I Was A Father To The Needy

Before we come to the word of God preached, let us go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we are privileged to be called by your name, to be brought into your kingdom and into your family by the blood of Jesus Christ. We pray for faith and for understanding and humility and zeal as we come unto your word. We pray, Father, that you would convict us of sin and righteousness and the judgment, that you would reveal to us the deceptions, of our hearts that we have believed and that we have followed. We pray, Father, that you would strengthen us according to your word and by your spirit to do your will. We pray that you would give us faith to persevere to the end. As Paul entrusted to you the work that he did, we entrust to you as well the work that we do. We ask that you would bless our hands and our feet and our mouths and that you would cause them to be fruitful for your glory.

We pray, Father, for those who are not with us this morning, who are traveling, who are away, that you grant them safety, that you would strengthen them according to your word while they're gone, and that you would return them safely home and to us soon. We thank you for the safe delivery of Annabelle Bailey and pray that you would be with Joseph and Heidi and the rest of their children as they welcome this new little one into their home. We pray, Father, that you would build up your kingdom, your church. That you would fill her with men to lead your people, your sheep, and to protect them and to keep the wolves away. We pray, Father, that you would shut up the mouths of men who speak falsehood and who lie to your people and who devour them. We pray, Father, for Nick Baker, that you protect his body and his soul as he's away in the basic training. And we pray that you would return him back to us safely when his term there is done. And we pray, Father, that you would...

sanctify us, that you would grow us, that you would give us the humility that only comes as a gift from your Holy Spirit. I ask that you strengthen me now as I preach. Give me your words to speak and help me to be loving and bold and tender and compassionate as we study your word. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. Father's Day, and we're also in the second week of our sermon series on defending the unborn, standing in the gap. What does it mean for the church to stand up and to defend the cause of the unborn? Those who don't have a voice, those who are defenseless, fatherless, what does it look like for us to care for them? And so we're going to put those two things together this morning. But I want to give you a little bit of context of how those things fit together before we dig into those.

All throughout time, Satan has made it his business to attack the church, to attack God's truth in various ways. And if you were to go through history and study it, you would see in various times the different ways that Satan was at work trying to subvert the truth of God and trying to get everyone to believe a lie. And our time is no different. We have Satan still attacking, still trying to turn us away, still trying to... to corrupt our hearts and minds, to the end that our souls would be destroyed. The battle of our day, really big picture, mountaintop view, the thing that Satan is attacking in our culture is authority. Any authority. We're all taught, every one of us, from the littlest, youngest of us, on to the oldest, we've been taught by and have absorbed this teaching from the culture that we live in. We're taught to question authority.

That it would be inappropriate for us not to. We've learned that if any authority tells us something we don't like, we can reject it, we can argue with it, we can deny it, we can refuse it if we feel like it. And this is what Satan's attack looks like in our day. If we don't question authority, if we don't refuse our submission, meaning if we don't agree, there's no reason that we should have to go along. There's no reason for us to submit. Why should I have to do something that I don't want to do? That's rebellion against authority, that thought. Why do I have to do what I don't want to do? Why do I have to do what someone else is telling me to do? It's really this simple. If we don't refuse to obey, refuse to submit, then we will be abused. That's what we're told. If you don't stand up for yourself, if you don't defend yourself, you're going to be abused. There's no other way for this to end. The question that we have to ask is, who taught us this? Where did we learn this? Is this something that the scripture teaches? Or is this something else? This attack against authority, wherever it may be, and it's in all places. It's in our homes. It's in our schools. It's in our churches. It's in our government. Nowhere are we saying, those people...

have been placed in that position by God and therefore are worthy of our honor and our respect and our obedience. If you were to just think of the political climate today and you think of the sort of disrespect, no matter who's in office, the question is not whether the person in office is respected. The question is who hates them and is disrespectful. And then someone stands up and says, whether you like the man or not, you need to respect the office. And that doesn't carry any weight with us. If you don't like the president or the governor or the mayor or whomever, every one of us feels justified in disrespecting them, in not obeying them, in not honoring them. You don't have to be a Christian to have believed the lie, to be a rebel against authority. And so all authority in every sphere was created by God and is delegated by God. In the home, in the church, in the society.

