Proverbs teaches that every family is inevitably building a household and a name, and the quality of what they build depends on whether they build with wisdom or tear it down through apathy, uncontrolled anger, and addiction. In this session, Michael Foster will explain that true building begins with the fear of the Lord and produces an intergenerational legacy.

My primary primary text for us this morning is a problem 24 verses 3 & 4 By wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established by knowledge The rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant Riches, This is the word of the Lord. Amen, join me in prayer. Father, we ask now that you would soften our hearts, keep us humble, that we would be willing and ready to receive from your word and bear much fruit to your glory and the good of our neighbor. In your son's name, amen. Well, my wife and I are in the thick of the greatest work of our lives.

By the grace of our great God, we are establishing a first generation Christian household, and we hope that it will last for generations. The word house in Proverbs, of course, is bigger than a building. It includes a home, a family, a name, a people, a way of life, a future. A house can be built, a house can also be torn down, and many of us know what it is to come from homes where too much was already broken before we ever had a chance to build something ourselves. Emily grew up in a fairly serious Roman Catholic home with attentive parents, but she was not taught the true gospel as a child.

She was born again in her mid teens and then sadly her parents divorced while she was still in high school. So as launch pads go, it was a rough one to take off from into adulthood. My own home life as a child was much more chaotic. I grew up in five different states, went to seven different schools, and split my childhood between two different families. Someone asked why we moved so much and I'll just tell you that my dad was searching for Mayberry and Somehow we ended up above a bar across from a whiskey plant.

So anyhow One family was my dad my mom and my two younger brothers My dad was the ex-con who was out on probation, who met my mom at a disco, tail as old as time. They got pregnant with me, so they got married. My dad had grown up under a hard man, a violent man. My mom lost her father to cancer when she was 11. He was by all accounts a good man and had baptized my mom as a Presbyterian, but he was gone before he could ever really raise her or at least into adulthood.

So both my parents came from broken, functionally fatherless homes. And they did love each other, but they fought like cats and dogs, lived in a chaotic way, and God was never the center of that household. And they did eventually divorce. Thank God they did reconcile and were on very good terms when my mom went to be with the Lord. The other family was my grandma's house.

She was a rough and tough German woman who survived the attack of Königsberg and the bombing of Dresden, married a World War II man and soldier, my mom's dad, and after he died many years later she married Paul Peets who was a widow to Lutheran, ex-correctional officer, that was my step-grandpa, The only grandpa I ever knew and he rarely talked. I always tell my kids that I think he probably said a thousand words to me and one was, he liked to always ask me if I wanted bread with that. Anytime we'd like have sunny side eggs up, like would you want bread with that boy? I don't know. That's what he likes to say.

Anyway, likes to eat yolk with bread. Anyway, they lived on a farm in southern Indiana and Osgoode. I lived there on and off through my childhood. They also adopted my uncle Roberto, who was half black, half Lakota Indian, and he functioned in many ways like my older brother. So I grew up not really being from anywhere in particular.

I had a conflicted family identity. I was really cut off from my family history, and I had no clear religious tradition. There was a little Jewishness, a little Lutheran-ness, some traces of Presbyterianism, and just a lot of weird pagan New Age confusion in the mix. So the question underneath my life at that time, really leading up to my salvation was who am I? Where do I belong?

I didn't know. I was no one from nowhere, but God. Being rich in mercy because of the great love with which you loved me even when I was dead in my trespasses made me alive together with Christ. By grace I was saved. You raised me up with Christ and seated me with him in the heavenly places.

When I was 17 years old, I began to know who I was and where I belonged. I was a Christian, and God was my father, and the church was my family. You're my family. And I belonged to the household of faith. A year and a half later, I met a freckled beauty.

And then a few years after that, we married. So two sinners saved by grace, both coming out of broken homes, set out to establish a first generation Christian household. And it has been hard. We did not know what we were doing at least not from the examples We had been given we had to figure things out through a lot of trial and error a lot of repentance a lot of hard conversations a lot of broken lamps And a lot of slowly finding better resources and better examples, But by God's grace, we've made ground. More ground than we ever thought was possible.

