The Christian Man With His Children, Part 2

The point: Deal with your domestic sins quickly, seeking God's forgiveness and transparently asking your children's forgiveness when you have sinned against them or your wife in their hearing.

Martin provides examples of common domestic sins like impatience, speaking sharply to one's wife, or sinful anger during child discipline, to illustrate the types of sins fathers must deal with transparently before their children.

time to look up into the face of God unblushingly because I had no conscious controversy with God but to look out in the faces of my fellow men unblushingly that there was no reason for them to think he's not the real deal he did this but he's not owned it he said this that was obviously sinful but he's not been willing to own his sin I am asserting that foundational to respect of your children is living by the principles of this text let me focus in on three specific areas in the domestic realm number one the way you deal with your domestic sins by your domestic sins I mean your sins that are...

6:57 - 8:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Deal with your domestic sins quickly, seeking God's forgiveness and transparently asking your children's forgiveness when you have sinned against them or your wife in their hearing.

Martin shares a personal story of waking his children after they had gone to bed to confess specific sins he committed earlier in the day, demonstrating the importance of quick, honest, and thorough confession to maintain moral influence.

with your domestic sins if you do not deal with them quickly seeking the forgiveness of God and transparently openly asking the forgiveness of your children when you sinned against them or when you sinned against your wife in their hearing forget having any moral clout in the government of your children forget it your kids have a deep-seated sense of what Papa ought to do when he's blown his cork when he's been irritable when he's been un-Christ like in his response to this that or the other and frankly I am both appalled and amazed how few men are willing to say look kids I sinned period will...

8:25 - 9:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Express your love to your children in words, even if it feels uncomfortable at first, as you will grow to like it and it helps create a climate of unquestioned love.

Martin recounts his own father, raised in cold New England with a Scottish background, never saying 'I love you,' despite showing love through deeds. This illustrates the generational pattern he determined to break with his own children, emphasizing the need for both verbal and deed-based love.

Some of us grew up in a home where our fathers never used the words, I love you. Our fathers never hugged us, never hugged us. And we determined that that pattern would stop with this generation. My father's father died when he was 13.

18:56 - 19:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Fathers must carefully monitor the conduits of worldly influence (electronic gadgets, media, magazines, advertising) allowed into their children's lives, recognizing that the…

Martin shares his pastoral experience dealing with young men, sons of godly men, addicted to pornography, prompting the question of where fathers were in monitoring access to harmful online content, illustrating the severe consequences of unchecked worldly influences.

Computers that are the devil's instruments in many cases to sell people and to hook people, not only upon the pornographic and the unclean, but the materialistic and the grasping after stuff and things aggressively coming after any who sit before the screen. And when you've had to sit as I have as a pastor and deal with young men of godly men in this church addicted to pornography, you say, how can it be? Where were the fathers that allowed their sons that kind of access? Well, they were off to college. Do you relinquish your paternal responsibilities because they're off to college? Or do you ...

26:46 - 27:49 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Fathers must carefully monitor the conduits of worldly influence (electronic gadgets, media, magazines, advertising) allowed into their children's lives, recognizing that the…

Martin tells of counseling a young woman with anorexia who was influenced by images of 'skinny skinny' housewives in seemingly innocuous magazines like Good Housekeeping and Family Circle. This illustrates how even subtle worldly influences can be harmful and require paternal monitoring.

I just get little snippets of primetime TV. The glut of sheer smut and coarse ungodliness and half-naked women and the ease with which sacred and noble and lofty matters are discussed in such a coarse and ungodly manner. The videos, the TV games, and the addiction that they produce and the DVDs that brings Hollywood smack into the house. And then the magazines that can come to the homes that may not have salacious stories in them, but the images when you've dealt as I have as a pastor with a young woman who's become anorexic. And as I was probing as to where did she get the notion that skinnin...

28:03 - 29:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Be awake, watchful, and monitor all devices and media, not just the 'grosser ones,' to protect your children from worldly influences.

Martin recounts a conversation with a tired young lady on a Sunday morning who explained her fatigue was due to her family watching a video until 11 PM on Saturday night. This illustrates how seemingly minor family choices can undermine spiritual readiness and the father's responsibility to prioritize spiritual rhythms.

