Admonition Podcast

Aaron Cozort (00:02)
Good morning.

Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers who are present with us in the room and those who are not.

Given that it is Father's Day, I would spend a little bit of time this morning considering fathers in a world that wants the children.

been giving some thought to the unique challenges that are faced by fathers in the current generation.

When you pause for a moment, you might consider that, you know what, with AI and with technology and with the state of the world, perhaps fathers in this generation will have a far more difficult time than fathers in the past. Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to Psalm seventy-eight.

As the psalmist writer here in this psalm will rehearse much of Israel's history, specifically rehearsing the rise and the fall of the nation in the form of the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel.

He will point out that much of what has come can be attributed to the sins of fathers, to the failure of fathers to prepare the next generation.

Consider the passage as we open and we read in Psalm seventy eight and verse one, give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable I will utter dark sayings of old.

As the psalmist writer opens, he indicates that the words that he's going to speak, the message that he is going to convey, the things that he is going to say to his generation are not going to be new revelation. They're going to be ancient wisdom. They're going to be the message that had been declared in the past and that was understood in the past and had been forgotten.

He says, verse three, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done. There is a commitment from the psalmist writer that we're not going to let the next generation grow up and not know the Lord.

We are not going to allow that generation to come forth and not be aware of the things that God has said to us. We are not going to allow his actions, his promises, his fulfillments, the things that he has done on our behalf to go unnoticed, to go unaware, to go untestified concerning. We are going to inform the next generation of who God is and what he's done.

He goes on to say, for he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children. The psalmist writer says it is our responsibility to raise a generation.

to inform that generation, to teach that generation, so that they can raise a generation that will know God.

Verse seven, that they may set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.

For we close, we're gonna come back to verse eight.

But as we examine the responsibility of fathers to lead the household in the way of the Lord, consider God's charge to fathers. God commands fathers that they should make his deeds known to their children. If you turn to Deuteronomy chapter six, Moses

would give such a commandment to Israel. In Deuteronomy chapter six and in verse one, now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, you and your son and your grandson all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.

Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, 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, with all your soul, with all your strength, and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart, you shall teach them diligently.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Moses declares to Israel.

God has given you his commandments, his statutes, his testimonies, he has given you his laws, and it is your responsibility to not allow a generation to rise up in your household that does not know his law.

How are we going to do that, Moses? He says, You're going to talk about it in the morning. And you're going to talk about it when you leave the house. And you're going to talk about it when you sit down. And you're going to talk about it when you lay down. And you're going to put it up as something that reminds you of it there in your house. And you're going to put something on that reminds you of it as you go through the day. And you're going to put it in front of your eyes.

Now we know the Pharisees in the first century had taken that to a whole different level. As they would memorize Scripture, they'd carry around a little box on their forehead, and they'd take the scriptures that they memorized and they'd put them in the box to testify to everyone how much scripture they knew, because how big the box was was how big, how much they had memorized.

Not Moses' point.

For self-righteousness was not his commandment. But acknowledgement of who God was and what God had done was his commandment.

But here in this passage, Moses gives a charge to fathers. Over in Psalm seventy-eight, God, through the psalmist writer, gives a charge to fathers.

Two voices are teaching the children of today.

One is the voice of the world. Humanist Manifesto written in 1973. Follow ⁓ up of the Humanist Manifesto one, followed up by the Humanist Manifesto three. But a quote from that s document says, No deity will save us. We must save ourselves.

Much of the world today, much of society today is anxiously anticipating a super intelligence that might finally exist on the earth.

And yet they've ignored the one that has been present their entire life.

The word of God should be that which we declare to our children. As Jesus in the prayer to the Father in John chapter 17, as he was preparing to depart from this world, he praised to God concerning his disciples. He praised to God concerning those who God had given to him. He prays as

If he was the father of the apostles.

He says, You've given them into my hand, and I haven't lost any of them save the son of perdition.

I have given them your word, Jesus praise.

And now he prays, Sanctify them by your word. The word sanctify means to set apart, to consecrate, to set apart for a purpose.

To make holy.

And Jesus prays to God that on behalf of the apostles, God will set them apart through his word, because his word is truth.