All of the authority that exists has been created by God. And so when authority is attacked, what is being attacked? The authority of God is what's being attacked. When someone refuses to submit to the civil magistrate, they are refusing to submit to God as an example. So where does God get his authority? Why is he an authority? Well, he's an authority because he is the authority because he's created all things. And his word teaches us who he is. And what we learn overwhelmingly from scripture is that God is our father, is a father to us. He is a father, he is a son, and he's a Holy Spirit. Each of them having their own authority and each of them in their own way being attacked. The fatherhood of God and his authority is under attack in every place. That's what I've been talking about. What about Jesus' authority?

Do we believe that Jesus has authority to command us, to tell us, to require things of us, to curse us if we refuse? Do we believe that he can, or do we feel like we can just stand in rebellion and say, I reject that. You can't tell me that. I don't believe that. What about the authority of Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit? At every turn, we refuse the authority of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If you're not sure what I mean by saying that the fatherhood of God is under attack, the authority of God is under attack, consider for a moment the state of earthly fatherhood today. When you look at fathers, or children really, how is fatherhood doing? Is it doing well? If you're a man, do you know how to be a father? Do you know what a father is? Many of us don't. I don't know what the percentage would be, but a number of us grew up without fathers at all. Or if we had fathers, they were poor fathers.

had good fathers. And I'm thankful to God for that, but many of us don't. Many of us didn't. And so we don't know what a father is. Our fathers didn't honor God. Most of us are left with a gaping hole that our own fathers should have filled had they not failed to honor God in their own fatherhood. And so if we see that earthly fatherhood is distorted, we have to conclude that the original fatherhood, from whom all fatherhood gets its name, God the Father, that that is what's under attack. No one knows what a father is today. We don't recognize it. And so today is Father's Day.

And we're going to be studying Job chapter 9 this morning to see God's description of fatherhood. We'll be connecting fatherhood to the work of defending the unborn since we're in the middle of our summer sermon series on defending the unborn. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word from Job chapter 9, verses 12 through 17. Because I delivered the poor who cried for help and the orphan who had no helper, the blessing of the one ready to perish came upon me. and I made the widow's heart sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and I investigated the cause which I did not know. I broke the jaws of the wicked and snatched the prey from his teeth. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I want to give you a little bit of context about Job. Job is a very old, old book.

in the Bible, happened very early on. And Job is most likely some sort of civil magistrate, some sort of a ruler. And so the sorts of things that are described here, he's basically describing fatherhood, but he's describing his work, his job. This is his job description. So he's dealing with the poor, the orphans, the widows, the blind, the lame, all these kinds of people. These are the sorts of people who would seek justice. who would need an advocate, who would need someone to defend them, to care for them, to plead their case, because they weren't able to do it themselves. They would be ignored. These are the people who are weak, and being weak, they're the most likely to be taken advantage of. These people couldn't attend to their own business for various reasons, and so they sought the help and protection against their various oppressors. They also sought relief from the hardships of their weakened state. And so Job describes his work.

as being a father. I was a father to the needy. And what is the essence of fatherhood? How would you describe Job's life and Job's work? Describe it as saying that Job, a man, a father, took responsibility for the people under his care. It's really that simple. If you want a working definition of fatherhood, of manhood, it means to take responsibility for those under your care. especially those who are unable to take care of themselves. And so we're going to go through this text, and I want to observe a couple of different attributes that attend Job's fatherhood. And the first is that Job's fatherhood, our fatherhood, ought to be, God's fatherhood is active. It's not passive. If you were to look at the verbs in this passage, how does Job describe his work? It's all active. It's all him doing stuff.

I delivered the poor. I made the widow's heart sing for joy. I put on righteousness. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I investigated the case. I broke the jaw. I snatched the prey. This is a man who's got something to do. He doesn't just sit around waiting for the problem to get so big and so bad that he's forced to act. He's a man who's interposing on behalf of those who cannot care for themselves. You know that we're sinful. that we live in a sinful world. And the first thing that rubs us wrong about this passage is that people get oppressed. The poor, the needy, the lame, the blind, the widow, the orphan. If we could have our way, we'd have it where none of those people actually existed. There wouldn't be poor, there wouldn't be weak, there wouldn't be needy, there wouldn't be lame, there wouldn't be blind. There wouldn't be any of those people. And yet here, this is what Job's life is filled with. He's filled with those people.

