How to Be the Spiritual Leader of Your Home | Men of Memphis Conference 2021 | Dr. Grant Gaines

thank you for being here tonight and for letting me be with you uh if you've got your bibles i want to ask you please open them with me to deuteronomy chapter six deuteronomy chapter six and as you're turning there i want to ask is anyone wearing a pair of dockers pants tonight if you want a pair of docker's pants raise your hand i want to see your hand go up in there we got a few i'm not wearing mine tonight i got my levi's on but uh doctor's pants we got a few in the house just give them a hand if you're wearing dockers i'll explain why in a moment it's gonna sound weird right now but [Applause] several years ago i came across an ad for dockers i don't think the ad would fly today because it's not politically correct but listen to what the ad said that is called wear the pants where are the pants and here's what it said it said once upon a time men wore the pants and wore them well women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone men took charge because that's what they did but somewhere along the way the world decided it no longer needed men disco by disco latte by foamy non-fat latte i actually do like lattes but men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny but today there are questions that our genderless society has no answers for the world sits idly by as cities crumble children misbehave and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street for the first time since bad guys we need heroes we need grown-ups we need men to put down the plastic fork step away from the salad bar i'm not advising that necessarily an untied the world from the tracks of complacency it's time to get your hands dirty it's time to answer the call of manhood it's time to wear the pants now that's a worldly ad but it's recognizing a kernel of truth there and that is that our world today and i would argue the church today needs men to be spiritual leaders we need men to be spiritual leaders we need men to be spiritual leaders in all kinds of ways now we need women as well but we're talking about men tonight and i believe that god has called us if you're a man and you have a home that's the sphere of male leadership of spiritual leadership that i want to kind of zero in on tonight if you're a man and you are married or you're married with children or you have children and you're not married if you're a man and you have a home i believe that god has called you to be the spiritual leader of it and what i like about this ad is that it calls us to a kind of leadership responsibility and i believe that god is calling us as men to a responsibility and and really leadership as i once heard someone say is burdenship the lord is calling us to leadership to bear the burden of responsibility to be the spiritual leaders of our homes now i've talked with a lot of men i've i've done some premarital a lot of premarital counseling i was doing some premarital counseling not long ago with a young man who was about to get married and i was talking to him about the need to be the spiritual leader of his home but he asked me a question and it was a really good one he said well pastor how can i be the spiritual leader of my home what i've heard that all my life i've heard people tell me you need to be the spiritual leader of your home but i've never understood how nobody's explained to me how well that's what i want us to look at tonight in deuteronomy chapter six god through moses is talking to the nation of israel right as they're on the brink of the promised land okay this is the second generation of the israelites they're on the brink of the jordan river about to go in moses can't go in but joshua is going to lead the men to the promised land they're going to do battle and listen they're going to have to accept spiritual responsibility when they get into that land because when they get into that land they're gonna find what my father just preached on a lot a lot of spiritual strongholds and strong men in the land the canaanites were worshipers of false gods of pagan deities they're doing all kinds of sinful immoral things and that's one of the reasons god was sending them in there because the sin of the canaanites had reached a certain threshold so not only is god giving the israelites the land of promise he's also simultaneously punishing the canaanites for their sin and wickedness and moses here is reminding in deuteronomy means the second giving of the law he's reminding them of their responsibility when they get in there and part of their responsibility and the way they're going to win the war over the long haul the way they won the battles in the short term was by picking up the sword but the way they're going to win the battle over the long haul over the course of generations is by picking up the sword of the spirit and being the spiritual leaders of their homes and so in deuteronomy chapter 6 moses calls out to them and here's what he says i'm going to read verses 1 through 13 but we're going to zero in specifically on verses four through nine so if you have your bibles you can follow along with me as i read verses 1 through 13. it says now this is the commandment the statutes and the rules of the lord your god commanded me moses to teach you the israelites that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess it that you may fear the lord your god you and your son and your son's sons see this is the battle not for the property but for the generations that you and your son's sons by keeping all of his statutes and his commandments which i command you all the days of your life and that your days may be long hear therefore o israel and be careful to do them that it may go well with you and that you may multiply greatly as the lord the god of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey hear o israel the lord our god the lord is one you shall love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might and these words that i command you today shall be on your heart you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk to them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and these should they shall be as frontlets between your eyes you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates and when the lord your god brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers