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06/26/2026

Using Time Well

Ephesians 5:15-16

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16).

Walking in the light of Christ cannot be limited to purely “religious” matters, as if it were possible to narrow the impact of the gospel and the Spirit to matters of formal worship and acts of piety. Instead, the transformation that the light of our Savior brings impacts everything in our lives. This is seen in that living in light of the gospel carries implications for how we use our time (Eph. 5:15–16). No matter what we do, we do it in time, so we cannot make the best use of our time unless the gospel touches and transforms everything that we do.

Paul urges us first of all to “look carefully” regarding how we walk. The idea is that we must give much thought to our potential choices before we make them; we are to look before we leap. Every decision that presents itself to us can result in an almost endless number of consequences, some of them good, some of them bad. Oftentimes we and others suffer the ill effects of our choices only because we have not taken the time to ponder thoughtfully the potential ramifications of our actions. When we are appropriately cautious, however, and take the time to think carefully about our choices, we lower the risk of hurting ourselves and others.

Of course, merely taking the time to think a decision through does not mean that we will choose rightly. As Paul explains, we need godly wisdom to walk in a way that pleases God and benefits other people (Eph. 5:15). Such wisdom, Scripture tells us, is grounded in the fear of the Lord, which pays heed to His Word and looks for the counsel of wise elders (Prov. 1:1–8). Learning from Scripture and from those who have been shaped by the Bible gives us the wisdom to walk carefully.

Those who walk carefully make “the best use of time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16). Many commentators believe that Paul’s reference to the days as evil is a way of saying that we are living in the last days, the time of messianic woes that will occur before the end. Thus, the apostle wants us to use time wisely because Jesus is coming back soon (Rev. 22:7), and there is only a limited period in which we can serve Him and spread His gospel. The opportunities we have for ministry today may not be there tomorrow, and we should take every possible opportunity to serve in order that people from all nations might become disciples of Christ.

Coram Deo Living before the face of God

John Chrysostom reminds us that “the times do not belong to you” (ACCN T 8, p. 180). Even the hours of the day are not ours but are entrusted to us for wise stewardship. Let us therefore be careful with our time, endeavoring to serve the Lord well through efficient and effective service to our earthly supervisors. May we also seek to make the most of every opportunity to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.

06/25/2026

A Time for Everything
Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (v. 1).

Even from the lips of an atheist, an agnostic, or a person who has put very little thought into religion, one is likely to hear the statement “everything happens for a reason.” The idea of destiny pervades our culture, showing up in everything from astrological predictions that say our fates are governed by the stars to romantic movies in which the message is that the two protagonists are destined to be together. In all of these cases and several others, however, it is an impersonal force of some kind that is supposed to be governing things. Rarely, if ever, is there mention of a personal being who is directing and giving purpose to all things.

As many Christian philosophers and apologists have pointed out, however, impersonal reality cannot give anything meaning and purpose. By definition, purpose is the property of personal design. Only personal, thinking beings can act with purpose; a mere force just is. For example, gravity in itself does not act with intentionality; it is simply there, a given reality that does not make plans or direct things to an appointed goal or end. Things do not have an ultimate purpose merely because we want them to—if there is no creator God directing all things, the idea that everything happens for a reason is mere wishful thinking.

Thus, when we approach a passage such as Ecclesiastes 3, we must keep in mind that the Preacher is operating under a framework that assumes the existence of Israel’s covenant-keeping God who has purposes that He cannot fail to accomplish (Isa. 46:8–11). The statement that there is a time for everything under heaven (Eccl. 3:1) may derive in part from observing the world and seeing that there are appropriate seasons for such things as birth, death, planting, weeping, laughing, and so forth, but the Preacher can distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate times for such things only because he knows that God has made these times and is to be feared (12:13–14).

The times and seasons mentioned in Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 encompass all of life, including its beginning (“a time to be born”) and end (“a time to die”), the agricultural cycle (“a time to plant, and a time to pluck up”), and much more. Life is repetitive in many ways, but it is not an unending circle. There is advancement toward a God-ordained goal, and part of that involves appointed times and seasons that are put in place by the personal Creator. It is not that “everything happens for a reason”; rather, “everything happens for God’s reason.”

