Leadership Seminar 4: Leadership in the Home - Chris Hamilton
00:00:00.000 | If you didn't get a handout, they are spread around the room and I would encourage you
00:00:07.000 | to get that.
00:00:08.000 | It will help you as we move pretty quickly through the material.
00:00:12.800 | The leadership in the family is a big topic and it required a lot of discipline on my
00:00:19.240 | part to keep it narrowed down.
00:00:23.020 | And Deuteronomy 6 is a very familiar passage.
00:00:26.480 | If you have your Bible, turn to it, it's a familiar passage and it's a familial passage.
00:00:33.640 | Family is all over it.
00:00:34.880 | In that one chapter, there's nine references to sons or children, four references to the
00:00:40.840 | father, one to grandchildren and by reference to the grandparents, there's five references
00:00:46.240 | to the house or the home.
00:00:49.700 | Verse two addresses you and your son and your grandson and it speaks directly to what should
00:00:55.140 | be happening inside your home, in the privacy of your home, where you think it may not matter.
00:01:02.440 | So for all of that, you might think tonight is about parenting or it's going to be about
00:01:07.200 | marriage and it really isn't about either.
00:01:10.200 | It's not directly about parenting, although there's a lot of that in Deuteronomy 6.
00:01:15.120 | It's not about marriage, although there's a lot of application to marriage in Deuteronomy
00:01:19.320 | 6.
00:01:21.200 | This session is about your leadership.
00:01:26.360 | Deuteronomy 6 describes the character and the role of the leader of the home in a consolidated
00:01:33.220 | way unlike really any other passage that I found.
00:01:37.720 | As you well know by now, spiritual leadership is marked by knowing, living and teaching
00:01:45.760 | the Word of God and living an exemplary life.
00:01:49.760 | Tonight, the focus is on what you say and how you live as you lead in your home.
00:01:57.280 | If you're a husband, a father, a grandfather or you aspire to any of those, tonight is
00:02:05.400 | for you.
00:02:07.920 | There will be undeniable and obvious application to marriage and to parenting and it actually
00:02:13.540 | may raise a lot of questions about that.
00:02:16.800 | And I want to encourage you, I'm available afterwards as are your small group leaders
00:02:20.760 | to answer those questions and the Grace Church website has an abundance of content on all
00:02:27.440 | of that.
00:02:28.880 | My discipline tonight is to talk to you men about you and about your leadership, about
00:02:35.720 | how you conduct yourself in your home and I'm going to start tonight with two stories.
00:02:40.620 | The first story is set in the late 1920s, Al Capone virtually owned and terrorized Chicago.
00:02:48.800 | He was a vicious gangster and a mob boss.
00:02:52.660 | He was a cold-blooded killer.
00:02:55.480 | His reign of terror was assisted by corrupt politicians, a public that loved him because
00:03:01.320 | he paid them to love him.
00:03:04.340 | They were charmed and he had a partner and a friend named Eddie.
00:03:09.900 | He was a lawyer, nicknamed Easy Eddie and Eddie was his lawyer for a very good reason.
00:03:17.300 | He was very good and he was utterly corrupt.
00:03:22.020 | In fact, Easy Eddie's skill at legal maneuvering corruption and buying off juries was so pronounced
00:03:28.740 | that he kept Al Capone, Scarface, out of jail for anything other than what they finally
00:03:34.580 | got him for which was tax evasion.
00:03:38.580 | To show his appreciation, Capone paid Eddie very well and as a result, Eddie and his family
00:03:45.660 | lived in a mansion that was fenced in, occupied an entire block of downtown Chicago.
00:03:55.060 | With all the luxury and safety and power that that wealth could bring him, Easy Eddie had
00:04:02.140 | a son that he loved dearly and despite his own deep involvement with organized crime,
00:04:09.660 | Eddie tried to isolate his son and his family from the life that he was living and he tried
00:04:14.820 | to teach his son right from wrong.
00:04:17.500 | At some point, Eddie began to realize that there were two things he couldn't possibly
00:04:22.820 | give his son.
00:04:24.700 | He couldn't give him a good name or a good example.
00:04:29.580 | It's said that because of this, Eddie initiated contact with law enforcement and told the
00:04:34.980 | truth about his own crimes and the crimes of Al Capone.
00:04:40.220 | His cooperation was his attempt to clean his tarnished image, his tarnished name and offer
00:04:46.300 | his son some evidence of repentance, making right all the things that he had done wrong.
00:04:55.120 | He would have to testify against Al Capone and the mob and he knew it would cost a lot.
00:05:01.940 | Al Capone was indeed convicted.
00:05:03.660 | He went to prison and several years later and one week before Al Capone was released
00:05:08.960 | from prison, Easy Eddie was assassinated in broad daylight on a street in downtown Chicago.
00:05:17.980 | He paid the price most expected he would pay.
00:05:22.780 | Story number two.
00:05:25.260 | World War II produced a number of heroes obviously and you probably know many of them.
00:05:30.000 | One such man was a 28-year-old Lieutenant Commander Butch O'Hare.
00:05:35.680 | He was a fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific.
00:05:41.680 | One day his entire squadron was sent on a mission.
