that the church needed the whole counsel of God, that the church of Jesus Christ needed every word, and that it needed to labor over the words and the sentences and the contexts and to extract the beauty that was there and just let it flow over whatever it might flow on and so John Calvin experienced the blessing in his church from this practice. Of course, I would just recommend this practice in all of the churches that God's word is adored so much and that those who would teach it would adore it so much that they would not trust in their own ways of thinking about it, but to take it as it is in its own context, and in its own historical settings. A third thing that happened in Geneva was that theological bedrock was laid.

And whenever a church sets itself to this, reformation happens. And it's interesting to think, you know, this church in Geneva, there were about 15 families that migrated there. Some of the greatest minds really in Christendom came there. John Fox, Rutherford, John Knox was there. There was just an array of amazing men that came into Geneva and they translated the Bible there, but John Calvin was laying theological bedrock as he was writing the Institutes of the Christian Religion.

One of the finest writings, one of the most devotional writings you'll ever lay eyes on. I would so highly recommend that you read it at some time in your life. Here's what Calvin does all over the place in Institutes. He begins, he's speaking of some subject from Holy Scripture, and then he just starts soaring in praise to God. He just loses himself in outer space piling up one word after another expressing how wonderful, how marvelous, how perfect, how beautiful, how absolutely good God is.

Well, this is institutes. Now, it is theological bedrock, but it is also exaltation and praise toward God. The church doesn't go forward just on theological bedrock. Praise, honor, love for it all, have to accompany it, or that's just dead religion. Well, there was not dead religion there in Geneva.

There was praise toward God. A Bible was translated. This would be the Geneva Bible. Scholars gathered. They did something that was absolutely astounding.

In two years, they produced the Geneva Bible, the first Bible with notes. It was a commentary. This Bible was presented to the people. And where did this Bible end up? In the homes of the people of the church.

And whenever the Bible is read in the homes of the people of the church, then blessing starts to flow. And that's exactly what happened in Geneva. The Geneva Bible transformed Europe. Everywhere the Geneva Bible went, the culture was transformed. Not without trouble, but it was transformed.

Another thing that happened in Geneva is that leaders were trained there, and they were sent all over the world. I believe it was to Martin Bueser, John Calvin said, send me wood and I'll send you arrows. What an exciting way to conduct the church. Kevin Swanson is shaking his head like this. He's saying, send me wood, send me wood.

I know it, aren't you? You're saying, send me wood and I will send arrows out into the world. This is what churches should do. Churches should do all these things that were happening in Geneva. There you had John Fox, the author of Fox's Book of Martyrs, you had these Bible translators that came together and they worked tirelessly.

They were laborers in the Word of God. Why did they labor in that field? They loved the field. They loved what came out of that field when it was fertilized and it was cared for. And they buried their lives, trusted everything, they stepped out on to the rock of the Word of God and they planted their feet there and they said we believe this Let all men be proved liars But we will trust in the Word of God And so they had these marvelous qualities.

I understand that at the beginning of John Calvin's ministry, there were really 15 families that were there. And of course it grew. People moved from all over the place. But think of what God can do with a small church of 100 or 200 or 300 people like this. God is able by His Spirit to shake the world.

I don't know what churches you come from or how big they are, but they're probably somewhat like John Calvin's Geneva in the early days. And God desires to use people who have a childlike faith who would trust in Holy Scripture, to love it with all of their hearts so much as to move everything out of their schedule, to let it have its, it's a great place in the life there. Now, something else happened in Geneva that was very unusual. They established what it was called the consistory. On Thursdays they met and they heard the problems of the people and they opened up scripture and they applied it to those various problems.

And it was a place where the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture was applied. Now, of course, the Reformation was certainly about the recovery of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It absolutely was about that. But it was not only about that. It was also about everything else.

In John Calvin's Geneva, it wasn't just the doctrine of justification by faith alone that was paid attention to, but it was that the Bible would be used to speak to every area of life. And especially family life. Family life was a disaster in Geneva, just like it is in our day. The pagan culture had worked its way in and and tampered with everyone's practices at the same time the practices of the church the ungodly unbiblical practices of the Catholic Church had worked their way into the family practices of the people in Geneva. And so as Calvin and his brothers conducted these Thursday meetings at the consistory, they considered all kinds of things regarding family reformation.

Doctrines of celibacy had been raised up in the Catholic Church. You know, the Catholic Church had established 180 days of abstinence for married couples. Isn't that amazing? Where did they get that? They certainly did not get it from the book of Song of Solomon.