We're still making ground. We're still working progress. We're still learning. But we have learned a few things about building a household. And maybe those things can help you along the way.

Most of what I'll say tonight will come from Proverbs because Proverbs teaches us that households are not built by accident, they're built by wisdom, established by understanding and filled with precious and pleasant riches by knowledge. So let's start with what I mean by a household. One of my big goals when I got married was to change the nature of the family I came from. There were many sweet people in my family, my family, the Fosters would stop over or stop on the side of the road and help you change your tire and a thunderstorm. They'd do that in a second.

They also got arrested a lot in a lot of bar fights. They were not a Christian family and as a result there was a lot of chaos and in many ways my heritage was a heritage of hell. My grandfather on my dad's side wrote two books about his conversations with demons. And so there's compromise, drug abuse, lots of anger. I wanted my children to inherit something different.

I wanted them to have a heritage of heaven. And I wanted the name foster to mean something different. That was a work I didn't really have a name for when Emily and I first began, but I came to understand that as the work of household building. I think many marriages are weak and struggling because they don't understand that this is one of the great purposes of marriage. Marriage is certainly a powerful picture of the gospel, but speaking practically, marriage is about the formation and maturation of a household that by God's grace produces even more households.

In other words, marriage is not just about making each other happy. It's not merely a romantic endeavor, romance and affection are important ingredients in a healthy marriage, But a marriage needs something larger than itself to remain healthy over the long haul. One way you can think about it is that you don't want to be looking in at each other, okay? And trying to find everything you want and need in each other. What you want to be is side by side looking out into the world, walking together to do that thing which God has called you to do.

You can see this plainly in scripture. It's inherent in the creation mandate. Adam was commanded to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion. I'm glad I know we wouldn't have a drinking game. Okay, I get that.

However, if we did, you wouldn't want to take a drink at this conference every time someone cited that verse, right? Anyway, that's not the one work of man alone. So when God says it's not good for the man to be alone, it's not because he's merely lonely, right? It's because the work God has called him to require to help are suitable to him. Not another man, but a woman, a wife.

From the very beginning, marriage is tied to building, multiplying, growing. The thing being built is what the Bible calls an household. Scripture speaks this way repeatedly. By wisdom, a house is built by understanding it is established. The wisest of women builds her house, Proverbs 14.1.

Joshua declares, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. The assumption throughout the Bible is that godly men and women are not merely living as isolated individuals, but are establishing households ordered under God. Later in Genesis, we see this repeatedly in the story of Abraham and Sarah. Their household was not merely the tent they slept in. It included their children, eventually, servants, livestock, possessions, all those under their care and authority.

In Genesis 18-19 God says of Abraham, for I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord. So a household is everything that flows from marriage, children, work, property, wealth, influence, right? It starts very small, a couple in a cramped apartment with a baby in a crib, And if God grants faithfulness, it ends in gray hair, grandchildren, and broad blessing, right? When we start, we're grapes, right? When we end, we're raisins.

Getting more raisiny in my life. It's all good. Plump in areas. I'm going to work on that. All this teaching about women to cook.

Now as I said, I want the foster name to mean something different. For some of you that may be your situation, for others maybe you desire to live up and to continue what your family name already represents. Some of you are two, three, four, ten generations in of continuing a Christian legacy. Praise the Lord. But many of you can relate to my story in one way or another or my wife's story.

You are like clueless. And you're trying to figure it out. Been there. It's a good and natural desire to want to build a name. Proverbs 22 one says a good name is to be chosen rather than great riches and favor is better than silver and gold.

That is a concept that has largely been lost when it comes to households. To recover it we need to understand what scripture means when it speaks of a name. When the Bible speaks of God's name, it doesn't mean a label, right? Like something you merely call out. His name stands for the fullness of who He is, His glory and presence and authority and all his attributes to call upon his name is to call upon him To profane his name is to profane him to pray in his name is to appeal to his character and promises.

David writes, Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. When Moses asked to see God's glory, the Lord answered, I will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. Then in Exodus 34, God declares his character merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. His name and his nature are inseparable. The Reformed tradition has always understood this well.

Puritans would say that all of God's attributes are summed up in his name. So to praise his name is to praise God himself. And in a lesser, but still real sense, something is similarly true of our names as well. A name carries our identity and reputation, our legacy. Some names evoke disgust.

