The following message, How Do I Become the Father God Wants Me to Be, was given by Scott Brown at the Regional Uniting Church and Family Conference in Wake Forest, North Carolina in 2008. Your Bibles to Psalm 78. And let's stand for the reading of God's Word, Psalm 78. Give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from our children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He has done. For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded the fathers that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know him, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare to their children, that they may set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, and may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright and whose spirit was not faithful to God. Let's pray.

Oh Lord open our eyes that we might observe wondrous things from your law. Amen. Please be seated. Let me turn your attention to verse one in Psalm 78. Give ear, O my people, to my law.

Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old. And these first four verses, Asaph, the author of this psalm, is setting an example. And he is saying, listen my people, listen to me, and do what I do.

That's what he's saying. He's setting himself up as an example for fathers. And he is saying, you see what I'm doing? Follow in my footsteps. This is one of the most inspiring things about this passage.

Well, there are many inspiring things. But This one point here is very important for us to grasp. And the point is this, God has given us examples to follow. I dare say that very few of us had fathers who led their families in spiritual things, who filled their houses with the sweet water of the Word of God, who are constantly at work to deliver the promises of God, who are constantly meditating on the love of God, who are constantly loving the law of God, and it just is oozing out. I dare say very few of us grew up in homes like that.

I say that just because of experience in the church, that very, very few had fathers like that. But you have a father right here who did that. You may never have had a father that did that, but you've got one right here. God has given you a mentor. God has given you an inspiring leader to walk in his footsteps.

That's what's here. There's not a man in this room that doesn't lack a spiritual mentor. And God has given many, many mentors to us. Think of Job, the father who dealt with sin in his family and prayed for his family and sanctified his family on a rhythmic basis. Think about Moses, the father who said to all of Israel, follow me and teach your children the word of God.

When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Think about Jonadab, the father who had such a mighty vision that 300 years after he cast the vision, his sons are still doing it. His sons are brought before Jeremiah, the prophet. And the priest says, drink wine. Three hundred years later, his sons say, our daddy told us we don't do that.

What an inspiring father. The Bible is full of many inspiring and wonderful fathers. Think about Joshua, your father in fatherhood, your mentor, your leader. You may never have had a father that led you, but you've got Joshua. Joshua who said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

As he declared the territory of his leadership, his authority over it, the importance of establishing it, and his responsibility to shepherd his little flock. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Here's a mentor for you, Joshua, who takes his whole family and says, we're going together. We're not going separately. We're not going our different ways.

We're going together. So verses one through four are so helpful. They're so inspiring because they tell us this. God has given us mentors. He's given us someone to follow.

And so the first thing that I want all of you fathers to understand here this evening is this. God has not left you without an example. God has not left you without a word. He's given you commands. He has offered you examples.

Men who walked through trials, tribulations, men who had abundance, and men who had nothing. He gives you examples from every station in life and every kind of category of life. I just want to encourage you, brothers, take heart. God has so kindly delivered His words to you to help you. He loves you.

He's a shepherd. He wants to take you by the hand into this business of fatherhood. And he has established these two great shepherding organisms in the world, the family headed by a man, a father, and then a church headed by Christ with these under shepherds all designed to provide care and instruction and nurture and admonition for his people. Isn't God kind that he would establish these very clear jurisdictional areas to provide what? The love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What a blessing God is to his people. What a kind father he is. His loving kindness is seen so clearly. You know the pictures of fatherhood in the Bible are so wonderful, our minds can't even grasp them. And they're difficult for the culture to acquire because the culture has such a strange view of fatherhood.

Here we find this view of fatherhood as one who has in his mouth a parable, a saying, a man who opens his mouth. So the example that we find here in Psalm 78 is of a father who opens his mouth. That's one thing I want us to really mark here. If you would follow the example that we find here in ASAP, then you'll be a man who has his mouth open, and you will be speaking of the great deeds of God. You will be explaining the beautiful things of the kingdom of heaven.

You will be expositing the word of God to your family. This first inspiring opening statement here in verses 1 through 4 just helps us to get our wits about us about fatherhood. And the first thing that we need to understand about it is this. God has provided to all men a way. No one is left without help.

And my experience is that Many men feel that their background has disqualified them. The fact that they never had a dad to lead them somehow makes them underweight, somehow puts them behind the curve. That is not true. The Lord Jesus Christ has provided mentorship and help and commands to bring us up to his ways. And so we shouldn't over lament about our background.