I don't know where else they could have found it. It's found nowhere in scripture. But many restrictions and rules and regulations were made for families that were completely unbiblical. The doctrine of Godparents was established and had worked its way into the lives of people's patterns. Childhood commitments in marriage was something that the Church was advocating, and so you would have babies being committed to one another in marriage, and they would grow up and would be forced into marriage.

And marriage was a sacrament in the Catholic system. In contrast, in Geneva as the Bible was used, marriage was expected for all marriageable couples, except in extreme situations. Mandatory celibacy was outlawed in Geneva, why? Can you imagine the tension that that brought about among the families of the people in Geneva as they had been advocating mandatory celibacy, they had been advocating all these strange practices that even went as far as to the marriage bed and how these people began to wake up and say, this is nowhere in the Bible. And there was tension and there were problems in extended families because these people were turning to God's Word and the people around didn't understand what was going on.

Very much like what is happening to so many of us here. We've realized that there are certain things that are completely unbiblical, and we share them with our parents or our neighbors, and they look at us like we've absolutely lost our minds. That's exactly what happened in Geneva. They said, no 180 days of celibacy or abstinence for you? Why?

Well, open up Holy Scripture. What does Scripture say regarding the marital bond and union? Well, that's what they were doing in Geneva. The rulings that were being given out in the consistory covered so many issues. Picking the right person, courting the right way, the role of physical beauty and romantic love in the making of a marriage.

They ruled on how to handle broken engagements and betrothal. They paid attention to biblical patterns. And you know what happened in Geneva? People moved there in droves to get in on the action. Because they knew that something, not only different was happening, but something from God, something that bore fruit.

You know, we're seeing this today, aren't we? So many of these same issues that were being raised in Geneva are being raised here today as we have opened up the lost book of the law again. And isn't there a blessing in it? Isn't there a multiplication of love like you've never seen? Aren't there things happening that you've never laid eyes on in your whole life?

Aren't your children so far ahead of you? Aren't you amazed to see the thoughts and the dispositions of their hearts and their affections in contrast to your own? And it's because of the same thing that happened in Geneva. You know, even in the consistory, they even dealt with issues of, you know, how important is attraction and, you know, Twitter patient in the making of a marriage. And they, John Calvin believed that it was necessary, highly necessary, that there was love deep within the heart welling up within a boy or a girl for this one and That a marriage should not take place unless there was this visceral love that was rising up within their hearts.

John Calvin believed that, well I believe that too. How many of you believe that? I hope all of you believe it because it is something that we do see in scripture and we do not see these cold-hearted forced marriages that they were seeing in the Catholic Church at that time. They believed that physical beauty could play a part in the calculus of marriage, but more importantly was spiritual beauty. Another key to a strong marriage in Geneva, according to their view, was taking time to get to know a mate before proceeding in marriage.

Calvin had no patience with arranged marriages, sight unseen, or marriages that were rushed. You know, he even, interestingly enough, and I don't know how anyone feels about this, and I'm not really sure how Calvin got to this, But Calvin also understood the power of love at first sight. If we took a poll tonight right here, I'm confident we would find some couples who when they first laid eyes on that girl or that young man, it was love at first sight and you married them and you're absolutely convinced it was God Almighty who did it. Well, if you believe that, John Calvin made way for that as well. He also believed that matchmakers could be helpful in this marriage process.

So why am I saying all this? I'm saying all this because when you go back to the Reformation that took place in Calvin's Geneva, What you see is an opening of scripture for insight, for everything that's happening in life. This is the place of blessedness. This is the wellspring of love. This is where the kingdom of God is seen.

You know, the Bible says that God has called us that we might prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. God gives us His word so that we would look at it and do it, and then in doing it, we're glorifying God, we're lifting up praises toward heaven, and we are proving that the will of God is good, we're proving that there is no other God except the Lord God who made the heavens and the earth, that all the gods of the earth are bankrupt, that they're fools, but that on the other hand, there is a God in heaven who loves his people, he speaks to his people in words, and he helps them make their way through this life which is often full of trouble. So it all starts with the word of God and so it is for us to continue in this work of reformation That has begun in our hearts through an act of sovereign grace that we were not responsible for at all Okay, so what what is the lesson from Geneva? What have I been driving out? The lesson is this.

The blessed life is the life in which everything is governed by the words of Holy Scripture. That is the lesson. And of course there are many lessons in scripture. I would like to speak of one of the issues that I think we need to be paying attention to in our own times and that is there is a specific plan for all of us. And I'm going to call it a 100-year plan.