00:05:45.020 | The ship was emptied of all airplanes to go on this mission and after O'Hare was airborne
00:05:51.840 | and in formation, he realized that his fuel tanks had not been topped off and consequently
00:05:57.540 | he didn't have enough fuel to accomplish the mission and get back to the ship.
00:06:02.720 | The flight commander ordered him to drop out of the formation and return to the ship.
00:06:09.560 | As he was returning to the Lexington, he saw a squadron of nine Japanese bombers heading
00:06:15.640 | for the aircraft carrier group.
00:06:19.840 | Laying aside all thoughts of his personal safety and the commander's orders to return
00:06:25.160 | directly to the ship, he dove into that formation of Japanese bombers and he charged in with
00:06:31.480 | his .50 caliber wing mounted guns attacking one enemy plane and then another until he
00:06:37.720 | finally ran out of ammunition.
00:06:40.420 | With no more ammunition, he began to dive at the other planes using his plane as a weapon
00:06:45.400 | trying to clip a wing or clip a tail to damage as many enemy planes as possible and render
00:06:51.680 | them unfit to fly.
00:06:55.140 | Finally that Japanese squadron broke off the attack and turned towards home.
00:07:00.600 | But O'Hare returned to the Lexington, managed to land the plane, his damaged fighter.
00:07:06.160 | He related a few of the events surrounding the encounter, but he humbly left out most
00:07:11.680 | of the story.
00:07:13.160 | However, the film from the gun camera mounted on his airplane told the tale.
00:07:20.600 | He had in fact destroyed five enemy aircraft and he was credited with saving thousands
00:07:27.040 | of lives and the USS Lexington.
00:07:31.760 | This took place on February 20, 1942 and for that action, Butch became the U.S. Navy's
00:07:38.880 | first ace of World War II and the first naval aviator to win the Congressional Medal of
00:07:44.700 | Honor.
00:07:45.700 | A year later at 29 years of age, he led the first ever nighttime launch of fighter planes
00:07:53.820 | for an attack in World War II.
00:07:56.980 | He never returned.
00:07:58.660 | He was shot down and killed that night.
00:08:01.860 | And in Butch O'Hare's honor in 1949, Chicago's Orchard Depot Airport was renamed to this
00:08:09.140 | day, you know it as, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
00:08:15.840 | Years ago I was passing through O'Hare on a business trip and I saw a small display
00:08:19.880 | behind the security checkpoint at gate one.
00:08:24.800 | A long layover and that little plaque on the wall and some curiosity led me down the
00:08:31.820 | trail of the story it told and the rest of the story it did not tell.
00:08:37.400 | It didn't tell the whole story.
00:08:40.060 | What do these two stories have to do with each other?
00:08:43.620 | Most people don't know and I certainly did not know that one of the busiest airports
00:08:47.000 | in the world is in Chicago and it's named after Butch O'Hare, the son of Easy Eddie.
00:08:54.760 | Al Capone's best friend, his partner in crime, and his attorney, Butch O'Hare was Easy
00:09:01.720 | Eddie's son.
00:09:04.700 | You all know the influence of a father or the lack of influence and relationship with
00:09:10.440 | a father.
00:09:11.440 | You all have a father.
00:09:13.400 | Whether they're alive or not, you knew you have a father and my assumption is tonight
00:09:19.300 | that you are all fathers or you aspire to be a father.
00:09:23.560 | I want to consider the opportunity you have as a father and as the leader of your home.
00:09:29.520 | Your influence there is profound.
00:09:31.240 | It is unmatched by any other influence you will ever have on this earth.
00:09:36.000 | Your position as leader in the home is a God-given gift and all too often it's a blown opportunity.
00:09:44.160 | I wonder if any of you think about how your leadership in your home is viewed by those
00:09:48.680 | whom you lead, your wife, your children, your grandchildren, or how your children and grandchildren
00:09:57.520 | will describe your leadership in the future, maybe even after you're gone.
00:10:03.680 | For example, when your children start to have those conversations about you, about your
00:10:09.560 | leadership in the home, and they will, you will not be there to hear it or to fix the
00:10:16.160 | story or to make it sound better, to make it sound more friendly to you.
00:10:23.000 | It will be well past your ability to change the story, whatever it is, it is, for better
00:10:29.760 | or worse.
00:10:31.880 | Will that story be about a godly pattern or at least a trajectory that reflects the work
00:10:39.120 | of Christ in you?
00:10:41.840 | I mention trajectory because some of you have a terrible past to overcome.
00:10:47.480 | Some of you might have a terrible current pattern to change and overcome.
00:10:54.720 | Hopefully that change isn't as dramatic as E.Z.
00:10:57.680 | Eddie's challenges.
00:11:00.280 | Philippians 3.13 says this, and you should be encouraged by this, "Brothers, I do not
00:11:05.480 | consider myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies
00:11:11.840 | behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press towards the goal for the prize of
00:11:21.120 | the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
00:11:24.540 | The grace and mercy in those verses should absolutely overwhelm you.
00:11:31.980 | It should encourage you to examine yourself tonight and change course if needed.
00:11:38.400 | E.Z. Eddie didn't live long enough to see the effect of the changes he made in his life
00:11:43.580 | and the change of the trajectory in his life and how that affected his son.
00:11:48.960 | You might get to see that.
00:11:51.800 | That matters.
