In the sermon 'Preparing to Provide' by Jason Dohm, based on 1st Timothy 5:8, the primary focus is on the duty of fathers to prepare their sons to be providers for their households. The sermon emphasizes that failing to provide for one's family is considered a denial of faith, highlighting the biblical expectation for men to assume responsibility for their families' financial well-being. Dohm outlines four key actions for fathers: helping sons understand the importance of providing, teaching them to work hard and efficiently, guiding them towards financially rewarding work, and ensuring they understand the importance of rest and worship. The sermon also underscores the need for sons to recognize the financial realities of different occupations and to aim for more than just subsistence living, advocating for a Christian ethic of provision that includes the ability to help others. Fathers are encouraged to have open discussions with their sons about career aspirations and family budgeting to further prepare them for future responsibilities.

You can open your Bibles to 1st Timothy chapter 5. God, I thank you that you have given us time, a time that's less hurried than often our times together are an unhurried time to consider matters that are important. And I pray that you wouldn't allow us to come and go unmoved, unchanged, but that you would, the result of our time would be that you've helped us. Please let your spirit be here moving, helping us, moving us forward in Jesus name, Amen. Well my text is 1st Timothy 5-8 and the title of the message is preparing to provide.

Fathers have a duty to help their sons prepare to be providers. Please follow along as I read 1st Timothy 5 verse 8. Paul writes this to Timothy. But if anyone does not provide for his own and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. If anyone does not provide for his own, And especially for those of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

We could establish the principle that men ought to provide for their families from other places in scripture, but this is the most blunt. All you need is a single verse and it puts it in really terrifying terms. The failure to provide is actually a denial of Christianity is what Paul says. I didn't say that, Paul says it. As Vody says, I didn't write the mail, I just deliver it.

The expectation from Scripture is that a man provides for his household. If not, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So you can look at the pronouns and tell that Paul is writing to men, men who have households, they are to provide for the household and if he doesn't provide the man, he doesn't provide, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Why is that? Because God has placed a wife in his care, he has given a man a wife and placed that wife in his care, and then children in that man's care for their care, for provision, there to be provided for.

If God gives you a wife, one of the reasons is to care for her. God's intent is to care for this daughter. Now if we're talking about Christian marriages, we're talking about daughters of Zion, daughters of the king. The king gives a daughter into a man's household for her care, to be provided for. And then the children that come in to the home as the fruit of that marriage.

So if that man doesn't provide for his household, it is equivalent to a denial of something that God has clearly commanded him to do. God says do this and the man says I won't do that. It is a denial of a clear commandment. I think the implication is this, even Unbelievers understand this. Even unbelievers do this.

So it is a reproach to the faith. Unbelievers looking on reproach Christianity when a professing Christian man won't do this. They say, who would want to be a Christian? It is a disgrace to Christianity when a professing Christian man doesn't provide for his household, and our sons need to hear that from an early age. That's what this verse of scripture says.

It is a reproach to the faith. It is a disgrace to Christianity when a professing Christian man doesn't provide for his household. Does that mean that a wife can't engage in economic activity, that a wife can't earn money? No, I think Proverbs 31 is clear enough on that point. But she is to be overwhelmingly home-based.

Titus II and other places established that she is to be a keeper at home And it is the financial provision of a husband that enables that. How is a woman to be overwhelmingly home-based, to be a keeper at home, if that is not financially enabled by a husband's provision? It only works that way. So boys and young men, talking to the sons here, boys and young men, that is the target. And that is a firm target.

I don't know how it could get more firm than that when God says to not hit this target is to deny the faith and be worse than unbeliever because even the unbelievers get this even the unbelievers do this. Boys and young men God has called you to this in no uncertain terms. And dads. That means that part of our duty to bring up sons in the training and admonition of the Lord, Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4, fathers bring up your children in the training and admonition of the Lord is to admonish our sons. Son, God has called you to this.

Obedience to God requires this. And then to train them so that they're actually prepared to do it. So there's a runway to this end state where you're providing for yourself and your household. So we're responsible for the runway. We have to help them prepare.

We need to admonish them. God calls you to this and then train them. The runway belongs to us and we need to make sure they launch off the runway. We have to help them prepare. So let me give you four things dads I think we can do as we are on the runway with our sons helping them to launch This is for dads what we need to be teaching but sons this is what what what dads are teaching you are to teach you so just sons this just consider this the first dose okay and then dads you take it from here give the give the doses to come.

Number one, dads, help your son understand providing. Help your son understand providing. Teach your son that he is responsible to provide for himself and his family. Make him very familiar with 1st Timothy 5 verse 8. Teach your son that a man provides through thorns and thistles and the sweat of his brow." Last night, Genesis chapter 3.

So, work isn't bad, work is part of God's original pre-fall design, amen to that. It can be very satisfying, but it's not always very satisfying. Sometimes it's very discouraging and frustrating. Sometimes you think you're going to lose your mind. Teach your son that a man provides through thorns and thistles and the sweat of his brow.

De-romanticize vocation. You've seen the men who are chasing self-actualization, whatever that is, who are, curse you Maslow if you've been through educational theory you know what I'm talking about, curse you Maslow, who are chasing self-fulfillment through their work. Now work can be fulfilling and it's great if you enjoy your work but if you don't enjoy your work God's calling is still for you to provide and God gives us a whole life a full life for our fulfillment and there are certain things that only God can fulfill and I've seen men chase things through work that God never told us to chase through work and it's a never-ending journey of stop to stop to stop and they never find it at any of the stops because God hasn't designed work to be that in your life. So de-romanticize provision for your son and make sure they know sometimes it's through thorns and thistles and sweat and sometimes You're going to think it's all thorns thistles and sweat now won't be that way forever but sometimes it feels like that and that's part of Providing sometimes Number one, help your son understand providing. Don't have them chasing life fulfillment through providing.