How many of you knew that it was God Almighty who cast a vision for a 100-year plan for all of His people? Has anyone known before that they have been commanded to walk through a hundred-year plan and to do it self-consciously and to work through it over the long haul? And God has given us a 100 year plan. We don't have to make it up on our own. We don't have to go away on a weekend for a vision casting session.

We don't have to go to a seminar and walk through how to build a vision statement. No, we don't need that at all. In fact, we probably shouldn't do that unless Holy Scripture is the ground of it all. But there are two extremely clear places, and there are many others in scripture that speak to us about this 100 year plan. Psalm 78 shows us 100 years.

Asaph says that fathers should teach their children and make them known to their children that the generation to come might know them, that the children who would be born would declare them to their children. That's at least, that's four generations. And it's actually longer than 100 years if lifespans work properly. But again, we find the same thing in Deuteronomy 6. He says to Israel, you should observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess.

You, your son, and your grandson all the days of your life. That is your 100 year plan. And there are a number of ways that we can look at that. Here's one way to look at it. This is a picture that I hope would help you understand this passage of scripture clearly.

Of course there's my father, Bill Brown, and then there's me, his son, and then there is his son's son-in-law, and then his grandson. These generations are pictured right here. You, your son, and your grandson all the days of your life. And this 100 year plan is brilliant and it's simple and every man can understand it. And it begins with you.

It begins with the way a man governs himself. That he lets the word of Christ dwell richly. That he mortifies sin. That he keeps his vessel in sanctification and honor, that he lays aside filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receives with meekness the implanted word which is able to save his soul. So the hundred year plan begins with you.

And this is where we should all start. And it begins with asking ourselves questions about our own sanctification, our own sins. Men should be confessors of their sins in their families. I found that my pride has caused me many times not even to see, not even to be able to perceive the way I was sinning against my family. And so He has sent to me my dear wife, who would come alongside of me in the same gentle, beautiful way that the Holy Spirit would come to me and say to me, Scott I don't think you're seeing this quite right because I am blind.

I'm so often blind to my own sins in my family. And I might not listen to my daughter or my son if they tell me I'm not seeing it, but I should. But I do hope that I would listen to my wife at least but it begins with the government of me so it's you and then it's your son and what do you do with your son you teach your son when you sit in the house when you walk by the way when you lie down and when you rise up You bring the training and the admonition of the Lord into your home. We're going to talk about this at length tomorrow, particularly in the way that the Puritans taught that this should happen. But this is the work of pouring out the Word of God into the home.

It's the work of securing honor and obedience, constantly recovering love and respect back into the home, so that the home is not a place of dishonor and hatred. It's the walk-along, talk-along lifestyle. It's not the outsourcing lifestyle. It's not outsourcing your children to other people, but it is walking beside and talking and giving and giving words. I think it was Saint Francis of Assisi who said one of the stupidest things, one of the most unbiblical things that has ever been said.

He said, preach the gospel and if necessary use words. Now that's absolutely contrary to everything in scripture. Scripture says use lots of words, use my words, take my words and give them. We should be like the Apostle Peter to whom it was said and with many other words He solemnly testified and kept on him exhorting them saying be saved from this perverse generation Fathers are commanded by God to use words, lots of words. If you're a quiet father, well, that's something that you should grow out of.

Quiet fathers should become more verbal fathers. Why? Because God has commanded us to be that way. We often like to play footsie with our weaknesses and just make excuses for them instead of becoming like the pattern that we see in Holy Scripture. And then there is your grandson.

And this is all the days of your life. This ministry is to grandsons. And what does that mean? What does all the days of your life mean? It means that there's no retirement for the next generation.

It means that there's no squandering of inheritance, but it's taking the resource of time and whatever other resources that a grandfather might have and to pour it into the next generation. This is the way that the community of faith perpetuates itself. It's the only way that faith will survive on the earth is by a mighty work of the Holy Spirit of turning of the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers and the grandfathers to their grandchildren so that the pagan nations do not overtake at all. And we know from Scripture that the pagan nations will not overtake at all. That there is great hope that we have.

The Spirit of God will work in spite of all pagan nations, in spite of all political machinery, in spite of all philosophy that rules the world. No, God has a plan. And it is so that your days may be prolonged, so that we would continue to exist. This is why the fifth commandment is so important, is because it secures the continuance of faith in the world, so that love is kept alive in the world and it begins in your family and then it is spread out into the church where there is honor and love and obedience in the church and then it spreads out into business and into government and every other area. This is the wisdom of God.

