Be Strong and Courageous

So today is Father's Day, and we're going to talk about fatherhood. But first I want to start out by talking about work. And I want to start by asking, is it a good thing to get a promotion at work? Is it the sort of thing that people want? Are you sure? Well, the reason I ask is because I bet most of us know people who don't want promotions. They're happy to just be where they're at and do what they do. And in my experience, the people I talk to who don't want promotions at work, They understand something that I think a lot of people don't want to admit. And what they understand is that promotion comes with this thing called responsibility. And they don't want any more responsibility. In their minds, there's a very direct connection between moving up in a company and having to be responsible for more stuff. Everybody wants to be paid more. But not everybody wants to do more to earn the money, right? And that's what a promotion is. A promotion says, here's more work.

And because we're giving you more work, more responsibility, we'll give you more money. You'll earn more money. And so when I ask, are promotions good things? We all say, yes, they're good things. And they say, but you know people who don't want promotions at work. And you're like, well, yeah. And I say, okay, so in your life, especially you fathers, I want you to see that you're not, you might be more tempted to not want a promotion than you think. You might be like, yeah, I think I've got enough. No, we'll make it work. I don't need more responsibility. And my contention this morning is to say to you, is to demonstrate that responsibility is fatherhood. The taking on of it. The taking on responsibility and more of it is to be growing in fatherhood. And as men, that's our work. And it's not as easy as some of us might want it to be or think it is. I realize some of you are going, I've been a father for decades.

I've got a lot of experience. And some of you are going, I'm not even married yet. I don't even know what that means yet, but I think it's a good thing and I want it. And some of you might even be saying, yeah, I don't know if it's for me or thank you, I've had enough. I don't want any more promotions. My hope is by the end of our time this morning, you'll see fatherhood for what it is and that the Lord will be gracious to us and giving us a desire to grow in it. Our text this morning is Joshua chapter one. We're going to be reading verses one through nine. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word?

Now it came about after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' servant, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river. the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the great sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory. No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Our text is Joshua 1, 1 to 9. But to get our bearings, we're going to spend a good bit of time talking about Moses. So we understand what Joshua is being given or called to at this point. And if you think of Moses or you think of Joshua, you can think of men who receive promotions throughout their life. They are moved up in responsibility. Moses. was born during a time when all the male infants of Israel, the Hebrews, were supposed to be killed. So his mother hid him for a while and then eventually put him out by the reeds. Pharaoh's daughter found him, decided to raise him. His mother nursed him. And as he grew up, he grew up in Pharaoh's house, right? He went from being a Hebrew slave to growing up in Pharaoh's house. This is a good, seemingly good thing, right? And then one day Pharaoh's, you know, Moses is out.

observing the land, and what he sees is one of the Pharaoh's slave masters beating one of the Hebrew slaves. And so he intercedes, and he kills the Egyptian. And then he gets scared, because they're out after him, and he flees to Midian, and he lives there a good long while. This is another country. While he's in Midian, he meets Jethro, and he marries Jethro's daughter, Zipporah. And then as Moses was shepherding Jethro's flock, the Lord appeared to him in the burning bush. Now I want to ask you before we continue on with Moses' story, do you think Moses liked living in Midian with Jethro and shepherding his flock? I think it was probably a pretty happy place to be. Not any tension. They want to kill him in Egypt, both Pharaoh and the Hebrews. They're both after Moses. They don't like him. Who made you ruler over us, say the Hebrews? And Pharaoh's after him, wanting to kill him.

Not a happy place to be. So he flees and he goes and he gets married and he has kids and he's out tending flocks. Good place to be. And then the Lord appears to him in the burning bush. And here comes his promotion. In Exodus 3, 4-10, it says, Moses, Moses. And Moses said, Here I am. And then he said, Do not come near here. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. He said, Also, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hittite, and the Jebusite. And if you were Moses at this time, through your fear before seeing the Lord, you would think that's a good thing.