Coram Deo Living before the face of God

There is a time for every season and purpose under heaven because the Lord determines it. Our lives and our world are not controlled by some impersonal fate but by the gracious God who has a plan that extends even to what we might consider the most insignificant things in the world. He works out all things according to the purpose of His will (Eph. 1:11), and we can rest knowing that nothing takes Him by surprise or throws Him off course.

06/24/2026

How Does God Relate to Time?
by Peter Sammons

Knowing God, Knowing God's Will, & Life Issues

It’s just going to take some time. Time will heal. Or simply: with time my dear, with time.

Time is powerful. It heals, transforms, renews, dulls, and decays. It raises rulers and silences them. It turns infants into the aged. It chisels the face of mountains and then turns them to dust. And as humans, we are all its subjects. We feel its effects and are subject to its demands.

One of the most tangible tolls of time is the manner in which it weighs upon our relationships. I don’t relate to my parents the way I did when I was in elementary school. In the same way, I won’t be able to relate to my one-year-old daughter the same way I do today in several months from now. Time demands relationships to change—the change being characterized less by goods and bads and more by difference.

Thus, the question needs to be asked: How does God relate to time? In what ways does time affect our relationship to Him?

One of the loftiest and, admittedly, most puzzling doctrines for us as temporal creatures is the timeless and eternal nature of God. We often assume that the eternality of God refers to God’s immortality, but this fringes on over-simplicity. Stephen Charnock defined eternity as “a permanent and immutable state . . . a perfect possession of life without any variation; it comprehends in itself all years, all ages, all periods of ages; it never begins; it endures after every duration of time, and never ceaseth; it doth as much outrun time, as it went before the beginning of it: time supposeth something before it; but there can be nothing before eternity.”1

Jonathan Edwards masterfully explains, “The eternity of God’s existence is nothing else but his immediate, perfect, and invariable possession of the whole of his unlimited life, together and at once.”2 In other words, in respect to time, there is no change in God whatsoever—no growth, no diminishment, not a trace of alteration. He remains untouched by the winds of time. He is without beginning or end, and He has no temporal succession—that is, He doesn’t move through time as we do.3 The eternality of God is simply the infinitude of God applied to time. By His eternal essence, God is the only being completely unaffected by the passage of time—He gains and loses nothing through the span history.

God even sees time in a unique manner. While the creature understands time sequentially—present slipping into past just as future slips into present—the eternal God views past, present, and future in a single, divine instant. He sees past and future with equal vividness, as if all of time were at once before Him: “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” (Ps. 90:4). In the New Testament, Peter aptly explains, “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

God’s Actions and Relationships
We, who are tethered and bound to time in every conceivable manner, are often confused and disoriented by this lofty view of God. God is categorically other in His relationship to time. As a result, many have questioned the ability of an eternal, timeless God to have meaningful relationships with His creatures. If God is timeless, how can He hear, let alone answer, the cries of His time-bound creation?

The concern is that a genuine relationship is nullified between a time-bound creature and a timeless God. But this is simply not true. God acts in time—He is the author of time, is the governor of time, and has relationships with His creatures who are bound by time. The Lord executes His decrees in time. But God does not undergo temporal succession—He does not in Himself experience the passage of time—even though the works of His hands are very much in time and space. The actions and relationships of the Lord are a product of His eternal will—His eternal will exists outside of time, and then it breathes numerous temporal effects into being.

The actions and relationships of the Lord are a product of His eternal will—His eternal will exists outside of time.

Those who claim that God’s relationships are less real because He is atemporal simply do not understand the depth of God’s relationships as an eternal being. As mentioned earlier, human relationships evolve based on the various temporal seasons of earthly life. Your relationships are limited by and subject to change. They grow stronger and weaker in intimacy with the passage of time, distance, and communication. They wane and are complicated by years and moves.

So when we consider God’s relationship with temporal creatures, remember that He at once possesses all of time. Thus, God has all of your life before Him every time you kneel in prayer. He can relate to you in a more real manner than you can even relate to yourself—He can relate in complete fullness. He can be closer and more intimate with a temporal creature than a time-bound creature could ever hope to be. Your spouse can relate only to who you are in this moment, but God looks behind and before you and can love you in the entirety of your being. Because His relationships are not determined, affected, or limited by fleeting moments, He does not possess the limitations in relationships humans experience.