Isn't it beautiful? It's so simple and yet so unified in its method and so brilliant in every way. And this is the wisdom of God. Oh, the depth of the wisdom of God. Who can imagine how wise this is and yet we see it right on the surface.

Now tonight I want to do something that I have only done this one other time and I want to speak about some of the victories of this Reformation that's taking place, because there really are mighty, mighty victories. And I want to just give it to you from my own perspective. I want to give you some snapshots just out of my own 100 year plan that God has me in the midst of. And it's a very risky thing to do because it can be so easily misunderstood. And so just right at, I would just like to say it can be misunderstood as that I'm saying this is the only way that Reformation takes place in a family and I'm not saying that at all.

I'm really just wanting to give praise to God for the glimmers of hope that are filling my soul, someone could look at it and say, well you're saying your way is the only way, or your way is the best way, or you're boasting, and honestly it's none of that at all. But it is appropriate from time to time to stand up and give thanks to God for what he's doing. To praise God in the sanctuary, to look at his mighty acts that he has done by his own power. And you know the Bible says that if you walk in these ways, it will be well with you. And so I want to just speak about certain things that are well as a result of this work of God that is being carried out here right before our eyes, and that we are here as a result of.

So I just want to say that before I begin this, but I want to speak of the victories in four areas of my work as a father. All of us as fathers have different kinds of work to do, and I want to speak about four different works. First of all, I am a father to my married children, and I'm a father to my children still at home, and I'm a son to my father. And part of my fatherhood work is actually my life as a husband to my wife. And so let's start with this first one.

I am a father to my married children. One year ago, next Sunday, next Saturday, my oldest daughter was married. Kelly Brown was married to Peter Bradrick. And Peter, over a year before their marriage approached me and began to speak to me about his desire for Kelly. And a number of things happened through that whole experience.

One thing that happened was he, because he had God's Word open before him, He decided that it was his responsibility to honor me as the head of my daughter, and he would not go directly to my daughter. His view of life was that God gives daughters and sons a head, And they are fathers. And his first approach to me was in faithfulness to Holy Scripture. He was regulating his life under the commands and the patterns that he saw in Holy Scripture. And so he was honoring my authority, he was speaking to me, he was dealing with me in the way that I was wanting to deal with him and there were, you know, Debra and I had no idea that Peter was interested in Kelly because in fact, we had some conversations where we thought, oh, I think Peter does not like Kelly at all because of the way he's treating her.

He's not even looking at her. He's not even, you know, so he was, and perhaps you know that might have, maybe that was an overreaction, but what was not an overreaction was the reaction in his heart. His heart desired to be faithful to the headship of the home. And so he honored me in that and we established a process of courtship that led up to their engagement or their betrothal. And it was a process that was placed under the government of God.

In the same way that John Calvin in Geneva attempted to put everything under the government of God as best as they knew how. John Calvin and Peter Bradrick desired to be like children before the Lord, not wise in their own eyes, Not wanting to go make their own life their own way out of their own creative visionary plan But to go to God and to take the plan From there and it's a beautiful plan that he has. I also would just desire tonight to praise God for his honoring the prayers of two sets of parents. We as couples had prayed much for our children and their marriages. God desires that we pray for the marriages of our children, that we labor.

It's often that we think that we can just throw up a prayer here or there and we do not labor in prayer. I believe that God desires for us to labor in prayer. Why do I believe that? Because of all the commands of scripture about prayer. It's obvious, praying without ceasing, about everything, in everything giving thanks and bringing everything before God that makes sense to.

And of course, the marriage of a son or a daughter would make sense. Well, here's a question for you. Are you laboring in prayer or are you just pining away that your son or daughter has not been married yet? There are two ways to go through life. One is in prayerful expectancy that God will glorify Himself, and He does hear the cries of His people, or languishing and pining away and panicking and doing stupid things, taking things into your own hands, saying things you shouldn't say, going places you couldn't go because you're trying to make everything happen as desperately as your heart would tell you to do it.

But I just want to give thanks to God for the answers to prayers. And I also would just have to say that the Browns and the Bradricks, at least the Browns, have never labored in prayer as they should. And yet God still hears the cries of his people. We could speak of the blessings of having a son-in-law who honors you. This was one of the things that was prominent in all of my dealings with Peter and he wasn't just shining it up before the marriage either, by the way.

So now it's been a year. And what I've learned was that this honor toward me went deep into his heart and it was real. It was from the Lord. It was a work of the Holy Spirit. And he's continued that on.