I grew up there. They wanted me dead. And you're going to deliver your people from their oppression. This is a good thing. Now behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come up to me. Furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt. This is the job description that Moses gets. He's happily tending his flocks in Midian. And the Lord comes to him and says, I have work for you. You're going to come do it. Now, I stopped short of his response. But how do you tend to respond when someone comes to you and says, I've got work for you, and it's going to be hard or dangerous? I think most of us would probably go, hmm, next. Luis says next. Yeah, no thank you. I don't want to deal with that grumpy customer at work who's a liar. I saw Luis having to deal with this earlier this week. And Taylor actually was the one who had to deal with it. We don't.

We have this thing inside of us that we don't want to deal with difficult situations with conflict. And what I want us to see from the very beginning is that that's a weakness. That's not a good thing. And especially not a good thing in a man. And a particularly dangerous thing in a father. That he would see difficulty and hardship and he'd go, nah, nah. The Lord says to Moses, I've heard my people's cry, I've seen their affliction, and I'm going to send you to lead them out of captivity. What a promotion. What a responsibility. Everybody wants promotions and responsibility, right? Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, certainly, the Lord said, certainly, I will be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain. So how do you judge Moses' response to this promotion?

You're going to go. You're going to leave the flocks. You're going to leave the fields. You're going to go to Israel, and you're going to deliver my people from their oppression. Who am I? And you can tell that, you know, you might read that, and you might go, well, that's an honest question. He's humble, and he says, he wrote about himself, he's the most humble man in all the earth. This is a humble man saying, well, who am I? But the Lord's response tells us that his response isn't a humble response. His response is a fearful response. It's an abdicating response. It's an, I don't want to do it.

response. That's what it amounts to. Later on, in Exodus chapter 4, as Moses and the Lord are interacting, Moses says this. He says, what if they will not leave me and listen to me, to what I have to say? For they may say, the Lord has not appeared to you. Because really, Moses is supposed to go back. He's supposed to tell the people that the Lord has appeared to him, and that he's going to lead them out of their captivity. And he's concerned that they're going to say, no, he didn't. And who are you to think such things? And so Moses is trying to negotiate his fear, really. And so then there are a number of miracles at the burning bush. The Lord says, you see that rod in your hand? Yep, throw it down. Throws it down, it turns into a snake. Now pick it up. Picks it up and turns back into a rod. Says to Moses again, see your hand? Look at it. Yep, see your hand. Put it into your breast. Puts it into his breast. Now look at it again. Leprosy. No, put it back into your breast. Take it back out again.

Oh, it's back to normal. What's God doing in performing these miracles, giving these signs? He's trying to prove to Moses that he's going to be with him. He's already said to him, certainly I'll be with you. But Moses is doubting. Moses goes, I don't know about that. That might be too difficult, too hard for me. And so the Lord gives Moses these signs and says, do you believe now? You've seen my power. And if the people won't believe, then do these things in front of them. And if they won't believe after the rod and the snake, and they won't believe after the leprosy and the healing, then take water from the Nile and pour it out on the ground and turn it to blood. And they'll believe. They'll follow you. And so, in effect, what the Lord's doing with Moses is he's getting down to the real issue at hand, which is not whether Moses is worried that the people will believe him or not. It's that Moses doesn't want to go. And the Lord demonstrates through these signs, I'm going to be with you. You can go.

So then just a few verses later, Exodus 4, 10 through 13, it says, Then Moses said to the Lord, this is once he realizes he's not getting off the hook. Then Moses said to the Lord, Please, Lord, I've never been eloquent, neither recently nor in the time past, nor since you have spoken to your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. And what he's saying is, I'm unfit. I can't do this work. The Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now then, go. And I, even I, will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to say. But he said, please, Lord, now send the message by whomever you will. And this is sort of a resignation on Moses' behalf. He's not at any point in this whole interaction excited about the work.

not desiring the promotion. And if we were to read on in Exodus chapter 4, it says, then the Lord's anger burned against Moses because of Moses' indignance. He just didn't want to do it. He wouldn't trust. And he's just going, no, no, please, anybody else but me. I don't want the danger. I don't want the difficulty. I want to stay where I'm at. He didn't feel fit or able. Now, why did I bring up Moses? This isn't right. I told you our text was Joshua chapter 1. Here we are. I've been looking in Exodus about Moses. Well, I bring all of this up because Moses is...