with dealing with those people, with caring for those people. And yet when we think of our own lives, do we know, do you think in these categories, are they poor? Are they an orphan? Are they blind? Are they lame? What are I to do for them because of this weakness? I think most of the time we don't recognize that people are poor. We don't recognize their weakness because we live in a culture that teaches us not to ever demonstrate our weakness, not to ever show it to people. not to ever ask for help. Job was a judge, and people would come to him and say, I have a problem. Something's wrong. I need help. But we don't even live in a place where we ask for help, because if we ask for help, we're considered to be what's universally despised, and that is weak. When was the last time you had a problem and you thought simply to ask for someone to pray for you? That level of help. You went out of your way proactively and said, I have this thing.

will you pray for me? It doesn't happen nearly as often as it should. I think it's more common with women than it is with the men. We live in a culture that despises the weak. And that means that we live in a culture that oppresses the weak. And so we're surrounded by opportunity to minister to, to care for, to protect the weak. Job doesn't wait for those who are weak to come to him. He proactively goes to them, cares for them. I deliver them. I make them happy. I am their eyes, their feet. I investigate their cause. What it means is that when we're ignorant about something, that it's incumbent on us, it's required of us, that we would go and figure out what's going on. That we wouldn't sit and wait until it all becomes clear, until it's all settled, until someone else steps in. We proactively go and we figure out what's going on. What needs to be done? What does justice look like here?

Job says he put on his righteousness and it clothed me. My justice was like a robe and a turban. Well, who wears robes and turbans anymore in our culture? Nobody wears robes and turbans anymore, so what's it mean for him to say, I put on my righteousness and it clothed me. My justice was like a robe and a turban. It means that it was his honor. At that time, you think of a judge nowadays, and how does a judge signal to you that they're worthy of your honor? Well, they wear robes. They wear black robes. And in their day, in their society, that would have been a signal of honor and of respect and of protection. And so he said, I put on righteousness. I acted righteousness, and it clothed me, and it clothed me with honor. People knew they could come to me. They knew that I would help them, that I wouldn't just hear their cause and push them aside. You realize that none of these people can repay him for his work. What can the poor give him?

What does the orphan have to offer? What about the blind and the lame? They can't see. They can't walk. What do they have to give him for his service, for his love and his protection? They have nothing. They have nothing. And yet Job says, in the face of this, in the face of people not being able to repay me, to honor me, and to give me what ought to be due, I actively care for them. I love them. I protect them. I seek their good. I ward off their oppressors. I investigate their cause. When you see someone who's in a bad way, because something's wrong, what's the most common thought when you see someone who's got a messed up life, got something gone wrong? You know what most of us think? We think that somehow they've produced that, somehow they've caused that, and that somehow because they've caused it, we're no longer responsible to help them. Meaning if you made your bed, now you need to lay in it.

You need to do what's required of you. We'll help those who help themselves. These are the sorts of things that we talk about in our society. These are the sorts of things that we say to remove our responsibility to help and to care for and to protect and to deliver those who are in need. But it's interesting that in this passage, none of these people chose their weakness. The poor didn't choose to be poor. The orphan certainly didn't choose to be an orphan. The widow didn't choose for her spouse to die. The blind didn't choose blindness. The lame didn't choose to be lame. They were weak, and Job saw it. And when you see weakness, you can do one of two things with it. There's only two things you can do with it. You can exploit it, and you become an oppressor. Or you can defend it. If you choose to do nothing, you're exploiting it. Even if you don't exploit it yourself, you're leaving room for others to exploit it. Because you won't stand and protect. And so all of the people that Job deals with, we see that they didn't bring about their...

circumstance. And yet we often find people who do. You find people who are without home, without car, without work, without food, without things that they need. Hurt because they did something foolish. Marriage broken because they committed adultery. And you say, well, you did that. You need to fix it. I'm not going to waste my time and my energy helping you. And I say, is that how God loves us? Does he take us when we're broken, when we've made a mess of it? When we've made a mess of it, we caused the problem. And as he say, you fix that. You get that cleaned up, figured out, straightened around. And when you do, then you come on over to me. That's absolutely not how God deals with us. While we're weak, while we're in our sin, while we're unable to do any good thing, God is a father to us and invites us into his family by his blood of his son. And so we ought to...

communicate that, demonstrate that, live that out in our care for our brothers, in our care for the oppressed, the poor and the weak and the needy. Whether they've made that situation themselves or whether the reason for their situation is hidden in the secret will of God, and we don't know why. Why is that person weak? Why is that person blind? Why are they lame? Our place is to step in, to intercede for them, to get between them and their oppressors and to say no. He will not harm this one. Godly fathers get involved because God the Father is involved. He's active. He's proactive. Job demonstrates this to us. You remember the story of the woman who keeps coming to the judge in the New Testament, and Jesus tells her she keeps coming to the judge, and she keeps coming to the judge, and she keeps coming to the judge, and eventually the judge gives in. Why? Because she just kept pestering him and pestering him and pestering him. What do you know about that judge? He's not a good judge.