And then we could speak of the blessings of sons and daughters who exceed us dramatically. You know this is one of the things that I'm sure most of us in this room can say. Most men that I know who have turned their hearts in the ways that we've been speaking of. They say that their children are exceeding them. And this is a blessing, we should praise God for that.

Some of the silly time engagements that we might have engaged in when we were younger are not being engaged in in our children. And this is working as a power pack for them. They are doing things far beyond anything we did at their age. They are in some cases 10, 15 years ahead of us in so many areas of life, in productivity, in kindness, in love, in effectiveness, in so many ways. There was a wedding that took place with Peter and Kelly, and I wasn't sure I could get through this moment.

I thought about it, of course, you know, all of my life, and the blessings of God were just abundant on that wedding day because it was a through-and-through, it was a day that was that the heart of it was to put it all under the government of God. One of the great blessings of this marriage was the fact that we were also celebrating two sets of parents where intact marriages prevailed. And so you had a grandfather and a son and a granddaughter, all three generations with intact marriages. This is a blessing. This is something that we should praise God for.

This is something that we should constantly be aware that when we break the vows of marriage, when we dishonor our spouses, and when a husband doesn't love his wife like Christ loved the church, when a wife does not honor and respect her husband, then we're breaking apart this transgenerational blessing of keeping love alive in the world. It was such a joy to be able to be there and just acknowledge God's grace and that he was carrying it on From one generation to the next we should strive for this brothers and sisters That we should keep these marriages together and not sin against our wives and wives not sinning against our husbands by rising up in ungodly ways. This was also a celebration of brotherhood, of church life. There was acknowledgement in the community there that this was a marriage that God was putting together. And so the church that Peter was a part of was affirming this marriage.

Doug's best friends were affirming this marriage, or Peter's best friends were affirming this marriage. There was unity in the church. There was unity among the counselors and the brothers that God had brought together. You had a father who was blessing this union as well, and it was a celebration of unity. And only God can bring love about in this world.

Only God can bring unity. Only God can do these things. And I really, I just desire to praise Almighty God for His ways, His ways are pleasant ways. All His paths are peace. He is a tree of life to those who embrace Him.

And those who lay hold of wisdom will be blessed. And we just saw this working its way out. One of the most powerful things about this wedding was the construction of the vows. Now there are two ways that you can do your vows. You can make them up or you can go get them out of scripture.

That's pretty much, those are pretty much the options. Well, about a month before the wedding, I got an email from Kelly and she sent me her vows. I printed them out. She says, Papa, this is a first cut. These are the things I'm thinking about for my vows.

What do you think? And I'm sitting there, I'm standing in the kitchen, I'll never forget where I was, I was just like it was yesterday, and I was reading these vows, and each vow was just saturated with scripture. In fact, the vows were scripture. She had gone to as many verses as she could find about marriage in the Bible. And she just took the words out and strung them together in the form of a vow and then and I just I was overcome They were they were just beautiful because they were Directly from Scripture.

So why is this so wonderful? It's wonderful because It's the it's it's the blessing of this next generation who's beginning to think biblically about everything, even their vows. They're not thinking, hey, what cool vows can I write now? What hip thing can I say that will impress everyone and make our hearts pound? No, they didn't think, they're thinking, what would glorify God?

What glorifies God is the spreading of His Word and so that's what they were doing. So then I get Peter's vows, They're just the same way. And then Peter came and his father was there and Peter said, let's go into your office and let's work on the vows. And he gave us the vows in their current state, and he said, let's open up our Bibles. And so there we were, Michael, Brad, we had every electronic tool known to man, searching the Bible, trying to find every intimation of marriage.

We wanted to suck everything we could out of scripture. We wanted to be rich. We wanted to be just a wealth, a cornucopia of language, of scripture. You know, give us the words. And so we just kept gathering the words and then loading those words in.

And this was all because, this wasn't because of anything Michael Bradwick and I were doing. This was because a boy and a young lady had it in their hearts to be governed by Holy Scripture. That was the beauty of it to me. This is the future. This is what this next generation is going to do.

And you know, they are doing it. They're doing it all over the place. I'm seeing the fruit. I'm seeing the blessings of the promised land here and I'm so grateful for it. And you know all of the shame and the criticism that I might receive now is so overwhelmed by the blessings that I'm seeing.

The fruit, the happiness, the government of God, the kingdom of heaven, which is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness. It's joy and the Holy Spirit. That's what the kingdom of heaven is all about. And I'm seeing it happening right before my eyes. And so they just had a baby.