the leader of Israel, and Joshua is his successor. He comes in at Moses' death. So Joshua has come up watching Moses do his work, bringing the people out of Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, wandering about in the wilderness, striking the rock in anger and not being able to go into the promised land. Joshua is his right-hand man. And so I bring all of this up to you first so that you can see the hurdles that godly men have always had to overcome. So that they can serve God. It's never been easy to serve God. Even in this time, we can name our kids Moses and we can name them Joshua and we can say they were great men of God and they did all these things. And it's true. But these men were not perfect. They were fearful. They were weak. They were sinners. They did all kinds of stuff they ought not to have done. And here what we see in Moses is a lack of courage, a lack of faith. Bordering on an unwillingness to do what the Lord's called them to do.

He's hiding from responsibility. And Moses isn't the only one who does this sort of stuff. You might be like, oh, well, Moses was just a bad guy. He just messed all that stuff up. And I say, well, you remember Jonah, right? Here's a responsibility. Go and preach to the Ninevites. And what's he do? Tucks tails and run the other direction. I don't want to do that. What about Saul? Do you remember when Saul was supposed to be the king? And it was time to crown him king. Where was Saul at? Hiding in the luggage. hiding, trying not to become the king of Israel. And we look at it and we go, it's kind of pathetic. Don't you think? Here's this responsibility. The Lord's with him. The Lord set him apart for this work, whether it's Saul or whether it's Jonah or whether it's Moses, whether it's Joshua or whether it's you. And all of these men are hiding from it, running from it. And so Moses isn't an anomaly. And this is the man that Joshua is supposed to succeed. Moses has died. They've mourned his death. And now,

if you will, the hard work's about to start. You remember years before this, 40 years before this, they came up to the Jordan. They were supposed to go into the promised land. And Moses sent spies. And Joshua was one of them. And they go in to the promised land to spy it out. And they spend time with Rahab. And they come back. And only Joshua and Caleb say, we should go. All the rest of them are filled with fear. And they say, we can't do it. And as a result, they spend 40 years in the wilderness. All the men who are 20 years and older die except for Caleb and Joshua. So consider, was it harder to wander around in the wilderness for 40 years or was it harder to go into the promised land? Which do you think would be a more difficult task? Certainly going into the promised land. So which one would you rather be the leader of if you had to choose? Do you want to lead the grumbling people around the wilderness or do you want to lead them into an inhabited land and kill all of the people that are in your way?

You start to understand the difficulty that Joshua is being tasked with, the weight of the responsibility. This is what it means for Joshua to become a father in Israel, to care for and to protect the people. And so if we were to take our text from Joshua and we were to summarize it, it would be a pretty straightforward text. Moses has died just before the Israelites were entering the promised land, and the Lord appoints Joshua, Moses' servant, to succeed him. To come after him and to lead the people into the land that the Lord had promised to give them. And Joshua is to lean wholly upon God and lead the people to do the same as they go in on this new endeavor. If we were to look through scripture, we would find all kinds of examples of good leadership and bad leadership. Good fatherhood and bad fatherhood. I mentioned Saul earlier when he's hiding in the luggage. And we go, that's bad fatherhood. That's bad leadership. And I tell you, you're right. We could go to Saul later in life.

When Samuel tells him they're going off to battle and Samuel says, wait for me seven days and I'm going to come and we'll offer sacrifices to the Lord and then we'll go into battle. What did Saul do? Well, he waited, but not until Samuel came. And he offered up sacrifices. And the reason he offered up the sacrifices is because the people were starting to get scared. The people were starting to scatter. They were dismayed. And so he's scrambling, trying to help the people. And in so doing, he... does exactly what he was told not to do. And what I would submit to you is that this is a common temptation that men face, and that it was sin for him to do that. This is what Scripture teaches us. He got nervous. The people under his care started to scatter, and so he was grasping at straws. He wasn't leading. He wasn't loving and caring for and protecting them. And this is the burden of fatherhood. This is the work of the responsibility of it.