00:11:54.120 | The leadership of the man, the male, in the home was established in Genesis 2 and sadly
00:12:01.640 | illustrated through the failure and sin of Adam in Genesis 3.
00:12:08.000 | The man is the leader at home regardless of whether you want to lead or you don't.
00:12:15.320 | It's not optional.
00:12:18.160 | You might be familiar with the Proverbs 31 woman.
00:12:20.640 | Have you heard of the Proverbs 31 woman?
00:12:23.120 | It's a passage that famously describes the ideal woman.
00:12:29.640 | It's the passage that says, "An excellent wife who can find for her worth is above all
00:12:34.640 | pearls," and it goes on from there.
00:12:37.600 | Proverbs 31 is not a checklist of criticisms and shortcomings.
00:12:42.280 | It is the aspiration of a woman and a reminder to men that we should be encouraging our wife
00:12:47.800 | and appreciating our wife and delineating those things that we should appreciate and
00:12:52.220 | encourage in our wife and our daughters.
00:12:57.720 | Taking a similar approach to Deuteronomy 6 tonight, this is not a session to enumerate
00:13:02.480 | all of your failures and your weaknesses.
00:13:06.560 | This is the ideal.
00:13:09.040 | Nobody has this wired perfectly.
00:13:11.760 | Man, you need to be encouraged by what you can be encouraged by tonight and we need to
00:13:17.200 | be reminded, encouraged, and even warned in the areas that need work for what we are going
00:13:23.120 | to look at tonight is normal.
00:13:26.480 | It's expected.
00:13:27.800 | It's what a leader in the home should look like.
00:13:31.560 | Deuteronomy is a series of sermons and statements made by Moses at the age of 120.
00:13:37.960 | It's understood that it was probably a couple of weeks before he went to heaven.
00:13:43.680 | The focus and application tonight is the character of the man described in Deuteronomy 6 that
00:13:49.020 | leads the family from the inspired perspective of an old man at the end of his days on this
00:13:56.200 | earth.
00:13:58.200 | So let's jump in to Deuteronomy 6.
00:14:03.080 | There's some things we're going to look at that I think flow right out of the passage.
00:14:08.800 | Seven marks of a Deuteronomy 6 man or a man who is a leader in his home.
00:14:14.400 | The first one is that he is a learner.
00:14:17.480 | Deuteronomy 6 starts verse 1.
00:14:21.340 | Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments.
00:14:24.480 | Those three phrases are used elsewhere.
00:14:27.000 | For example, Psalm 19, 7 to 10 to describe the Bible, the word of God.
00:14:35.040 | The commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to
00:14:40.080 | teach you.
00:14:42.440 | And we stop there.
00:14:44.380 | When you see that there's a teacher, there's always a what?
00:14:48.560 | A learner.
00:14:50.280 | And the Deuteronomy 6 man is a learner.
00:14:54.040 | The first thing the preacher does is aim at you.
00:14:57.840 | You must be committed to the lifelong pursuit of learning God's Word.
00:15:04.160 | This is contrary to the popular view of manhood that says you already have all the answers
00:15:08.840 | at some point.
00:15:10.540 | You don't.
00:15:12.960 | That might be news to some of you.
00:15:15.940 | Biblical manhood is a lifelong pursuit of learning God's Word and His wisdom and I'm
00:15:20.320 | comfortable saying that to you regardless of your age because the Bible says that.
00:15:26.760 | In Proverbs chapter 1 verse 5, a wise man will hear an increase in learning until he
00:15:31.900 | gets married.
00:15:32.900 | Is that what it says?
00:15:36.000 | Or a wise man will hear an increase in learning until his children are finally out of the
00:15:40.640 | house.
00:15:43.000 | There is no end to this.
00:15:45.840 | None of that's there.
00:15:46.840 | A wise man will hear an increase in learning and a man of understanding will acquire wise
00:15:52.240 | counsel.
00:15:53.240 | No age limit.
00:15:54.240 | No expiration date.
00:15:56.640 | The leader of the home is a learner.
00:15:59.360 | Goes on in verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
00:16:02.840 | Fools despise wisdom and destruction.
00:16:05.140 | So a wise man hears an increases in learning in verse 5 and verse 7 the contrast is with
00:16:10.280 | the fool who despises wisdom and instruction.
00:16:13.760 | Don't be the fool.
00:16:16.040 | Learn.
00:16:17.480 | Learn God's Word.
00:16:18.520 | It's good for the family to see the humility of the leader of the family learning the benefits
00:16:24.480 | of learning, the submission to the imperative that you must keep learning and it's also
00:16:30.440 | good for the family to see the results of that learning.
00:16:34.600 | Sanctification, obedience and that's the second mark of a Deuteronomy 6 man.
00:16:42.120 | He is obedient.
00:16:45.640 | Keep reading here.
00:16:49.360 | This is the commandment, the statutes, the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded
00:16:54.020 | me to teach you that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess
00:16:58.440 | it.
00:16:59.720 | Do them.
00:17:01.720 | Obey.
00:17:03.520 | Verse 2 goes on to say so that you, your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your
00:17:08.040 | God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I commanded you all the days of your
00:17:13.920 | life.
