Since God created man and woman with distinct roles, this should inform how boys and girls are raised. In this message, Ben Seewald will explore what it looks like for parents to raise their sons and daughters in light of God’s good design.

Well, it's an honor and pleasure to be with you all this morning. I'll send my greetings from Emmanuel Baptist Church in Springdale as we greet you all. And thankful to be here this morning. I'll just introduce myself just really briefly before I get into it. So this is my wife, Jessa, here on the front row.

We've been married for 11 years. We have six kids. And so they're all here as well. We also have a couple of my sister-in-laws helping us for the week. And so we're thankful to have Jennifer and Jordan with us as well.

And also I just apologize for my voice. I'm about 80% capacity. Lost my voice Sunday after I preached and I've been just praying and hoping all week that I would be able to do this session. So just bear with me. This is not American Idol, thankfully.

This is just, you know, we're here to make much of the truth of God's Word. And so try to focus on that and not be distracted by my hoarseness. So this message is entitled, How to Raise Boys to be Men and girls to be women. And my goal is to help us as parents think clearly and biblically about how to do that. And I'll take for granted the fact that we're raising boys to be men and girls to be women.

I mean you're here at the conference on biblical manhood and womanhoods. I'm just going to kind of take that for granted. I'm going to assume that you agree that God created male and female and therefore that needs to inform the way we raise our children. There needs to be more than just raising all of our children and teaching them the gospel and teaching them to be Christians. We're also going to teach them what God's Word says about being a Christian man and the unique things that pertain to that and being a Christian woman and the unique things that pertain to that, and being a Christian woman, and the unique things that pertain to that.

I wanna start us off with a verse from Ephesians. It's aimed at fathers, Primarily. So I'm going to speak to the fathers in the room. And also the fathers to be, Lord willing. So young men, pay attention to this verse.

Ephesians 6, 4. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This verse speaks of the instruction of the Lord. This is our task as fathers to teach our children what the Lord has taught in His Word, what He's laid down.

His instruction, we're to pass it on to our children, to our sons and to our daughters. That includes all of the generalities of being a Christian but also includes these unique things that pertain to being a Christian man and a Christian woman. It's part of the great commission. Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them. Then there's that second part of the Great Commission that sometimes we forget, and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.

So part of fulfilling the Great Commission will include teaching our children to observe all the things that Christ has commanded. So teaching your sons how to be Christian men is part of the Great Commission. Teaching your daughters how to be Christian women is part of what Christ has commanded. This is part of bringing our children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. All right, so here's where we're going.

I'm going to first, we've got four points. A couple of them are kind of basic, but I think that even at a conference like this, I don't want to take them for granted. We're gonna start off with teach your children the gospel. Teach them the goodness of God. Secondly, the goodness of God is designed for men and women.

And then third, if we're going to help our children, help our boys be men and our girls be women, we need to help them thirdly outline the specifics of their callings. We need to give them a clear blueprint of what it looks like. And then fourth, help them get started. I'm going to use kind of the illustration of building a house. So If point one, teach them the gospel, that's like finding a good plot of ground to build this house.

Point two, teach them the goodness of God's design, that's laying a good doctrinal foundation. Third, outline the specifics, that's giving them a blueprint. And fourth, help them get started. That's like, hey, help them begin construction on this house of biblical manhood and biblical womanhood so first of all teach them the gospel if we don't teach our children the gospel then really nothing else we do will matter. We'll face the fearful prospect that we're just raising self-righteous Pharisees which is not what we want to do.

We don't want to raise the kind of people that Jesus gave all the woes against in the gospels. We don't want to simply train outwardly well-behaved children who have no love for Christ in their hearts and don't love God and inwardly are rebelling against him and against his gospel. So obviously teaching our children the gospel is first and foremost. This is the foundation, this is the soil, the solid rock upon which we lay the foundation of the doctrine of biblical manhood and womanhood. And I just want to, with this point out, that we shouldn't merely teach our children the gospel until they make a profession of faith.

You know, in our church, we'll teach our children the gospel, and Lord willing, they'll profess faith and we'll baptize them. There's an excellent book I recommend to you on teaching your children the gospel by Charles Spurgeon called Come You Children on Childhood Conversions by Charles Spurgeon, excellent book. But I emphasize to our parents is that if your child professes faith and is baptized that's not the finish line. You're going to continue to help them understand the gospel because really that's what the Christian life is. We need to, even those of you who have been walking with Christ for many years, you can attest, I need to be reminded of the gospel because I'll get self-righteous at times.