We should praise God, though, for the foreground ahead of us, defined, marked out, carefully laid out before us. So men, I want you to understand this one thing, and that is that you have mentors in Christ. You have fathers. And there never was a fatherless boy who knew the Lord Jesus Christ I just think that's so wonderful so the first thing that we see in Psalm 78 is an example secondly we see a command And we read this command in verse 5. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and he appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children.

So there's this command to fathers. Fathers are under divine commands. And whatever fathers do in their life, they need to make sure that they don't violate these commands. All the commands of God for church life and family life and work life do not contradict one another. You don't obey one command in one area and disobey one in the other.

They're all possible simultaneously. We don't have to short one for the other. And so here we find that that Asaph is reminding the people of a command. And where was that command? The command was in Deuteronomy 6.

And he is here in approximately 1000 BC, reminding them of the command that was given in 1405 B.C. At the front end of the Promised Land as the children of Israel were getting ready to enter. And Moses stands and says to the fathers that they should teach their children when they sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, when they rise up. Four hundred years after the command, Asaph brings it up and he holds it up before the people and he says, follow that command, my rules don't change, My desires for fathers never change. And here now we sit in the year 2008, you know, many, many years.

And we're bringing up the command again. We're bringing up that word of God to fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, that the children who would be born, that they may rise up and declare them to their children. So you find this harkening back to the command. How many times do we have to recover the command? How many times are we going to have to raise up the lost book of the law?

We're going to have to do it in every generation or we'll lose the next generation. Remember Josiah? His men were on a construction project. And they broke into an area in their construction and they found the lost book of the law. Most scholars believe that they found the book of Deuteronomy.

And they brought it out and revival Swept the nation because they found the lost book of the law. How often do we have to find the lost book of the law? Every father must dig it up every day and declare it to his family and let it loose in the way that he's spoken of here. So we find this tradition of the losing of the commandment and then the finding it and losing it and finding it and losing it and finding it. And why has God appointed all these fathers here in this room?

Is so that they would make sure that it's never lost on their watch and that they would deliver it to their children. And then their children would deliver it to their children. And there would be this multi-generational gift from one father to the next? What is the greatest gift a father can give? Here it is.

This is the greatest gift on the lips every day, reading it and then walking it out and explaining it in the different aspects of life that the family engages. And that when there's a problem what comes out. Not the meditations of your heart but the meditations of God's heart. When there's a challenge, what comes out? Not your wisdom, but His wisdom and His wisdom alone, so that children know that there is a God in heaven who cares for them, a kind father, who has delivered beautiful commands and helps for them, and that they should never lose it.

But if they do lose it, and they may lose it from time to time, but that they, it would be recovered and brought out. And so first of all, we see this example, the beauty of an example, then we see an ancient command uncovered again, this command that fathers should make them known to their children. Now we've been memorizing Deuteronomy 529, oh that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments that it might be well with them and their children forever. That message is repeated over and over again in the book of Deuteronomy. And now we find Asaph repeating it here.

It's the same message. And it and the message only has wings when a father. Is faithful to open the lost book of the law every day in his family. So we have an example, we have a command, then We have the results in verse 6. That the generation to come might know them.

Ah, they know them. They know them in their hearts. And the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children. And so here we find this this principle in Scripture that a man has to have a vision beyond his own life. That we're not here just to take care of our own business, but we're thinking two, three, four, five generations out.

What we're doing here is we're amassing wealth, not for ourselves. We're amassing it for them and its spiritual wealth and its passed on. It means that it's a job of a father to raise up a communicator after his own heart. God would have men raise up sons who open their mouths, who have something to say. And what they have to say is rooted in scripture.

So the results are found in these generations that continue to set their hope in God. Now think about that for a minute. A generation that sets their hope in God? A generation who is able to withstand the attacks and the calamities that come upon them, the disappointments, the reversals. How about a generation like that?

How about a generation who can be satisfied and contented in the providence of God in the midst of all of their situations who can be happy no matter what happens because they know that God is in control. A people who set their hope in God and how frail it is to have, how frail people are when their hope is in anything else but God. Put your hope in your family, put your hope in your money, put your hope in your reputation, and your hope will be a very fragile thing. Put your hope in God and it will never be shaken. And so God is in the business of building children who cannot be shaken because their hope is in God.