00:17:16.960 | Verse 17 in Deuteronomy 6, and I'm...excuse me, I am jumping around a lot tonight in Deuteronomy
00:17:23.360 | 6, but verse 17, you should diligently keep the commandments of the Lord and His testimonies
00:17:30.200 | and His statutes which He has commanded you, those same three words.
00:17:37.880 | Verse 18, "You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, obey."
00:17:44.080 | Verse 24, "So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, obey."
00:17:50.400 | Verse 25, "It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all His commandments,
00:17:57.040 | obey."
00:17:58.040 | Do you see it?
00:18:00.560 | Over and over and over, the Deuteronomy 6 man is a learner so that he can obey.
00:18:08.120 | It's not just a gathering of head knowledge, your obedience to the Bible is before the
00:18:12.040 | Lord and as an example to your wife and your children and your grandchildren.
00:18:19.320 | The theme of obedience is repeated over and over and over in Deuteronomy.
00:18:24.000 | There's a connection, thank you.
00:18:25.720 | There's a connection between knowing God's Word, obeying God's Word, and the blessings
00:18:31.200 | that come from God when you do that.
00:18:37.560 | The leader of the family knows it.
00:18:40.240 | He lives this.
00:18:42.120 | He leads his family under this simple yet profound connection.
00:18:46.000 | You learn, you obey, and the Lord blesses you.
00:18:51.220 | You want your family to learn to obey and to be blessed by God, and you must lead by
00:18:58.200 | example.
00:18:59.200 | That's leadership.
00:19:00.200 | That's spiritual leadership.
00:19:02.480 | The influence of your leadership is drawn from the example of your own obedience.
00:19:08.000 | Without that, what you say to your family, particularly your children, when you're directing
00:19:13.960 | their behavior to the extent it conflicts with how you live, it becomes optional, confusing,
00:19:22.840 | and it presents a false choice.
00:19:25.880 | That false choice is, "Should I follow my father's words or how he lives his life?"
00:19:34.000 | The leader of the family is obedient and his stated and lived motivation in life is to
00:19:40.320 | be obedient, and he understands that hypocrisy is deadly to effective leadership in the home.
00:19:49.320 | Which leads us to our third point, that obedience is motivated by the fear of God.
00:19:56.080 | The Deuteronomy 6 man fears God.
00:20:01.600 | Why do you learn?
00:20:02.800 | So that you obey.
00:20:03.800 | Why do you obey?
00:20:05.440 | Because you fear God.
00:20:06.440 | It says that right there in verse 2, "So that you and your son, excuse me, that you and
00:20:12.580 | your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God."
00:20:16.660 | Verse 13, "You shall fear only the Lord your God."
00:20:22.380 | Verse 24, "So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes to fear the Lord our God."
00:20:31.800 | The fear of God always leads to obedience and obedience always leads to the fear of
00:20:35.900 | God.
00:20:36.900 | There's a repeated correlation in Scripture and here in Deuteronomy between the fear of
00:20:42.600 | God, obedience, wisdom, and blessing.
00:20:49.840 | Nowhere is the connection between the fear of God and the blessings from God more immediately
00:20:56.440 | evident than in the confines of your home and the family.
00:21:03.400 | Deuteronomy establishes it, Proverbs is full of it, Ecclesiastes talks about it, it'll
00:21:10.000 | sound familiar here in a minute, and there's one Psalm that highlights it so clearly and
00:21:15.360 | that's Psalm 128, verses 1 through 4.
00:21:21.200 | Let me look first at verses 2 and 3 and see if this isn't how you want your family described.
00:21:25.960 | Verses 2 and 3, "When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and
00:21:33.240 | it will be well with you."
00:21:35.200 | Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
00:21:37.100 | Sounds like Ecclesiastes.
00:21:39.480 | This is talking about the provision of the Lord through the provision of your hard work.
00:21:44.520 | The beneficiary of your hard work is your home.
00:21:49.560 | The picture here you'll see is as the family sits around the table and shares a meal, there
00:21:55.200 | is happiness and contentment from the provision of the Lord.
00:22:00.040 | There's happiness and then it goes on to talk about who's around that table.
00:22:04.240 | Verse 3, "Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house," and this speaks to
00:22:08.720 | the bearing of children and her role in raising those children.
00:22:13.640 | And then it speaks of the children, "Your children like olive plants around the table,"
00:22:19.400 | speaking of thriving and successful children who will themselves someday bear fruit.
00:22:25.520 | You see the picture?
00:22:27.480 | That's the picture.
00:22:29.280 | The parentheses around that picture is what I want you to see.
00:22:32.880 | How do you get there?
00:22:34.720 | How can I have that?
00:22:37.600 | It's what we think.
00:22:38.600 | Verse 1, "How blessed or happy is everyone who," what?
00:22:43.000 | "Fears the Lord, who walks in His ways," fear of God, obedience.
00:22:50.760 | Fear of God, obedience.
00:22:52.040 | And then that great description of the home and then verse 4, the bookend on the other
00:22:57.040 | side, "Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed," who, what?
00:23:02.800 | Fears the Lord.
00:23:04.680 | The leader of the home is a learner, he's obedient and he fears the Lord and the fear
00:23:11.920 | of God in this context is really synonymous with the word love, the love of God.
00:23:17.560 | Verse 5, Deuteronomy 6 verse 5, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
00:23:23.200 | with all your soul, and with all your might."