I'll begin to forget the grace by which I stand. I'll begin to think that, well, I haven't prayed as much as I should. Maybe God doesn't love me anymore. Am I really a Christian? And we forget that Christ is our righteousness.

And our children need to learn this lesson as well. So don't just teach them the gospel until they make a profession of faith. Continue to help them understand what God has done in Christ to save them. Help them understand the doctrines of grace. Help them understand the doctrine of Christ and His deity and His humanity and His earthly ministry and His heavenly ministry.

Help them understand the electing love of God. Help them understand unconditional election. Help them understand the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing their dead souls to life. And then in sanctifying them, giving them the power, not just to be freed from the guilt of sin by the blood of Christ, but to be freed from the dominion of sin, that through the Holy Spirit they can overcome anger, they can overcome selfishness, and they can be conformed into the likeness of Christ. Help your children, help them understand the gospel.

Continue to help them understand the gospel day by day. So teach your children the gospel. And really, this is where it all starts, even when we come to teach them biblical manhood and womanhood. Because if you look at the way the Scriptures teach us to live as Christians, this is how so many of the epistles begin. If you read the book of Romans, there's 11 chapters basically of gospel.

Like here is the grace of God here are the mercies of God Here's what he's done for you to make you who you are now As Romans 12 one says in light of the mercies of God Don't just skip over that phrase In light of the mercies of God. So as we teach our children to give their bodies as living sacrifices as biblical men and biblical women, We need to do so in the context of, in light of the mercies of God. Do they know what those mercies are? Are those mercies of God in the gospel, what is propelling them, what are propelling them, to seek biblical manhood and womanhood? Ephesians, you know, I just read a verse from Ephesians.

Really the first three chapters are a bunch of doctrine. They're laying out the gospel. They're laying out the mercies of God, the grace of God. You know, the Bible could have been a lot shorter if God just wanted to give us a list of dos and don'ts. Do this, don't do that.

All I'm interested in is your behavior. But God is not merely interested in some external conformity to a certain set of standards. He is interested in having our hearts. And he wants our obedience to flow from a heart of love to God in light of the mercies of God live this way. So teach your children the gospel.

Continue to teach them the gospel. And as you teach them biblical manhood and womanhood, don't divorce it from the gospel. Lay this foundation on the solid rock of Christ and His mercies. So secondly, we need to teach our children the goodness of being male or female. So got the solid foundation, the solid ground, solid rock of the gospel.

Now let's lay a foundation on that solid ground, a doctrinal foundation, teaching them the goodness of God's design, that it's good to be a man, that it's good to be a woman. Even in a fallen world where it's hard to be a man, even in a fallen world where it's hard to be a woman, and there's a curse that makes it difficult to be a woman. It's a curse that makes it difficult to be a man. Still, for all of that, there is a beauty and a goodness in being a man or a woman to the glory of God. And by God's grace in the gospel, Our manhood and womanhood brings glory to God.

So, we need to help our children see that God is a wise and good creator, and in his perfect wisdom, he has created us in his image as male and female. Genesis 1, 28, 7. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.

It's only two kinds of human beings. Males and females, men and women. And this is God's good design from creation, from before the fall into sin. And the fall, the fall made it more difficult, but the fall didn't alter God's original design. And so What this means is that as we teach our children the gospel, and as we teach them, here's what Christ has done for you, and now here's what it looks like to follow Christ.

As Jesus says, we're to look to Him, to trust Him, and part of what that involves is repentance. Taking up our cross, denying ourselves, and following Him. To put it another way, that submission to His kingship, part of trusting Christ is trusting that what He says is right, what He says is good. And if God has designed us as men and women, that's a good thing. That's a good design on God's part.

And I trust in the goodness of his design. I trust what he's doing. And so teach your children this, that it's good to be a man and it's good to be a woman. And just to get a little practical here, a lot of this is more, It can be more caught than taught. And so parents, I want you to kind of think to yourself for a moment.

The way that I view my own calling as a husband and father, as a wife and mother, Do I see the goodness of my calling? Do I see the goodness in the beauty and the glory of my calling or are my children just getting kind of this this bitter kind of sour hard you know we live in a cursed world it's I get home from work and it's just complaints. It's so hard to be a man in this world. Listen, that's reality sometimes. We're working by the sweat of our brow.