Others call forth honor. Parents often name children after their fathers or grandfathers because they hope the child will carry the legacy forward that that name represents. In that sense the name becomes both memory and mission. It points backwards to the faithfulness of God expressed in the character of individual and forward to what may yet come in the descendants of that man. Even corporations understand this though they call it a brand.

A brand is simply a name attached to Reputation represents the quality of a company's products and service over time brands are very powerful I used to buy old Navy t-shirts back in the 90s and back then Those are great t-shirts. It would last forever and I would just keep buying them. We have a warehouse in Northern Kentucky, we did anyway. And then at some point, those shirts, I just ripped them in a second. They had cheaper thread or whatever.

But I kept buying them for a really long time because the brand was so powerful, right, the memory so fresh that I would continue to buy it just on the name, right? Some people will offer, will give you money on the name of your family. Now those are the sort of people that pay back. He comes from a good family. That's a good name, right?

That's the power of names. That's the power of a brand. In many ways, a household works in a very similar way. As you build a household, you are building a name for yourself and your family. Whether you realize that or not, you are establishing a reputation that will echo beyond your own lifetime.

So the question is this, what sort of name are you building? Are you building a name that glorifies yourself? That's what we saw in the firstborn son of mankind, Cain. Or are you building a name that brings honor to the Lord? We see that in the descendants of Seth, they call on the name of the Lord.

Psalm 72 verse 19 says, blessed be his glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with his glory. That is the ultimate goal of every Christian household. Not merely that our family name would endure, but that through it, God's name would be honored. So there's a spiritual household, the church to which we belong, and there's a natural household, that which comes from our covenant love and all that.

And those things overlap, they're not synonymous, but they're related. And we shouldn't play them against each other. As you build up your natural household, If it serves the purpose of God, it glorifies God. One of the ways you can lift up God's name is by having a family name that reflects his glory. So I wanna get down to brass tacks here.

Let's get practical. Let's talk about how you can actually build a household. Then I'd like to end with some cautions, because households can be torn down. So our passage was Proverbs 24, 3 through 4. It tells us that building a household takes wisdom.

So what is wisdom? It's one of the chief themes of Proverbs. The word can carry the idea of skill, but wisdom's not merely skill like swinging a hammer to hit a nail straight. I would define it as the skill of living well in God's world. Wisdom is the ability to see how God has actually ordered creation in moral, social, and physical dimensions, his whole cosmos, right?

How it actually works, even after the fall, and then learning how to live in harmony with that order. It's seeing the cause and effect of good and evil actions and recognizing how people and relationships really work and having the discernment to navigate life with understanding and discretion. Wisdom is truth put in practice in real life and reality. Solomon was right to ask God for wisdom from above, right? And he asked for that above wealth, power, and long life in 1 Kings 3.

How can you govern without wisdom? And Proverbs 16, 22 says, wisdom is a fountain of life to him who has it. It is a source from which countless other blessings flow. So in asking for wisdom, God gifted him all these other things. To live without wisdom is to live as a fool.

No matter how much knowledge you accumulate, that is a problem with those of you that were raised in the internet generation. You think just consuming podcasts after podcast after podcast, A lot of times I'll write something and someone will say, hey do you recommend any books? Yeah I love books. I got all sorts of books. Have you applied any of this?

Right? What have you, like tell me a little bit about where you're stuck. What do you need another book for? And there's this idea that just more knowledge will somehow magically lead to action. Somehow knowledge will produce wisdom.

Wisdom is from the application of knowledge. To live with wisdom is to walk in the fear of the Lord. For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, says Proverbs 1-7. So if we want to build wisely, Proverbs gives us both pursuits and warnings. And I want to begin with three things every builder must pursue.

Right. First is real realistic planning. Second, right priorities. And third, relentless plotting. So first, the wise builder must plan.

Proverbs 21 five says the plans of the diligent leads surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. In some circles, planning is seen as unspiritual. There is this idea that you should just wing it and trust God. And I've met plenty of Christians who seem to think that spirit-filled life is like waiting for GPS instructions from heaven. I had a friend who literally, or not literally, figuratively, will wake up and ask God to give him directions throughout the day on what to wear and whatever.