And it's a common temptation that men want to shirk this responsibility. We could talk about our culture and we could talk about how our culture even accommodates this shirking of responsibility. But I want us to stay closer to our text. And instead of looking at the problems that surround us, I want to look at what Scripture tells us we need as men, as fathers, to do our work. Because we look at Moses and we see in Exodus chapter 3 and 4 and following his weakness and his timidity. But he did lead the people. He did trust God. He did well. And if you know the story of Joshua, you know that he does well. But it's not without great difficulty. And so one of the constant refrains you find in our text this morning is the Lord telling him, be strong and courageous. Three times in nine verses. Be strong and courageous. Be strong and very courageous. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. So can we assume?

or conclude that fathers need to be told to be strong and courageous? Can you men agree with me and say you need to be strong and courageous? And that you're not wired naturally to do it. That the promotion of fatherhood and the work that it requires of you is daunting. And that you, like Moses, like Joshua, feel the weight of it and you want to run from it. And yet you know you can't. And you live in this tension. That's very difficult. So Joshua is told three times, be strong and courageous. What does it mean to be strong and courageous? Where is a man supposed to find strength and courage? If there was ever a man who could find strength and courage in himself, would it not have been Moses, who parted the Red Sea, who spoke all of the plagues against Egypt and declared that they would come into being? And yet he was weak and timid.

Where are we supposed to find strength and courage? Where does it come from? Well, I can tell you certainly the place it does not come from. It doesn't come from you. It doesn't come from you. Too often I think that we have this idea of manhood as being a law unto himself, and he's completely self-contained, and he's got everything he needs within his own body and his own mind. And this is simply not the case. And some of you who are a little older know from experience this is not the case. That you lack strength and you lack courage. Particularly at the most crucial points. You go, I don't know, that's going to be difficult and hard. I'm afraid of what might happen if I push that button. If I say that thing. And so if we go looking for strength and courage in ourselves, we will never find it. It doesn't exist in us. So what did the Lord say to Moses? Where was he supposed to get his strength? It was the same thing he told Joshua.

When the Lord spoke to Moses at the burning bush, he says, certainly I will be with you. The same thing, he says the same thing to Joshua. I will never leave you or forsake you. I'll be with you wherever you go. Here's the difficulty of fatherhood, one of them anyway, is fatherhood is dependence. To be a father in this world is to be a dependent, not on other people, but on God. Not to say that you don't rely on other people because you do, but to be a faithful father is to depend on God. and to covet his presence in your life. And nothing around you is teaching you that that's the direction you ought to go. Everything around you says, you're smart, you're good, you can do it on your own, you can figure it out. You've learned a lot of lessons. You don't need any help. And that's all a lie, isn't it? For you to think that you can handle it all on your own? How many of us have been discouraged and disheartened and depressed because we don't have the answers to the questions we've got?

Or maybe we've got an idea about the answers but lack the strength or the courage to act on them. And so the message of the gospel to fathers is you have to depend on God for your strength. And you have to depend on him for courage to stand. What would Joshua need courage for? Well, he was leading a rebellious people. Even the Israelites would have said to themselves, we're rebellious, we don't listen. Later on in this chapter, they say, we'll listen to you just like we've listened to Moses. And if I was Joshua, I think I would have chuckled. Oh, great. Because you were so obedient to him. Why did you bring us out into the wilderness to die? Can't we go back to Egypt where we can have meat in our pots? How many times did they almost kill Moses? We're going to listen to you just like we listened to Moses. Oh, great. Thank you. That'll be great. It'll be wonderful. I'm looking forward to it. And to that man,

The Lord says, be strong and courageous for I'll be with you wherever you go. You've got a difficult people to lead, but they're my people. And I'm going to give them the land I promised. Why else might you have to be strong and courageous? Well, the land they were going into, it's described in our text as a land flowing with milk and honey. And that sounds wonderful, but it's full of other things too. Lots and lots of other things. Namely, the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites. And the Hivites and the Jebusites, there's all these people there who you're going to dispossess. You're going to take their stuff because the Lord told you to, and you're going to kill every last one of them along the way. That's the marching order. Be strong and courageous. You've got battle to do. And so when we read of Joshua, I don't want us to look at him and go, or Moses, and say, oh, weak men, what's wrong with them? Which one of us can't see ourselves in that mirror?