Not just the grosser ones. Imagine how I felt one day some months ago when between Sunday school and church I'm in the social room where we can mingle for 20 minutes before the morning service. And there's a young lady and I'm just talking to her. How are you doing?

35:18 - 35:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Before public worship, give your children clear instructions on what is expected and what is not, and follow through with discipline if they do not obey after one reminder.

Martin shares an anecdote about an internationally known Christian leader who was impressed by the children's engagement in public worship at Trinity Baptist Church, highlighting the rarity and effectiveness of intentional training in this area.

Some years ago an internationally known Christian leader showed up here one Sunday morning in this building and apparently they were very impressed with the way the children paid attention entered into the worship that they were not off in children's church somewhere and word got back to me that the next day at a conference where this leader was speaking this was mentioned publicly that this leader went down into the foyer and was speaking to one of our people and commented on this and said this is unusual I don't think I've ever seen this in another evangelical church. Can you explain to me w...

44:23 - 45:31 Read in full sermon

The point: Determine by the grace of God to instruct your sons concerning their emergent sexual drives and matters related to becoming and living as a man in a fallen world.

Martin shares a vivid personal memory of learning about conception from a friend on a street corner and his subsequent anger at his father for not providing that instruction. This illustrates the deep emotional impact of inadequate parental sex education and his determination to do better with his own children.

As I said I don't often give testimony in preaching but in a men's setting I feel the liberty to do more of it. I recently took Dorothy with me up to Stanford Connecticut where I was reared. I hadn't been there in years and when I finally found the street that would lead up to the street we lived on I came to a corner and when I did it's like I was shot back I'm 73 60 years ago. It was on that corner that one of my buddies told me what my dad had to do to my mom to get me started in her tummy.

48:07 - 48:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Create a climate where it is easy for your sons to speak about sexual matters, asking them about their experiences with sexual urges, wet dreams, and masturbation.

Martin recounts taking out an anatomy chart and reading a book with his son during puberty to explain male and female anatomy and conception, culminating in them praising God for His wonderful design. This illustrates a positive example of a father providing sex education in a godly and open manner.

Because a baby came along every two years and I was the second oldest of ten I had some good basic understanding that babies didn't get dropped down from the stork. I saw my mother and she said and she said and she nursed them in front of the children so that I had wonderful lovely connotations of a baby developing she'd let us feel the baby kicking in her tummy and the rest but neither my dad nor my mom ever told me how the baby gets started and on that spot when we drove by that a few weeks ago and that came back to me I remember all the emotions I wanted to go home and punch my father in th...

48:47 - 50:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Create a climate where it is easy for your sons to speak about sexual matters, asking them about their experiences with sexual urges, wet dreams, and masturbation.

Martin shares his personal struggle with masturbation as a young man and his inability to talk to his father about it. This illustrates the need for fathers to create an open climate where sons feel free to discuss their sexual urges and struggles.

and that morning when I took out an anatomy chart and we had Susie's babies that lovely little book by Margaret Clarkson and had read some sections we got on our knees and I can still remember our son saying dad isn't it great the way God has made us and when he saw on the anatomy chart the difference between what happens down in his gonads and what happens in his bladder and realized he had that all mixed up he was amazed at the way God made us and we praised God on our knees for the wonderful way that God has made us dads it's your privilege as well as your responsibility to impart sex educa...

50:17 - 51:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Demand modesty in your daughters' dress, making it non-negotiable that they will not go out of the house without your approval of their attire.

Martin shares the story of a pastor friend who, when his adult daughters refused to conform to reasonable standards of modesty and literature in the home, showed them the front door. This illustrates the extreme but necessary moral courage a father may need to exercise to maintain his headship and testimony regarding modesty.

without my approval of the discussion non-negotiable I fear that some of you men have either willfully forgotten what it's like to be a man you refuse to look at your daughter as one who has indeed blossomed or you lack the moral courage to get in her face and in her mother's face and say I am the governor of this home and I will demand modesty in the dress of the women of this house period end of discussion I have a dear pastor friend who when his daughters became legally of age he would have been kept them in his home until such time as they married or moved to another state but they would n...

57:40 - 59:07 Read in full sermon