Did your father protect his family? Are you protecting yours?

In this short message, Scott Brown argues that there are five things a father must do to protect his family: First, fathers protect their families by being aware of the danger they are in. Second, they protect their families by beholding the face of Jesus Christ. Third, they protect their families by trusting in God. Fourth, they protect their families by reading and teaching the Word of God in their homes. Finally, they protect their families by teaching their families to honor the God-ordained authorities that are in their lives.

So I want to give you five ways that fathers protect their families and the first is fathers protect their families by being aware of the danger they're in. Secondly, they protect their families by beholding the face of Jesus Christ. Thirdly, they protect their families by trusting in God and I'm going to take us to Psalm 127 for that and fourthly they protect their families by teaching the Word of God. And fifthly, they protect their families by teaching their families to honor the God-ordained authorities that are in their lives. So that's what I'd like to do.

So the first the first way that fathers protect their families is through their awareness of the danger they're in that they have an enemy, Satan, who's a roaring lion lion who's seeking to devour all he might devour here's what fathers need to know there's a contract out on your life the devil has taken a contract out on your life and he wants to kill you, he wants to destroy your children, he wants to nullify every good thing in your life and men have to really understand how easy it is for the wolves to distract the shepherds. If the devil isn't going to destroy a family shepherd, he'll distract that family shepherd. That's what wolves do. They distract you because they want to kill you but they usually have to distract you first and that's why you know God has has given us so many ways to deal with the works of the devil the Apostle Paul spoke of it in Romans 12 don't be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good and you know as life can become really hard for fathers often they get the wind knocked out of them and they get discouraged and the devil distracts them and they start licking their wounds and feeling sorry for themselves and the devil is a destroyer.

He uses any means he can possibly use and you know a man needs to understand his vulnerability to distraction and to destruction and I think we all know that you know the quickest way to destroy a man is through immorality through the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. That's the quickest way for a man to go down. But often the devil doesn't bring him down so quick he brings him down by distracting him. You know there are many examples in the Bible of fathers who failed to protect their families, and it's really easy to see why it happened. For example, you know, Adam failed to protect his family through his passivity.

His desire for something better than God caused his ear to be open to the voice of the devil. And he allowed the devil to talk to his wife. It was his passivity. Abraham failed to protect his wife and his family through his own fear of harm. It was fear.

And he was afraid of Abimelech. He was afraid that Abimelech would kill him because his wife was so beautiful. Lot failed to protect his family through his desire for social acceptability there in that great city of Sodom that he had a place of responsibility and visibility for. And he sacrificed his daughters on the altar of social acceptability, his own social acceptability. You know, today a lot of fathers are sacrificing their daughters on the altar of social acceptability because what God really calls fathers to lead their daughters in is not where the rest of the world wants them to go.

And one of the fastest ways a father can be criticized in this world is to encourage his daughter to dress modestly or to think like a Christian woman. And a lot of fathers are just afraid that they might just lose their social acceptability. David failed to protect his family through refusing to curb his lust and that lust turned into murder And it touched off heartache till the end of his life. The man after God's own heart had a broken heart, and really a broken life, even though God loved him and saved him, cared for him. He lived his life in brokenness because of his lust.

Ananias failed to protect his family by his narcissistic desire to be well thought of. He wanted everybody to think just how generous he was and he lost himself and his wife. We don't know if they had any children but mom and dad died on the altar of their own desire to be well thought of in the church. You see the devil can distract a father in a lot of different ways. He can get him sidetracked and all these different different things.

You know there are fathers that did protect their families. Job is one of the greatest examples of a father who protected his family. He was a hedge of protection around his family and he recognized the vulnerability of his family. If you read Job chapter 1 you'll see what Job did. He got up early in the morning and he made sacrifices for his children.

He believed his children could be destroyed by the devil. He thought they could fall into sin. He didn't have rose-colored glasses on about his children. He knew they were just as vulnerable as anybody. And so he cried out to God on a daily basis and he visited his children who were in their own houses.

But Job was a man who understood the greatest danger to his children was their falling into sin. And so he cried out to God for his children that the devil wouldn't destroy them. So the awareness of the danger that a father is in is really perhaps the first step in protecting your family is to recognize that you're but flesh and you're vulnerable to distraction and destruction And so every father if he's going to protect his family, he first of all needs to know how vulnerable he is. You know, how the mighty have fallen. Have you seen any mighty fallen?