When we look at Joshua, do we not see our own reflection, our own timidity, our own second guessing? And then we tell ourselves, well, you can't show anybody that. And Moses did his best for a while to try not to show the Lord his timidity and his weakness. It didn't work. Joshua gets told, be strong and courageous a number of times. His dependence on God was not hidden, certainly not from the Lord. And if we were to read on in the passage, it wasn't hidden from the people. Because toward the end of this chapter, they tell him to be strong and courageous. As he gathers together the elders and he says, here's what's going to happen. We're going to go in there and we're going to do what the Lord said. We're going to take the land that he's given to us. They say to him, surely we'll obey you just as we have Moses. Only be strong and courageous, they say to him. They echo what the Lord has said to him. And so his weakness or his dependence is not a hidden thing. And it would be good for our own weakness and our own dependence to not be a hidden thing.

But it's not easy to show it, is it? Or have it known. So how is Joshua supposed to lead Israel into the promised land? How is he supposed to actually practically go about the work? You know, how are we supposed to go about our work? That's the question. The first thing is to remember that God had appointed him to this work, set him apart for it, said this is your work, and that he promised to be with him in the work and to never forsake him. One of the most helpful thoughts that I've had... in difficulty in my life history, is to look around and go, is the work that I have to do as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a pastor, whatever, is this work from the Lord? And if the answer is no, then I should stop. But if the answer is yes, then I can't stop. I may not stop. You understand, you cannot quit what the Lord has given you to do. That's what Jonah tried to do.

And it was great sin for him with great consequence. And so you have to look around and you have to say, is this work the Lord has given me to do? And if the answer is yes, then don't you dare set it down or neglect it. And as you keep hold of it, remember that the Lord will be with you in it. There are many times you might ask, and this doesn't just apply to the men, but it does apply to men. You want to ask the question, why? Why do I have this hard stuff? Why do I have this difficulty? What is it? Is it health? Is it money? Is it relational? Is it your marriage? Is it your kids? What is it? Why? In my experience, both in my own life and in counseling and talking to other people, is that question almost never produces a helpful answer. Almost never. Because what it really is is a complaint. If we're just honest, you're just complaining. You're kind of doing what Moses is doing. Well, I've never been eloquent in speech, not in these days or in times past.

Why are you setting me up for this work? It's a bad question. If the Lord has set you up for this work and he has given it to you, then the question of why doesn't have much to do with it anymore. So instead of asking why, I'd suggest to you that you start asking how. Not why do I have to do this work, but Lord, how am I supposed to do this work? You've promised that you'll be with me, that you won't forsake me, that you aren't going to abandon me in this. I'm in over my head. How am I supposed to serve you in this area? How am I supposed to lead? Where am I supposed to sacrifice? Not, why are you making me do hard stuff? Why is the question that's on all of our tongues, it's on my tongue. It's the first question I want to ask when something difficult happens. Why? And then I just say, well, how? How am I going to fix it? How am I going to lead? So remember that God's appointed you to this work. If you have children,

you're to be a father. You don't have a choice about it. And you don't get to decide how to be a dad. I don't get to be one of those distant, quiet dads. I don't get to be one of those loud, yelling dads. I don't get to be one of those dads who leaves all the time. I don't get to be one of those dads who hits when he gets mad. I don't get to be one of those dads who drinks all the time. You don't get to be that kind of a dad because that's not the sort of fatherhood that God describes for us and demonstrates for us in his word or in his care for us.