to abraham to isaac and to jacob to give you with great and good cities that you did not build and houses full of all good things that you did not feel and cisterns that you did not dig and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant and when you eat and are full then take care take care unless you forget the lord who brought you out of the land of egypt out of the house of slavery it is the lord your god you shall fear him you shall serve then by his name you shall swear being the spiritual leader of your home now we're going to look at specifically verses four through nine and unpack that phrase by phrase and verse by verse and here's what i would tell you there are three keys according to deuteronomy chapter six three keys to being the spiritual leader of your home three keys to being the spiritual leader of your home here's the first one i want to give you we see in this passage that the first key to being the spiritual leader of your home is that you must understand your responsibility you must understand your responsibility now i want to remind you out of verses one through three what is at stake when it comes to being the spiritual leader of your home listen to what is at stake here go back and look in verses 1 through 3 moses tells the israelites to following the lord and obeying his word and teaching your children and their children to do the same what will be the result of that is that verse 2 it will cause your days to be long verse 3 it will cause everything to go well with you verse 3 again that they may multiply greatly in the land this is a command that if you will be the spiritual leader of your home if you will accept that responsibility it will go well with your family with your child not everything will go perfect but this is a picture of flourishing under the rule of god and if you want to flourish under the rule of god and you want your family to flourish spiritually under the rule of god it's going to involve leading them spiritually understanding that that is at stake there really is a lot at stake here if we as we decide whether or not we're going to be the spiritual leaders of our home and i want you to notice here where moses and god through moses notice where the emphasis is placed in terms of whose responsibility this is moses i believe is definitely god in mind families as he gives deuteronomy chapter six he's got in mind the family unit he is speaking to adults he's speaking to husbands and wives fathers and mothers it's clear you see in verse 7 that he's talking about families in verse 7 again he says you shall teach them your children diligently and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise so he's got fathers and mothers and children and the teaching that's supposed to go on there and specifically he mentions the fathers multiple times here he says to the feast talking about families again in verse nine you see that he's talking about families you shall write them on the doorpost of your what of your house so he's got in mind the family and then as he's talking to the leaders of these families i'm just going to run through this quickly notice what he says in verse 5 he says you shall love the lord your god verse 6 these things shall be on your heart verse 7 you shall teach them verse 8 you shall bind these words of mine as a sign verse 9 you shall write them on the doorpost of your house over and over you shall do this you shall do this you shall do where is god through moses putting the responsibility of being the spiritual leader where is he placing it he's placing it on you and i you you you not not someone else not not just the pastors of the church not the children's ministry not the student ministry not the college all those things are important and the church's role is to come alongside and equip paul tells us what the church's role is in ephesians chapter 4 verses 11 and 12. he says i've given church leaders apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers i've given them for the equipping of the saints to do the work of the ministry the church is not called to do all the ministry for you and in your place the church is called to equip you and your family to do the ministry god has for you to do and one of the most important ministries god has for you to do is to be to do the ministry of spiritual leadership in your home the church the pastors the ministers the programs are not going to do that for you they're there to assist you and to equip you so that you can do it even better than you're doing it now they're not going to it's not a replacement it's not a thing where you can drop your children off at church and expect the children's ministry to raise your kids those children's ministers usually have a lot of kids of their own they've got their hands full no it's it's you and me it's our responsibility it's the responsibility of parents in general but i would argue that it's it's also the responsibility of fathers in particular the fathers and the mothers but the fathers in particular listen to what paul says about this in ephesians 6 verse 4 paul says fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the lord now he singles out fathers it's not because the mothers don't play a pivotal role i mean oftentimes the mothers even in paul's day would have spent more time with the children than even the fathers did and yet it's not just a matter of time it's a matter of devotion and commitment and he places that responsibility primarily on the shoulders of the fathers which means fathers it's not that you're going to be the only ones making sure your children are being brought up in the disciplined instruction of the lord but i can tell you this if they're not being brought up in the discipline instruction of the lord it's on you you and i have to make sure it's getting done and a lot of it is going to be from us directly but it's also going to be making sure that our home is the kind of environment where they are being brought up in the discipline and instruction of the lord if it's not happening the responsibility is on the fathers we are called that's part of what it means to be the spiritual leader of our home to accept that responsibility now this is not meant to give put us on a guilt trip but it is meant to call us to action and i can stand before you today and say i've got five kids and i've failed many many