Jesus is going to pray on behalf of the apostles that they do not look like the world.

That they do not live like the world. That they do not conform to the world.

But rather, as Paul will write in Romans chapter twelve, that they be transformed from the world.

And Jesus says that happens through the Word of God.

As fathers, if our children grow up

Knowledgeable about every movie or every sports team or every challenge or every geographical location or every aspect of science, every aspect of computers, every aspect of technology, every aspect of entertainment, every aspect of history. If they know all of that and they do not know the word of God, we fail.

Because the only thing that will sanctify them in the eyes of the Lord is his word.

Фатер і знак мир то проводи ау.

Yet he is called as a provider to lead a household in the way of the Lord.

It is a challenge. It will be a challenge to fathers in the future.

To provide. It is a challenge for fathers in the present to provide.

But it is not enough to provide simply for the physical aspects of this life.

It is insufficient in the view of Scripture and from the challenge of God to simply give your children a home.

In Dan ⁓ in Deuteronomy chapter six, as Moses is writing these things, God is about to use Israel to provide Israel a home.

As Moses' life is going to end and they are going to begin under the authority of Joshua to go forth into the promised land, to cross the Jordan River, and to go into that land that will become their inheritance, they are going to receive a home. God is going to tell them, You're going to have houses you didn't build.

You're going to have vineyards and crops you didn't plant?

As a matter of fact, if you go back with me to Deuteronomy chapter 6, beginning in verse 10, he says, So it shall be. When the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build, houses full of goods which you did not fill, or

Hewn out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, when you have eaten and are full.

God says when you look around you and you are provided for

From a physical perspective. He says then beware.

Beware lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. You shall fear the Lord your God and serve him and shall take oaths in his name. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the people who are all around you, for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you, lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth. You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted him in Mesa.

You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, his statutes, his testimonies, which he commanded you, and you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord.

As God through Moses confronts Israel, he's going to tell them, I've got the provision side taken care of. I'm going to provide you a house. I'm going to provide you a city. I'm going to provide you a land. I'm going to provide all of it. And when you eat of it and when you are full.

When you realize that you have enough and you are satisfied and you have abundance and you have everything that you need, he says, then beware.

It is not when we are lacking. It is not when we are destitute. It is not when we are in poverty that we ought to beware lest we forget who God is. It's when we have enough. It's when we have sufficient.

God says, you better watch out. Lest you forget.

So then consider the first charge.

Fathers are given a charge to place in the lives of their families and their homes God's word above the wisdom of men.

When we are asked in our daily lives, what do we want?

You could have asked those Israelites there on the other side of the Jordan River, what do you want?

If you had asked the previous generation, they might have said, Well, we we want to leave Egypt. We we want to get out from under Pharaoh. We want to stop being persecuted. We want to stop being enslaved. We want freedom.

Yet when they arrived at Mount Sinai and as they were there in the wilderness, they found out that freedom wasn't all that they had really thought it would be.

For them they wanted something else. They loathed the bread that God gave them. They loathed the lack of provisions that they had. They loathed not having all of the things that Egypt had provided them.

They wanted to be free, they just didn't want what freedom meant.

But after thirty eight and a half years of wandering around in the wilderness

They're finally at the other side of the Jordan River and they're about to go into the land.

And you could have asked them, what do you want?

Some of them might have said, I'm looking forward to a house to live in.

I'm looking forward to having to need to make new clothes because these have never worn out.

I'm looking forward to a place where I don't have to set up a tent and move from this place to that place to the next place.

I'm looking forward to finally having a home.

is I want what God has promised.

In all of its meaning.

No matter what comes.

I want what God has said.

We need to teach our children. We need to instill in our families as fathers the value of the Word of God.

That it is more valuable than precious gold or silver, that it is more important in our lives than riches, than possessions, than prominence.

But then consider as well that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

We need to realize that the world is not going to prioritize the word of God. The world is not going to teach our children to prioritize the word of God. The world does not respect the word of God. there are many in the world who give honor to the word of God. They have it in a high and lofty place, just not the actual authority in their lives.

They have a token honor to the Word of God, but not a submission to it.

