So, we're here in the home stretch. What most people don't know is I have a laser blaster to zap all who go to sleep. And I hope it's not me that does it first. Well, so, my job here at this gathering has been to bring messages that define biblical fatherhood through the eyes of fathers of the Bible. First of all, we talked about Moses and how he calls for fathers to be prophets in their households.

That they speak the word of God diligently when they sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down and when they rise up. And we gave a number of characteristics of this kind of father who is a prophet in his household. So the first thing we need to understand about fathers is that God has placed them in households in order to be prophets. And then secondly, that they are like Job in the sense that they are priests. Remember a father is a prophet and a priest and a king.

And Job is the example of one of the great fathers of the Bible who was a priest in his household. And he dealt with sin in his house. And we gave a number of qualities of Job as a priest in his household. And then finally now we move to this final, this final profile of a father. And that is a father as a king.

And Joshua is the individual that we'll be looking at for this purpose. For this purpose. So if you could open up your Bibles to the book of Joshua and turn to chapter 24. Joshua 24. It's such a blessing that God has given us so many role models in scripture.

You can look at Moses, you can look at Jonadab, you can look at Joshua, you can look at Abraham. There are so many fathers in the Bible who give us wisdom for how we should engage our fatherhood. Over the last several years, I've been doing expositions of fatherhood passages, and there are probably about two dozen that we've been working on. This year we hope to compile them into a book that just give expositional profiles of fatherhood passages. And so here we come to the father as king, and Joshua is our example.

I'd like to give you two broad categories of thinking here regarding Joshua. The first happens to be the profiles of Joshua's courage. The profiles of Joshua's courage. And I'm gonna outline a number of elements of courageous manhood. And then secondly, the marks of a family king, as Joshua was, and I'm gonna give you five marks of Joshua's headship over his family as the king.

God desires to make men heads over their households, not tails, but heads that they would be leading. And so we find here with all the fathers in the Bible the same principle that when God saves a man, he gives him a role to play and he gives him commands for how he should play out that role and a father stands in the place of Christ in his home. In the same way that Moses was the face of God to Pharaoh, so is a father the face of God to his family. And as king, as head of his family, He is like Christ who exercisers rule and dominion over all of creation he is the king of kings and he is the Lord of Lords and he governs the movings of those that are in his realm and Scripture puts it this way our God is in heaven and he does whatever he pleases. The only difference between an earthly king who's a father is that he does whatever God pleases that he would do because he is a head but he is an under shepherd in that sense.

And he is responsible for their safety and he is responsible for their prosperity. So the first principle that we come to here is that God has established heads, and with Joshua, we find a very courageous head. Joshua was a man who had a vision. We've been talking about having a vision for biblical fatherhood. Joshua had a plan.

Joshua understood where he was going. In the same way, every father needs to have that same kind of kingly vision that takes everyone in the realm with him. If you don't have a vision, your family is unprotected, it's vulnerable, and there's no way that you are acting like the Lord Jesus Christ toward your family. And you're acting like somebody else in your family if you do not have a plan. If you don't have a spiritual plan, an economic plan, a plan of nurture and admonition, then you cannot have the heart of Christ for your family.

And I just would just so carefully exhort you, if you do not have one, fall to your knees in the closest moment that you can to this conference and beg God for a divine plan for your family and then execute that plan day by day as a faithful shepherd would guide his sheep from pasture to pasture so that they would have the very best grass, the very clearest and sweetest waters, so that they would be found in the very best places for their welfare. Now, when we come to Joshua, we come to a very, very important principle, and that's this. Families need courageous fathers, and Joshua is one of those fathers. Joshua, the son of Nun, was a man. And you know, when I relate with men, as I know my own heart, here there's something that comes to the surface in men that I think is so important to remember.

And that is Men struggle with two main things, fear and lust. Those are the two things that will kill a man, fear and lust. If Joseph is our example for how to deal with lust, then Joshua is our man for fear, because Joshua was a courageous father. Every fiber of his being just seemed to exude courage, and he was a man of integrity. And here in this chapter, in Joshua 24, we find Joshua at the end of his life.