He let this woman who needed help suffer. He just let her keep suffering and suffering and suffering and hardship. And you have that. And that's not my problem. And finally, he responded because of her persistence. And that parable is meant to teach us to continue to be persistent in bringing our devotions to our petitions to God and say, help, I need help. Please help. But a good judge, a good father doesn't see a need and go, well. Come back in six months and if you still have that problem, maybe then we'll deal with it. There's such a thing as an unfaithful judge or an unfaithful father. Someone who sees a need could help and chooses not to. And that's wicked because it's a lie about the fatherhood of God. God's fatherhood is not like that. God is active. He's proactive in his love and his care for those who are weak, those who are oppressed. Second, God's fatherhood is tender and it's kind.

And that's how our fatherhood ought to be. Consider for a moment your own heart's response to the poor or to an orphan, to a widow. How does your heart respond to them? What is your disposition towards them? Do you even notice them? As I was preparing this, I was thinking, do I know any widows? Do I know any widows? And then it dawned on me, yes, I know widows. I do know some. their weakness is not anything that registered in my mind. I just thought, well, they're just living their life, and their husband's dead, and life just goes on for them. And I realized that those women, once I thought about it, I had a very callous heart towards them. I didn't recognize their weakness. It wasn't something that I thought about. I just thought, well, life's just life, and their husband died of cancer or whatever, and life goes on. I've got life to live. I've got stuff to do. And so do they, and all is the same.

And so when I'm around them, do I have any care or any compassion or any tenderness toward them? And the answer is largely no, I don't. I don't go out of my way to give them a hug and to care for them and to tell them that I love them. I do, but I don't. It doesn't even register in my brain and I think that you're probably like me. That you don't recognize, that you don't see to the extent that you ought to. The needs of others. The weaknesses of others. If you have the Holy Spirit within you, which is to say if you are a Christian, then you do have some level of compassion toward the outcasts of society. But honesty requires us to say that we're not as compassionate or tender or kind as we ought to be, as God is. Think about when you've actually had to engage with someone who's weak, someone who's got a problem. And sometimes you start out tender and compassionate and helpful. And then what happens over time?

What happens when you're working with someone who's weak or who's needy or who needs a lot of help? What do you want to do after a little while? You get impatient and you want to quit. We don't want to say that, but that's what our heart says. It goes, this is a lot of work and I don't want to deal with this anymore. And they're not getting it. And I wish they would, but they're really sucking up a lot of my time and energy and resources and whatever else. And I want to be done with this. And so we may start off tender, we may start off kind as fathers, but we grow weary. We get tired. And we want to discard the burden before it's removed from the one that we're helping. If you're not sure what I mean, just think about this with little children. Little children, by their very nature, are weak. They can't take care of themselves. They don't think like an adult. They're unable to do all the stuff that they will grow up into. They need help.

And if you won't help them, then they won't have help. And they won't figure it out themselves. And so how often do you decide, I'm going to come home as a father. I'm going to come home from work or whatever. And I'm going to be patient with my child. And you come home and 10 minutes into it, you tried patience and 10 minutes later it didn't work. Or maybe it's 30 minutes later. And patience is done. And you're done being tender and you're done being kind and you're done being patient with that child. You're done with their weakness. You don't want to deal with it anymore. And so what happens? Tenderness and kindness and mercy are out the window. And demands and expectations and threats are what come. If we do this with our own children, our own flesh and blood, how much more do we do this with people that we don't even know? The weak and the oppressed and the needy around us in our society. If we can't persevere in compassion and kindness as fathers with our own children,

How much more difficult is it with those who aren't? This temptation to lose heart, to burn out, is common to us. Scripture addresses it. Galatians 6.9 says, Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. And again in 2 Thessalonians 3.13, But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. You have to realize that when you engage in... the cause of the oppressed. You're going to be tempted to wear out, to burn out, to want to quit. That comes with the territory. That's the temptation that attends it. It's not worth it. It's not working. It takes too much time. It's depressing. No matter what I say and do, they keep doing the same thing. Satan will use those things to cause us to grow weary, to want to give up.

