A Rock and Role Model
A Sermon for Men on Family Leadership
By Dave Redick
"It's 1966. You are only eighteen. You are in the absolute prime of youth. You've got a driver's license, a girlfriend, and plenty of dreams. Your entire life is ahead of you. But through a strange series of circumstances you don't fully understand, suddenly your driver's license is useless, your girlfriend's picture is in your wallet, your dreams are on hold, and you are in a country thousands of miles away from home. Welcome to Vietnam."
So begins the excellent and very powerful book written to Christian men called Point Man. Author Steve Farrar grabs his readers by the throat from the first page on. I confess, I had a hard time putting it down. Farrar continues,
"On this particular day, you would give anything not to be here. For you are going out on patrol. You've been on patrol before, but today is different, and that's why there's a knot in your gut and an icy fear in your heart.
"Today is different because the patrol leader has appointed you to be 'point man.' In essence, you're the leader. Everyone else will fall in behind you. And as you move out to encounter the enemy, you realize that the survival of those seven men stepping cautiously behind you will depend upon just on thing: your ability to lead. Your judgment may determine whether they live or die. The responsibility hangs over your head like the suffocating humidity that hangs heavy in the air.
"Your senses have never been so alive, your adrenaline so surging. You can almost hear it rushing through your veins. You know the enemy is near, maybe just hundreds of yards away. Intelligence reported heavy enemy activity in this area last night. Your job is to confirm or deny that activity. For all you know, they're watching you right now. Perhaps they can see you, but you don't have a clue where they are.
"As you gingerly make your way through the rain forest, you've got one eye out for concealed wires in your path and another scanning the trees for snipers. Entire patrols have been lost because the point man failed to anticipate an ambush. Men have been killed or horribly maimed, all because a point lacked skill and wisdom.
"You never saw it coming. The violent shock and utter surprise of gunfire momentarily paralyzes you, despite your 'instant reaction' training. Before you can respond, a bullet tears through your flesh and explodes the bone in your leg. A thousand thoughts instantly flood your mind: Am I going to die? Where are those shots coming from? Is there more than one? Will I lose my leg? Where's the patrol leader?
"One glance to your left tells you that the family of the patrol leader is now fatherless. In the chaos of attack, and in spite of your wounds, the radio man makes his way to you. He knows and you know that you are the most experienced man. In panic situations like this, the book goes out the window. Like it or not, you are the leader.
"As a medic evaluates your wound, you're trying to determine what to do next. Just what is the situation? What are we up against? Where are they? Some good news in the midst of confusion brings a ray of hope - the bullet went through cleanly and the bleeding has stopped. You're luckier than most guys on point. Usually, they're dead before they hit the ground. You're still alive and in control of your thinking.
"Two other men beside the patrol leader were hit. One is dead, the other bleeding profusely. You get on the radio and report your situation and position. Your request a chopper for the hemorrhaging private. But before you can finish your request, the hidden enemy unleashes all of his firepower on your position. You're surrounded.
"In your gut, you know the odds are against you. You're outnumbered, outgunned, and not in the greatest position to wage a counterattack. You've got two men dead, one dying, and four wondering if they'll make it to lunch. The worst case scenario has happened... and it's worse than you ever imagined.
"Now is the time your leadership will make the difference. What you say and do will determine whether your men live or die. As automatic weapons blaze around you, you must accurately assess the situation, determine the critical next steps, and formulate a flawless plan. It's leadership, pure and simple. If your plan works, you may get out alive and with half your men. If it doesn't, they'll be lucky to find your dogtags."
Farrar continues,
"Some of you reading this didn't have to use your imaginations. You were actually there. You know what it is to see your buddy disappear forever into the zippered confines of a body bag. You know first-hand the white-hot heat of phosphorous grenades and the adrenaline rush of a firefight. You know what it's like to be disoriented by the concussion of artillery shells crashing in around you. You don't have to imagine patrolling in Vietnam... its all you can do to get a night's sleep without reliving it again and again.
"Let's make a critical change in the scenario. You're still in Vietnam, on patrol in the same steamy rain forest. But something about this patrol is different. You're still the point man, but this time you're not leading a group of men. You're leading your family.
"You look over your shoulder to see your wife and your children following behind. Your little girl is trying to choke back the tears, and your little boy is trying to act brave. Your wife is holding the baby and trying to keep him quiet. On this patrol, you don't want to engage the enemy, you want to avoid them.
"What would you be feeling under such conditions? The survival of each member of your family - and its survival as a whole - would completely depend upon your ability to lead through the maze of possible ambushes, unseen booby traps, invisible snipers, and all the extraordinary hazards of combat.