times to be the spiritual leader that i'm called to be and not only to my children but to my wife as well this is not a matter of somebody standing up here and telling you how to do this perfectly because i have not done that but i still believe it's an important responsibility and oftentimes if we're honest with ourselves we don't always accept that responsibility well i remember the very first church that i pastored i had a parent come to me with their young son and say pastor my son uh needs to be baptized i said great let's let's talk so we went over to my office and uh and and the parent was there with with their son and and they were talking to me about how the son needs to be baptized so i just started talking through the gospel with this young man and and and all the the the young child could talk about was the birthday party he was about to go through that afternoon and what kind of cake he was going to have he wasn't listening to a word i said he had kind of zero spiritual interest and just talking about what kind of birthday cake he was going to eat so i i didn't want to be discouraging but i said you know what here's what i think we should do before we baptize him why don't i give you some material some some some gospel kind of material that you can use as a parent with your son and you go out go back and i want you to sit down with your son a few times a week and and read this for the next couple of weeks and let's talk again in two weeks we'll circle back around and we'll see what god's doing in his life so two weeks go by and i stopped the parent in the hallway of the church and i said hey just wanted to see how it's going have you been able to read that stuff with your son and how's it going what's god doing in his life and the parent looked at me and said you know what i haven't gotten around to that yet i've been really busy and i thought to myself if you're too busy to teach your child the gospel then you're too busy you're too busy it is our responsibility it is a shame on me if i teach my son how to shoot a layup and my wife teaches my daughter how to do a back handspring because that's the stuff they're involved in athletically shame on me if i teach them how to do that but i don't teach them the word of god or how to pray or how to share the gospel with their lost friends this is our responsibility this is my responsibility it's not primarily the responsibility of somebody else it's mine so the very first step i think really in being the spiritual leader of our homes is just simply recognizing that it's our responsibility it really is if it's gonna happen god is gonna have to do it through us but then there's a second truth that i believe we see in this passage about how to be the spiritual leader of our home and that is not only understanding our responsibility but secondly this is really important if we want to be the spiritual leaders of our home men then we must secondly we must love the lord ourselves we must love the lord ourselves don't skip over this i believe that one of the things moses is teaching us in this passage is that we cannot pass on something that we don't first have for ourselves you cannot pass on to the next generation what you what you're not experiencing in your own life you cannot give to them what you do not treasure and live out and possess in your own life and this is what i think he's talking about in verses four through six in verses four through six he gives what the hebrew people call the shema and they repeated this prayer every single day and they still do and listen to what it says and notice the importance here of loving god yourself so he's again he's speaking to the parents and before he ever tells them teach these things to your children notice what he says about their own spiritual life it says in verse 4 hear o israel the lord our god it's all right there the lord our god he's talking to parents he's talking to the fathers he's talking to the adults he's talking to the spiritual leaders and he says the lord our god he is our god he is my god and before he becomes my children's god he has to be my god i'm going to show them how to worship my god the lord our god is one now notice you shall love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might and these words that i command you today shall be where on your heart so he's got to be your god so there's a few things here about loving the lord yourself one verse four you must worship god only you must worship god only he says again in verse 4 the lord our god the lord is one he's one now this is a declaration of belief in monotheism that there is one god and the key here is that you should not serve any other gods because if you go on down in the passage and you look at verses 13 and 14 you see the practical application of this doctrinal belief in the oneness of god in verses 13 and 14. notice what he says again in verse 13. he says it is the lord your god you shall fear him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear you shall not go after other gods the gods of the peoples who are around you for the lord your god in your midst is a jealous god that's what it means when in verse 4 it says the lord our god is one so being the spiritual leader of your home and owning it that this is my god before i pass it on to my children and grandchildren the next generations is i will worship god only i will love him with all my heart i preached this morning at my church in murfreesboro about the importance of a commitment to generosity out of matthew chapter 6 where jesus talks about giving and at the end in matthew 6 of that passage in verse 24 he says you cannot serve god and what do you remember mammon or money you see there are multiple masters you can't have two masters jesus said in that passage and so when we say the lord our god is one of the things that means for us is we're not going to serve worship or live our lives for anyone or anything other than this one god and i've got to do that before i can pass it on now why is this important well i'll tell you why it's important because so much of being a spiritual leader of your home means laying the importance on not only what is taught but what is caught and oftentimes what is caught in your home will impact your children even more than what is taught now you should teach and he talks about that but they can tell if you're