And I got him a job interview where I was in charge of hiring and training. This is not Maddox, this is somewhere else. But, And I had to get him the job because he was not good at living his life, as you can tell. And he passed on the job. He's like, the spirit, the spirit told me not to take it.

No, no he didn't. You're lazy. That's like, that's not the spirit, you know. You're lazy, man. Don't ever ask me for a favor again, right?

They came up, you said, you really want us to hire this guy? And I'm like, well, not when you say it that way. Oh, no, give him a job. They offer it to him. And then, and then he, you know, he doesn't take it.

He thinks that's spiritual, just not planning, not thinking about the future. People get that from misunderstanding James for a lot of times, where James tells us not to boast about tomorrow, but instead to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. That's not a call to stop planning. It's a call to plan with humility knowing you are subject to God's providence. Scripture repeatedly teaches the importance of forethought.

Luke 14 28 says which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost? A lot of households are stunted because there are there's no planning. Their finances are wrecked because there's no budget. The wife is anxious because she has no idea where the family is headed Because the husband has never communicated a vision or a plan Submission is much easier when mission is clear You communicate in the mission guys Stop making excuses Get to it It'll help her right Do you want her to be all stressed out all the time? It's not fun.

That puts a house owner in a dangerous place. It makes people hasty. That's what happens with a lot of people who don't plan. They don't plan, they don't plan, they delay, they delay, and then they think some bold action will suddenly fix everything. But reckless action usually leads only to more poverty.

Financial, relational, spiritual poverty. So what is the plan for your household? What is the goal? I often tell people that a goal is something achievable with difficulty. I tend to think of family household plans in three to five years stretches, it actually gets bigger as you get older in my opinion, right?

When I was young, and who knows where we're gonna be. So three to five years we're kind of planning at that level, But now I'm rooted in Batavia, Ohio. I'm in the church that I hope to be in the rest of my life and the position I hope to be. So my plans are kind of stretching out to like ten years at a time. But early just think of where you'd like to be in three years physically spiritually financially.

Ask yourself is that possible in three years? Yeah it's possible but it'll be hard. Okay cool that's a good goal and then reverse engineer down what do I have to start doing the work out working there right? What what is my one-year goal my two-year goal to get to that three-year final goal? Start thinking just very simple like that.

Obviously plans change, but it still gives you direction. Now some of you are thinking what is this man talking about, right? Because some of you got the touch of the tism. I've talked to you. Right?

You know who you are, right? If I'm gonna build trains, you're the guy I want with me. I'm sure you're a very excellent driver. You can watch Wapner. That is a deep cut.

If you know that, come give me a high five after. Anyway, you spreadsheet every detail of your life, right? And just remember, plans need to be realistic. If they're too rigid or too detailed, they often cannot adapt or change with the circumstances, with God's providence. And notice Proverbs says that the plans of the diligent lead to abundance.

You actually have to follow through. You cannot just dream. Those who dream much do little. You have to write down things, put them in order and start moving. I love the bike chain analogy.

You know when the chain falls off your bike, you flip the bike over, and then you get the chain all on the teeth of one of the gears and a little bit on the other gear, and you turn the pedals, and it pops the chain on, and it starts, it gives you the ability to have forward motion. You start going somewhere, it's much easier to steer a moving vehicle, right? Over years, often decades, the steady, of steady labor planned well produces abundance. That is how households are built to outlast human blessed generations. Second, you must have the right priorities.

Proverbs 24, 27 says, prepare your work outside, get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house, right? Wisdom understands order. First things first. Do not sew in the winter, right? Do not stack bricks before pouring a foundation.

You do not spend money on vacations when you can barely pay rent. Many people want the finished product without the process. Do you think that is a danger of Instagram? You know, or are any of you guys married to this woman? Not that I am.

This is all theoretic. Do you ever just get like a bunch of Zillow listings have you gone through that like look at this house or look at this this thing no none of you I don't know if I like this conference. Well, anyway, some people have big dreams, some I guess, but any... That's very nice, sweetheart. We're poor.