Peter and Kelly had a baby about a month and a half ago. And so we traveled to San Antonio to experience this. Now I have to tell you something about this trip. It was the most encouraging trip I've ever had in my life going to San Antonio. Never.

I don't know. I can't think of any time when I was more full of hope as coming off of this trip. Here's why. I sent Deborah along because Peter wanted Deborah to be there for two weeks before the birth just to help her get ready for the birth. So Deborah was in their little apartment for two weeks before the birth.

And I mean, it's a little apartment. I love little apartments. I remember one of our first apartments where it was so small you could get milk out of the refrigerator, load the dishwasher. You could put away the dishes. You could do everything right there from sitting in your seat.

That's the kind of apartment they live in. And so it's really small. Deborah's sleeping on the couch and there's one bedroom. So it's, you know, it's very compact, you know, it's, you know, it's... So Deborah's there and she's calling me.

She says, Scott, here's what I'm seeing here. First of all, I'm seeing Peter loving Kelly amazingly. She says, Scott, I'm just overwhelmed by the sacrifice of Peter toward his bride. He's loving her like Christ takes care of the body of the church. You know, Christ is working out the spots and the wrinkles of his bride.

So there's Peter. He's in this new marriage. He's working out the spots and the wrinkles. And then, and then Deborah calls me again, she says, Scott, you can't believe what just happened. Peter met with Kelly and he opened up to Genesis 3, 16.

And he read to her the section about suffering and pain in childbirth. And he said, she told me that Peter was preparing her for the pain. And he was saying something like, honey, you're going to have the worst pain you've ever had in your life. So Peter is here, and he is helping her think about her pain. And he says to her that this pain is a God-ordained pain.

And then he says, this pain is because of sin. And so, as you experience the pain, remember the cross, remember the blood, Remember the sovereign hand of God who sent his son to die. He is appealing to his wife to interpret the pain in the way that God, not to run from the pain, not to hate it, but to see it. To see it in the way that it came about for all of us. And again, we find this tendency of the heart, this inflection point of the heart that goes to Holy Scripture to understand even the pain of childbirth.

So then Kelly goes into labor and Debra's there and we throw everybody in the car and we start driving to San Antonio. I get to San Antonio And something has happened to my own wife. I'm sensing in my wife that she's loving me more. Now, I've never honestly thought for a moment, I just wish Deborah would love me more. That thought has never crossed my mind ever because I am loved by my wife.

But it's seeming to me that she's actually growing in her love for me. And she's seeing a husband's love for his wife, and She's also seeing Kelly. She's calling me up and saying, you know, Kelly is so trustful she is she's just Submissively laid her life in his hands. She says Scott. It's so beautiful She says I've just I've not seen that She says, you know, I've seen a lot of women in labor, but I've never seen a woman quite like Kelly in her love and her honor and her responsiveness to her husband.

So there this baby was born on Deborah's knee and Peter received that baby with a couple of midwives there in the room but there was a sanctifying influence as a result of this trip so I am I am so encouraged I'm seeing the next generation I'm seeing the kingdom of heaven come down. I'm seeing the love of Jesus Christ being displayed right before me. I'm seeing Christ's love for the church explained by this young man. There's no domination in it. There's no subjugation in it at all.

There's sanctification and glory and beauty and love and a husband taking care of a daughter of Zion's body and it was so remarkable so I was so I was so filled with hope to see what can happen when you place Holy Scripture in the center just like they did in John Calvin's Geneva and people flock there to get in on the action and I pray that that happens in our churches that there would be a true Reformation in that way then there was a baby dedication the the community of faith as many as could get into this house everybody couldn't come sadly because it was such a small house Peter Peter just wanted to be in his home. Is that epistemological self-consciousness? Maybe. I think it was. I think he was just thinking, my home, the prayers for my new son, it's gonna happen in the context of my home.

The Bible is gonna be there, the shepherds of the church are going to be there, you know, the godly women of the church are going to be there, the brothers are going to be there, and we're going to pour out prayers for this baby. And so there he's, This baby was being passed around the room and this was my opportunity to pray for Triumph Perseverance Bradrick. And even in his name was this desire to honor God in the words that are in Scripture. Why did they name their child Triumph Perseverance? Because those words are in Scripture.

Because those words have meaning. They have deep meaning. Now, everybody might not like those words, but I think we should be careful of not liking words that are in Holy Scripture, but he loved the words and so he announces this name, Triumph, Perseverance, Bradrick. Then there was another thing that was completely unexpected to me, and I learned about this from Peter. There was the glory of a mother-in-law honoring her daughter in her home and understanding the jurisdiction at work in her home.