teaching them something that you don't really believe yourself and they can tell if you're teaching them about experiences that you've never really had yourself and they can tell if you're teaching them about a god that you've never really devoted yourself to yourself and so you must worship god only they don't need to see a father in the home your wife doesn't need to see a husband in the home whose worship and devotion is divided two masters you have to have one and worship him only so you must worship god only but then secondly you must love god completely not half-heartedly what does he say love the lord your god verse 5 with all your heart with all your soul with all your might all of it he wants all of us and again the people we're leading can tell if god's got our whole heart or not he doesn't want half-hearted devotion he doesn't want what i've talked to my people about as being a hokey-pokey christian remember the hokey pokey when you go to the skating rink anybody else go to the skating rink besides me when you're a kid go skating rink you put your right foot in you put your right foot out you put your right foot in you shake it all about and all that that's what a lot of people are doing with their commitment to jesus they're putting their foot in for a while taking it back out for a while putting it in for a while taking it back out for a while jesus wants us to go all in with both feet into the deep end of our commitment to god and if we're going to be the spiritual leaders of our homes that is a must that is a must so worship god only love god completely and then cherish god's word internally notice what it says again in in verse six he says and these words that i command you today shall be where on your heart notice he doesn't just say on your mind although you should meditate on it and and it should it enters through the front door of your mind but you've got to get it down into your heart and you know the difference right there's a difference between just head knowledge and heart knowledge i believe one of the keys to getting it from your head to your heart is what the bible talks about in terms of meditation meditation meditation is not transcendental meditation emptying your mind of all thoughts and content in fact biblical meditation is the opposite of that i will meditate on your word day and night the psalmist says in psalm chapter one then i will be like a tree planted by streams of water yielding its fruit in its season and when you meditate on the word and you let it sink down deep inside of you then it moves from just your head to your heart it becomes something that that grips your heart that has your heart the psalmist says in psalm 119 verse 97 oh how i love your law it is my meditation all the day i can tell you what won't lead to a heart gripped by the word of god is casual casual kind of being exposed to the word maybe once or twice a week casual exposure to the word will never lead to a spiritual leader in the home you've got to have the word of god imprinted on your heart and you've got to do this before before you can expect anyone else in your household that you're leading to do this this has to be the experience in your life i flew on an airplane recently with all of my children a couple of years ago actually in and as i was flying on that that airplane i had flown on airplanes lots of times before this is the first time i flew with like four kids at one time and that was that's an experience all of it all on its own we could talk about that for a while all the things that happened but i've flown on airplanes lots of times and i've never really listened to one of the things that the flight attendants said but when i had all my kids there and i heard it it kind of hit me fresh and here's what they said they said i'm sure you've heard this too they said in the event of a decompression an oxygen mass will automatically appear in front of you if you're traveling with a child or someone who requires assistance secure your mask on first and then assist the other person and when they did that my oldest child looked at me like it doesn't sound very loving why would you do that first but we know what they're saying right when when all of a sudden if all of a sudden the oxygen were to be just ripped out of that airplane there's no oxygen it doesn't matter how capable of a helper you are if you can't breathe and you pass out you're not going to help any of your children get their mask on so the goal is put your mask on first so that in case of an emergency you can help your children put their mask on too because if you're not alive to help them you're not gonna be any help at all and here's the deal i believe that moses is telling the people of israel that your spiritual oxygen mask is the word of god and until you put that on you securely and you get the word of god in your heart deeply then you're never going to be able to help your other children because you might as well be passed out spiritually you're of no use at that point and so you must make sure you're walking with the lord yourself before you can pass it on so men are you fully committed to following after god and obeying him do you love god's word and have it in your heart are you going to worship it only love him completely cherish his word internally you must love the lord yourself if you're going to be the spiritual leader of your home then there's a third truth that i want us to see and that is in verses seven through nine the third key to being the spiritual leader of your home is that you must lead your family in worship so you must embrace your responsibility this really is on you and god's going to help you you're not alone in this the helper jesus said will be with you so you must accept your responsibility you must love the lord yourself and walk with him but then you must lead your family in worship verses 7 through 9 deal with the responsibility to lead one's family in the worship of god the reason i phrase it that way worship is i really think that's what he's after the goal of teaching them as you walk by the way and as you lie down and as you rise and as you sit in your house and having the word of god on the doorposts of your home and all that stuff the the goal of all of that is not just to have kids who can quote catechisms and bible verses is to have kids who are fully devoted worshipers