Good morning Church,
It was a wonderful day of worship with you on Sunday. I always look forward to Sunday and miss Sundays greatly because of the accumulative experience of worshiping God together and experiencing His presence through the Saints. As God told Adam in Genesis 2:18, “it’s not good for man to be alone” with God right by his side. Then He created the family unit. In other words, it’s important to experience God through His people.
On another note, as a follow up to the Fathers Day sermon that exhorted the men to lead better in purity and initiative, I want to encourage the women to help the men be the men of God that we should be. This is something I wasn’t able to address as much as I would have wished during the sermon, but I’ll try now:
One of the things that you can do is pray for men, specifically, the men at WOL Chapel and around your life. We pray for all types of groups of people, and adding the category of ‘men’ is a good addition. This can include your dads, husbands, boys who will grow into men, pastors, elders, etc… Considering how men lead the family, Church, and culture, I believe this would be a powerful prayer as it’s a request for the women and children too because of the direct & powerful influence men have on them.
Second, because men do tend to be weak leaders like Adam demonstrated (though in our lack, we still lead!), I believe that you as women can help your husbands lead well, if you are married, significantly.
How can women help men lead better? By expecting them to lead and looking to them to lead! My wife helps me significantly in this way by asking me for final decisions on certain things. I feel as if I would be half the man without her!
It’s interesting that Satan’s first gesture towards sin & against God was to bypass the man’s authority and leadership by addressing his wife, Eve, instead of speaking to the man (Genesis 3). This wasn’t a coincidence. Satan knew what he was doing. He was trying to scoot around the man’s leadership, and Adam passively submitted to that. Adam allowed his wife to lead him and Eve consented to that backwards design.
My point is that you as wives can help your husbands a lot by not allowing them to sit idly by in this or that issue. Don’t allow yourself to be the leader. Look to them for leadership. Expect them to lead. This may cause some tension as us, men, get very comfortable with our passivity. Yet the tension that ensues is necessary for us as men to humbly admit our failure and do better.
Lastly, in order to underscore the importance of male leadership in terms of leading the family to worship God ALONE, which means GUARDING against idols (Josh. 24:15, Ex. 20:4-5), I want to add that the Bible actually implies that the man should be ‘the priest’ of the home.
In Genesis 2:15, God tells Adam to “keep” the Garden of Eden. That Hebrew word for “keep” can also be translated, ‘guard.’ And if you look at Numbers 3:5-8, you come to find that the Levites/Priests of Israel are told to ‘keep’ and ‘guard’ the tabernacle as well as the people of Israel. It’s the same language used for Adam’s role.
What’s really interesting is that the Tabernacle was designed as a blueprint for the Garden of Eden. When you look at its materials and the design, it resembled the Garden of Eden where the presence of God dwelled.
My point is that the priest’s job was modeled exactly after the language and context of Adam’s command from God! The implication is that every man is meant to be a priest, and every priest was called to be a true man of God, guarding the people around them from evil and deception and idols, which in turn would help people to experience an intimate walk with God.
But Adam alienated his family’s walk with God when he failed to “keep” the Garden (from evil, that wicked snake!) Not only did Adam break this command to ‘keep’ and ‘guard’ Eden when Satan creeped in, but of course he failed to ‘keep’ God’s law to him (Gen. 2:16-17), and guard his wife from deception.
That’s the role of a priest which God has called every man to be in his home.
In addition, you see how Adam’s son Cain failed to ‘keep’ his command to ‘keep,’ not only dirt, but people who are formed out of dirt!
When you look at Genesis 4, it says that Abel was a ‘keeper of sheep.’ That is, he was a godly man. But his brother Cain, after killing him, responds to God by saying, “am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9). The answer should be ‘yes.’ We are not only meant to keep/guard gardens made of dirt, but we are meant to guard people formed out of dirt but filled with the breath of God.
Hopefully, that just resupports the great mission that God has placed on every man’s life to an intense degree. We are to be spiritual gardeners, guarding against the many pests and predators that would like to attack the soil to which God’s Word has been planted (Matthew 13).
However, praise God for His Man, Jesus, Who will keep and guard us from all evil!
“The LORD is your keeper…The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.” -Psalm 121:5,7-8
“Holy Father, keep them in your name…While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them…” -John 17:11-12
As your pastor, I also pray that God would guard this Church from all evil and temptation so that God’s people would be kept to continue bearing Christ’s name!
With love,
Aaron