You know, you might have a little revival in your life in your 30s or your teens, but What matters is if you end life faithful. And Joshua is that man. He's a great example for all of you young men who say, I wanna go there. I will not falter from now until the day that God takes me off of this earth. Joshua finished well, and this text sort of gives you the culmination, the finish of his life as he looks back.

And I really believe his character gets gathered up in all the things that are said right here in this text. It's a very, very important fatherhood text. So the first thing I'd like to do is just profile this courage for you. And I'm gonna give you 11 evidences of this courage because it just pops out all over him. And the first evidence or the first profile of his courage is this.

Joshua was a leader of men, and he gathered them together to serve God. And so in verse one we read, so Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers. And they presented themselves before God. And so Joshua had a purpose in gathering the elders of Israel together. Godly men have purpose, and they do what they do for determination, for godly things.

And that's what a father does too. This courage that Joshua had to gather the heads of Israel for a godly purpose is a marvelous pattern that we have in this father. He gathered men together for exemplary purposes. Now, you're a dad, you live in a community, you have a house, you have a church, Here's the challenge, be like Joshua and gather men together for godly purposes. Make your house a hotbed of godly purposes.

Joshua was that kind of man as he attracted men to do mighty and good things. What good thing can one family do? I dare say that it wasn't very many families that organized this whole event that will probably have an impact on an entire region. What you do with your family can have an enormous impact on your region, even one single family. I'll just have to be very frank with you.

I look at the energies invested by my own little family. I only have four children. I've got one of the dinkiest families in my church. But I'll tell you something, there's one little family of four kids and two parents can do a lot. So don't despise the day of small things.

But Joshua was courageous in that he gathered men together for godly purposes. Number two, he had a keen sense of the sovereignty of God in history, verses two through eight say, and Joshua said to all the people, thus says the Lord God of Israel, your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the river in Old times and they served other gods now in in verses 2 through 8 Joshua's going to tell a story He's a historian He is he's looking at the past and he is interpreting it for godly purposes. And Joshua had a providential view of history. And he, you know, men who do are courageous men and Joshua is that kind of man. If you look at history, you look at the events that have impinged upon your family life as some force of chance, bad luck, what mean people have done to you, you'll never have a courageous family at all.

But if they know, if your family members know that God orchestrates every single event in history, that not a hair falls to the ground, that you don't take a step, that you do not take a breath without God superintending it, that he superintends every leaf that ever fell to the ground, everything ever said about you, God Almighty superintended it. If you don't believe that, you'll never be a courageous father, And you'll never have a courageous family either. So the second profile of this courageous man is he had a keen sense of God's sovereignty. Third, he had a vision of victory. In verse 9 we read, Then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel.

And he sent and called Balaam, the son of Beor, to curse you. But I would not listen to Balaam, therefore he continued to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hand. Then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho and the men of Jericho fought against you. Also the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, but I delivered them into your hand.

I sent a hornet before you which drove them out before you. Also, the two kings of Am, the Amorites, which but not with your word or with your bow. I have given you a land for which you did not labor and cities which you did not build. And you dwell in them. You eat of the vineyards, the olive groves which you did not plant." Joshua had a vision of victory.

He knew what God had told Moses about this victory, and he carried it on. He got the vision. He got the vision from his mentor, Moses, and he carried it on. Men have to have a vision of victory. If you're gonna be a head of a house, if you're gonna be a king, then you have to have God's vision of victory in your heart.

And you can find that vision of victory here in this book. Because this book tells the end of it all. It tells you who wins. And you can be very encouraged, brothers and sisters. It doesn't matter what the big governments of the world would do.

Almighty God will accomplish a vanquishing victory. And you will be on the right side. So he had a vision of victory. The fourth profile in courage for Joshua is that he called men to follow God from the heart. He called men to follow God from the heart, verses 14 and 15.

Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and truth and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord. And if it seems evil for you to serve the Lord, choose yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." So Joshua calls men to follow God with all of their hearts. And then fifthly, Joshua would not follow the crowd.