That's the only problem with that zillow. Listen, I have not that much money, okay? You keep winking at me, we have all these kids. Give it time. They want the fruit before planting and watering.

They want the image of a thriving family without the hidden labor of worship, discipline, sacrifice, and faithlessness. You got to put the work in. A lot of people want a certain lifestyle. They want it fast. But if things are built out of order they collapse.

There are many people right now who appear prosperous. They have these big homes and nice cars. It's incredible to me that like what the average car payment is right now. It's like 700 and up. So they have all this stuff, but they don't.

Much of it's overly financed and eventually the bills will come due and it's much easier to recover from mistakes in your 20s than in your 40s and 50s. So do the hard work now. And honestly, I think this is where localism helps. God calls us to put first things first, right? For me, localism is simply giving the first priority to the people in place in front of you.

So Think of what are the needs of your household right now, your churches, what are your immediate responsibilities, and put those things first and work towards the bigger things. Stop exhausting yourself trying to manage someone else's field while neglecting your own. Stop comparing yourself to others. Build where you are. You do not want to build something that merely looks impressive for a few years.

You want to build something that lasts for generations. And sometimes that means spending years strengthening a foundation no one else even notices. You don't want to be performative. Third, you have to plod. Proverbs 27, 23 through 24 says, know well the conditions of your flocks, for riches do not last forever.

Planning and priorities get you started, plotting keeps you going. Progress is not automatic. You do not buy sheep and assume that they will somehow pile up safely in your barn. You feed them, you watch them, you care for them, and If you don't, they wander off, get sick, or die. And here's the hard truth, most of life is plotting.

Big breakthroughs are rare. Most of that work looks painfully ordinary. It's praying with your children, it's paying your bills, it's going to church every Sunday, it's making deposits into your retirement account, it's guarding your heart, it's staying faithful when no one else notices. It does not feel dramatic in the moment, but over time plotting becomes a progress. A few years ago I bought, I am a fantastic father, and a few years ago I bought my kids geodes for Christmas, right?

But I told them, they said, Dad, what did you get me for Christmas? I said, I got you rocks, right? No, you didn't. I indeed bought you rocks. So every once in a while I'd say it and they thought I was joking.

And then a night or two before Christmas, on a tree, there were these things wrapped up, and you picked them up, they were really heavy, and they sure felt like rocks. Because they were. Then on Christmas Day, they opened them, they're like, Dad, these are rocks. I've been telling you, I got your rocks for Christmas. I wasn't joking.

But I took some of them out to show how to crack them open, right? And you find those little fracture lines, and you put your screwdriver or chisel or whatever, and then take the hammer and tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, so it breaks. You don't want to smash that thing. And after a while, they finally crack open. So sometimes it takes a hundred hits before it finally breaks open.

So which strike cracked it? The first, the second, the last one? All of them together. People talk about breakthroughs, but most breakthroughs are the results of years of faithful plotting. So plan, prioritize, and plot.

Stop trying to take shortcuts. Stop trying to have at 30 what usually comes at 50. Some of the generational frustrations, there are legitimate tensions between the generations. I don't want to downplay that, but I also want to say some of it is just young people being dumb. It takes a long time to get what your grandparents had.

They didn't have it right away. They had to work at it. So don't let the bitterness of the online culture, the falsehood of Instagram, hustle, lifestyle, the rich and famous culture, rob you of just plotting away and building things over time. Sixteen years ago I was 30, young man. Sixteen years from now I'll be 62, and most days I still feel 16.

Things go so fast, so, they go faster and faster. You will get there. Time is a friend of the diligent man, but it is the enemy of the lazy fool. Now let's consider three things that every builder must flee. There's this kid he lived down the road from me when I was six.

When I was six I lived in Kansas City, Missouri and he had all the Star Wars figures. It was the early 80s, a bunch of GI Joe stuff. It was amazing. And I just, we were poor. We had a rented house.

He had this big house at the bottom, the cul-de-sac was amazing. And I just would dream about having what he had. In one night, in the middle of the night, I was awakened by fire sirens. And we walked out to the front yard two, three in the morning, something like that, and looked down and there's that house in flames burning down. And that 12-year-old that had all that stuff, he had not been diligent.