And so Paul, in Galatians and in 2 Thessalonians, addresses us, our temptation to lose heart. And he tells us that we ought not to grow weary. We ought not to blind ourselves to the need. There are needs all around us. There are needs that will go unmet if we don't meet them. I haven't mentioned it directly yet, but we're in the middle of a sermon series on defending the unborn. There's a constant perpetual need. And it'll go unmet if we don't meet it. If we're not there with love and with tenderness and with compassion and with prayer and with help, the need will go unmet. And so when we see the need and we count the cost and we say the need is high, the need is there, the cost is high, the temptation is to blind ourselves to it. We don't want to see it. We don't want to engage in it because it's hard and it's time consuming and it's scary and it's depressing.

But really what we're choosing, men, is we're deciding not to be fathers. Those children who are being brought into that place to be murdered are orphans. They're in their mother's wombs, and their fathers drive the mothers there, and those children are orphans. Why are they orphans? They're orphans because nobody loves them. Those who ought to love them the most and care for them the most and protect them and love them and bear them are there to kill them. They've abandoned their children. Do you understand? They have said, we don't want you and we would rather that you die. We will pay to have you killed. These are orphans. They have no father. And so what does Job say? He says, I delivered the orphan who had no helper. I delivered the orphan who had no father. I was a father to the needy. Those who didn't have what they needed, I gave them what they needed. I became what they needed. I did what was necessary.

The final thing I want to tell you about fatherhood, and it's more easily understandable at an abortion mill than it is in the rest of life, but it applies equally, is that fatherhood is not safe. It's just not safe. And at the abortion mill you understand that because if you go there, you're going to find opposition. And Job even describes it in this passage. If you read verse 17, he says, Have you ever tried to take meat away from a dog? If you have, then you understand what it is. To try to snatch the prey from the teeth. What do dogs do when you try to take their food from them? They turn on you. And all of a sudden, your hand becomes the food. Your hand becomes the thing that they are now going to attack. They turn on you. It's not safe. And that's how Job describes his work. I broke the jaw of the wicked and snatched its prey from its teeth. That is dangerous work. That is fatherhood. Being a father is not easy. Where else is it dangerous?

Well, anywhere you do it. Anywhere you do it. We were talking in Sunday school this morning. We weren't talking about fatherhood being dangerous, but we were talking about children and children being out of line and mothers and fathers' temptations, you know, inclinations in how to deal with a child that's out of line. And some of the mothers were saying, yes, I think moms are more inclined to pander to and to coddle and to not say no to their children and that that's not good for the child. And so what does... What is a father's work then? A father's work is to say to mom and to the child, no, no. And what happens when dad says no to the child? What does mom do? Mom turns on dad. She gets mad. It's unpleasant. It could become dangerous. And so fatherhood is not safe. It's just not safe. It's hard work. It's difficult work. People are not always thankful for it.

So how are you supposed to be a father when you realize that the work's not safe? It's not easy. It's difficult. People are going to say no to you. People are going to oppose you. People are going to call you names. They're going to lie about you. They're going to slander you. What I want you to see, you men, is that if you're afraid to be a father, it's because you're selfish and because you're proud. You're not willing for someone to say something or do something that might hurt you. What you're doing is prioritizing yourself. Over the good of the weak. In a home, when a child is out of line, and the father won't step in and say, no, you will not do that. There's a reason he won't do it. It may be because he's lazy. It may be because he's ignorant, blind, dumb, whatever you want to call it. But even in that, Job says, I investigated the cause which I did not know. That's fatherhood. And so you fathers, if something's going on in your house,

Your wife comes to you and says, here's a problem. It's your place to figure out what's going on. When Tommy and Billy are fighting, it's your job to figure out what's going on. Tommy, what happened? Billy, what happened? Okay, here's what should have happened. If you won't engage in that work, what you're saying as a father is you're saying, it's beneath me. And I don't want that problem. I don't want the headache. Because you know what happens in my house, what would be normal, Vanessa could tell you, is that if we're having trouble with one of the children and she tells me about it, and it catches my eye and I start to deal with that child, the child doesn't always immediately turn around and be pleasant. What happens is they get angry or they get frustrated and then when I leave, what do they do? They act out for Vanessa. And what's that create for me? More work. Because now my child is still disobedient and now my wife's angry at me because I didn't teach them or discipline them or correct them or something. I didn't do it right.