You know it's okay to work for money. It's okay to work for money. It's okay to work for money. It's good to work for money. Your family needs money.

Work for money. Number two, dads, help your son prepare to provide. Number two, help your son prepare to provide. Help him learn to work. They start out a lot of play and a little work and the ratio needs to shift over time.

I'm not talking about stealing childhood from your children, like turning your home into a sweatshop. I know that at the beginning there's a lot of play and a little work, but as time goes by there's less play and more work progressively. And that's good and that should happen. If your son is the one who disappears when it's time to work, if you have enough children you have one or more of that, like okay it's time to work, Where do they go? It's like a disappearing act.

It's magic in your house. Okay, put a stop to that. Help him to learn to do good work. Your son needs to hear you say, this is not up to standard sometimes. When the work's not up to standard, you need to say, this isn't good enough, do it again.

And when it's great work to be praised for great work. Son that's unbelievable that's done just right. I love it when it's done just right. Quality of work matters a lot. Don't accept substandard work from your sons.

Help him learn to do a lot of good work. It's not just quality of work that matters to an employer, correct? And let's say you start your own business, you still have an employer, people are still paying you. The boss just shifts to the customer. Quantity of work matters a lot if the quality is good or great.

Some people, some of our children, will do it just perfect and they'll do a half a day. That's not going to get it when you're trying to provide. So help him to learn to work, help him to learn to do good work, help him learn to do a lot of good work, to work quickly, to work efficiently. Work quickly, to work efficiently. Number three, dads help your son prepare to do financially valuable work.

All honest work is honorable. Not all honest work is equally financially rewarded in our system. And you can't afford to be naive about that. So praise God for honest work. It is honorable.

But our system doesn't financially reward everything alike. Our economic system values different kinds of work radically differently. Help your son identify something that the market values. We can complain about the values that the marketplace enacts, but I don't know how that helps us. Help your son identify something that the market values and will reward them financially for.

Help your son understand the difference between a higher earning life and a lower earning life. I'm not talking about chasing riches here, I'm talking about the reality that financial pressures are real and they impact your marriage. You know your son needs to hear that from your mouth. Son financial pressures are a real thing and they impact your life and they impact your marriage. I'm not saying your marriage can't survive it, I'm saying it has an impact.

You need to think through these things. There is a difference between a higher earning life and a lower earning life. And I'm not talking about chasing riches. I went to school for four years to become qualified to be a school teacher. That school teaching is an honest living, can be honorable work, but I actually wanted to have a family life that was disconnected from the income potential.

And nobody said to me, you're going to spend four years training for something that has a financial reality that's disconnected from the kind of home life that you're actually hoping to have. That would have been a helpful discussion. God was very kind to me in spite of all this. But in hindsight, I don't want my son saying, dad I really wish you would have this conversation with me, that I was preparing to do something that was so disconnected from the future that I wanted for my home. And those things were never going to add up.

Here's what Ephesians 4.28 says. Ephesians 4.28, let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. So He's actually addressing people who have been stealing, says, don't do that anymore. Rather, labor, do good, work with your hands, what is good, that you may have something to give to him who has need. So Paul is actually calling for a level of provision not just barely for yourself but also that you'll have extra out of which to help others.

So subsistence living is contrary to the Christian ethic. Subsistence living is, okay, I need $779 a month to live, so When I've earned my $779, I'm good for the month. Young men can live on almost nothing, But we need to teach them that's not what we're trying to do. We're not trying to live on almost nothing. We're actually trying to prepare for a future where you have a family, you can provide for the family and actually you have money in your budget to help others who need.

That's the Christian ethic. That's what Paul is saying in Ephesians 4 28. Number four, and I'm done. Number four, dad, help your son know when not to work. Teach him early on that God has given his people one day in seven for what scripture calls holy rest.

Rest and worship. Either worshipful rest or restful worship. However you want to think about it. But it's a holy rest. It's not just a day of idol time.

But it's, the Peartons called it the market day of the soul. It's the day to feed your soul and feast on God. God has given His people that. Teach your sons that. Why is that important?

Because the world is so quickly losing a concept of that. So now you have to fight for it. You have to fight for it. And if you don't draw the line and say this is how I'm going to live, then the world's gonna say we don't acknowledge that. If you don't insist on it, you won't get it.

If you don't aim for it, you won't get it. But you need it. Okay, your body needs it. Your mind needs it, and more than anything else, your soul needs it. So angle for that now.

Let's pray. God help us be faithful to our sons. Help us to bring them up in the training and ammunition of the Lord to admonish them of what you've called them to and then to help them prepare for these things, train them for it. Thank you for these sons that you've given us. God I thank you for how faithful you are as a provider to us and I pray that you would help us to be like you.

Thank you for giving us what we need. Pray in Jesus name, Amen. So we're actually going to huddle up in family groups for fathers to talk to their sons. I have two questions for you to ask, to talk about in your groups. Number one, ask your son what occupation he would like to learn about.

What occupation do you want to learn about? And then interact on that. You might say, I want to be a professional clown. Painted face, traveling with the circus, that will give you some things to interact on. Ask your son what occupation you want to learn about and then just make that a project.

You can help him learn about it. Two, ask your son what he thinks are the three biggest items in your budget. Son, we spend money on stuff every month, required. What do you think are the three biggest items and then interact on that. Our sons need to understand what a family budget looks like, what the big things in a family budget are.

All right, go.