He had left a candle burning by his bed, we found out, and it fell over and burned that whole house down. All those possessions, all those memories, all those things burned down in a single day. We can tear down things that were built by others, things that maybe you did really good for 20-30 years, but it is incredible how quickly you can tear down a household. Problems 14.1 says the wisest of women builds her house, but Folly with her own hands tears it down. Now, I meant to work in some stuff to go hard at you ladies today.

I mostly have things for men so we'll see if I can come back next year and I promise to give it. Anyway I'll try to sneak some in here. I think I can. Well, the first thing that really tears down households is just apathy, a lack of drive. J.C.

Ryle once said, you cannot stand still in your souls. And he was right. Every day you are either moving forward or drifting backwards. And Proverbs paints the same picture. Solomon says he passed by the field of the slugger and found an overgrown with thorns and nettles covering the ground, and the stone wall was broken down.

And then comes this lesson. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a robber That vineyard didn't collapse overnight. I was given to a most likely slugger doesn't build a vineyard So it was probably an inheritance It was ruined by neglect inch by inch day by day and that is how apathy works. Slugger is not a word we use much anymore, but it comes up a lot in Proverbs and it's just a person who consumes but never produces, craves but gets nothing because his hands refuse to work. He invents excuses and Proverbs it says he imagines lions in the street and it delays responsibility.

He lives for weekends and holidays and snow days and worse of all, he's wise in his own eyes. That's why I don't trust anyone online who I don't know something about their life. All right, here's how you do it. How did you do it? Well, I'm just giving you theories.

So you don't know what you're talking about, do you? I too have chat GBT. Everything under a sluggard's care withers. His field, his work, his name, his household, even his soul. He dreams about the future while life quietly slips through his fingers.

Brothers refuse that life. At the company I work at, I wanted to see what was the thing that determined our top salesmen. And there was a bunch of things, but one of the biggest things is they worked 50 hours or more. And the guys that weren't hitting their goals were like cruising around 42. Sometimes you just got to put the work in.

You just got to work long hours. I don't know how I feel about you know work-life balance. I feel like work's part of my life. So sometimes it's just hard labor. That's what it takes to get it done.

You say baby I love you I'm gonna do my best to come home and spank them when I need to and correct them, but we gotta get caught up and we gotta move ahead and this is gonna be some long weeks. Don't be a slugger, be productive, take responsibility, build something. Remember, I think this is a really helpful quote from James Clear. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your habits.

Proverbs says the same thing. Your field reveals your habits. Your household reveals your habits. Your name reveals your habits. Build good habits.

Let's talk about sinful anger. Proverbs 16 and 32 says, whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he who rules his spirit than he who takes the city. Anger itself is not a problem. Something should make you angry. When you see injustice, you should get angry.

If you don't, that's not good. Lies should make you angry. Evil should make you angry. But anger must remain under the rule of God's truth, or it turns destructive. Growing up, I had a short fuse.

I was not always angry, but once I got angry, it was really hard for me to calm down. I'd snap. And this is one reason I got sent to live with my grandparents. I had Armie crawled Under my kindergarten teacher's table and bit her leg Did not taste good So I got sent to live in Indiana and you know what they did not tolerate outbursts You know my grandpa spanked me, and I don't know if you saw a movie where there's that woman in the Marvel movies where she hits someone and their spirit flies out of their body. Right?

That is what happened. I saw myself. It's an out-of-body experience. I can still feel it. They got most of it out of me, but not all of it.

And my teen years, anger was a real problem. I got expelled from high school in my freshman year, So I wrote a poem on graduation called 13 years, it could have been 12. Then I became a Christian and things began to change and my fuse grew longer. But once it burned down the explosion was still there. And then I got married and then my beautiful sweet bride is not always, wasn't always that way.

Two angry young people under one roof makes for fireworks and not the good kind. But around a decade ago or maybe, well God convicted me deeply about this around a decade ago and I worked very hard towards emotional discipline just as a path of holiness for me and my household. And slowly over time God has answered those prayers. I still get angry at evil as I should, but that old explosive wrath is mostly gone. A couple years ago one of my older boys was bullying his youngest sibling and I lost my temper and I punched the wall it wasn't by I wasn't anywhere close to hitting them but I punched the wall in the display of machismo right.