You're trying to survive, and yet that's not all there is to it. We're Christian men. We're Christian women. And there's beauty in goodness. There's something redemptive that God is doing in our manhood and womanhood.

So, are we letting our children see that? Mothers, in your calling as wives and mothers, is it more you kind of give your daughters the impression of like, man this is really boring, I'm missing out on so much. Or are you showing them like I love being a wife and mother, this is a beautiful thing, it's a I rejoice in the glory of what I'm doing, that is making an eternal impact in future generations. And I love to be a woman. I love to be a mom.

Are your children not just being taught this, but are they catching it? Are they seeing this in your own example, parents? So I'll just encourage you, help your children see the goodness of God's good design. And if we're struggling with that, maybe we need to, again, go back to the gospel, but also Maybe we need to revisit these things. Do I really believe that it's good to be a man?

Do I really believe that it's good to be a woman? If I'm doubting that, is that maybe why I'm struggling to rejoice in who I am, who God's created me to be? Is that perhaps why I'm struggling to rejoice in my calling? So brothers and sisters, if that's the case, if you're kind of there, I'll just encourage you, look to God's Word, Maybe memorize and meditate on some passages of Scripture that show you the goodness of being a man or woman Show you the trustworthiness of Christ Maybe listen listen to some of these messages again help ask ask the Lord pray and ask the Lord God help me to rejoice in your design for me, in your calling for me. Help me to see that it is good so that my children would see that it is good.

So we need to give our children a doctrinal foundation, and a lot of it is taught, a lot of it is also caught. But third, as we lay this foundation, we need to give our children a blueprint to build the house, to construct the house of biblical manhood or the house of biblical womanhood. We need to give them, not just to assume that they kind of know, we need to give them some specific, like a specific detailed blueprint of here are the kinds of things that you are called to. Here is what you are as a man, here's what you are as a woman, here are the the specifics of your calling. We need to give them a detailed blueprint so they can build on that foundation.

Now as we do this, as I conceive of it, and I didn't come up with this, but I think there are basically three areas, three spheres, or to stick with our illustration of a house, there are three rooms in this blueprint. Three rooms that we need to help our children fill out and plan and build. So as they seek to be men or women, we need to help them in the room of the home, in the room of the church, and in the room of society. These are the three areas where they're going to be called out to live specifically as men and specifically as women in the home, in the church, and in the broader society. So in the home, in the home, in the family, our sons, if the Lord permits, will be called to be husbands and fathers.

So as husbands and fathers in the home, in the room of the home, in the sphere of the home, husbands are called to be the leaders of their homes. Genesis 2 24 says that a son, a man is to leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. So there's a leaving and a cleaving. And this, it implies leadership. You're going out.

You're going out from the leadership of your parents to start a new household, a new family, of which you will be the patriarch, of which you will be the leader. So our sons will be called to be leaders of their own family units. We also see this in that in Scripture wives are called to submit to their husbands, but husbands are not called to submit to their wives. Out of context, citations of Ephesians 521, notwithstanding. This is the order that God has ordained in the home.

The husband is called to take responsibility for leadership. And part of what this looks like is that our sons will be called to provide for their homes. I think we see this in Genesis 2 and 3, that to work and keep the garden of Eden was the task first given to the man. And his wife was to help him in this, but this was first and foremost the man's calling. And after the fall, man is assumed to be the one who is to work the ground to provide food.

And only now in the curse, in Genesis 3, the work will be much harder. It will be a struggle for survival. Notwithstanding, nevertheless, God has specially called and equipped men to be providers. Now this isn't to say that women can't engage in business at all. They can't, you know, be like the Proverbs 31 woman and make money as well.

But it's the husband who is to see that as his primary calling. I'm the breadwinner for the family. When my wife has morning sickness and when she is taking care of a newborn baby, she doesn't also need to be bearing the primary burden of like, oh my, I've got to pay the bills. I've got to make sure food is on the table. Husbands, that's your job.

And so we need to help our sons from a young age understand that they are called to be providers, producers and not consumers. Our sons will be called to protect and sacrificially serve their homes and families. Men are to be protectors. We can learn this from nature, in that men are physically stronger than women, therefore to whom much is given, much is required, you know, you've got more strength, you've got a greater responsibility to use that strength to protect and serve. We also see in Scripture that in such things as in Israel, the men were expected to go out to war.