You're to be a father as he's a father. So having remembered that God's given you this work, not running from it the way Jonah did, remembering that he'll be with you in it, even though you can't see the way out of it, you can't see your way clear. Could you imagine, Josh, would you think he had a game plan and was like, you know what we're going to do, guys? I got it all figured out. That river in front of us is overflowing its banks right now. This is the first issue that Joshua would have faced in his leadership. How are we supposed to get over this river that's flooded? There are no fords here. There's no low paths. We don't have any rafts. How am I supposed to get this whole nation to the other side of the river? Here's your first problem. Get all these people across there safely. How? How? Well, the Lord tells him how. He says, take the Levites, the ones who carry the ark, and have them go stand right at the edge of the water.

Get their feet in the water and have them stand there and hold the ark. And you go, okay, now what? And so as soon as the Levites come and they stand there, what happens? The water stops flowing. Literally stops flowing. And it says it piles up in heaps on the one side. And the Levites walk out into the middle of the river and they're carrying the ark and they stand out there. And all the nation walks across on dry land. That's how. There's Jericho. We've gotten across the river. There's this big fortified city. They're all scared of us. And they're hiding in the city. How are we going to take the city? Got any ideas? I do. We're going to camp outside the city. We're going to march around it once a day. And then the last seventh day, we're going to march around it seven times. And then we're going to make a godly racket that shakes the earth. And the walls are going to fall down. And the Lord's going to deliver them into our hand.

That's how we're going to do it. And when you look at these examples of Joshua's leadership, you have to put yourself in his situation and go, how do you get across the river? I don't know. What are you going to do with Jericho? No idea. And then you see the Lord's provision. Joshua couldn't have come up with that stuff. Hey, Levites, come here. Bring that ark. We're going to get across this river. All you guys get your trumpets. We're just going to march around the city. And we're going to yell. The walls are going to fall down. The Lord promised he'd always be with Joshua, that he'd never leave him or forsake him, that he wouldn't call him to work simply to watch him fail at it. That's a really humbling thought as a father. You're given work, and you're not fit for it, any more than Moses was fit or Joshua was fit. You're simply not fit. And to the extent that you're aware of that, it can be a really discouraging thought. Your wife calls you during the day and says, there's a problem. Oh, what's going on? Billy did this at school today. Oh, no.

What are we going to do with Billy? Most fathers don't have an answer for that question. Their first response is, dang it, Billy, why are you doing that? Stop being stupid, is what they think. I wish you hadn't have done that. Wife's calling dad saying, what am I supposed to do with Billy? And he goes, I don't know. How about we yell at him? Completely unfit. You know, fathers who are older and who've raised kids and have seen that, they'll have some constructive things to tell you about what to do with Billy when he... pulls some stunt at the school or in the backyard or whatever. But most fathers don't have any idea what to do with that. It was a helpful thought to me one time. You know, when I was newly married and we were having, you know, Joseph was a baby and stuff, I started realizing, like, everything's new. You've never done any of this before as a father, and you don't have the foggiest clue what you're doing. And I remember it being a really helpful thought to me one time because I was looking up at these older men. You know, they're in their 40s, they're in their 50s, they're in their 60s, they've raised kids, they're godly.

And I realized that those fathers are going through things that I'm going through. They're different particulars, but they're having to go through stuff for the first time and figure out what it means to be a father in that situation. What do you do when your son gets married? I don't have to worry about that yet. I don't have to know what being a father in that situation is, but I have no idea what it looks like. What's it mean to have my son bring a woman into our house, into our family, and to be a dad to her? Or a father-in-law. I don't know. Some of you probably know. Or at least can say, not this. Don't do that. So fathers are always learning. And always feeling inadequate for the work at hand. And I want you to know, men, that's normal. And I don't want you to succumb to it. You'll want to. Just like Saul did. And just like Jonah did. But don't do it. Remember that the Lord's with you. He won't forsake you in the work.