of god that's what we want and the one leads or is supposed to lead to the other and you see that again in verse 13 that the goal of all this instruction of bringing them up and the discipline and instruction of the lord the goal is worship again verse 13 says it is the lord your god whom you shall fear now if you study the bible for long you know he's not saying it's the lord your god that you shall be scared of now there is an element of that because the lord is holy and and when the israelites saw god's presence at the top of mount sinai and it was thunder and it was lightning and it was power they were afraid but it's not just that kind of fear it's a reverential awe it's a fear that leads to worship it's it's what moses experienced also on the top of mount sinai when god's glory passed before him and moses saw the glory of god and worshiped in that place and left changed that's what we want for our children we want them to walk with god we want them to love god too with all their hearts so monastery we want them to worship him to be fully devoted to him to practice romans 12 1 our spiritual service of worship which is to present their bodies to god as a living and holy sacrifice pleasing and acceptable to him for that is our spiritual service of worship that's what we want how do we get there by leading our families in worship notice the central component in verses 7 through 9 the central instrument that we're to use is the word of god verse 7 says you shall teach them what is verse 7 talking about when it says you shall teach them what you shall teach them what he said in verse 6 these words that i command you today these words that i command you today verse 7 you shall teach them verse 7 you shall talk of them these words verse 8 you shall bind them on your hand there's frontline's between your eyes and many jews literally did that with phylacteries little boxes with scriptures on their forehead he's just saying it needs to be everywhere it needs to it needs to just kind of be the environment of your home verse 9 you shall write them on the doorpost all of this comes back over and over verse after verse in verses 6-9 to the word of god that's the primary instrument that god has given us to lead our families to worship him in the next generation and the fathers assumed the primary responsibility for leading their families in this kind of worship and for passing on god's word to their children in the jewish culture and in the new testament church as well going back to ephesians 6 4 it was the fathers who had the primary responsibility for making sure this happened let me read you another passage that's very similar to deuteronomy 6. look with me on the screens it's psalm 78 psalm 78 verses 1-7 and notice here the emphasis placed on the fathers it says in psalm 78 give ear o my people to my teaching incline your ears to the words of my mouth i will open my mouth in a parable i will utter dark sayings from of old things that we have heard and known notice that our fathers have told us now you may be in here today and you may say you look i didn't have a father that told me anything about god then guess what your children can can be the ones that speak psalm 78 and they can say my father told me and you can be the start of that godly heritage in your family tree but the psalmist said the things that our fathers have told us we will not hide them from their children but tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of the lord and his might and the wonders that he has done he established a testimony in jacob and appointed a law in israel which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children that the next generation might know them the children yet unborn and arise and tell them to their children so that they should set their hope in god and not forget the works of god but keep his commandments listen i i really believe that he mentions fathers multiple times i think there is something very powerful about a child or a grandchild seeing their father or their grandfather sit down with them open the bible with them and say listen to god's word don't underestimate the power of that god uses that in a supernatural way now in verse 7 it talks about different environments in which to do that verse 7 says you shall teach them diligently to your children you shall talk about these things when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise and some people i think mistakenly take that to mean that the only times that i'm supposed to be teaching my children the word of god is kind of as i go i should do an as i go ministry and i think that's very important it's a it is an application of this passage but i think it also is implying here that you should have specific times where you have moments in in your day where you're sitting down during the week and you have a focused time of teaching and of worship with your family again he says also when you sit in your house not just when you're on the road but also when you sit in your house and here's why i think here's how i think this works i mean think about it when it comes to any other spiritual discipline think about prayer for instance there have been times in my spiritual life where i've said you know what here's how i'm going to pray i'm just going to kind of pray as i go as i go throughout the day and things come up i'm going to pray and that's a great way to pray we should we should pray that way but you know what the times when i've said i'm just going to pray as i go and i'm not going to have a kind of focused extended time of prayer that i'm going to set aside i'll wind up at the end of a week and i haven't prayed that much but when i say you know what i'm going to pray as i go but i'm also going to mark out some times on my calendar where when as i sit in my house kind of stuff where i'm going to devote myself to prayer the jewish people did it three times a day remember daniel went up and did that three times a day i'm gonna do that too then guess what happens then at the end of the week i've prayed a whole lot more and i believe the same is true when it comes to teaching the next generation the word of god we need an as you go approach we need to also as you sit in your house approach too and so we should i believe one of the best ways to do this is to have regular times of family devotion family bible study family