And this is where his family comes in, because he says, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And this is where the devil wants to destroy your family and kill the souls of your children. He wants them scattered, but God says no, you shepherds, you take them. You take them there yourself, and you deliver them in victory yourself. That's the role of a father.

Six, he has a sense of the holiness of God. Joshua said you cannot serve the Lord for he is a holy God, he's a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. He casts a vision for the holiness of God. Number seven, He had a sense of the judgment of God, verses 20 through 22.

He said, if you forsake the Lord your God and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do harm and consume you, for he has done you good. And so he cast a vision of the judgment of God. Eighth, he identified idolatry and denounced it, verses 23 through 25, where he says, Now therefore, put away the foreign gods which are among you and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel. Joshua was bold enough to look men in the eye and say put down those gods. Those are idols.

We need men who are willing to do that today. Or say, no, that's idolatry. You should run away from that. It's not being judgmental. It's just identifying what's really true about what's going on.

We need men who are willing to say what's really happening. And we happen to live in a world where in many broad sectors, really honestly, the emperor has no clothes and somebody has to stand up and say that is absolutely insane. There are insane things going on in this culture that had just become so normal that we've lost the ability to say that's a work of the devil. So Joshua wasn't that way. He identified idolatry and denounced it in verses 23 through 25.

Ninth, he made memorials to commemorate the devotion that was due God, verses 26 through 28. And he took a large stone and he set it there under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. He made markers that would remind people of the goodness and the majesty of God. And then he finished strong. He finished strong.

Verses 29 to 30 where we read, now it came to pass after these things that Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old. And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Sarah which is in the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash." So he Finished strong and you know verse 31, the last closing words of the chapter, make it so clear that he was a godly influence in his generation. And what we read there is that Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua. God gave Israel a man and during his time people were fearful of disobeying God. Would that would that that would be true of us that whatever communities we live in people would fear to disobey God.

First of all, our families would fear it, and so would our friends because they would be afraid to look us in the eye, not because of us, but because there's a holy God who has requirements on his people, and that there's a man who stands in the gap in this world. He's a father, he's a member of the community, he's a worker and he will not do evil and he's trying to take as many of his friends with him and to be a restraining influence in the world. This is one of the great roles of manhood, that God would give the world men who would so stand that in their generation nobody would break rank. Now obviously there were some who did break rank, but this is what this says, Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and who had known the works of the Lord which he had done in Israel. So you see these beautiful profiles of Joshua's courage.

And those really form the backdrop of Joshua's character in his life. Fathers should have these same characteristics in their lives. That they are leaders of men, they have a keen sense of sovereignty, they have a vision of victory, they call men to follow God from the heart, they will not follow the crowd, they have a sense of the holiness of God, they have a sense of the judgment of God, they identify idolatry and denounce it, they make memorials and commemorate their devotion to God, they finish strong and they have a godly influence on their generation. So that was sort of the courageous backdrop that Joshua's family life is set against. And so let's talk about Joshua's work as a father, as a king, the marks of a family king.

Does that make you feel uncomfortable to hear you say it? But the truth is, God has said that the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is also the head of the church. And that means that God has set a head, a king, a governor over a family. If you don't understand that you are the king and the head and the governor of your family, please understand it today. That's what God has made you to be.

We live in a feminist world that doesn't want anybody to be king. So, these are the marks of a family king. First of all, and I'm going to give you five marks of Joshua's fatherly kingship over his household. Number one, he declared his headship over his house. In verse 15 he says, as for me and my house, as for me and my house.

And so he's declaring his headship over his family. And he was laying claim, he was laying claim to a governance, to a realm. And In saying that, you find a mixture of acknowledgement of the glory of God and the majesty of God in placing men as heads. And you also find the courage and the vision that men need to have if they're going to be shepherds of their households. Now, Joshua believed that his family was his.

As for me and my house, he believed his family belonged to him and nobody else. And that's really important. You know, there's of course always have been movements a foot in the world to say that the state owns your children. That's not true. And men need to rise up and say, no, this is my family.