He's able to work miracles like parting the Jordan, causing screaming and hollering to knock down walls. He's able to give you wisdom to raise your family. So trust him. And then be strong and courageous. As you rely on the Lord, be strong and courageous. Well, what's that look like? Well, just a couple of things. We could say a lot, but I'm just going to say a few things. To be strong and courageous as a father means be willing to engage in conflict, seeking the glory of God. That's really it. to being a father. Be willing to get down in the muck and in the hardship and say, we're going to work to glorify God here. You and me and everyone else. A couple of particulars. That means don't pull your punches. Don't be manipulative as a father. If somebody's done something wrong, tell them. Love them enough to tell them. Don't manipulate them emotionally. You see this with little kids in the store.

Spanking is the most awful thing you could ever do to your children. It's really frowned upon and it's really bad, right? Is screaming and yelling at your kid in the toy aisle or the candy aisle for 20 or 30 minutes and threatening all kinds of terrible things to them better? No. Does it produce better fruit? No. And the real problem is that never ends because that's a relational break that's not resolved with a hug and a kiss and prayer. That's what resolves spanking. Your son does something wrong, discipline him for it. And when he's sorry, pick him up and hug him and kiss him and pray with him. Smile at him and tell him you love him. You scream and holler at your son, that will not be the end of it. It won't be hugs and kisses and resolution. It'll be, are we okay? Is it okay? Don't pull your punches. Don't manipulate the people under you. Be gentle, be patient, but be straightforward. Related to that, don't be passive aggressive.

don't manipulate, and don't be passive-aggressive. Say what you mean. You say, if I say it like that, then all hell's going to break loose. And I go, well, better to lance that boil. It's not going to get better if you leave it. Don't be passive-aggressive. Let people know what you expect of them as fathers. Your kids should know what you expect of them. And be consistent in it. And as I want you all to know, as I say these things, I first said them and been... I'm convinced of my own failures on all of this stuff. So I don't stand up here and tell you all this stuff as the one who's got it all figured out because I don't. I stand up here and tell you this stuff because I'm convinced this is what Scripture tells us to do. I'm not a perfect father by any stretch. If you ask Vanessa, she'll tell you. And I'm convinced this is the right way to behave, the right way to father. This is the way that glorifies God. The final thing I'll tell you about how to be strong and courageous is don't you ever quit. Don't quit. Don't quit when your child...

is going through a valley. Don't quit when your wife's opposing you. Don't quit. I was recently talking to a husband. He's not a father yet, but he's talking to me about his marriage. And he said he was upset at his wife. She wasn't listening to him. And he was calling me and saying, what do you think I should do? And he was being honest and humble, and he said, you know, basically, I'm tired of fighting with her. And I just said to him, don't quit. You may not win every battle. You won't win every battle, but I'll tell you, you can't ever lose. And he kind of listened, and we were on the phone, and he's like, what do you mean? And I said, you just can't win every battle in the moment. You won't. But you can't lose. And the only way you lose is if you quit. Your children might not listen to you in the moment. They might not listen to you for a long time. But don't you quit on them. Nothing good will come out of you quitting as a father. You remember when Moses was grumbling and complaining?

in his way, trying to get out of this work. And he says, I am not eloquent in speech. And then the Lord's anger burned against him. And what you would expect to happen is for the Lord to say, fine, I'll get somebody else. And the Lord refuses to get somebody else. There's Aaron. He'll be your mouthpiece. Now let's go. And if Moses, if the Lord didn't quit on Moses when he was grumbling and complaining, and I don't want to, and I'm not good at this, and I'm not fit for that. Don't quit on your kids. They're not listening. Where in the Bible did you ever get the impression that kids listen all the time? Or even most of the time? We'll listen to you, Joshua, just like we listen to Moses. Oh, good. Being a father is a blessing. It's a blessing to the father. It's also a blessing to the children. But here's the way the blessing comes to you. It comes to you like the garden. There's a close correlation between the Garden of Eden and the Promised Land.

And the similarity between both of them was the vast majority of it was uncultivated. And Adam's work was to cultivate the garden, to bring order to it, to make it useful, right? He's supposed to take this uncultivated land and make it profitable, useful, fruitful. And Joshua's supposed to take the nation into Israel and do the same thing. Take this land filled with idolaters and rebels and those who hate me. Purge it of all of its bad stuff. Bring glory to it. Bring my presence to it. Establish a nation here. Clean out all the bad stuff. That was Adam's work before the fall. That was Joshua's work going into the promised land. And that's our work as fathers. You've got to clean the gunk out. It's just part of fatherhood. It's a big part of fatherhood. You guys know how you have hard water?