"Would you be motivated? Would your senses and adrenaline be working overtime? Of course they would! You would know it in your gut that the survival of your family was up to you. It's all on your shoulders... because you are the leader.
"Gentlemen, this is no imaginary situation. It is a reality. If you are a husband/father, then you are in a war. War has been declared upon the family, on your family and mine. Leading a family through the chaos of American culture is like leading a small patrol through enemy-occupied territory. And the casualties in this war are as real as the names etched on the Vietnam Memorial." (Quoted from Point Man, by Steve Farrar)
I want to speak to you men this morning about leading your families. Ladies, it's not my intention to leave you out of this, but I need to address your husbands and your sons in this message. Actually, I don't believe I am leaving you out, because so often the problems you face as women are there because of a lack of leadership and responsibility on the part of your men. Please, as I speak, don't poke him in the ribs or give him your meanest "I told you so" look. Just sit back and listen and let him listen and while you're at it, let your sons listen, too.
Please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 16:13.
"Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love."
I have named this sermon "A Rock and Role Model" after one of the chapters in Farrar's book. Unlike what it first seems to imply, men, it is what you must be if you are to effectively preserve your family in this war we're in. You are their rock, they're stability. God has planned it that way. And, you are their key role model, also due to God's design. The text says that we are to act like men. In this message I hope to reach out and jerk your chain to remind you of that.
1. First, then, You Are Your Family's Rock, Their Stability.
Like the patrol looks to the point man for leadership, your sons and daughters and your wife look to you. Like it or not, if you prove to be a coward or a deserter, or something less than the man God has called you to be, they suffer and sometimes die.
A. It is your duty, as their rock, to refuse to let anything divide your family.
That little patrol of seven men in the jungle in Southeast Asia had to stay together. It was their key to survival. No one could afford to get cut off from the rest. To do so would mean being ruthlessly hunted down by the enemy and killed. One set of eyes just wasn't enough.
It doesn't take the a rocket scientist to figure out that the key strategy of our enemy today is to separate the family. And in a culture where over half of the marriages end in divorce ( and the statistic for second marriages is even worse), no one is going to argue that the enemy of our souls hasn't been successful.
If you are going to be a rock of stability to your family, you must set your face against the idea that it is possible to separate you from your family. The Bible says in 1 Tim 5:8, "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever." You are their provider and as such you must furnish a stable and secure family unit for them.
1. That starts with your relationship with your wife, men. I don't care how you might feel about her at present, and I don't care how good things might seem to look on the outside of your marriage, you're looking the destruction of your family in the eye if you allow your marriage to be separated.
I happen to know first hand how some men fail in this area. We don't intend to fail, but in time we do because we cease to do the things that built our relationship with our wives in the first place. When we were courting we did anything and everything to win her heart. We spent all of Saturday primping the car. We bathed and shaved and doused on the after shave. We went early and stayed late. Now that she's been captured, though, we neglect her, we take her for granted. The cobwebs of neglect hang heavy on the space between us. We've ceased building the relationship. It's like every homeowner knows, if you cease to do the upkeep, soon you're living in a trash heap.
This thing isn't complicated, brothers. What you need to do is simple. As a matter of fact, it's already been done to an extent. When you married her you took a sacred vow of honor before God to be faithful until death. Like one who takes a military oath of loyalty, you promised not to run out on those you would lead. Now it's time for action. Now it's time for honor. You need to drag that vow out if you haven't already, dust it off, and hang it on the mantle in the fireplace room of your heart and recommit to it every day.
In the book of Malachi, God calls the man who divorces his wife and splits up his family without Biblical cause treacherous and he implies that He removes his Holy Spirit from such a man. The one who deserts the wife of his youth "covers his garment with wrong." says Malachi. God no longer regards his offering or his worship. (See Malachi 2:10-16). Your being the rock of stability for you family means that you will not let anything come between you and your wife.
2. It depends also upon the relationship you have with your children. You cannot allow them to be separated off from the family, either. That means you must be constantly scanning the trees for the snipers that would pick them off. I refer to the negative influences that lurk every time they turn on the TV or their radio or stereo. I refer to the companions they keep and the places they frequent. Do you know what and whom they are seeing and listening to? There are trip wires strung across nearly every path they take, and you've got to take the time to teach them what to look for.
Don't expect their school teachers to do it. Many of them can't tell a trip wire from totem pole! Don't even expect the church to do it, because it is your responsibility. "Fathers, bring your children up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord," it says in Ephesians 6:4. No one else can do it like you can. Not even your wife, though too often, she has had to do it by default, and that default is your fault!