Have you seen teachers of yours fall? And a man should just recognize how vulnerable he is. That's why the Apostle Paul in an entire chain of logic that includes matters of family life, he says put on the full armor of God because the devil is out to get you. The devil has a contract out on your life and he wants to kill you or just distract you. So The second way that fathers protect their families is that they behold the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the chief way that fathers protect their families, is by personally and genuinely beholding the face of Jesus Christ. Now this one point here may be where I should stop because it absolutely is the most critical point. You know, everything in the Old Testament about fatherhood points to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ fulfills every fatherhood command, every fatherhood principle that you find in the Old Testament, and there are dozens of them. You know I've given about 20 years of my life to study the great fatherhood passages in the Bible and it's absolutely true that every command of fatherhood is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

The way that Jesus Christ cared for his disciples, the way that Jesus Christ loves his church is a pattern for every father. If you want to know how to be a father, look at Jesus Christ. Because he was the perfect representation of his father. And what did he do? Well, he gave himself.

And secondly, he spoke words. He gave his word. Thirdly he gave his spirit and he made many promises. This is what Jesus Christ did for his disciples that he walked with, but he also did these same things for his disciples who walk with him today. He gives himself, he gives his word, he gives his spirit, He gives his promises.

And this is what earthly fathers are supposed to do. As they behold the face of Jesus Christ, they become like him. They see him as he really is. And they're transformed into his image. And they're transformed from glory to glory as in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 as we behold the face of Jesus Christ we're transformed and there's this transformation of the renewing of our minds that takes place as we behold the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if anybody wants to learn how to be a father, Jesus Christ is the first place to go. And what you see with Jesus is that He walked with his disciples, you know, they walked on those lonely roads. And Jesus never went more than 30 miles from the place he was born. He didn't travel very much. He had a, he, in many ways, he had a very simple life.

And he, what was his ministry? His ministry was the next person that he met if you read the Gospel of Mark you see this pattern you know Jesus is passing by he's just passing by He's passing by and he's doing the will of his father. He loves his father. He only wants to say the things that his father says. He only wants to do the things that he sees his father doing.

He's looking to his father and he's becoming a father to the disciples and he cares for them really out of the wellspring of the resources that his father is pouring within him and that's how fathers operate today they really can only operate by the outpouring of the grace of the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit according to the power of the Word of God that's that's how fathers lead it's it's they don't lead out of their own resources They lead out of the resources they get from God. And so the most important matter of fatherhood is beholding the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every single fatherhood passage points to Jesus Christ. You know, in Genesis 19, whether you go to Genesis 24 or Deuteronomy 6 you see a picture of Jesus Christ and the way that he fathers his children. And, you know, the Puritans actually believed that if you wanted to understand what it meant to be a father, then look at Jesus and go do what the Good Shepherd did with his disciples and go shepherd your family in the exact same way.

Fathers need to be reading the Gospels. They need to be filling their minds up with visions of Jesus Christ. They need to read the book of Revelation and see Jesus Christ in all his glory. You know I read part of Revelation a couple days ago I was so struck by that vision of Jesus Christ who you know His voice is like the sound of many waters. You know, He has, I mean, His hair, everything about Him, His clothing, everything breathes the power and the glory and the grace of God.

Everything. Everything about his clothing is a declaration of the beauty of God and of his kingdom. So a father has chiefly the face of the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ has many faces you know think of the face of the compassion of Jesus Christ the high priest who He's a compassionate high priest who knows your weaknesses. Think of the face of Jesus Christ that was spat upon for your own sins. Think of the face of Jesus Christ as he looked at the rich young ruler who is all wrapped up in his prosperity.

And what does it say of the face of Jesus toward him? He had compassion on him even though he walked away. He walked away in the face of Jesus Christ was compassion toward him. You know, fathers who have wayward children and, you know, how do they deal with children who are walking away? You know, how do you grapple with that?

The only way is to behold the face of Jesus Christ and reflect his glory and to have his same face toward your children or if you're a pastor toward the people in your church. How do you become a father to children? It is through a demonstration of the glory of God through the face of Jesus Christ. Nobody can learn how to be a father without knowing Jesus. Hey, I've known a lot of guys who wanted to, they wanted to figure out how to be better fathers and better husbands, maybe hundreds of them.

And you know what, many of them, they wanted to fix their fatherhood, but they really didn't want the fatherhood of God in Jesus Christ. They didn't want the authority of Jesus Christ in their life, they just want to fix themselves and be a better dad because somewhere you know they figured out being a good dad's a good thing. It is a good thing, but you know the churches are full of men who want to be they just want to be better dads but they don't really want the face of Jesus Christ. They don't want they don't want to be saved. They don't want to have a shepherd.