00:23:27.640 | The word heart speaks of the inner part, the midst.
00:23:31.360 | Soul speaks of the seat of your appetites, the seat of your emotions, your passions,
00:23:38.040 | the will.
00:23:40.160 | With all your might speaks of loving to abundance, with force, exceedingly, and I love this,
00:23:46.960 | with muchness.
00:23:50.640 | Love God to abundance, with force, with muchness.
00:23:55.960 | Let the love of God inform your conscience, govern your appetites, control your emotions
00:24:02.520 | and passions and drive you to know Him more so that you can obey Him better for the benefit
00:24:07.900 | of your family and for the glory of God.
00:24:11.840 | That's leadership in the home.
00:24:15.200 | The leader in the home is driven to obedience out of love for God, not because he's afraid
00:24:20.200 | of God and he's motivated to show his children and grandchildren the way by his example.
00:24:29.720 | Number 4, the Deuteronomy 6 man is steadfast.
00:24:35.540 | Back in verse 2 of Deuteronomy 6, "So that you and your son and your grandson might fear
00:24:42.560 | the Lord your God to keep all his statutes, his commandments, which I command you."
00:24:47.560 | And here's the phrase, "All the days of your life and that your days may be prolonged."
00:24:55.600 | All the days of your life consumed with the task, purposeful, lifelong.
00:25:01.280 | The leader of the home understands and embraces the long game.
00:25:07.880 | When it says you, your son, and your grandson, that is the full spectrum of your life and
00:25:14.520 | my life.
00:25:16.800 | It's all included.
00:25:18.400 | This is the range of a man's existence, all the days of his life.
00:25:22.320 | The Bible talks a lot about a man who is constant, who is steadfast, unwavering, holding fast.
00:25:28.720 | You're familiar with 1 Corinthians 15, 58, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast,
00:25:35.160 | immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in
00:25:39.920 | vain in the Lord."
00:25:41.520 | This is completely consistent and expands the concept that Moses references when he
00:25:46.940 | says all the days of your life.
00:25:52.440 | The Deuteronomy 6 man believes this is true and his convictions are constant, never changing,
00:25:58.320 | deeply held, constantly fed and nurtured by the learning of the Word of God throughout
00:26:03.160 | his life.
00:26:06.560 | The lesson for your home is, man, don't be careless.
00:26:11.000 | Don't get careless.
00:26:12.440 | Don't start thinking that you've arrived and that the battle is over.
00:26:16.600 | It isn't.
00:26:18.560 | We're called to be steadfast from beginning to end.
00:26:22.640 | Verse 3 of Deuteronomy 6 says, "Oh, Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it."
00:26:28.840 | The admonition to you and I is in our leadership at home, we need to be very steadfast and
00:26:35.200 | in that, be very careful.
00:26:38.040 | Ephesians 5, 15, "Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise,
00:26:45.200 | making the most of your time because the days are evil."
00:26:48.080 | Watch how you walk in your home.
00:26:51.920 | All the way to the finish line.
00:26:55.200 | Your family is watching.
00:26:58.280 | What you say, how you live, your character, everything is being recorded in those little
00:27:04.080 | brains or I should say in the brains of those little people we call children and grandchildren.
00:27:10.520 | Their brains are probably better than ours.
00:27:14.240 | You know, I reflected in thinking about all of this, I don't remember much of anything
00:27:17.920 | my father taught me when I was young.
00:27:22.360 | I do remember some of what he taught me in my teen years and in my 20s.
00:27:27.600 | What I remember vividly in so much detail is my father in his 70s and his 80s and particularly
00:27:37.360 | in the last months as he was dying.
00:27:41.320 | Go all the way to the finish line, men.
00:27:43.120 | May your leadership and your family legacy be steadfast, immovable as you abound in the
00:27:48.200 | work of the Lord as the leader of your home all the way to the end.
00:27:55.760 | Number five, the Deuteronomy 6 man guards his heart.
00:28:00.840 | Verse five of Deuteronomy 6 says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
00:28:07.560 | with all your soul, with all your might.
00:28:09.440 | These words which I'm commanding you today shall be on your heart."
00:28:13.560 | And talking to men about their heart might sound very unmanly.
00:28:18.960 | This is exactly the opposite.
00:28:23.640 | In Deuteronomy, the family man knows the importance of his heart and guarding his heart, of what
00:28:29.480 | he puts in his heart.
00:28:30.680 | That little phrase "shall be on your heart" is loaded with meaning and practical implication
00:28:35.800 | which time limits us to explore.
00:28:40.920 | But the Bible correlates what is on your heart with the quality of your life, many, many
00:28:50.120 | times.
00:28:51.120 | And what I've put on the screen is just a few, a quick overview of the benefits of the
00:28:56.400 | commandments, judgments and statutes of the Lord being on your heart.
00:29:01.760 | Psalm 37, 31, it implies that if you don't want your step to slip, the law of God needs
00:29:10.520 | to be on your heart.
00:29:13.400 | Psalm 40, if you want to do God's will, then your law should be on your heart, on your
00:29:20.000 | heart.
00:29:21.000 | Psalm 119, how many of us don't want to sin, we want to obey?
00:29:25.520 | Well, it says in verse 11 that that happens when his word is treasured in our hearts.
00:29:35.200 | Jeremiah 31, "I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it."