We are to be those who begin with the fear of the Lord and allow that fear of the Lord to instill in us the correct relationship to the Word of God.

It is easy as a parent to say, You do this. Why? Because I said so.

It's more of a challenge to say, we do this. Why? Because God sets it.

But then consider number two as fathers we need to teach before the world teaches.

Because the world hopes that fathers will be silent.

You can ask my wife. I grow up and come from a family on the Kozort side. Not the William side. William side is my mother's side. My father's side.

Where if someone from a different lineage didn't come in, i.e. a spouse, didn't come into the room and initiate a conversation, the Kozort males could sit in the room together for days and never say a word.

You want to talk about silent.

The Kozort family gave the silent generation their reputation.

And the older they get, the more silent they are.

I cannot forget when my wife first sat down with my grandparents and we were at their house and she heard my grandfather laugh during a meal and it surprised her.

Because he actually said something and he laughed out loud.

But it is important to state that no matter the personality of a father, whether they are the quiet one or more like me, the loud one.

That they must not be silent when it comes to the Word of God. That they must not be silent when it comes to raising their children to be obedient to God.

Дема спик, орто вил.

Too many young people are raised by a screen.

They're raised by the entertainment industry. They're raised by schools. Sadly, even they're raised by Bible classes and churches because they've never been raised by their parents.

These words, Deuteronomy says, shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children.

You notice the word there doesn't say conveniently. God does not instruct or charge fathers to find a convenient time to teach their children. Rather, he says you are to do so diligently when it is inconvenient. Day in and day out. If you were to look back at that description of

when they were to teach their children. Essentially what God is saying is you need to mold your day around instructing your children in faithful obedience to the word of God and not mold the instruction around your day.

Number three. God charges fathers.

to instruct their children in God's design for the body, for marriage, for purity.

Very few in this world today grow up in a home with two parents who have only ever been married to one another.

Who have parents who have only ever been married to one another? Who had parents who have only ever been married to one another?

I consider myself blessed.

To have grown up in a household

Where I can go back to my parents and their parents.

And not find divorce.

Excluding on my mother's side.

Where after a period of time my mother's family stopped going to worship.

became unfaithful to the Lord when she was about ten, twelve years old.

And when you look at that side of my family.

You can't find anyone except my mother, who is a faithful Christian until recently.

Through years of opportunities, spoken words, time and effort. Just a few years ago, my great uncle, my mom's uncle.

Finally began to study with my parents.

And was converted.

At eighty plus years old.

We should never give up.

Too many times we allow the world to teach our children how they should relate to themselves.

To one another, to spouses, to children, and to the home.

And the world will tear them apart.

First Corinthians chapter six, Paul says it clearly as he illustrates the relationship between Christ and the church. He says, Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

You are not your own. Therefore glorify God in your body. He will make it clear to the Corinthians that you cannot become one with a harlot and be one with God.

You cannot become one in fornication and be one with the Holy Spirit.

You have to choose God or sin. Because you can't have both. Number four, fathers are to charge their children, and fathers are charged with the responsibility to teach their children to resist the world and its, as the King James would put it, mammon, money, physical possession.

To resist them with contentment.

And we live in a time where there's a new thing coming out about every day. There's a new gadget, there's a new toy, there's a new TV, there's a new this, there's a new that.

Otherwise the economy would stop and we'd stop growing the GDP and everything would crash and the world would fall apart and it would all end. Or that's what they tell us. So we've got to have something new all the time. Something new to buy. Something new to spend money on. the latest thing is don't buy possessions, get experiences.

What they mean is come to our leisure palace and we will entertain you for a moment and we will take your money.

Thank you, Walt Disney.

The reality is this.

Paul will write that godliness with contentment is great gain.

Jesus will make it clear that this world and its treasures are not the end goal. Matthew chapter 6, verse 24 no one can serve two masters. For either he will hold to the one and despise the other, or he will love the one and hate the other. You cannot serve God and money.

You have to choose.

But in too many homes, if work calls, then dad's not going to be at worship.

In too many homes, if the job requires it, then dad's not going to take part in the social or sorry, in the spiritual thing.