They don't want to leave everything and follow Jesus. They don't want to build their whole life around Jesus. They just want to add a little plug-in called fatherhood or being a good husband or being a you know being a good entrepreneur or a worker they just want to plug in worldly things and they do it for their own glory because everybody wants to be thought of as a good dad, right? Everybody wants to be thought of as a great husband. Everybody wants to be thought of as a great businessman.

Don't they? Doesn't every man want to be that? Absolutely. And so that's what you find. You find men, they gravitate toward these earthly things and they want it for their own glory but they don't really want the glory of Jesus Christ.

That's the problem. But nobody can become a father according to the pattern of Jesus without knowing Jesus. Without repenting of your sins and taking up your cross and following Jesus. Like there's really a big difference between the person who's the theology wonk and the person who really wants Jesus. I found that to be true.

You know, I've known some really brilliant men who are really good theologians, but you know, they didn't really seem to love Jesus. They just wanted to argue theology all the time. But they didn't really want the kingdom of heaven to fill their soul. They really didn't want the face of Jesus Christ. They really didn't want to follow him and build their whole life around him.

They still wanted to play games with this world. You know. So you know Jesus walked with his disciples. I'm sure you noticed that. And you know God in Deuteronomy 6 calls fathers to actually walk with their children and to teach them when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down and rise up.

Now everybody gets really emotional about fatherhood. You know, people, you know, men cry when they think about their dads and things like that. People get really emotional about, you know, becoming a good father and things like that. They really like the whole idea until they find out that God actually has issued really specific disruptive commands to fathers. Like fathers, Fathers who follow Jesus can't live like every other father because they have to walk with their children like they have to walk with them.

The greatest force in the protection of a child is a father who walks with his children and incorporates them in every part of their life. Well, that's what Jesus did. You know, that's why the that's why the songwriter wrote it like this. He walks with me. And he talks with me.

And He tells me I am His own and the joys we share as we tarry there. Well you know that's That's about a song about a father who walks with his children. The most powerful thing a father can ever do in beholding the face of Jesus is to walk with his children. And I know there are a lot of people in this room right here who spent a lot of time trying to convince themselves and other fathers to walk with their children and there are a bunch of men in this room who've been walking with their children and guess what you can tell you can tell Because children who have their fathers walk with them, they walk different than other children. They really do.

And I, you know, and I've been alive long enough to know that's really true. It's not, It's not fake. It really matters when you walk with your children and when you take them with you wherever you go. And you can find really successful men that rise to the top of their industry or their area of expertise and their children languish because they don't walk with their children. The greatest act of protection that a man can demonstrate as he beholds the face of Jesus is to walk with his children and to be there and to know how they think and what they're doing and what they're looking at.

You take them there. You take them there. So the third thing, The second thing that a father must do to protect is to behold the face of Jesus Christ. And you know, I'm going to list the other two, but I'm going to finish with that one, Because that is the chief feature of a father who protects his children, is he beholds the face of Jesus Christ. He loves him.

He wants to speak the words of His Father in heaven through Jesus Christ. The third way is by trusting in God, and I want to draw that from Psalm 127, because Psalm 127, it really casts a vision for a father who's living in the midst of some pretty threatening things in the economy, in his city, around him, and there are threats in his home life, there are threats in his economic life, and there are threats in his civic life, and all those things are brought up in Psalm 127 and the central to the to the vision that's cast in Psalm 127 is the watchman and there there's this man called the watchman And unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. God gives every family a watchman. It might be a mother if a father's gone.

Sometimes a mother has to be the watchman. But God puts a watchman in a family and he's called a father. But there's a way that he can just, he can waste his life. And Psalm 127 talks about how a watchman can be unprotected, and the way that a watchman is unprotected is he doesn't understand that it's the Lord who guards the city. He doesn't understand that the Lord builds the house.

The man with the unprotected family is the man who doesn't recognize the sovereignty of God in the city and in the family and in the economy. And all these things are listed in Psalm 127. You have a man who's afraid of the economy in a family, he's got an unprotected family. You have a man who is afraid of what's going on in his city, you have an unprotected family. Because the man who understands that It's the Lord who builds the house.