Implications of Divine Timelessness
But eternity is not withheld from mankind. Christians are said to have eternal life: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life” (John 5:24). This eternal life is a reflection of the eternal will of God for His elect, accomplished by Christ in the dust and tears of the temporal realm, producing ongoing results for believers—namely, life eternal that has a beginning but no end. It is eternity enjoyed with the Eternal Being—a relationship more genuine, constant, and informed than time could ever promise.

This is not, however, the only promise in the hand of the eternal, timeless God. Hell is the other (Matt. 25:46). It is no coincidence that Scripture speaks of an eternal God and an eternal hell. An offense against a temporal being can rest with time-bound consequences. But an offense against a timeless, eternal God necessitates an eternally drawn-out consequence. This is why hell is said to contain eternal fire (Matt. 25:41; Jude 7), reserved for those who offend Him forever (Jude 13), why their punishment is never quenched (Mark 9:48), and why they will be tortured day and night forever and ever (Rev. 20:10). Thomas Goodwin writes, the “wretched soul in hell . . . finds that it shall not outlive that misery, nor yet can it find one space or moment of time of freedom and intermission, having forever to do with him who is the living God.”4 Hell simply is to bear the wrath of the One who sees the moments and years of your rebellion and treason before Him as if they were all now.

The knowledge of a timeless, eternal God should elevate our love for Him, and it should infuse desperation into our pleas to those wandering from Him. This attribute is no small quarrel or a bit of academic minutiae. Tampering with timelessness triggers a ripple effect through many of the other forgotten attributes of God. Evangelicals who deny timelessness must account for the implications that denial has for immutability, simplicity, and God’s eternality. If you change, redefine, or alter these doctrines of God, you have created a different God. This is why Herman Bavinck writes, “One who says ‘time’ says motion, change, measurability, computability, limitation, finiteness, creature.”5 So if we serve a temporal God, we serve a creature of our own imagination, created after our own likeness—a God who will be changed and weathered by time. This is not the God of the Christian faith.

06/23/2026

Good All the Time

Psalm 106:1

“Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!”

Perhaps you have heard the following popular exchange. A speaker gets up and says, “God is good,” and the audience responds, “All the time.” Then, the speaker says, “All the time,” and the audience answers, “God is good.” While sometimes this back-and-forth can seem somewhat trite and seems to deny that hard things really do happen in life, the words themselves are absolutely true. Scripture tells us again and again that God is always and completely good. Today’s passage is but one expression from God’s Word that extols divine goodness.

What makes the goodness of the one true God such good news is that His goodness is coupled with His omnipotence. Unlike many Eastern religions, the Bible does not teach a metaphysical dualism that says that good and evil are equal, eternal, and opposing forces. Instead, it tells us that only the Lord “can do all things, and that no purpose of [His] can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). Evil, therefore, can never overcome God or even force Him into a stalemate. It is not that the God of the Bible is perfectly good but is unable to accomplish all that He wants to accomplish. No, the One in whom there is no darkness (1 John 1:5) cannot be thwarted, and since He can do nothing but what is good, good will always win in the end.

When we talk about divine goodness, we are not thinking of some abstract ideal of goodness that exists outside the Lord and to which He is accountable. Goodness is defined by the Lord’s character, so we must look to Him and His nature if we want to have a true understanding of the good. Thus, divine goodness includes things such as His punishment of sin. In fact, if He were to fail to hold sinners accountable, He would not be good (Ex. 34:6–7). If good human judges do not allow evil to go unpunished, then God the good and righteous Judge can by no means let wickedness go unpunished either.

The Lord is good all the time, but He can make His perfect goodness manifest in different ways. Besides in His justice, divine goodness is also seen in His benevolence, which is the general kindness that our Maker shows toward creation and everything in it, even to the undeserving. For instance, He gives the rain necessary to produce food both to the just and to the unjust (Matt. 5:45). Another manifestation of God’s goodness is His mercy, that special kindness wherein the Lord, having chosen to love His people, provides for their salvation and forgiveness (Rom. 9:1–24).