Fathers are the delivery systems for this. Fathers are the ones charged by God to so fortify their children that they find in their hearts something, something massively helpful. It's hope. They're abounding in hope. They might see difficulty but their hope is in the Lord and therefore they excel, they exceed, they abound in hope.

This is the kind of person God desires to build in this world, people who are abounding in hope. And they do not forget the works of God. That means that in their minds they know the works of God. How do they know the works of God? Because their fathers read to them.

Their father spoke of the works of God every day when they sat in the house, when they walked by the way, when they were lying down, and when they were rising up. The father was continuing with his mouth open to do what? To speak of the works of the Lord. So they had it in their heads. Children need to know the works.

Children need to know the stories. When they're going through some situation, they need to think back and see what did Noah do? What did David do? What did Jeremiah do? What did the Apostle Paul do?

What did Joseph do? They have to have the stories. They have to have the works of God in history. This means that every father is a historian. God has appointed fathers to be historians of their family.

Historians, teachers, shepherds, priests of their families. The Puritans said it this way, that every father should be a prophet and a priest and a king. A prophet in the sense that he declared the word of God. A priest in the sense that he was a humble, he was humble and prayerful for the sins of his people and a king in the sense that he was ahead. He was ahead like the Lord Jesus Christ and he was leading his family in a direction, a prophet, a priest, and a king.

And as a father fulfills that role, he can find lines to the great fathers of the Bible who lived that way and led their families that way. And so we have these results that are spoken of. And then we find one of the most glorious aspects of this entire Psalm, and it's found in verse 8. And it's perhaps, I would think, one of the most exciting things for you and for me. And that is this, that they may not be like their fathers.

And this brings us to one of the glorious appointments for all fathers. God has appointed fathers to break the patterns of their fathers. Nobody ever had a perfect father. I'm not a perfect father. My son and my daughters will also have the natural responsibility to break some of the bad patterns of their father.

I see many of my sins in my children. Many of my lazinesses and frailties are coming up in my children. I see it. And they will have to break some of their patterns as well. But here's the glorious part of it.

God has not relegated men to the sins of their fathers and that we can break the patterns. So you might ask yourself, fathers, what patterns are there that I'm breaking now? I know many of you. I know that many of you are breaking major bad patterns of your fathers right now. It's so exciting.

It's a sign of a work of the Spirit of God. It's a sign of a sweeping revival that's happening as hearts of fathers are turning toward their children. This is a sign of a work of the Holy Spirit. When a father breaks a pattern and he heads out into new territory that's far more beautiful than the territory that he experienced all of his life long. So verse 8, we read, Asaph says, And they may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright." Do you notice how he identifies the problem with fatherhood?

It's in the heart. It always starts in the heart. And that's why Moses said these things shall be in your heart and you shall teach them to your children. But it all starts in the heart. So on an evening like this it would be so appropriate for us to consider our hearts and whether there are sins of our hearts that need to be repented of.

If there are patterns that need to be broken that have arisen out of the conditions of our hearts. And so here Asaph comes and he he he finds us back at the heart which is the wellspring of life. You know this is why this is why it's so important that we are aware of who has our hearts and and how important it is to listen to the words of Solomon who said in Proverbs 23 26, my son give me your heart. This is the essence of fatherhood and I pray that God would give us a great uprising of grace in the area of fatherhood. I pray that he would raise up a mighty army of fathers.

I know I know he's doing that now. There are fathers doing things today that you could hardly even find a father doing 20 years ago. I know hundreds and hundreds of fathers who are doing things that I never saw in the first 15 or 20 years of my Christian life. What is happening brothers and sisters? God is turning the hearts of fathers toward their children.

I'm confident I'm not saying anything tonight that everybody doesn't already know, but The scriptures seem to make it so plain that there is a fundamental discipleship responsibility that God has given to fathers. And when that responsibility is eclipsed, then many, many bad things happen. And so my desire this evening is to encourage fathers to see the glory of opening your mouth in a parable, uttering dark sayings of old, speaking of the works of God, and filling your families with hope. I pray that God would raise up families that are so brimming with hope that you have the happiest little families that the world has ever seen. That you, fathers, because you have nursed your heart on every happiness that this kind of heart just spills over into your own family life this is this is what This is what Asaph is talking about.