And it's the Lord who guards the city. That man is protecting his family by his vision of God. The greatest deposit that you can make in your family outside of a genuine love for the face of Jesus Christ is a vision of God where you understand that God is in control. Because if you understand that God is in control, if dad understands that God is in control and he helps his children understand that, then they will never, never be afraid of anything. Because God is bigger than all their problems.

You have two kinds of people in this world People have a little God and big problems or people have a big God and little problems. And when you have a father who has a big God, he always has little problems, always. And you know what? It affects everything. When he understands that God is sovereign, You never find that man falling into hatred of other men.

You never find him obsessing. You never find him with broken relationships, at least on his side, because he realizes God is sovereign. He realized that God controls every synapse of every brain in the world. And He's bringing many sons to glory and He is going to sum up everything in Jesus Christ. Everything and He's causing all things to work together for the good, for the called, according to his purpose.

That every single thing that's happening in this world today is for the good. He understands that. And when you have a father like that who understands that it's the Lord who guards the city, then you have a father who's protecting his family because his children are going to face trouble. You know the older you get the more trouble you see and the more you're aware of how important it is that you behold the face of Jesus Christ in the midst of all of your sorrows and all of your trials it's your only hope that God is in control God is in control God is in control that's the man of Psalm 127 he believes God's in control And he's not wasting his life eating the bread of sorrows because he recognizes that. And then finally, the final way that a man protects his family.

Well, no, not the final way. The fourth way is that he teaches them the Word of God. And fathers need to open up their Bibles. For many years I've said the same thing to men and I'll just say it again. People come to me and say, how do you help fathers become family shepherds?

And I say it's really simple. What we do in our church is we give man a 30-second training course and they're on their own after that. How does a man do that? First of all, flop open your Bible and read it to your family every day and then cry out to God for one another and for the lost and if you want to sing some songs together do that but open up the Word of God. Open up the Word of God and teach your children the whole counsel of God.

You know I'm in the process of just finishing a book that I hope will help families read through the Bible every year. That's something our family did and we just flopped open our Bible even when the kids were really little and they could only read, they can only pronounce two words. I would have them pronounce two words and we would just read through the Bible And I just encourage fathers to do that. Just read through the scriptures. Give them the whole counsel of God.

Don't let your children leave your house without hearing the whole counsel of God. They need to see a vision of God from Genesis to Revelation. Teach them the Word of God. Now Moses says that that really begins with a man's heart. He says these things shall be in your heart.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. A father who reads the Word of God but doesn't love God in his heart. You know, is hurting his family in one way. On the other hand though, God has promised that his word will not return void. But he does it by his personal love for the words of God and then communicating it and then obeying it.

And then finally, a father protects his family by showing them how to honor authorities, the lawful authorities that God has put in their lives and to help them to understand how to live in harmony and submit to the authorities that God has put. God has put various authorities in their lives. First of all, there's God himself. Second, fathers and mothers have authority. Thirdly, the civil government has authority.

And you protect your children when you teach them to honor authorities. If they don't honor their father and mother it won't go well with them. You know there are a lot of young people here in this room right now. If you're struggling with honoring of your father and mother, if you keep that up it won't go well with you. You will beat your head against the wall for the rest of your life until you figure that out.

You understand that? If you don't honor your father and mother from the heart it's not going to go well with you. You know there's a guy here in this room who's trying to change the legislation on child custody laws in this state because he believes that the child custody laws are causing the destruction of a generation because the child custody laws, the way the judges rule on them, they give the majority of custody to one parent. And he says it causes children to hate one of their parents. And when you have a child who hates one of their parents, it's not going to go well with them.

Even if they were bad parents, it won't go well. You know, how do you recover a society? You recover it really by returning to God, you know, and His Word. And, you know, fathers are put in this world as protectors and nourishers of a new generation. And fathers protect their families by being aware of the danger they're in and their vulnerability.

They protect them by holding the face of Jesus Christ. They protect them by understanding who God really is, that He is in control, that unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. And he's a man who trusts God. He's a man who teaches the word of God. He does what Moses commanded the fathers of Israel to do in Deuteronomy 6, to teach their children when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up.

And he teaches them to honor authorities. So those are five ways that a father can protect his family. I pray that God would raise up a mighty generation of fathers who would be protectors and keepers of the truth and the beauty of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Jesus taught his disciples to pray thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven and that really is central to the role of every father would you pray with me oh Lord we pray that you would Raise up a mighty generation of fathers who behold the face of Jesus Christ and are transformed from glory to glory. Amen.