Men, it takes time. It takes effort. It takes hands-on involvement. It takes rock solid determination. It takes self denial. At times you'll have to do without and endure discomfort in order to provide this kind of stability for your wife and kids. Anything and everything will try to pull you away from it. Your manhood will be tested in this matter more than anyplace else! But you must do it! If you do not you are a coward and a deserter.
A group of appreciative tourists watched a demonstration put on by the British Royal Artillery of the Queen. The six-man team worked with flawless precision. Actually, only five of them worked with precision. One of the soldiers positioned himself about twenty-five yards away from the cannon and stood at attention during the entire exhibition, doing nothing.
After the display, one of the tourists asked the staff officer to explain the duty of the sixth man standing off to the side. The officer's response was that he didn't know. He asked his commanding officer, but he didn't know either. An inquiry was launched. Finally, after many hours of research through old training manuals, it became clear what man number six was supposed to do. He was supposed to hold the horses! Of course there wasn't a horse within 10 miles!
A lot of men today have become about as useless as that sixth man when it comes to providing stability for their families. They do nothing when division threatens their relationship with their wife and their children. And they don't have a clue as to what they are supposed to be doing. You must refuse to let anything divide your family.
B. You as your families' rock, must also refuse to be drawn away from God.
The enemy will do his best to jam your radio frequency and so cut you off from your headquarters. Do you know what I'm referring to? I'm talking about your prayer life and the regular input of God's Word in personal Bible study.
On a regular basis, as your family's leader, you must be on the radio to your Commanding Officer. You need instructions and an update for the battle. You need today's instructions, not yesterday's! The enemy is on the move! Prayer is the mouthpiece of your radio and Bible study is the receiver. If you cannot hear your orders, for whatever reason, you're soon going to be wandering aimlessly in a jungle of confused priorities. Sooner or later you'll run into the enemy and be caught off guard. If you cannot report to your Commanding Officer, call for reinforcements and for the medivac to bind up your wounded, your position is going to be overrun.
If you're going to keep from being pulled away from God, you will also need time to pull away from the battle, regroup, resupply, and reconnoiter on a regular basis. You do that when bring your family to church and participate in the life that is there among the other Christians. You and your family will become worn out and demoralized if you never pull out of the battle zone. They'll want to give up and so will you. Men, it isn't your wife's responsibility to see that this is done. It is yours! You should be the first one out of bed on Sunday morning, seeing that they're all up, dressed, and ready. Yes, your wife may tend to the details as you delegate some things to her, but you provide the discipline. From personal experience, men, let me say that usually has to start the night before - getting them to bed at a decent hour, making sure they've got their clothes and things together. Yes, they'll whine and complain at first, but they'll soon get used to it if you are consistent. Now if your wife does these things and does them well, fine, but remember that you are the one ultimately responsible.
And let me say something else here, men (and I speak to you as men who can take it.) Some of you wonder why your wife isn't willing to follow your leadership, why she doesn't submit to you. Could it be because you never lead in the things that really count? Could it be that you shirk your real responsibilities expecting her to take up the slack that God didn't design her for? Leadership is more than just coming home and barking orders! A leader leads! He walks out in front. He doesn't drive them. He pays the price. He stops the buck! And he doesn't dump a man's job on a woman!
A British psychologist, Dr. Joshua Bierer, in the early 1980's, described American men as "a bunch of weak-kneed, lily-livered sissies." In a survey he had previously made back in the mid-60's, he had concluded that American women were at fault for this because they seemed to him to be so domineering. By early 1980, though, he was singing a different tune. Listen to his words;
"Before, I thought that the women wanted to rule the country. I changed that opinion. Women are compelled to take over, not fighting to take over. I thought the men who attended with their wives some of the seminars I spoke at would shoot me for my remarks - but instead they all agreed with me. It's still a fatherless society. The husbands are not husbands. All the women are crying out for a strong man and he's just not there." (Cited by Aubrey P. Andelin, Man of Steel and Velvet [Naperville, Ill: Caroline Hse., 1982], p. 12 )
Would any of you ladies be inclined to agree with me?
In a Texas ranching community, one man was deeply respected for his quiet goodness, fair judgment, and understanding toward all. His family held him in highest esteem; his children recognized his authority and obeyed him. From his wife, he received the truest devotion. His family, and other people too, depended on his steadfast faith.
When he died, nearly the whole community came to his funeral. One of his sons delivered the eulogy. After describing his father's life and character, he summed it up in the sentence, "Dad was like a hitching post; you could tie up to him."