Deborah was in the home for a month, for the first, for the two weeks before the birth and then two weeks afterwards. So she was there for an entire month. And so Peter is now calling me up, but he's saying that her visit was wonderful. Deborah was careful to see herself playing the role in Peter's household. And she, Deborah understands life like this.

When she walks into her daughter's household, she takes on a different role than she is in her own household. That she honors her daughter and she also honors her son-in-law and giving him complete freedom, not nagging him about this or that or whatever. So let me just, I want to read something to you and again this is very risky to read but I wanted to make a powerful point of what life is like under the shadow of his wings, what life is like when the word of God is cherished and it is looked to to define everything. Here's what Peter wrote to me. To the most casual observer, Deborah Brown is an enigma, but to those of us who truly understand, she's the redefinition of what God intended by the term mother-in-law.

The month she spent in our home was one of the most beautiful and happy months of our marriage because we drank deeply from her friendship, profited from her wisdom and appreciated her industry. The beauty of our home life was uninterrupted by the common 20th century usurpacious mother-in-law figure. There was no stress, only joy. No tension, instead harmony. Deborah Brown has a life altering message to mother-in-laws.

That a woman is in love with her husband and she respectfully affirms her daughter's new household. She is the vice regent in her own home, but in her daughter's household she reaffirms her daughter's position as vice regent in her own home, that the word of God may not be blasphemed but glorified. So Why do I read that? It would seem self-serving, but there is something to praise God for in it. It's the praise of the jurisdictions that God has established, in home and business and in government.

God's ways are beautiful. He sets heads of households, and then he sorts out other personalities with different roles. It's when we get out of our roles and usurp roles of others where we get into so much trouble. When the government usurps the role of a father, it's a disaster. When a mother-in-law tries to usurp the role of her daughter, it's hell on earth for that home.

When a wife usurps the role of headship of her husband, everything falls apart in that household, maybe for many generations. But I just want to extol the beauty and the goodness of God in the way that He has structured all things. And, of course, this is all about keeping love alive in the world. Now this picture, if you look at it carefully, you know that this baby is being suspended by a particular member of the body. And God places these babies into households, and he desires them to stay there for a long, long time under the ministry, the happy and loving ministry of their mothers and fathers.

Why is it that God puts babies in households so that, you know, if a baby stays there until they're 18 years old or so or whatever, that they get kissed one to 200 million times? Why does God want people to be kissed millions of times and be held and carried and cooed to and do funny things, you know, and hold you up by your toes and swing you around? Why does, what is God doing? What is God all about? His, His kingdom is the kingdom of love.

That's what He's all about. And He places these children in homes to keep love alive in the world that the light of the gospel would not go out. So that when fathers sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, when they rise up, pouring out the beautiful words of God that love builds from one generation to the next. God is love. I am also a father to the children in my own household.

And I am a father to my daughter Blair. And I have particular responsibilities for her. What I'm seeing, I'm seeing the same kind of fruit in my daughter Blair's life that I'm seeing in Peter and Kelly's life as well. My daughter brings the gifts of the Spirit of God that He has given to her into our house, in her steady, even-tempered, contented spirit that she has. She puts on conferences, and she put on six conferences, will put on six conferences this year by the time the year's over.

And she's devoted herself to all as best she can the things that God has for her. There is my youngest daughter, Claudia, full of quiet and industrious spirit, always looking for ways to streamline my life. I cannot believe this. Many times during the day, my daughter Claudia does something that just keeps me pointed in the right direction in my day. And she's making meals, and if she's not making meals, she's walking barefoot in the woods.

That's my Claudia. She takes my sermon manuscripts on Monday mornings and edits them and tries to take out all the things that she can detect as there are many that need to be fixed. Then there's my son David. David is my constant companion. About a year ago we pushed our desks together and so we work together all day long.

David's gifts are very different than mine and he has many very meaningful and powerful projects that are going. If you go back to his book table, my son produced these CD sets, the Master's Plan for Fathers. These are exegetical studies of fatherhood passages that David has put in a form for listening. We just finished Bible Lessons for Manhood from the Battlefield of My Father's Youth, which is a really fun deal for fathers. It's a tool for fathers training their sons with the backdrop of explosions and foxholes and flame throwers on Iwo Jima.

It's really great. But David is producing all these things. The word of God is going forth. And it's because if he were a rebellious son, this could not be possible. And with all of my children, I can't say here and say that we don't have problems or difficulties or tears or times of repentance.