00:29:40.520 | And look what happens, "And I will be their God and they shall be my people."
00:29:45.760 | A Deuteronomy 6 man blocks out all other affections and preoccupations of the heart other than
00:29:55.120 | love for Christ, love for his word and love for that which the Lord loves, which happens
00:30:00.680 | to be your family, your wife, your children, your grandchildren.
00:30:08.880 | And that love and that preservation and guarding of your heart informs what you say.
00:30:19.440 | And that takes us to our next point, which is that the Deuteronomy 6 man is a teacher.
00:30:26.760 | He's a teacher.
00:30:27.760 | The leader of a home is a teacher.
00:30:31.440 | Verse 7 of Deuteronomy 6, "You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk
00:30:36.720 | of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down
00:30:41.440 | and when you rise up.
00:30:43.040 | You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
00:30:47.720 | You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
00:30:52.360 | There's a whole bunch of parenting implication here.
00:30:57.760 | But remember, I'm talking about you, the character of the man who leads the home.
00:31:05.800 | Verse 1 starts with, "I'm going to teach you," and then right here in verse 7, "You teach
00:31:13.600 | them."
00:31:14.600 | Now, does that pattern sound familiar?
00:31:18.560 | Second Timothy 2.2, "The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many
00:31:22.880 | witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also."
00:31:29.680 | Moses is making the point that I'm going to teach you.
00:31:34.120 | It's your job to raise faithful children and to teach them so that they will teach others
00:31:40.040 | also.
00:31:46.080 | A man doesn't get to say, "I'm not a teacher."
00:31:50.840 | Credible implications for you and I, and it's incredible implications if you're raising
00:31:55.320 | sons.
00:31:57.020 | You're not just raising a son, you're raising a man.
00:31:59.320 | You're raising a man who will lead a home someday that needs to be equipped and know
00:32:04.400 | how to teach.
00:32:06.800 | And Moses is so helpful in this passage because he addresses two questions that he knows,
00:32:15.560 | and he was right, that your family is going to ask you.
00:32:20.640 | Two questions that you want your family to ask you.
00:32:25.320 | Two profound questions.
00:32:28.680 | What does the Bible mean, and why should I obey God?
00:32:34.600 | Well, down in verse 20, Moses literally scripts out the answers to these two questions.
00:32:43.160 | It's incredible, isn't it?
00:32:44.560 | Verse 20, "When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What do the provisions and
00:32:49.320 | the statutes and the judgments,' you know by now the provisions, the statutes and the
00:32:54.040 | judgments is referencing," what?
00:32:56.920 | The Word of God.
00:32:59.000 | So when your son asks you, "What does the Bible mean," which the Lord our God commanded
00:33:04.240 | you, verse 21, "Then you shall say to your son," and before we go through that, I want
00:33:10.200 | to kind of pull over and think a minute about that phrase, "When your son asks you."
00:33:16.800 | This is talking about children.
00:33:20.640 | Man, when your children ask you a question, you need to know that that's why you're there.
00:33:30.920 | That's what you want.
00:33:33.820 | Questions are a window into the soul and the character of your children, and in fact, you
00:33:37.720 | might want to wait sometimes for a question.
00:33:42.240 | Too often we force feed our opinions and perspectives and even truth to an unreceptive little human
00:33:49.920 | being, a good and effective teacher, a leader of his home sometimes waits for the question.
00:33:57.760 | There is almost a promise here, they will ask you this question.
00:34:03.320 | If you're learning, you're obeying, you're fearing God, all of this is going on in front
00:34:10.360 | of them, they will ask you and you need to be prepared with the answers.
00:34:17.240 | And you want your answers to be heard and followed, don't you?
00:34:22.200 | It's your responsibility to ensure that when you answer these questions, what you say is
00:34:27.880 | believable, it's authoritative, and it's compelling.
00:34:34.600 | That's spiritual leadership.
00:34:37.440 | And if you're known as a learner yourself, as an obedient man, as a man who fears the
00:34:42.520 | Lord, you're steadfast in your biblical conviction, it makes your words unavoidable.
00:34:50.680 | And by the way, they still may be rejected ultimately, but that is a result you're not
00:34:56.940 | accountable for.
00:34:59.000 | You are accountable for making sure that you preserve the viability and reliability of
00:35:03.800 | what you say through sound words and a life of integrity.
00:35:11.680 | Too many men think that by virtue of rank or title of husband or father, head of my
00:35:16.840 | home, that your family will listen, they'll hear it, and they will act.
00:35:23.120 | This is not the case.
00:35:25.040 | And all God's men probably said what?
00:35:27.120 | Amen.
00:35:28.120 | It doesn't always work out this way.
00:35:30.060 | If it always worked out that way, leadership in the family would be easy.
00:35:36.080 | By God's design, you must compel the efficacy of truth by the vindication of your own consistent
00:35:43.280 | behavior.
00:35:44.640 | That ultimately is what might defeat the competing influences in your children's lives, which
00:35:50.280 | may be friends, it may be social media, it may be teachers, professors, and mostly their
00:35:57.340 | own sinful hearts.
00:36:00.880 | We must teach.
00:36:01.880 | We must be ready for the questions.
00:36:05.540 | We must be ready at minimum to these two questions.