And so now the child's angry and I've got more work to do. And now I don't just have a problem with my child. Now Vanessa's having to bear the burden of this child's disobedience. And she's not above getting mad at me about it. And so I create more work. And so in the face of all of that, my temptation is to just go, no, everything will be fine, honey. Don't worry about it. He's just being a boy. And that's me being selfish. That's me saying my comfort and my ease is more important to me than that child's well-being. And we do the same thing when it comes to abortion. It's dangerous down there. You remember David explaining to you a couple of weeks ago what happened when he was down there, and a guy my size started walking towards him, all red-faced and angry. And David thought, he's going to beat me up. And what am I going to do? And the question in that moment is, who's more important? What's more important? Was David's well-being more important, or was the baby's life more important? The baby's life was more important, and so David spoke. And God worked.

Fatherhood's not safe. I don't want you to hear that story and think that bad things never happened down there. People do get nasty, mean, awful things said to them and done to them at the abortion mill. Some of the men were out at the gay pride parade this last week preaching, and there were all kinds of awful, nasty things said to you. Weren't there, Daniel? They're called all kinds of names, had all kinds of awful things done. It's not safe, but that's fatherhood. That's what it is. It's not a safe work, but it is a good work. The reason it's dangerous is because you're stepping in between a predator and their prey. You're telling someone who wants something and who is powerful, that's why they can get it. You're telling them they can't have it. The parents want to kill their child. That's why they're there. When they're there on the day that the clinic does abortions, they are there for one reason. They're not there to get counsel. They're not there to...

to learn about anything. They're there to kill their child. They are the oppressor and they are about to oppress. And then you show up and you say, no, don't do that. That's what makes it dangerous. The sad part is most of the time, the danger, when I say danger, we think, okay, physical violence, going to harm, bodily harm is going to be done to me. And most of the time, it's not even that intense. Most of the time, it's getting called names. It may be getting flipped off. It may be getting spat at. It's nothing that a shower won't fix. And it's too much for us. It's too much for us to bear. I couldn't handle someone thinking that about me, saying that about me. And so we turn our eye away from it. We turn our eye away from the need, away from the oppression, away from the murder. Our Father God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into this world to endure the sort of danger and violence.

that we're afraid of, right? Nobody wants to get beat up. No one wants to get hit by a car. Those are the sorts of things you'll get threatened with. You'll be standing there and you'll see a car veer towards you. And they're threatening you. None of us want to endure that. None of us want to go through that. But we have to understand that fatherhood loves the weak, loves the poor, loves the needy, loves those who can't help themselves. And so God, who loves his son, sent his son into this world to endure the worst kind of pain and suffering and violence that there could be. Hebrews 12, 2 and 3 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. He went through and endured everything that you can imagine. And Hebrews tells us to pay attention to him. He went through it. He did it. He died on the cross. He endured. He despised the shame. And he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. That's the temptation that fathers, if I can get you men to be fathers, if I can get you to have some vision for it, you're going to face the temptation to quit, to give up, to say it's too hard, it's too difficult, it takes too long. I don't want to do it. I can't do it. I'm not fit to do it. And so you've got to fix your eyes on Jesus Christ. You've got to be willing. to endure the hardship of fatherhood, to give yourself to the work of loving those who can't care for themselves. One of the sweet mercies of God to me in my family is giving me children. And over the time, each time we have another child, I like my little children a little more. When Joseph was a baby, what would you say, Vanessa? It was probably six months before I took a big interest in him.

I just didn't like to hold babies that much. I didn't know what to do with the baby. You hold them, they spit up or they sleep or what do you do with the baby? I didn't know. I didn't know you enjoy those years because they go by really quickly. I didn't know that. I know that now, but I didn't know that then. It's like, well, when he can roll over or crawl or track me with his eyes at least, then I'd like to hold him. But all he is right now is a big bucket of needs. He needs to be fed. He needs to be burped. He needs to be changed. He needs to sleep.

He needs to stop crying. He's just a need machine. I don't know how to meet those needs. I don't want to have to meet those needs. And so here you go, honey. But by God's grace and his kindness, that's not how I feel anymore. I can put babies to sleep now. Crying, screaming children. When Vanessa's tired of them, I can put them to sleep. And it's a sweet blessing to be able to be a father. You get tired. I mean, you get tired and you grow weary. It's not easy. Being a father is the hardest thing you'll ever do, man. It's the hardest thing you'll ever do.