The men, not the women. In the prophets in passages such as Nahum 3.13 and Jeremiah 51.30, soldier and woman are taken as kind of opposites. You know, it wasn't a complimenting the military strength of the nations when God said that your soldiers are women. That wasn't a good thing. Men are to be the protectors and those who are to put their lives on the line to protect and serve.

And so men are to protect their homeland and their community, obviously. But their first primary responsibility is to be the protectors of their own homes and families. So our sons will be called to be providers, protectors. Now, switching gears for a second to the daughters, what are our daughters called to in the room of the home? What kind of blueprint do we give them?

Well, they will be called, if the Lord permits, to be wives and mothers. And this means that they will be called to love and submit to husbands, to help their husbands, to follow their husbands lead, so far as it's lawful in the Lord. It means that they will be called to nurture children, to show hospitality, to use the home and table as a place of welcome to those in need of friendship and care. I think we see this in Titus 2, the language of being keepers at home. What about in the church?

There's much more we could say there about being in the home, but what about as we help our children fill out the blueprint of what does it look like to be a man or woman in the church, in the room of the church, in the sphere of the church. We should give our sons and daughters tithes too. They have a responsibility, the younger men have a responsibility to first of all begin by listening to the older men in the church to be teachable. And so young men, if I could challenge you for a moment, it's great to have friends your own age and to hang out with other young men. But are you putting yourselves in positions to learn from the older men in the church?

Maybe one way you could do this, find an older guy at lunch, find a dad, a father, Go sit at the men's table at lunch. If your church has a fellowship meal, sit with the men, ask them questions. Just be a fly on the wall, listen. Watch and listen. Maybe ask one of the wise older men in the church as you're thinking about preparing for being a man and a husband and a father, hey, could I buy you lunch?

You offered to buy him lunch, right? Could I buy you lunch? And could you, on your part, share with me some things that would be good for me to know? Ask your own father but also ask other men in the church. The local church is to be a discipleship school for young men and young women as we see in Titus 2.

So learn from your own father by all means and also learn from other godly men in the church. This has been a huge part of my own spiritual formation. Learning from my dad's friends, these godly men that I came to call my own friends and mentors. It means that our daughters also learn from wise older women. I think of an example of a young lady named Emma, She's a godly wife and mother now.

And she just walked up to my wife one day after church and she said, hey, could you meet with me? Could you start meeting with me and help me learn about being a godly woman? I just wanna learn from you. I respect you, I wanna learn from you. Can I just come over to your house and and sit with you and now you know help you fold laundry or whatever?

But I want I want to learn from you. What a great example that that is So young ladies young men learn from those who are older than you in the church. And older folks, this is your calling as well, you know, invest in those who are younger. Teach them what it means to be a man or woman in the church. Then there's the room of society.

We should give our sons and daughters a blueprint for how to structure their lives as Christian men and women in society. And I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time here because time is short, but I'll just say that there are certain roles and tasks in society that are fitted to men and there are certain roles and tasks in society even careers you could say that are fitted to women. I was thinking about this recently but it's it's a beautiful thing when your wife's having a baby to have a woman there to deliver the baby. When there's a women's health issue to have a woman who is medically trained and who can help her deal with personal health issues. I don't know that we should be encouraging our sons to pursue those kinds of callings.

I don't know. Maybe those are those are things that are more fitted to gifted women. To our sons, to our daughters, to our daughters, we shouldn't be encouraging them to be political leaders, to be police officers, to be judges, to be soldiers. There are certain callings that are more fitted to men. These are where our sons need to feel the responsibility to their society, to their community.

So I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said there. I'm not gonna say too much there because I'm still learning. I'm still learning what this means. But I would encourage you to think about that. What roles in society are more fitted to sons?

And what roles in society are more fitted to women and how can we help our children see like in so far as you venture into the public sphere here is where you can serve your community after you've of course prioritizing your home but here's where you can serve the broader community. Here's where it probably wouldn't be good for you to serve the broader community because this doesn't really fit your calling as a man or a woman. So give your kids a blueprint. Give your kids a blueprint. Give them direction in this area.