Most of you, well, you all have hard water. Some of you may have water softeners. But those of you who don't have water softeners, you ever tried to scrub off a hard water stain? Is it easy? No? It needs that thing called elbow grease. You just scrub at it. You can put some chemicals or whatever on it to help, but there's no way you can get around just scrubbing it. And you just have to scrub it until it's gone. Right? You don't scrub it and go, ah, well, that's good enough. If you want it clean, you've got to scrub until it's gone. And that's what fatherhood is. Rub glory into it until it shines. This is your work with your kids. It's the final exhortation. What do you do when you realize you're not leading like Joshua? You look at him and you go, well, he was a weak man, weak in faith, needed to be told to be strong and courageous a number of times, but he did well in the end. What do I do if I'm not like him? Well, you do the same thing you do if you were hiking and you got lost. You'd figure out where you are.

you'd figure out which direction you need to go to get back to the path, and then you'd head in that direction, right? So if you're failing in your fatherhood and you don't know what to do, the answer is to repent. Get back to the path. If you're not sure what that looks like or you've got particular questions, which every one of us has at different times, search the scriptures. Talk to the men of the church. What do you do with this? My son's this. My daughter's that. How do you help? How do I get my son to stop mouthing off to his mother? How do I get my daughter to appreciate modesty? These are the questions of parenting that fathers are supposed to figure out the answer to. Ask men who've gone before. What about wives? Well, if your husband won't get on board with that stuff, doesn't seem to care, talk to the elders. Tell them, we need you to be a dad. We need you to be at home. We need you to care for them. We need you to love us. We need you to lead us. We need you to protect us.

I need you to sacrifice for us. And if his answer to all of that is, nah, talk to the elders. It's not okay for a husband or a father to say, nah. It's one thing wives don't ever want to do is say, my husband's not doing well in the house. And I say, well, if you love God and you want a good marriage, there's probably some hard work that has to happen from time to time. Go on and do it. Trust God and do it. If you hear somebody, you know, complaining about their children or something, well, what are you doing to fix it? Nothing. Well, you should do something.

Have you talked to anybody about it? Well, no. Okay, well, you should. We all need help. A lot of men spend their life seeking out exhilaration and fun and excitement and the next big rush. And fatherhood is what will meet that need more than anything else because it's lasting. You can go jump out of an airplane. You can go tempt death. But the thrill will only last for a few minutes, maybe an hour, until you finally calm back down. But that's all you get. You spend a lot of money and you get an hour of thrill. Being a father is lifelong. And it is exhilarating to see God work, just like Joshua would have seen God work. And so fatherhood is something that every man should be striving toward, whether he has children or not. You say, I don't have kids. I'm not married. And I say, okay, well, do you want those things? And you say, yeah, good. Strive for it. And you maybe say, well, no, I don't want that. I don't want to be a father. And I say, well, do you want to be a man?

You say, yeah, I want to be a man. And I say, okay, well, then you have to learn to take responsibility for other people and sacrifice for them. And if they're not blood related to you, okay, you want to be a father. It's one of the joys that we have at this church is equipping men in this work so that their lives and that their families grow in obedience to the Lord. I love seeing men become fathers of their own children, of other people, taking on responsibility, being willing to get down in the muck with other people and their troubles and help them out. It's glorious.

And so I invite you to that work from wherever you're at. You got kids? Be about it. Your kid's out of the house? You're still a father. You're going to be a grandfather. Lots of young people around you that need help. But fatherhood is something we ought to delight in and rejoice in. It's a very sweet thing. It's a gift from God that makes us, that he reveals himself to us through. You become a dad and you hold your baby for the first time? It's all changed now. It's all changed. And it is never going to go back. And it's for the better that it doesn't because you've been promoted. Let's pray.