Coram Deo Living before the face of God

When we consider the goodness of God, we must always remember that goodness is defined by God’s character. Whatever God does is by definition good, for He is goodness itself. Many people let standards other than God’s character define their notions of true goodness and other things such as love. When this happens, we will make all kinds of theological and ethical errors.

06/22/2026

Knowing the Proper Time

Luke 5:33–35

“Jesus said to them, ‘Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days’ ” (vv. 34–35).

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 stands as one of the most familiar texts of Scripture in modern culture even outside the church, for this passage was famously adapted by the rock group the Byrds in 1965 as the hit single “Turn! Turn! Turn!” The focus of the passage is the idea that in God’s created order, there is a proper time for all sorts of things, from birth to death to mourning to dancing to war to peace and so on. The implication of the text is that living wisely entails discerning the proper time for every activity.

The principle of needing to know the right time for the right activity lies behind today’s passage. Immediately before Luke 5:33, Jesus said that He came to call sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32). This prompted some people to remark that the disciples of John the Baptist and the disciples of the Pharisees would fast, but the disciples of Jesus would eat and drink (Luke 5:33). It is not entirely clear in the original Greek who makes the observation. Many commentators believe that the Pharisees raised the point, but others think that some individuals from the crowd were the ones who heard the teaching of Christ. Either way, the reason for the remark seems to be an apparent incongruity between Jesus’ description of His ministry as a declaration of repentance and the expected actions one would take in response to this call. Historically, Jews often fasted when they saw a need for repentance, and refraining from food and drink was an outward sign of the seriousness with which they were taking their sin. For example, when the prophet Daniel saw that the time for the end of the Babylonian exile was drawing near but that the Jews had not yet turned from their sin, he sought the Lord’s face and in behalf of the people fasted and asked God for mercy (see Dan. 9). The disciples of Jesus, who came to call people to repentance, were feasting and not fasting, and this did not make sense to some onlookers, who thought that a call to fast should always accompany a call to repent.

Jesus responded that while there is an appropriate time for fasting to accompany repentance, His earthly ministry was not that time. While He, the Bridegroom, was present, it was time for celebration, not deprivation. We feast at a wedding when the bridegroom marries his bride, so when Jesus came to seal His marriage to His church with His blood, it was time to feast (Luke 5:34–35; see Eph. 5:25–33).

Coram Deo Living before the face of God

Wisdom consists not only in doing the right thing but also in doing it at the right time. Often, knowing the right time to do something is the most difficult thing. The only way to attain sufficient wisdom to do the right thing at the right time is through careful study of the wisdom given in God’s Word, accompanied by prayer that He will help us understand its teaching.

06/20/2026

Read Judges 3:7-11 for tomorrow's message.
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!

06/19/2026

The Eternally Unbegotten Father

John 5:26

“As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

Since the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are “one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory” (Westminster Shorter Catechism 6), the distinctions between Them cannot be at the level of the divine essence. In other words, the three persons of the Godhead cannot each possess different divine attributes that the other persons do not. Also, the divine attributes that They do possess must be identical. For example, the omnipotence of the Father is identical to the omnipotence of the Son is identical to the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit. Rather, the distinctions between the Trinitarian persons are found in Their relations to each other (also called relations of origin or unique personal properties).

The unique personal property of the Father is often called paternity because in the Godhead He is first in order, just as in the family the father is typically regarded as first in order, whether by giving his name to his wife and children or by representing them in some way. God the Father, however, is not first among the divine persons in authority or in any quality that characterizes the divine essence. He is “before” the Son and the Spirit because He eternally communicates His essence to the Son and Spirit. From all eternity, both the Son and the Holy Spirit are from the Father, but the Father is not from Them. Another way to say this is that God the Father is eternally unbegotten.

This understanding of the Father as being unbegotten is a consequence of texts such as John 3:16, which speaks of the only begotten Son of the Father. If the Son is begotten of the Father, the Father cannot be begotten, but rather, He must be unbegotten. In begetting the Son (and, as we will see, eternally spirating the Spirit), the Father communicates all that He is as God to the Son, but He does not communicate His personal property of paternity. We see this, for example, in John 5:26, where Jesus says that the Father, who has life in Himself, has granted the Son to have life in Himself. Having life in Himself—self-existence—is something that the Son (and Spirit) receives from the Father, but not in such a way as to make the Son (and Spirit) any less God or less self-existent than the Father. The Son and the Holy Spirit are from the Father, but They are not products or creations of the Father.