It's not yours. But Joshua saw himself as a steward who is completely responsible for a particular house. And he calls it my house, alright? So a family was given to him by Almighty God. He didn't choose it, it was given to him.

God opened the womb and he was receiving children. And he was granted a realm over which he had complete responsibility. And so, in effect, here's what God does with fathers. And it's really astonishing when you think about it. He says, I'm gonna give you a family, and I'm gonna put you as head over it.

You're responsible. You can do anything you want with this family except follow me. Implement my goodness in this family. But it's amazing that God would give so much to men who often understand so little. Isn't that amazing?

You know, if you and I were running the universe, we probably wouldn't have done this. Would you have put so much into the hands of a man who knew and perhaps was so little. But yet this is what God has done. Why has he done it? Why has he given you so much authority?

Why has he placed such an amazing resource in your hand? He has put human beings made in the image of God in your hand. Why did he do it? Because he wants you to become like him. And so he gives you a challenge that's so far above your own head, so that you'd rise to the occasion.

And so that you would become like him. Because there's something about having a family that challenges everything in your life. Every sin gets challenged in your life when you have a family. And so it makes a man become a real man. But notice here, when God gives a family to a man, He says this is your family.

This is your realm, and I place you as king over it. The second mark of Joshua as a family king is that he protected their unity. He protected their unity. As for me and my house, and the next word is what? We.

We. All of us together. This family. We will serve the Lord. He's protecting their unity.

Instead of allowing his family to be a disconnected group of individuals That are going in all kinds of directions He's saying no, we're not individuals. We're a family and we're going together. We are a mobile unit for God and we're not running off like chickens with our heads cut off. We are going to be together. We will serve the Lord.

This family will walk together. This family will be a household of unified we instead of unilateral me. And Joshua is determined to secure that. You know, how easy it is to just have everybody doing what's right in their own eyes, instead of being governed by a clear direction. And So what happens to a lot of families is they're like a big, big old wide, you know, slothful river delta.

But under the governance of a good father, the banks of the river come in and they are a powerful, mighty stream going all in one direction. And that's what Joshua is saying here. We, we will serve the Lord, all of us together. He would protect them with all of his might to keep them together. Joshua wouldn't leave anybody behind in his family.

Notice that Joshua is building a loyalty and a unity in his family life, and fathers have to do that. You have to fight the world and the flesh and the devil and the neighbors and sometimes even the church to keep your family together. And I'm not saying that the family always has to be together every minute of the time in everything that they do. You know what I'm talking about though. There is this dispersion of family energy, family thinking that happens in life and almost every institution in this world will send your family in every different direction possible.

And a man has to resist that. He has to steel himself against it. Because when he stands against it, he ends up getting ridiculed. And people call him all kinds of names and they'll say, oh, you're, you know, you're just such a protective father. And they'll say all kinds of things about you.

But let me tell you this, God Almighty has given us Joshua for a reason. So that you, as fathers, and I would say, as for me and my house, we, we will serve the Lord. And that makes us a unified unit. And so Joshua is protecting their unity. Joshua understood that together is better than separate.

And he understood, you know, the principle in Ecclesiastes, Chapter 4, verses 9 through 12, which says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. Family life is the same way. Concentrated, unified, we-ness in the family is power. And Joshua understood that. So like Joshua, we need to be like him and to take everyone with us, like Christ.

Christ said, I will not lose one of my sheep. Everyone gets close attention and all move together. And then the third mark of this family king, this courageous brother, is he affirmed his devotion to service. He said, as for me and my house, we will serve, we will serve. And so we learned that Joshua's devotion to the unified we-ness of his family included service.

And there are two aspects of this. First of all, the center of his family life was the work of the Lord, the work of serving the Lord. And that's what fathers should do. They should gather their families around them to serve the Lord, to make the church of Jesus Christ the biggest thing in their life, and that they are investing the energies of their family life into the prosperity and the propagation, the evangelization, and the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry. Everything that the church does, family should throw their whole lives into.