worship whatever you want to call it doesn't have to be every day but there should be lots of times when we're sitting in our homes with our children with our wives with our families gathering our family around those who we are responsible for being spiritual leaders of and we should teach them and open up with them the word of god a survey by the barna research group says 85 of parents with children under the age of 13 believe that they do have the primary responsibility for teaching their children about religious beliefs and spiritual matters however a majority of those 85 percent who believe they have that responsibility don't ever spend time during a typical week discussing religious matters or studying religious materials with their children parents generally rely upon their church to do all the religious training that their spirit their children will need that's most people in church is like ours so here's the question i simply want to ask you when specifically do you bring your children up in the discipline and destruction of the lord when do you do it when do you do it and if you can't answer that question i want you to prayerfully consider before you leave today tonight that god would impress upon your heart a plan for how and when you're going to bring your children up in the discipline and instruction of the lord charles spurgeon once said if we want to bring up a godly family who shall be a seed to serve god when our heads are under the clods of the valley then let us seek to train them up in the fear of god by meeting together as a family for worship donald whitney in his book family worship says this quote it is unlikely that exposure to the church once or twice a week will impress your children enough with the greatness and glory of god that they will want to pursue him once they leave your home this is why family worship is so important now when i talk about family worship some of you will say well you're a pastor you probably have these awesome times of family worship in your house where it's like a whole worship service you'll probably see like three or four songs take up an offering preach for 40 minutes all while your kids are just sitting there with their hands in their lab on the couch just listening to every word false false in fact i i've got a little video clip of one of the family bible study times that we did in our house not that long ago and uh and i think you'll see what i'm talking about so let's watch this for just a second the will of him [Music] me wait if i want bear witness about myself oh wait where am i if i alone witness about myself my testimony is not true there is another [Laughter] i'm not sure if that's what moses had in mind when you talk about passing it on to your children but but man we're trying i'll tell you that and i'll tell you this a messy time of family worship is better than no time i'll tell you that and if you will just take a couple of nights a week and just and do make it keep it short five or ten minutes open up the word read some scriptures with your family around the dinner table just do it and little by little accumulating over years god can use that in a powerful way the word of god is sharper than any two-edged sword piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of joint and marrow and laying bear the thoughts and intentions of our hearts that's what i want for my kids unleash the word of god on their lives can we do this together as we close i believe god wants us to be the spiritual leaders of our home can we just make a declaration and can you just kind of maybe repeat this after me i will be the spiritual leader of my home i will accept my responsibility i will love the lord myself i will lead my family in worship i will be the spiritual leader of my home may god and his spirit grant you the strength to do just that let's pray together father we ask right now that as men in this room god there are some men in this room who do not have families yet and so god our prayer for them is that you would prepare them so that ahead of time before they even ever even have their own family that they would commit right now that when you grant them a family god you would help them to be the spiritual leader they they need to be lord there are some men in the room today who have young families and they're right there in the thick of bringing up children of their own they have a wife a kid more god would you help them right now in the thick of the busyness of life to take dominion over their schedules and time and to commit to spending time putting in the practice deuteronomy chapter six and teaching these things to the next generation oh god would you help them to walk with you themselves and pass it on and lord there are some others who are empty nesters and their kids have flown out of the nest and but god they're still their parents and god would you give them the wisdom right now maybe they've not done all that they should do or even some of what they should do but would you help them right now at this moment in their life to be used by you to speak into their young adult children into their lives and make those children open and receptive to the influence of their parents spiritually and then god there are others who are grandparents and their kids have grown and have children of their own now god would you help them to know and to discern their role now in passing on a godly heritage to their children and to their grandchildren so give them the wisdom to know how to do that we pray and god may we be men who do not shirk our responsibility but by your strength and with your help accept it so that the generations to come might know the god we worship we pray these things in jesus name amen

Channel: Bellevue Baptist Church

Views: 255

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: How to Be the Spiritual Leader of Your Home, Keys to Being a Father, How to Be a Dad, BellevueChurch, Bellevue Church, Bellevue Church Memphis, BellevueMemphis, Bellevue Memphis, Bellevue Church sermons, Steve Gaines, Steve Gains, PastorSteveGaines, Pastor Steve Gaines, Pastor Steve Gains, Steve Gaines Bellevue Church, Steve Gaines Sermons, Steve Gains Sermons, SundaySermon, Men of Memphis, Christian Conference, Men's Conference, Sermons for Men

Id: zX5gyFw0DVk

Length: 40min 58sec (2458 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021