00:36:10.780 | So when your children ask, and you must and should pray that they do, you want to know
00:36:16.920 | how to pray for your children?
00:36:19.120 | Pray that they ask these questions.
00:36:21.880 | Pray that you're prepared to answer the questions.
00:36:25.620 | So what does the Bible mean?
00:36:27.040 | Verse 21, here it is.
00:36:30.800 | And you shall say to your son, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought
00:36:36.180 | us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
00:36:38.620 | Moreover, the Lord provided great and terrible signs and wonders before our eyes against
00:36:43.340 | Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household.
00:36:46.380 | He brought us out of there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which he had sworn
00:36:50.680 | to our fathers."
00:36:53.600 | What in the world does that have to do with the question, what does the Bible mean?
00:36:58.340 | This is incredibly profound.
00:37:01.060 | There's so much to say here, very limited time.
00:37:03.960 | Let me give you a couple of general principles, and there's four, or there's three, but don't
00:37:08.560 | worry about it.
00:37:09.560 | Don't number them.
00:37:10.560 | I'm just gonna rip through this.
00:37:11.740 | What he scripts out is biblical history.
00:37:16.420 | Let me boil it down.
00:37:17.880 | Tell your children who God is and what he's done.
00:37:23.480 | That is what the Bible is there for.
00:37:25.720 | That is the message of the Bible.
00:37:27.600 | Why do we have a Bible?
00:37:29.320 | To know God.
00:37:30.480 | What does it mean?
00:37:31.640 | All understanding of the Bible flows through an understanding of the character of God himself.
00:37:40.000 | Last year, Brad went through, in Men of the Word, the attributes of God.
00:37:45.000 | If you're a young dad, I would commend that series to you to listen to it over and over
00:37:51.600 | and over.
00:37:52.600 | And if your children are old enough, get them to listen to it with you.
00:37:57.720 | That wasn't random.
00:37:58.760 | It wasn't coincidental.
00:38:00.880 | Brad was informing your leadership, and here it is in Deuteronomy.
00:38:06.000 | When you're asked, what does the Bible mean, it is all run through the filter of who God
00:38:10.960 | is and what he's done.
00:38:14.760 | The answer to this most basic question is found in the character and acts of a mighty
00:38:19.200 | God.
00:38:21.400 | The Bible tells us who he is.
00:38:25.420 | And then the question, why should I obey?
00:38:30.040 | I won't have asked for a show of hands, but I'm going to bet most of you have had children
00:38:35.900 | who have asked you that question.
00:38:39.000 | Why should I obey?
00:38:41.160 | And by the way, your goal as a parent is not to teach them to obey you.
00:38:45.000 | I hope you understand that.
00:38:49.120 | The requirement that they obey you is to teach them the concept and the relationship so that
00:38:55.240 | when they leave your home, they understand how to obey who, God.
00:39:01.880 | Why should I obey?
00:39:04.200 | And Moses here lays out four reasons starting in verse 24.
00:39:07.240 | And again, I'm going to go through this pretty quick.
00:39:10.200 | Verse 24, first answer is because God said to.
00:39:14.680 | It's that simple.
00:39:16.620 | Verse 24, so the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes.
00:39:22.180 | Moses is answering the question when your children ask you, and anyone else by the way,
00:39:28.860 | why should I obey?
00:39:30.860 | Verse 24, the first reason is because God told us to.
00:39:34.860 | The second is it's for our good.
00:39:38.900 | It's for your good.
00:39:42.460 | The Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes in verse 24, to fear the Lord our
00:39:46.700 | God for our good always.
00:39:50.960 | And then number three, for our survival.
00:39:54.740 | You want your children to survive?
00:39:57.900 | Teach them to obey God.
00:40:01.300 | When they want to know why, that's why.
00:40:03.860 | And then number four is for the glory of God.
00:40:06.220 | This passage goes on verse 25 to say, it will be righteousness for us if we are careful
00:40:11.600 | to observe all this commandment before the Lord our God, just as he commanded us.
00:40:16.900 | Ephesians 2.10 says, we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared beforehand
00:40:24.100 | that we would walk in them.
00:40:28.020 | When you obey God as a believer, you are doing what he ordained before you even knew what
00:40:34.340 | you were doing.
00:40:35.420 | And it glorifies God.
00:40:37.260 | That is what that is saying in Deuteronomy 6.
00:40:39.860 | It will be righteousness for us.
00:40:42.460 | Christ's righteousness placed on us.
00:40:47.980 | And why do we obey?
00:40:50.700 | Because we want to glorify God.
00:40:53.460 | A family leader teaches with his words and his life, in all phases of life, and in all
00:40:58.660 | your teaching, you must address the character of God, the word of God, the commands of God,
00:41:04.500 | and the grace and the blessings of God.
00:41:08.540 | And this surely leads to our last point, number seven, that the Deuteronomy 6 man worships
00:41:15.060 | God.
00:41:18.660 | And in Deuteronomy 6.10-15 describes the worship of the leader in the home.
00:41:26.180 | And the context is the home and the entire chapter culminates in really in these verses.
00:41:33.420 | Verse 13 is the center and the core of all of it.
00:41:35.860 | Verse 13, "You shall fear only the Lord your God and you shall worship him and swear by
00:41:41.140 | his name."