Give them the instruction of the Lord. Help them see the specifics of what this looks like to live these things out. Fourth, help your children begin construction. So as one of the beautiful things about parents is we have our children in the home and we don't just, we can do more than just give them a blueprint of saying hey, here's what to do when the time comes. We can also pick up a hammer and some nails or a nail gun, and we can start helping them frame some of these walls and build some of these rooms.

We can get them started, especially in their teen years, but even younger than that. We can help our children get started so that they can kind of hit adulthood and they've already got some of the rooms built. They've already got a head start. They're not all of a sudden cast out in the world and like, man, where do I begin? Like I know all this stuff theoretically in my head, but I've actually, I've actually, I'm started, my parents have helped me get a start here.

So help your kids begin construction. Let me Just give a few suggestions. This is where I want to preface some of these things are not as these are just ways that I'm thinking could be good applications of Scripture, but there's going to be a variety of ways to do this. So don't take this as like, this is the only way to do it. Some of these things are gonna just be ideas as I was brainstorming.

Here's some ways that you could help your kids live out this blueprint that is laid out in scripture. For our sons, in their calling to be men in the home and the family. If it's true that they're called to be providers, what are some ways you can help your sons begin to build this in their manhood while they're still at home? Men need to learn a way to make money. You need to teach your sons how to work, obviously.

Is there something that you can pass on to your sons? A skill, how are you making money? Is there a way that you can take your sons with you to work or maybe teach them what you know how to do? So that maybe and maybe they don't pursue that as their career But maybe they have something to fall back upon they know how to make money They they graduate high school and they've got a way to provide if they needed to. Whenever I was a boy, I remember each summer, this was not optional.

This wasn't like if I felt like it. This was part of being a young man in the Seawald home. I had to go to work with my dad each summer. Three days a week and then four days a week and then five days a week as I got older. And I'd often work with him Saturdays during the rest of the year.

And he did auto glass. So he was determined to teach me his trade so that I would know how to provide. By the time I was in my late teens, He could pull up at a job site and if there were several cars lined up that needed windshields replaced, he could set me to work on one of them and he could do the others. I got to the point where I could do a whole windshield replacement by myself at about the age of 16 or 17. So I knew how to do it.

I had acquired some level of proficiency. I had a way where if I had to, I could take this skill and go get a job at an auto glass business. And now of course what this meant is that throughout my teen years I had to miss out on a lot of fun time, a lot of Saturdays that maybe my my friends were going to hang out and or vacations, summer vacation. Summer for me wasn't just vacation time. This was preparation, this was boot camp.

It was preparation for manhood. Especially because I didn't wanna, I wanted to get married pretty young. I didn't want to wait long into my adulthood to get married. I wanted to be ready to get married younger. And my father and other sermons that I'd heard just challenged me, if that's what you want, you've got to count the cost.

It's good for a young man to bear the yoke in his youth. And so that means that if you want that, if you want the blessings of getting married young and having a family, which by God's grace, he's given me, I can't do what a lot of American, even Christian young men are doing. I can't spend my summers the way they're spending them. I can't spend my Saturdays the way they're spending them. I remember I was, I loved to play video games whenever I was a kid.

My parents really limited me. But they would let me play certain computer games. I remember I was probably 15 or 16, sitting at the computer. My dad was walking out on his way to work. And at this point, I think he was trying to not just tell me what to do, everything, but he wanted me to like kind of, I want you to see this, I want you to make this decision on your own.

So he didn't, he didn't just tell me like son get off the computer. I'll sit in there playing this this computer game and he just kind of stopped and looked at me as he was out carrying his lunch box on the way out the door and he said, son, whenever I became a man I put away childish things. And I was just like, ooh. And then he kind of left the responsibility was in my court in a sense of like Okay, what am I gonna do with that? I'm gonna sit here and just keep playing this game or what so That challenged me.

I was like I know he's right and I need to man up you know I You know I can't I can't be using so much of my time just in entertainment when I'm preparing for this calling that God is calling me to. So there's sacrifice involved here. But again, if we've helped our sons see the glory and the beauty of biblical manhood, hopefully they'll see that this is a sacrifice worth making. You know, it's wonderful to play some games and enjoy some good times with friends, there's a time for that. But for everything, there's a season, right?