Problem was on the other side that wall was a HVAC system and I broke a bunch of my fingers. And one, I tore the tendon, and I still could type, and someone said, you better fix that right now, or it's going to stay that way. You know what? I decided, there it is, crooked little finger, I decided to keep it that way I left it on purpose because every day it reminds me that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God Right By God's grace scars can become memorials to sanctification. I've learned to take responsibility for my emotions.

I've watched my sons begin learning it years sooner than I did. They still struggle with anger. It's part of growing up as boys, but our home is increasingly marked by peace instead of rage. And that is one of the best gifts you can give your families. A peaceful home.

A place where problems are handled with steady hands or heads instead of explosions. Whoever is cool and calm is in control. If you're not, you're not men, okay? Lastly, let's talk about addiction. Proverbs 31 warns kings not to give themselves over to lust and strong drink because it destroys judgment and ruins rulers.

Addiction is the opposite of strength. It's slavery. And God gave you a body to rule and passions to govern. If you refuse that discipline, the bottle, the pill, the bed, or even the screen will rule you instead. Now I've seen this up close.

Years ago my brother Wayne died at 37. He drank himself to death. And underneath being a drunkard, you say being alcoholic but it doesn't sting like being a drunkard, was deep regret and nostalgia. He constantly talked about our childhood. He lived in the good old days as though his best years were already behind him.

And that mindset can kill a man. I know the pool of regret because I've wrestled with it too. When I was 37, the same age when my brother died, I kept having this dream and in it, I woke up as my 19 year old self. I was strong, debt free, leading Bible studies, dating Emily, courting Emily, I'm sorry. But, But in the dream, I still carried all the knowledge of my older self, right?

The bad financial decisions. I'm one of those guys that almost bought into Google on the IPO, delayed children, student debt, the mistakes, the wasted years, and I would think, now I can fix everything. Then the dream would turn dark because I realized if I changed even one thing, I might not end up with this family that's here with me. Not Hudson, not Athanasius, not Caban, not Nicea, even though she died. To keep them, I would somehow have to perfectly recreate every step of my life, including the failures.

And that's impossible. It'll wake up in a cold sweat. But eventually I realized something. Regret is a tyrant, and nostalgia can kill a man. Christ forgave my sins.

God used even my failures to build the life I now cherish. I cannot go back. And honestly, if I could, I would probably ruin things all over again. So I repented, trusted God's providence, and moved forward. My brother never found that freedom.

A few hours before he died, he was very mad. I wouldn't let him come over and see his nieces and nephews. He was an alcoholic, did all sorts of drugs, and I said, you got to be sober for six months and hold at least a part-time job for six months before he ever come over. And he was very mad I wouldn't let him. So he was cussing at me.

He said, you know what, Mike? You're not a real foster. You're not even a real, you never have been. And he claimed he had a secret child somewhere who would carry on the family name. He didn't.

He tore his household down before it ever started. His name is now a warning in our family. But By God's grace, my oldest son, who's at home in Ohio, is married and has begun his own household. The foster name will not end in ruin. It is beginning again and again, it's happening.

Maybe you don't feel like much, I'm not much. Welcome to the party pal. Maybe you regret the way your life has gone. Maybe you're old and gray. Feeling that way.

Maybe you convince yourself you can't build anything meaningful anymore and that those best days are behind you. That is a lie from hell. It's not true. If you are in Christ, your future is not behind you. Trust the Lord.

Keep going. God delights these ordinary people like us, people from nowhere to build things that outlast us. So, build a household. Build that heritage of heaven. Build a name that glorifies His name.

Amen? Let me pray for you. Father, bless these people. I pray that this will lead them in repentance. I know there are wives that need to repent to their husbands and husbands that need to repent to their wives and parents to their children and children to their parents.

I pray you will embolden them by your grace to do that. I pray that those here that are discouraged and struggling will leave encouraged and strengthened. God, we thank you that If you build a house, it will stand. But through anxiety and vanity, we can't build anything. So Lord, help us to trust you.

God strengthen us to your glory. In the name of your son Jesus, amen. Amen. Thank you.