00:41:45.460 | And the worship of the leader in the home is driven by four elements.
00:41:49.980 | And I tried to make it somewhat evident with a highlighter for you in the overhead.
00:41:55.980 | But there's four things that animate the worship of the leader in the home as he leads his
00:42:01.340 | family in worship, teaches his family to worship, and its humility, its remembering, its love,
00:42:08.580 | and it is exclusivity.
00:42:11.980 | What does that mean?
00:42:12.980 | Well, it's right there in verse 10, the humility.
00:42:16.580 | Verse 10, "Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which
00:42:20.640 | he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you great and splendid
00:42:27.780 | cities which you did not build and houses full of all good things which you did not
00:42:32.820 | fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees."
00:42:39.420 | You see the same picture as Psalm 128 there, "Vineyards and olive trees which you did not
00:42:44.980 | plant and you eat and you're satisfied."
00:42:48.860 | There is a humility in those statements that parallels 1 Corinthians 4, 7.
00:42:56.820 | "For who regards you as superior?
00:43:01.780 | What do you have that you did not receive?
00:43:04.140 | And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?"
00:43:10.500 | You've been given everything.
00:43:13.060 | And the humility of that recognition drives worship.
00:43:17.900 | It goes on in verse 12, talking about remembering, "Remember, watch yourself," it says in verse
00:43:26.500 | 12, "that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt out of the house
00:43:32.300 | of slavery."
00:43:33.380 | Do you see the merging here of what you teach your children with the resulting worship?
00:43:40.220 | Third, verse 13, "You shall fear only the Lord your God."
00:43:48.060 | This is the love for God.
00:43:49.300 | That's what animates, that's what drives our worship.
00:43:53.860 | Humility, remembering what the Lord has done and who He is, loving Him for all of that,
00:44:01.780 | and then fourth, exclusivity.
00:44:05.260 | Verse 14, "You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the people who surround
00:44:10.660 | you."
00:44:11.660 | If you're a parent of young children, I know this hits straight on target, or it should.
00:44:20.420 | The gods around us are more prevalent and visible and available today than they've ever
00:44:25.620 | been.
00:44:26.620 | We want to lead our children in the worship and explain and make them understand by our
00:44:31.620 | example and our teaching that you shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the
00:44:37.260 | people who surround us, for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God.
00:44:43.180 | Otherwise, the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you and He will wipe
00:44:51.620 | you off the face of the earth.
00:44:54.660 | It's a great way to end the night.
00:45:00.300 | Some of you might say, "Really, we're going to leave it with being wiped off the face
00:45:04.820 | of the earth?"
00:45:05.820 | Yeah, it's a great way to end because if you're a believer, we love that jealous and
00:45:12.820 | angry God, and by His work on the cross and our faith in Jesus Christ alone for His redemption,
00:45:20.860 | we have nothing to fear by that last phrase.
00:45:25.420 | We worship God because of His justice, and we look forward to that justice.
00:45:32.820 | But if you do not know Christ and have not repented of your sins, you do have everything
00:45:37.820 | to fear.
00:45:41.020 | There's no need to leave tonight, though, afraid.
00:45:47.180 | Romans 10, 9 says that if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in
00:45:52.180 | your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be what?
00:45:58.500 | Saved.
00:46:00.180 | For with the heart a person believes, resulting in obedience or righteousness, and with the
00:46:06.840 | mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
00:46:10.620 | For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed."
00:46:17.620 | If you read verse 15 and you're afraid, I want you to seriously consider tonight you
00:46:23.860 | do not need to leave here afraid.
00:46:26.160 | We want to talk to you.
00:46:28.140 | If you love the Lord, you've repented of your sins, we exult in all of verses 10 through
00:46:34.180 | 15, every word of it, we love that God.
00:46:38.060 | We worship that God.
00:46:40.580 | And men, you cannot possibly follow the example of the Deuteronomy 6 man in your own home
00:46:45.220 | unless you have the Holy Spirit, unless you have confessed with your mouth, "Jesus is
00:46:50.420 | Lord," and believed in your heart that He's raised from the dead, and you're saved.
00:46:58.340 | Let me close in prayer.
00:47:00.060 | Lord, we end on a serious note because Moses took us there.
00:47:07.780 | Lord, we are a needy people.
00:47:10.180 | We serve a great God.
00:47:12.540 | We're so grateful to you for who you are and what you've done.
00:47:16.100 | Lord, I pray that you enable the men in this room who know and love you to be learners,
00:47:23.140 | to be obedient, to love you above all else, to be steadfast in conviction, to guard their
00:47:29.500 | hearts, and as a result of all of that, to teach their children, to lead their families,
00:47:39.140 | and then to worship before our families, before you, and to raise up from our home worshipers.
00:47:47.700 | Lord, thank you for Moses.
00:47:49.900 | Thank you for your word.
00:47:51.060 | Thank you for this passage.
00:47:52.580 | Lord, I pray that as we go to the group discussions now, that you would superintend that conversation.
00:47:59.460 | Lord, I do pray for those who are here tonight who may not have the confidence of not being
00:48:06.260 | afraid of you.
00:48:07.260 | Lord, may they not go home until they resolve that and are reconciled to you.
00:48:13.140 | We pray this in Christ's name, amen.
00:48:15.500 | [BLANK_AUDIO]