And I would argue that, especially in the teen years, as you're preparing for manhood, it's kind of like getting your fields ready for the harvest. During that time, during planting season, you farmers know, like, you're working some long days. There's not a whole lot of time for playing. There'll be time for that maybe later, but it's planting season. It's time to prepare, to get things ready.

And so I just want to kind of leave that challenge with you young man if you're in the room as well, listening to that. Count the cost, but it's worth it. It's worth it. You're gonna have to make some sacrifices, but they're worthwhile sacrifices. So, and fathers, you know, if you can, teach your sons what you know how to do.

Maybe it's easier said than done. Maybe you have a job where it's harder to take your sons along with you. Maybe this is a place though where the local church can be, can we can help each other out. Maybe you have a son that has a real interest in a certain kind of work. Maybe he just loves working with his hands.

You're a white-collar guy, but your son is like, I'm not sitting in an office. I've got to do something with my hands. Is there another father in the church who wouldn't mind letting your son kind of apprentice with him? Take him to work. Teach him how to know what he knows.

Teach him how to do what he knows how to do. I think this is where the local church can be a great, we can help each other out. You don't have to just do this on your own as a family. Like lean on each other. Help each other prepare your children for manhood.

So maybe there's another dad in the church that can apprentice your son. Now I didn't end up doing auto glass, but I knew how to provide. I learned how to work and I had something I could fall back on And that gave me such a confidence as I as I launched out into the world. And so, teach your sons how to do something. It doesn't have to be their dream job.

Guess what? Most jobs are not going to be your dream job. Work is, especially in this fallen world, work is a grind. It's tough. But teach your sons how to provide.

Men are called to be protectors. I don't think that means that we all need to have a black belt martial arts. But do they know the basics of how to use a gun? Can you teach them some of the basics of being aware of danger and dangerous situations, how to protect women and children from danger? My boys are still pretty young, but what I've tried, what I'm even at this age trying to instill in my sons is that you have strength as a man, even as a boy, you're stronger than your sisters, and you need to be prepared to Use that strength to protect your sisters and your mom.

Young men, as you're reaching the dating age and fathers, teach your sons how to protect women, how to be a gentleman, how to protect them from being in vulnerable situations. You know, you're not, you're not being a protector if you're taking your girlfriend out in the middle of the night to gaze at the stars in the woods all by yourself. You're not, you're not putting her in a good situation. You're teaching her that it's okay to be in kind of a vulnerable, maybe even dangerous situation. So be above reproach.

Teach your sons how to be protectors. Fathers are called to be teachers, as we see in Ephesians 6, 4. So are your boys learning the Scriptures and the key truths of the Christian faith so that they're prepared to teach their children? You know, maybe use the catechism as a teaching tool. I'm a Baptist, So, you know, the 1689 Baptist Catechism, Baptist Confession of Faith.

Little shout out there. You know, what about in the church? We're running a little short on time, so let's run through this a little bit, Speed up the pace here. But in the church, teach your sons the importance of church membership, of submitting, not just to your authority as a father, but as they become men, they're going to need to learn how to submit to the elders of the church. Hebrews 13, 17, obey your leaders and submit to them for their keeping watch over your souls.

Who are your leaders? Who are those men who are overseeing your souls as those who will have to give an account on the day of God? So teach your sons as they become men to begin to look to those elders as these are my authorities. I'm called to obey these men. They're my shepherds.

I'm accountable to them. Teach your sons Responsibility, not just to make money, but to give. To give back, to support the ministry of the Word. Are your teenage sons making money? This is something to teach them with their first paycheck.

You're sitting in church learning from and benefiting from the preaching of the Word, are you giving back to help support that ministry that you're benefiting from? What about daughters? Let's give some attention to daughters. How can we help them begin construction? What about in the home?

Well, for the most part, we're going to be preparing our daughters to be wives and mothers. And I would argue that this is true even if your daughters don't end up actually getting married. You know, not everyone. There are some people that Jesus talks about are single lifelong. But even if they are, even if you're, you know, like a single missionary, a large part of your calling is going to be wifely and motherly.

If you're going to fulfill the Great Commission, you've got to, like Titus too, teach other women what it looks like to love their husbands and children. So even if your daughter doesn't end up getting married, she still needs to know motherhood. She still needs to know how to be a wife in that sense and what God's word calls women to so she can teach other women what Christ has commanded. And so one way that we could begin to help our daughters do this Even while they're in the home, how we can help them begin construction is that we should give them experience caring for children. Can they help with their younger siblings or with other families in the church?

