Advice for Fathers of Sons

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:02.000 | Matt Kaporal from Dawsonville, Georgia writes in, "Pastor John,

00:00:09.360 | I have read several of your books and followed you for a while now.

00:00:12.480 | I would just like to share with you that this past year at the T4G conference, after you preached,

00:00:17.500 | I was able to see you when you went backstage.

00:00:19.920 | I saw you weeping and the Lord used that greatly in my life.

00:00:24.360 | It was refreshing to see a man who does not put up a front on stage,

00:00:28.040 | but a man broken and humble before the Lord backstage.

00:00:32.200 | Here's my question.

00:00:33.880 | What is the one thing you would say to a man about to be, for the first time, a father of a son?"

00:00:39.960 | Well, I'm not sure the connection that Matt sees between tears behind stage

00:00:51.720 | and a question about what to say to a father of a new son.

00:00:58.440 | But one does not have to look far to find connections between tears and fathering a son.

00:01:11.000 | So the way he asked the question triggers the way I'm answering the question.

00:01:16.200 | Maybe the first thing to say to this dad would be, "Are you ready to weep?"

00:01:22.760 | That is, "Are you ready to love?"

00:01:26.040 | There is no love in this world without tears.

00:01:30.920 | None.

00:01:32.060 | It is a world of sin and sickness and futility and calamity and suffering and death.

00:01:38.680 | All that will touch your son and yourself through your son.

00:01:46.280 | Of course, you will laugh and rejoice.

00:01:49.240 | You will laugh more than you have ever laughed, and he will make you happy.

00:01:56.360 | But you need little preparation for that, right?

00:02:01.000 | What you need preparation for is the sorrows.

00:02:04.200 | He will be sick, and you won't be able to fix it.

00:02:08.360 | He will have behaviors you cannot comprehend.

00:02:13.720 | Right across the spectrum from oddities to autism.

00:02:16.680 | And he can't comprehend them either sometimes.

00:02:20.440 | He will be rejected by his friends, and he will endure sadness so deep

00:02:28.440 | that you'd do anything to lift the darkness for him.

00:02:32.200 | He will suffer losses, and you will hold him on your shoulder as he heaves with sobs.

00:02:40.680 | He will lose his job or worse, and you won't have the power to give it back.

00:02:46.360 | And worst of all, he may lose his faith and lose his respect for his father.

00:02:52.040 | You will wonder what you have done.

00:02:54.760 | So my first word to Matt is, "Are you ready to weep?"

00:02:59.320 | Because if you're about to have a son, get ready to love and get ready to weep.

00:03:05.400 | Get a vision of the sovereignty of God and the grace of God that will support you

00:03:12.760 | in the saddest times of your life, for that's what family means.

00:03:18.600 | The happiest and the saddest times of your life are on the way.

00:03:25.800 | Second, I would say to this new father, "Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.

00:03:34.520 | Above all, love him with your heart."

00:03:37.880 | That is, enjoy knowing God.

00:03:41.000 | Enjoy belonging to God.

00:03:44.040 | Enjoy being created and bought and owned by God.

00:03:48.520 | Enjoy being addressed by God in his word.

00:03:52.360 | Let your boy see you reveling in the word of God.

00:03:59.080 | Enjoy being guided by God.

00:04:02.040 | Let the boy see you, you too, are ignorant and need a father to give you counsel in his word.

00:04:11.000 | Enjoy being strengthened by God and let the boy see you are weak and need a father to help you.

00:04:18.840 | Let your whole life be full of God and full of glad responses to God.

00:04:25.480 | And let this son of yours see God in your enjoyment of God.

00:04:32.760 | Let him see that God has standards how to live, but let him see that it's an easy yoke

00:04:40.920 | and it's a light burden as his dad experiences to walk in these standards because of the work

00:04:47.880 | of Christ and because of the presence of the Holy Spirit and because of the hope of everlasting joy.

00:04:55.320 | So out rejoice all those who commend to your son other gods.

00:05:01.480 | That's number two.

00:05:03.080 | Number three, I would say to this father, love your wife.

00:05:10.040 | This boy will learn to be a man by watching you and at the heart of manhood is how a man loves

00:05:18.440 | his wife. Cherish her obviously, verbally, manifestly with your hands and face and arms

00:05:28.600 | and the direction you lean and pull in.

00:05:32.280 | Lavish her with affection and let him see it.