We have times of repentance weekly where the heart of a child is going off or the heart of a Father is going off and it has to be reined in by the government of God again. So we're not a perfect family. But here's what I do want to do. I want to praise God for the recovery of the lost book of the law and all that it does in a family and all that it is going to do from one generation to the next. The evidence is there, it's visible, and there's fruit and beauty in it.

And, you know, I am also the son to my father and mother. And I desire in the final years of my father and mother's life to ask them questions, to try to gain from them before they pass on and pass the baton to me. My father's been passing the baton to me for a long time. I've got a file this thick of stuff he's just been writing me. He writes something, I read it, I put it in the file.

And it's just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. He reads books and highlights them and gives them to me. And I take them and put them in my library. The Bible says, ask your father. And that's, I don't want this season to pass with my father.

You know, one of the really interesting things that happened in our family is an unintended consequence for the life of my father. Here's what happened. When my daughter Kelly was 11, 12, 13 years old, she had a desire to write, and so I wanted her to be meaningfully involved. So I sent her out to capture the history of our family, particularly the history of my dad's experience on Iwo Jima in the Pacific War. So she spent a lot of time documenting everything that happened.

She ended up writing a book. And then we ended up traveling to Iwo Jima, and Doug Phillips made a movie about this whole scenario. Here's the unintended consequence. The labors of a daughter in her youth, the meaningful labors, Not twiddling her thumbs, eating bonbons, hanging out, doing nothing. But working meaningfully.

Daughters must work meaningfully. They must have visionary work to do in their households. But my daughter was doing that. Well, she does this, and now, here's the unintended consequence for my father. He's 84 years old today.

And what has happened in my father's life? Everywhere my dad goes, little kids and big kids come up to him and they just want to hear him talk. They ask him questions. And he is, in his senior years of his life, pouring out the wisdom of God to his best ability, to the best of his ability, to the people who ask him. But why did this happen?

It happened because of the government of God in the life of an 11, 12, 13 year old that the generation to come might hear something that they never would have heard if these governments and these submissions had not happened. And I have much to praise God for in all this thing. My mom and dad are coming up to their 60th wedding anniversary this year, January, or December 23rd. And Bill Roach and I were talking about this, and Bill said to my dad, well are you going to have a shindig? And my dad said, Bill, every day is a shindig.

And you know that's really the truth. That's the way this marriage has been all their lives. Every day has been a honeymoon for this couple. And it's because they have embraced a vision of marriage that is a godly vision of marriage. I pray that God would give us a vision of grandfatherhood and grandmotherhood that's consistent with scripture.

Isn't it amazing how far afield the vision of grandfatherhood is today in common culture as what, in contrast, was in the Bible? It's just two different worlds. And we need to recover biblical grandfatherhood. You know, my dad is just a regular dad. He was a school teacher and a quiet, just regular dad.

Look what God can do in a regular old dad. I just think that's wonderful by trustfully, humbly placing himself under the government of God, discovering the lost book of the law for his family, which he did when I was about 14, 15 years old. And the book was opened and we have never been the same since. And finally, I am a husband to my wife. And it is my, it is to me to, with all my heart, to love my wife like Christ loved the church.

If I defile my marriage, I hate to think what would pierce the heart of Triumph Perseverance Bradrick or Claudia Margaret Brown or David Edward Brown or Blair Elizabeth Brown. If we would pierce the hearts of our children it would be a great tragedy. And so I am a part of my fatherhood as being a husband to my wife and to cherish her all my life long. So what's all this about? It's all about this, that the family exists not for itself.

The Family exists for the glory of God from one generation, so that the gospel would be preached every generation until Christ Jesus returns. The purpose of the family is not having a nice family. The purpose of the family is not to have children who say yes or a no sir. The purpose of the family is that you would prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. That the glory of Jesus Christ would be proclaimed to every tongue, tribe, and nation.

And isn't it amazing that it begins in the family and it works to the church, it spreads out through the missionary enterprise from one generation to the next for the glory of Jesus Christ. The purpose of the family is so that everything that would have breath would praise the Lord. And I trust that this would be the legacy that we would have here in this room. That as a result of our labors under the government of God that there would be more happiness on this earth that there would be more people rising up to praise the Lord Jesus Christ because of the beauty of the kingdom of God that he might be glorified forever and ever. Would you pray with me?

Almighty God, your works are wonderful. We are nothing. We are bankrupt. We are poor and wretched and naked and blind and so desperately in need of grace. And you have poured out your grace upon us and, oh Lord, that we would be emissaries of that wonderful grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Jesus' name, amen.