To be sure, we do not understand all that this means. We can say that the Father has always communicated His divine essence fully such that it is also the divine essence of the Son and the Spirit.

Coram Deo Living before the face of God

In begetting or generating the Son and (with the Son) spirating the Spirit, God the Father does not give up any of His deity but remains fully God. In receiving from the Father, the Son and the Spirit are not constituted as lesser gods but are fully equal to the Father in power, glory, and every other divine attribute. Let us marvel at the life in the Godhead that is so full and complete that it can be shared without being diminished or increased.

06/18/2026

Can a Broken Father Still Lead?
by H.B. Charles Jr.

Husbands and Fathers, & Parenting

What advice should you give to a man, a husband, a father, who feels like he is so broken that he’s not able to lead his family? The first thing I would say is be honest. Number one, be honest with yourself about how you feel, how you are processing this, and where you are.

I would secondly say be honest with your wife and consider you and your wife as partners in the gospel; in caring for your family and children. Be honest and don’t let . . . I really don’t think the size of a problem matters; I think the location of the matter is all that counts. Meaning, a problem is either standing between you and the Lord, or it is pushing you closer to the Lord. So, don’t let being honest with your spouse become a source of division. Together, let this issue push you closer to the Lord.

So be honest with yourself, be honest with your mate, and then be honest with the Lord. The beauty of prayer, the privilege of prayer is stated in two words in Philippians 4:6, “In everything.” I think that’s the best part of that verse. Not just the “be anxious for nothing and make your request known to God” or “thanksgiving,”—all of that’s wonderful. But what so blesses me is the, “In everything.” That is, when I talk to God about what’s going on in my life, heart, mind, I don’t have to dress up my prayers to say what I think God wants to hear. I could tell God just like it is—the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, I would say be honest about your feelings.

But coupled with that, I would say don’t trust your feelings. This is the opposite advice of the world. The world would say, “Follow your heart.” And the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ warns us that that is some of the worst advice someone could give us. Our feelings, our emotions can lie to us all the time. And our emotions, how we feel, cannot be the ultimate gauge of spiritual devotion.

After that, I would say keep going. Start where you are, do what you can, and don’t give up—caring, and leading, and loving, and ministering to, and building up your family, your wife, and your children. There are going to be dry seasons and difficult seasons. There is a name for a place where there’s always sunshine and no rain. It’s called a desert and nothing grows in a desert. So, there are going to be seasons to the Christian life.

In difficult seasons in my life, I have benefited greatly from the Psalms. And there are psalms of praise, and psalms of confidence, and psalms of thanksgiving, and there are also psalms of lament. And lament is a fancy word for singing the blues. And all of those psalms—the major notes of life and the minor chords of life—are all in the Psalms. That reminds us that there are different seasons of life, and God can be trusted in them all.

Dr. H.B. Charles Jr. is pastor-teacher of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla. He is featured teacher for the Ligonier teaching series Blessing and Praise, author of several books, including It Happens After Prayer, On Preaching, and On Pastoring, and host of the On Preaching podcast.

06/17/2026

Making Known the Father’s Name

John 17:25–26

“O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

There exists a fundamental difference between those who believe in Christ and those who do not. Scripture presents this difference in several distinct but complementary ways: Christians have passed out of darkness into God’s marvelous light, but non-Christians remain in darkness (1 Peter 2:9); believers no longer are enemies of God but have been reconciled to Him, while unbelievers remain His foes (Rom. 5:10); the servants of Jesus have been delivered from “the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10), yet those who do not serve Christ remain under that wrath. Today’s passage gives us another difference between followers of Christ and those who reject Him: believers, unlike those who deny Jesus, know that He has been sent by the Father, and they have known the name of the Father because of Christ’s work (John 17:25–26).

To know the name of the Father is to know the Father, so Christians alone can be described as those who know God. As we see in Exodus 3, God reveals His name—“I am who I am” (v. 14)—only to His people, and in His name we see His eternality, His self-existence, His very character. God revealed His name to His people under the old covenant, and yet in Christ we have a fuller revelation of that name and of His character. The grace and truth known under the ministry of Moses and the old covenant are known in greater detail and more clearly under the ministry of Christ and the new covenant (John 1:17).