This is what Moses was talking about. He was talking about a heart that's overflowing with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the essence of fatherhood. Now, one of the most amazing things that is happening in our day is that there is a resurgence of what the Puritans called family worship, where families are gathering together and they're reading scripture and they're praying together and they're singing together. And this practice has been gone for many, many years in the church, but it's rising today.

And you know, the Puritans believed that fathers should gather their families together at least twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. And they would offer prayers, read scripture, and sing in the morning and the evening, and that's what we recommend, that you would just do that. The Puritans understood the biblical doctrine of the family. They understood what this passage meant, and they said, how should this be applied? And they rightly applied it in their encouraging the practice of family worship.

And so here this evening we're just advocating a focus of fathers on family worship. I know from experience that the consistency, the quality, the intensity of family worship can ebb and flow in your life, that you can fall off the patterns. And so you have to get back on them. And I'm trusting that God would use our time in considering this tonight to help a man know that if he's fallen off the patterns to get back on, go get back on the tracks brother and continue on. There's never been a man who didn't fall off the tracks a few times and so God calls his men to continually emphasize the things that he has commanded to be done in the family.

Now I'll tell you what we do in our family. We read, we open up this book, we try to do it twice a day, sometimes it's once a day and sometimes it's none that day. But our goal is twice a day. And I'll just tell you, we're very simple the way we do this in our own family. I go back to the back of my Bible and there is a read through the Bible year schedule.

And so we sit down and we just go back and find out where we are and then we just read through the Bible. And what we do is we read five verses each. It turns out to be about four chapters a day. And I'll usually start and I'll read five verses and then my daughter Claudia will read, you know, six through 10 and we'll just keep going around. And each person will read five verses.

That's how we do it. It's not the biblical pattern, but it's what we do. And what we found is that our children learn how to read better. We find some some of our children are marvelous readers and others, you know, don't come out of the gate quite as marvelous as all the rest. And so there's this, the ships, you know, all rise in their ability to read scripture.

It's really a wonderful thing. And we read it And then we stop and say, well, what is God trying to say to us? Or we, I say, what wondrous things did you observe in the law of God tonight or this morning? Or I'll ask, what does this mean? Or some general question like that.

And my objective is not to teach them everything that's being commuted in this text. That would be impossible, by the way. But that we just keep on moving, we keep on picking things up and we'll often, after we're finished reading, recite a passage of scripture that we're engaged in. In our church right now we're memorizing Romans 12. So Romans 12 gets airtime, you know, often at the dinner table, before we eat or after or at the time when we gather together to read scripture in the morning or in the evening.

I think it's so important for us to understand that there is a law in Israel. My belief is this, you should be willing to kill for this. You should be willing to kill anything in your schedule that gets in the way of this. And I don't care what it is. But whatever gets in the way of this should die.

And brothers, you should be willing to die for it yourself. You may have to die to something that you like. You may even have to die to a friend or an organization so that this would live. Whatever it is, whatever has to die in you or whatever has to be killed out there must be done so that there would be a generation who has hope. So that there would be a generation whose hope is in God.

And so that when they find themselves in the most confusing and difficult situations that life would deal to them. They would say, God is my help. Of whom shall I be afraid?" I pray that God would give us a mighty, mighty uprising of fathers who would see the commands of Israel, love them, and put them into practice and in the simplest ways that God has given us to put them into practice. I pray also that husbands would be teachers of their wives. It's very unnatural, it seems, for men to teach their wives.

And there are different reasons why it's hard. Sin is at the root of all of them. But that we would have a generation of fathers who would teach their children, and a generation of husbands who would open up their Bibles and read it to their sweet wives to wash them with the water of the word, helping with the spots and the wrinkles day after day until they're finally taken to heaven and brought to their heavenly home. In the meantime, God has established a law in Israel so that his fathers would be nourishing and cherishing their families through the Word of God. I pray that that would be the legacy of our time together as we leave this place tomorrow.

So, fathers rise up. If you've fallen, if you've gotten off the tracks, get back on and push ahead and fill your homes with the hope of the Lord Jesus Christ. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, you are a tender shepherd, you are wise, you have delivered unto us the paths of life. You've helped us by giving us many mentors, many fathers in the faith.

You've given us commands. You've shown us the way in which we should go. And I pray, Lord, that you would give us a heart of obedience to keep all of your commandments that you've commanded us, that it might be well with us and with our children forever. Amen.