00:05:37.560 | Let him see daddy really likes mommy.

00:05:41.400 | Daddy enjoys mommy.

00:05:44.040 | Daddy respects mommy.

00:05:45.960 | Daddy helps mommy.

00:05:48.040 | Daddy protects mommy.

00:05:50.040 | Daddy leads mommy.

00:05:52.280 | Daddy is really happy to have mommy for his wife.

00:05:57.320 | Don't put on any shows for this kid.

00:06:01.320 | He will know the difference.

00:06:02.840 | Really love her.

00:06:05.400 | Love her.

00:06:06.360 | Treasure her manifestly.

00:06:09.400 | Number four, I had two more.

00:06:14.280 | I would say to this new father of a new son, love the church.

00:06:20.600 | Love the people of God.

00:06:23.560 | Speak well of the saints.

00:06:25.640 | Speak with joyful thankfulness of the history of the saints and the work of the saints and

00:06:31.800 | the fellowship of the saints.

00:06:33.720 | Lift up the heroes of the saints dead and alive.

00:06:37.720 | Celebrate God's faithfulness in the lives of saints.

00:06:42.120 | Take your son to church and love doing it.

00:06:46.440 | When he is tiny, a tiny tot, take him into the worship service.

00:06:51.880 | Don't send him off to children's church.

00:06:53.880 | Take him with you and let him see you from the earliest years, three or four years old.

00:07:00.840 | Let him see you.

00:07:02.200 | Hold him.

00:07:03.080 | Let him see you worshiping.

00:07:04.440 | Let him feel your chest as you sing.

00:07:08.840 | The mighty fortress is our God.

00:07:12.200 | Let him see you lift your other hand that's not holding him so he can feel your praises.

00:07:21.160 | Let him see you bow your head in sorrow for your sin and rise triumphant in the assurance

00:07:27.400 | of pardon.

00:07:28.920 | Let him see you hang on the pastor's words and write things down.

00:07:34.040 | And then when you go home, speak well of the leaders of your church and let him see you

00:07:40.600 | love the church.

00:07:42.040 | And the last thing I would say to this dad is love your enemies.

00:07:47.160 | Let bitterness and anger and murmuring and grumbling be put away from you.

00:07:54.120 | Pray for those who disagree with you.

00:07:57.000 | Count others more significant than yourselves, friends and foes.

00:08:03.080 | Count them as worthy of your service.

00:08:06.040 | Let your son see you serving the people you don't like.

00:08:12.040 | Have the mind of Christ who came to serve his enemies.

00:08:16.360 | And he came a long way down.

00:08:19.320 | He came to die and to save his enemies.

00:08:22.200 | Let the boy see that it is a glorious thing to love your enemies.

00:08:28.360 | Let him see the difference between a wishy-washy spineless compromise and real love of those

00:08:35.960 | you disagree with.

00:08:37.720 | In other words, I would say to this dad, be happy, loving, be a weeping, happy, loving

00:08:45.800 | father full of God, full of truth, full of joy.

00:08:49.080 | Wonderful and sobering.

00:08:51.800 | Thank you, Pastor John, for those wise words for all of us fathers of sons.

00:08:55.880 | Out rejoice all of those who are commending your sons other gods.

00:08:59.880 | That's so good.

00:09:00.680 | So helpful.

00:09:01.320 | There's another episode on father's parenting toward joy, which is episode number 255,

00:09:07.560 | Dad's Role in Homemaking is what we titled it.

00:09:10.360 | You can find that episode and almost 500 others in our free app for the Apple and Android

00:09:15.080 | devices.

00:09:15.640 | See your app store and just search for Ask Pastor John.

00:09:19.000 | Tomorrow we close out the week addressing whether a man's video game addiction is a

00:09:24.280 | marriage deal breaker, a young woman who is engaged to a serial gamer wants to know and

00:09:29.160 | tomorrow Pastor John will offer his thoughts.

00:09:31.160 | Please continue to send us your email questions to askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org and visit

00:09:37.080 | us online at desiringgod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons, and other resources

00:09:42.040 | from John Piper, all free of charge.

00:09:44.840 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:09:45.800 | Thanks for listening to this podcast.

00:09:50.920 | [END]

00:09:51.960 | Desiring God.

00:09:52.440 | [ Silence ]

Advice for Fathers of Sons

Chapters