Climbing a mountain is easier than being a father. The essence of fatherhood is that you take care of those who are in need, which is the opposite of oppressing them. A father stands in the way of the oppressor and says, you may not. And so that means you can't be a father and an oppressor. A father cares for the needy and an oppressor takes advantage of the needy. You know how wines, they say about wine that it's an acquired taste? When I first had wine, it was nasty. You like wine yet, Daniel? You do? Certain kinds. Marianne doesn't. Some of us might like, you know, you start, you drink kind of fruit-juicy wine, and then you kind of get to the better wine, you know, the drier, nastier-tasting wine. It's an acquired taste. You know, you read somewhere that this wine is good with this meal, and so I'm going to like it. But it doesn't taste good. And yet some people learn to actually enjoy it. They learn how it complements. They enjoy the flavor.

But to most people, you just give them wine and they, that's terrible. And that's the way fatherhood is to men. That's the way fatherhood is. You say, I stand here and I say, fatherhood is good. I've got eight children and it's a blessing. And to have been an only child and to not have a father and then for God to give me eight children, I couldn't ask for a better life. I couldn't ask for something more merciful. God has been good to me. And it's taken time for me to... To get a taste for it. And I'm not there yet. I'm not done. I'm the father who loses their patience after 10, 15 minutes at home. I'm going to be patient. And you come home and then the curveball. It's like, that was the thing I didn't prepare for. I did not prepare for you to have broken that. I was ready for this. I was ready for that. I was ready for the other thing. But I didn't expect that. And yet by faith and with God's help, a father will grow in his love of caring for the needy. With his own children.

And he'll learn to see, by faith, he'll learn to see the needs that exist outside of his home. He'll learn to see where is oppression happening. And he'll learn to say no to it. He'll learn to find the oppression that's in his heart, how he takes advantage of the needy. And he'll say no to it. That's the work that God does in the hearts and minds of fathers. You can't be a father if you don't love the weak. And you came pre-wired to despise it. And Job sets us an example of what it looks like. He delivers. He snatches. He breaks the jaw of the wicked. He's eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. Have you ever led someone around that's blind? They can't see. Some old lady can't see. And what does she want to do? She wants to touch you. She wants to hold on to your arm so she doesn't fall. And she's completely dependent on you, and she's walking right next to you, holding on. And you have to walk really slow.

And you can't pay attention to anything else because there's this frail old lady next to you who's just dependent on you. That's fatherhood. Now, do you have to be a dad and have children to be able to do that for an old lady? No. Nope. Joseph could do it. He's 10. He can learn to care for the weak. He can learn to see the needy. And he can learn not to oppress it. Our temptation will be always to oppress it, to take advantage. But God teaches us a different way. He teaches us to be merciful and kind. and to defend those who can't defend themselves. That's our work and that's our place. And you don't have to be married and have children to do it. So there are two applications. The first is that fatherhood is, it wants you to know that fatherhood is needed everywhere. You walk through this building and all this root building is filled with is fatherhood. You're like, what do you mean? It's all filled with fatherhood. You read those little things over on the floor over there that talk about careers and making good decisions and all that kind of stuff.

You go in the bathrooms and you read the stuff about bullying and you read about how to listen to your teachers and do what you say and this is how you treat your bus drivers and all this kind of stuff. Why is this school full of that? Why is it full of it? Because there aren't any fathers telling their children those things. That's why. It's not the school's place to tell your children not to be bullies. It's your place to teach them not to be bullies, not to oppress the weak. And if you go around and you look in this school, it's filling the void that fathers have left. This is what our society does. All these signs that give warnings and admonitions, and don't do that, and it'll be bad if this other thing happens. They're just being a father to the fatherless. They're trying, but they can't be fathers. You can be fathers. When you see someone who is in need, you see someone who is being oppressed, it's your place to step in. It's your place to be a father. Well, that kid's not going to like me.

It's okay. Not right now, they won't. Is that the ordering principle? The child won't like me. They won't appreciate me. You want to know what child will appreciate you? The one whose life is saved. That one will appreciate you. He'll be glad that you told his parents not to kill him. So fatherhood is needed everywhere. And as I said at the beginning, fatherhood is active. And so the first application is for you, open your eyes and look around and learn to see the need. You say, I don't know how to see the need. I don't know where it's at. And I say, that's the work of fatherhood. You've got to learn to see it. You have to investigate the cause that you didn't know. Did any of you think when you walk in the bathroom or you walk through the store, I didn't see any of that until today and I was thinking about fatherhood. And I thought, this is father's work. Why is the school doing it? Learn to see where fatherhood is needed. Learn to see weakness and step in. The final application is with regard to purity. Sexual immorality.