But then it goes from when work calls to when entertainment calls. When sports calls. When the school calls. When the local city reschedules the ball games. When any situation arises, you know what? We just can't be at services tonight.

We have other things we have to do.

When I was young, we lived in Alabama and there was a family there in the congregation and my brothers and myself worked for this individual for a time and we got to experience the full pleasure of taking ⁓ shingles off of a roof in Alabama in July.

And digging field lines in Alabama in July. And the experiences of septic tanks in Alabama in July. We we had a lot of fun. That job.

But when situations had changed for that individual and he had to go back to trucking.

Remember him being outside of our family's house talking with my mother at one point, and my mother said, We missed you at services.

He said, Well, I know, but you know, finances are what they are, and I had to be on the road.

And I remember her making a point to him.

You know what? If you put God first, He'll figure the rest of it out.

Because that's Jesus' promise there in Matthew chapter sixteen, six or chapter six, verse thirty-three. Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven.

And all these things shall be added unto you.

When you realize that what God calls upon us to do first is trust him.

Then you realize God has the ability to take care of what we need. Sometimes what we need is to stop wanting as much as we want.

and be content with what we have. Number five, fathers are charged to lead their families with courage, repentance, and hope.

When you face this world as a father, some fathers will look back at the good old days. Say, Well, you know, that's just not how it was when I grew up.

Yep, that's probably true.

But you can't raise your kids back when you grew up. You gotta raise them when they are growing up.

You can look back and say, Well that that's not how it should be, but it's how it is.

So what are we going to do?

Joshua would say in Joshua chapter twenty four, as he faced Israel, nearing the end of his life, choose you this day whom you will serve.

He tells them, go ahead. Do you want to serve the gods of Egypt? Do you want to serve the gods that you served back in your ancestors' day in Ur of the Chaldees? You pick. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Joshua made it clear there was no choice.

But he also cautioned Israel because when Israel applied, No, but we're going to serve the Lord, he says, You better be careful what you say. Because God will hold you to account.

For your work.

Fathers need to lead with courage. They need to lead with repentance. Why is it that there are more people who don't repent of their sins? Perhaps some of it is because they've never seen their father repent for anything.

They've never seen him say he's sorry. They've never seen him admit that he was wrong. They've never seen him bow in honor and submission to God and say, I am a sinner in need of forgiveness.

It's pretty hard to follow an example you've never seen.

But we also need fathers who lead their family in hope. Not despair. What's coming in the world? Don't know. How's it going to turn out? Don't know. Is it going to be good for Christians or bad for Christians? Don't know. Well, how are we going to get through? Don't know. What are we going to do? Be faithful to God.

That's how we're going to make it through this world. Because as the song says, this world is not our home. We're just passing through. Our treasures are laid up beyond the blue.

We realize that this world is not all there is. But to that end, we need to remember this.

Some face the reality that their children are already gone. They're already grown. Some the grandchildren are already grown.

And some just like my great uncle.

It's too late to redo how they're raised their children.

But God redeems failed fathers as well.

In second Corinthians chapter five, Paul writes to the church at Corinth.

A church that had many struggles.

That was made up of many people who had spent their entire adult lives as pagans, serving false gods and idols. And he writes to them in Second Corinthians chapter five and verse twelve and says, For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf.

That you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God, or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died. And he died for all that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.

Therefore, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer. Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God who have reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and have given us

The ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin.

To be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Paul makes it clear for everyone of every age, no matter where they are in life, that we come to God not because we have been successful, but because we are sinners. Because we have failed. Because we cannot glory in ourselves but in Christ, we can be reconciled with God.

You don't need to be a perfect father to be a faithful father.

And there is no better time to begin being a faithful father than today.

You're outside the body of Christ. What must you do? The New Testament answers the question by saying you must hear that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and you must believe that He is the Son of God, or you will die in your sins. You must repent of your sins and confess the name of Christ and be immersed in water for the remission of your sins to rise and walk in newness of life that Christ might live in you.

And you say, Aaron, you don't know all the things I've torn down in my life. How am I ever, ever going to rebuild?

Well the answer comes by starting today.

How are we going to lead the next generation if we will not submit to God? If you have need of the invitation this morning, why not come forward now as we stand and as we sing?