And I'll tell you, when a family does that, wonderful things happen in a church. You can be such a blessing to your church if you say, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I don't believe that you can serve the Lord without serving the church. I don't believe people love the Lord if they don't serve the church. I run into people from time to time, the church is nothing to them.

And often you find children in our homeschool community where they grow up in a family and they only see themselves as a homeschool boy growing up in a family, but they don't see themselves as part of the church, that's a tragedy. And I honestly, if a person does not have love for the church, I question their salvation, I really do. How can you say that you love Christ and don't love the church? He gave himself for the church. He bled for the church.

He loves the church. How can you say you're a Christian if you don't love what he loved and shed his blood for. So here Joshua is saying we will serve the Lord. And so Joshua is affirming his devotion to this service. And the fourth mark of this family kingship is that he dedicated his family to holiness.

He said we will serve the Lord, the Lord, the holy God, the God in whom there is no spot or wrinkle, the God of all things, we will serve him. And so if God is holy, then a father should commit himself to that holy God. And it is a dedication to holiness. Joshua is emphasizing serving the Lord instead of serving the other gods that are around him and the world may go its own way but Joshua and his family would serve the Lord. They would be like the Psalmist who said I will set no unclean thing before my eyes.

Because it was a life of holiness that Joshua was leading his family to. We will serve the Lord. You can only serve one of two masters. This is the binary nature of the gospel. There's light, there's darkness.

There's the broad road, and there's the narrow road. There are the sheep and there are the goats. The gospel is very black and white. There is the binary nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and Joshua understood it, and he said, we will serve the Lord, because he knew there were only two, there really were only two categories of service in the world. And, You know, fathers who allow their families to be absorbed into the culture are in direct disobedience to God.

Synchrotism is one of the most dangerous forces at work in a family or a church in every generation. And the only line of defense is a father who says we will serve the Lord and so Joshua dedicated his family to holiness and so in every generation we need to be bold in our declaration that there is one God in heaven and He alone is worthy of our devotion. And then fifthly, The fifth mark of this family kingship is that he clarified the worship of the Lord. And so he uses this term to serve, which means to worship. Worship was the priority of Joshua's household.

If you read the Puritans on this text, most of them will talk about family worship. That Joshua was performing family worship. That he gathered his family around him to worship the Lord God. And we don't have the specific details about how they worship, but we do know that Joshua's house was without question a house of worship. When the family entered there it became a place of godly service because they were worshiping the Lord.

And so here you find these tremendous qualities of Joshua's fatherhood. He declared his headship over his whole household, number one. He protected their unity, number two. Number three, he affirmed his devotion to service. Number four, he dedicated his family to holiness, and fifth, he clarified the direction of his worship, and it would be to the Lord.

So what do we have here? We've talked about Moses the prophet, We've talked about Job the priest, and now the king, the head of the family, who is a proactive and a courageous father who dared to stand alone among the people of God. Did you notice that? He was standing among the people of God because often the people of God are so syncretized. And he tells us how important it is that even among the church, we may stand out with a dramatic, as a dramatic spectacle of the glory of God and we shouldn't be afraid of it.

And he understood his role as head of his household and he assumed that position. And I hope you saw that he assumed it with boldness. And then thirdly, he focused his family on service to the Lord, because that's what a good family shepherd does. He takes his little flock, and he makes them servant of that great king. He himself is a servant of that great king and it is his role in life as a king over his household to serve the king of kings in such a way that all the children in his household would rise up and said, and would say, that's my king too.

And I want to go the way of my father, who went the way of his father in heaven. And so his example would mentor an entire nation in the responsibility of godly fatherhood. What an exciting individual Joshua is, isn't he? As for me in my house we will serve the Lord. Would you pray with me?

Lord we thank you for these beautiful helps that you've given to us. Thank you for not leaving us without a father but giving us Moses and Joshua and Abraham and Jonah Dabb and Asaph and David to teach us the way in which we should go. Oh Lord, I pray that you would fill us up with the knowledge of your will in all of our fatherhood duties. And that you would use us, oh Lord, to bring the gospel when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up. Amen.

Thank you. Thank you.