is oppression. It's that simple. Sexual immorality is oppression. It is taking advantage. If the woman says, it's okay with me, you are taking advantage of her. And it doesn't matter if she says it's okay. And it doesn't matter if she gives her consent because she's on a screen. None of it matters. That is oppression. And if you give yourself to impurity, you will be impotent as a father. You cannot give yourself to sexual immorality and impurity and think that you can be a good father. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot be both an oppressor and a protector. And don't think that you can be a hypocrite and you can oppress people you don't know and protect people you do know. You won't do it. You will blind yourself to the way that you oppress the people you do know. If you want to be a man, if you want to be a father, if you want to honor God with your sex as a man,

You're to be pure. You're to flee sexual immorality. Abortion is the solution, the response to a lack of fatherhood. Men don't want to be men. Men don't want to marry women. They don't want to take care of women. They don't want to be faithful to women. They want to consume them. And then the women end up pregnant. And what are the women to do? Because no man's there to take care of them. No man's there to protect them. No one's there to be a father to this child. And so the child suffers. I was in a conversation one time and I said to a man, I said, you've never, I grew up outside the church. I know all about the world, what the world has to offer in terms of temptations and sexual immorality. And I told this young man, I said, you have never experienced the temptation that you will face as a man. And what you think is that you'll go this far and no more and that you would never kill your baby. But what are you going to do when you get a girl pregnant and she won't listen to you and she decides she's going to go kill your baby?

And what are you going to do? You can't stop her. You'll get arrested if you lock her up. He can't stop her. What are you going to do? If you're impure, it is oppression, and it contributes to our society's understanding of there being a need to kill children. They're the fruit of unfaithfulness. They're unwanted. They're undesirable to those who should love them. And so the solution is a few hundred dollars, and your problem will go away. And your work is menace and not participate in the evil deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. You must be pure. Turn your eyes away from sexual immorality. Flee from it. Don't give any room to your lusts. And you'll be a father. You don't have to be married to be a father. You're single and you say, well, I'm single or I'm young. Someday, and I say, if you're to be a father someday, you're to be pure now.

And if you won't be pure now, you're not heading in the direction of fatherhood later. You must be pure. You fathers who have sons, you must talk to your children about this, to your sons and to your daughters. Keep them from being impure. You don't want them giving themselves to sexual immorality. You don't want them being ignorant about how sex works. Where do babies come from? You should have these conversations with your children because you know what? The world is happy to tell them. And the world's happy to tell them that if you have a baby and it isn't quite the right time, you can get rid of them. You don't even have to tell your parents about it. That's the world we live in. You teach your kids about sex. You be a father to them. You teach them to be pure. You demonstrate it and you talk to them about it. Your sons and your daughters. You tell them that their body is theirs and that no one else may touch it. No one else may look at it. And that they may not look at or touch anyone else's body.

That's what fatherhood looks like. It's uncomfortable. That's an uncomfortable conversation to have with your child. But that's what it means to be a father to him and to protect him. That's your work. And you'll find great joy in it as you see God working in it and through it. Job wasn't a perfect man. This section of the book of Job is sort of an intermission from his grumbling and complaining. The book starts well and it ends well, but in the middle, it just kind of goes down into him being very angry at God. And then you have this section in chapter 29 where he comes up and says, here's what I was like. Here's what kind of man I am. And then he eventually goes back into complaining and grumbling until God shows up. And so Job wasn't a perfect man. The things that he did, you can do and you ought to do. Let's pray. Father, soften our hearts. They are calloused and hard. We turn away from the poor and the...

weak and the needy. We despise those things. And yet, Father, we despise those things and our ignorance because that's what we are. We are weak and we are ignorant. We are needy. Without your help, we would be without hope. And yet you've given us a hope and a promise. And so we pray, Father, for your mercy to be evident in our lives. Pray that you'd help us to be fathers, to support other men being fathers. to encourage the young men to become fathers, to be their brother's keepers, to care for the orphan and the widow, to not turn our eyes away from the wickedness and the oppression of our day. Father, would you give us faith and humility and tenderness and zeal for your word and for your law. And Father, would you make us pure, keep our eyes from wandering and our hearts from lusting after strange flesh.

Make us content with the wife of our youth. Whether we're married or not, give us purity of heart and mind and body. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.