I ask you, are you a rock of stability to your family? Can they tie up to you? I hope so. If not, don't wait a minute more to change your ways. The battle is deadly and the stakes are high. The bullets whiz even as I speak. You are the leader. Their lives depend on you. Don't let them down!
2. Well, Men, You're Their Rock, You're Also Their Role Model.
Why is it, men, that boys today are so prone to imitate the rap artists, rock stars, pimps, playboy types, gang members, and drug pushers? Why is it that some of them turn to homosexuality? I suggest to you that it is at least partly because
A. There is such a lack of good male role models. Many of them are being raised by women - their fathers have either run off or are absent most of the time. I don't mean that as a slam to women. Many mothers know only too well how difficult it is for their boys to learn what it is like to be men when the men they have depended upon have deserted them. It's also difficult for such women to teach their daughters how to interact with men in the absence of a stable father.
Dad's, you are the one they need to look up to! They need to see in you a man who can stand strong against the pressures of life! They need to see your independence from the things that drag humanity down and your full dependence upon the God Who raises humanity up! They need to see strength of character in you. They need to see a man who weathers the storm of adversity and doesn't turn tail to run. They need to see a man who fiercely defends the honor of his wife and his daughters. They need to see a man who will stand between them and any threat to their security. They need to see a man who's moral compass points to true north and doesn't wiggle.
So what happens to children who don't have this kind of role model in their father? Surely there is no single answer, but whatever the result,
B. It is almost always tragic. A few of them manage to find a role model elsewhere. Many of them are confused and remain so for the rest of their lives. This issue is probably the greatest single cause of the confusion of sexual identity today. Girls don't know how to be women and boys don't know how to be men. Nobody is around to teach them.
Let me tell you a haunting, true story of one little six year old boy described by Judith Wallerstein in her book Second Chances. The book is the result of research on the effects of divorce.
When six-year-old John came to our center shortly after his parents' divorce, he would only mumble, "I don't know." He would not answer questions; he played games instead. First John hunted all over the playroom for the baby dolls. When he found a good number of them, he stood the baby dolls firmly on their feet and placed the miniature tables, chairs, beds, and eventually all the playhouse on their heads. Then, wordlessly, he placed all the mother dolls and father dolls in precarious positions on the steep roof of the doll house. As a father doll slid off the roof, John caught him and, looking up at me, said, "He might die." Soon all the mother and father dolls began sliding off the roof. John caught them gently, one by one, saving each from falling to the ground. "Are the babies the strongest?" I asked. "Yes," John shouted excitedly. "The babies are holding up the world."
That's the way it seemed to this little boy. All the adults in his life had slid off the roof. The only ones left to hold things up were the babies! What a pathetic situation!
Of course, in real life, the babies cannot hold up the world. That is the role of the mommies and daddies - especially the daddies! Babies cannot do what men are called to do!
Another little boy, frightened by a loud clap of thunder in a lightning storm, called out to his daddy, "Daddy, come. I'm scared!"
"Son," his father answered, "God loves you and he'll take care of you."
"I know God loves me," the boy replied. "But right now I want somebody who has skin on."
It is a part of God's plan for each child to have a representative who has skin on.
Conclusion
My friends, you know you are not looking on a man who has done it all right. I and my family have been hit and hit hard by the enemy on several occasions, and it isn't over yet. We've sustained some serious wounds. War is never neat and orderly and clean. Sometimes there is chaos in the battle. We temporarily lose our direction. When heavy ordinance explodes nearby, the concussion knocks us off balance and we reel from the shock. But we get back up, as quickly as possible. It is war, and the one thing we cannot do is lay down and quit.
This morning I call on every man here to look seriously at your role as men. With Paul in the text I read, I call on you to "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong."
If you have a wife and/or a family, then you are their leader. Their very lives depend upon you. You must not let them down. You are their rock and you are their role model. No one else will do.
If you are such a man who takes this responsibility seriously, I want you to let the rest of us know. If you intend to continue to stand firm and be counted as a Christian man who doesn't back down in this war we are in, will you let us know by standing up? Just get on your feet right where you are. You don't have to say anything or come up here. Just stand up and be counted. I want the women and children in this congregation to see who you are. Please remain standing for a few moments longer.
Furthermore, if you are a young man, not married yet, but who wants to be the kind of man I have been talking about, will you stand up with your brothers?
If you are a grandfather, with all your children raised, but with a vital role still in providing stability to your extended family as an anchor point, will you stand with us?
If you are a man who, perhaps having messed it up in the past, perhaps you lost your family, but nonetheless you want to take such a stand from this time onward, will you stand with us?
Thank you. You may all be seated. May God help us to be what He has called us to be!
Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.
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