Maybe your daughter doesn't have little younger toddlers in the house. Is there another mom in the church who's got her hands full? Maybe she could use a little help getting ready for church in the morning on Sunday morning. Is maybe she could use some help during the week. So my wife's sister Jordan she's been coming over to our house helping my wife homeschool our kids.

It's a huge help to my wife. And she's learning whenever, you know, Lord willing, if she has kids one day of her own, she won't be like, man, I have no idea what I'm doing at homeschooling my kids. No, she's gonna be prepared. She's gonna kind of have an idea of what to expect and of what to do. So help your daughters get some experience.

Help them learn. Give them some responsibility. Can they as they reach the age where they can start to prepare meals, maybe you even say all right, let's, we have a budget, we gotta prepare a meal on a budget. So we're gonna go to the store and you gotta plan the meals for the next few days. You're gonna buy the ingredients, you're gonna cook, you're gonna prepare dinner for the family.

Let them make some mistakes, okay? It's part of learning. Like let them burn the biscuits a little bit, it's all right. But Show them grace, be patient, encourage them, but give them a little experience so that they're ready. They're not just kind of thrown into marriage and is like, oh, I do not know, I don't have any clue what I'm doing.

What about in the local church? Well, teach your daughters more than just the fact that, hey, you can't be an elder or deacon. All right, that's true. But What are they called to do? What are women called to do in the local church?

Titus too. What about 1 Timothy 5? Look at that passage later, and what it instructs the widows to do. 1 Timothy 5, 9 and 10. It says, this is talking to a single woman here, a widow in this case.

Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband. Listen to this, having a reputation for good works. If she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, has devoted herself to every good work. So give your daughters a vision for seeing needs within the local church. Maybe there's a widow who's living by herself.

She's lonely. She needs help cleaning the house. She needs someone to talk to. Maybe she needs an in-home caregiver. Give your daughters a vision for meeting the needs of the needy.

Help them see those who are hurting and confused. Just a couple other practical things. It's not bad to get a little bit of medical knowledge, get a nursing degree. You know, you can use that as a mother, having a little bit of how to do CPR, a great skill for a mom to have. Maybe a biblical counseling degree, Biblical counseling certification.

So much of parenting is counseling, and you want your daughters within the local church as they talk to other women and disciple other women to give good, sound biblical counsel from God's Word, but also as they have their own children, to be able to help their children understand the roots of their anger, of their anxiety, and how to deal with those things biblically. So if your daughters are single and they've got a lot of time on their hands, hey, get a biblical counseling degree. That's okay. Learn how to get some skills that would be a benefit to your family and to the local church, to other women in the local church. Well, there's much more we could say.

I hope that I've at least given you guys some ideas. There's a lot of flexibility, I'm sure, on the specifics of how to help your children begin construction, but the idea is if we're going to help our children, if we're going to help our sons grow to be men or our daughters grow to be women, we need to teach them the gospel. We need to help them build on the solid ground foundation of the grace of God, the mercies of God. We need to furthermore help them lay a doctrinal foundation of God's good design for men and for women. We need to give them a specific blueprint of what it looks like.

What am I as a man? What am I as a woman? What am I called to? And then fourth, help them begin construction. Come alongside them and help them put up a few walls in this house.

Now if I could add one last thing in closing, it would simply be to accompany all of these efforts with continual, fervent prayer. Because we can plant, we can water. As one of my deacons says, my 90 year old deacon, he says, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. So We need the miracle of God's grace in the hearts of each of our children. It's God who gives the growth.

Apart from Him, we can do nothing. To raise a boy to be a true man, a Christian man, and a daughter to be the woman she was meant to be, not just a woman, but a Christian woman, must ultimately come from God. So let us thank him for giving us a part in this marvelous work, but let us humbly and desperately continue to pray earnestly for the joy of seeing our children walk in the truth. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you that you have called us as fathers and mothers to pass on these glorious truths to the next generation.

Lord, I pray that as we think about how to do that, some of the specific ways we could do that in our homes, within the local church, even in society, oh God, there's so much to consider, but I pray Lord that we would, whatever our hands find to do, we would do with all our might and that each one here would have something that they can take away from this talk and find find some benefit for their homes and for their families. We pray these things to the glory of your name in Jesus name, amen.