Jesus made known this name to His original disciples during His earthly ministry, but He has also promised to continue to make it known (17:26). This He has done by His Holy Spirit, first in inspiring the New Testament Scriptures and then in leading His people to a greater understanding of both the Old and New Testament Scriptures (14:26; 16:12–15). He has given us His Word, and He illumines His Word so that we might grow in our knowledge of God.

Moreover, Christ reveals the name of God to us not merely to fill our minds with information but so that the love with which the Father loves the Son may be in us and that Christ may be in us as well (17:26). Christ’s goal is that we may, in some mysterious way, have in our hearts a love for God that is like the very love that God has for us, and that on account of that love Christ would dwell among us. Christ makes known the name of God to us so that we will love God and be strengthened by the Savior Himself.

Coram Deo Living before the face of God

In his commentary John, Dr. R.C. Sproul gives us a practical benefit of knowing and experiencing the love of God: “The knowledge of His everlasting love for us gives us the strength we need to fulfill the mission that He has given to us.” Let us press on to know the name of God so that we will know His love and be sustained in the work that He has given us to make disciples of all nations.

06/16/2026

Humility in Husbands and Fathers
by Erik Raymond

Years ago, Andrew Murray observed that humility is the seedbed in which all the other graces in the Christian life grow. And, likewise, the seedbed of pride brings forth all the vices of sin. So, it’s not an overstatement to say that if we neglect humility, we can’t progress in the Christian life. This is especially important for husbands and fathers as we fulfill our responsibilities to God, our wives, and our children (Eph. 5:25–33; Col. 3:21; 1 Peter 3:7).

When we pursue humility, we tend to skip forward to specific actions without thinking much about why we must do it. Before getting into some specifics, consider a framework for the actions.

a framework for humility
Pride is foolishness. After all, our Creator gives and sustains our lives. How arrogant it is to think that we are something apart from God when, in truth, we are nothing. Standing in the shadow of our Creator, we should be humbled to worship and to wonder with the psalmist, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” (Ps. 8:4).

How arrogant it is to think that we are something apart from God when, in truth, we are nothing.

What’s more, consider that our Lord Jesus Christ, for us and our salvation, humbled Himself in becoming a man (Phil. 2:6–8). What was at the root of our sin? Pride. It’s not an overstatement to say that Christ humbled Himself to rescue prideful people who did not, would not, and could not humble themselves. When we struggle with humility, let us look in the mirror and see ourselves looking back at us, and remember: Jesus humbled Himself to save us when we were up to our necks in prideful rebellion. How, then, can we persist in pride?

a framework for humble leadership
If we understand that God is our Creator, we will approach our responsibilities from the perspective of stewardship. A steward is someone who understands that he is not the owner but the caretaker. Husbands and fathers, how might your relationships change if you remembered that your wife is not ultimately yours? And your children are not ultimately yours either? God has granted husbands and dads a stewardship to lead their wives and children lovingly. We mustn’t eclipse God’s rights for worship by promoting ourselves in His place. Stewards are to be faithful and to treat their charges well (1 Cor. 4:2). Nothing is more unfaithful than stealing glory from our Master by mistreating those He cares for or trying to take His place in the lives of our families.

Jesus instructs His followers (especially those who lead) to reflect His service by serving others (Mark 10:43–45). The source of many of our sinful moments as husbands and dads is our desire to put on the crown rather than the apron of service. We want to be served rather than to serve. Can you see how this type of desire and action distorts the reflection of the gospel we are called to model as husbands and fathers? Jesus is not only the motivation for our service but also the model.

expressions of humble leadership
Humble leadership will work itself out in a variety of ways. Here are just a few to consider.

Humble leadership embraces reality. Instead of trying to live in a fantasy world where we are the heroes and the center of the universe, humble men embrace the truth that they are flawed, weak, and in need of grace. This frees us up to reflect God’s character rather than projecting our own avatar or identity.

Humble leadership is understanding. We’re commanded to know our wives and children well. This knowledge leads to understanding (Col. 3:21; 1 Peter 3:7). Humility shows itself here with loving patience. Humble leaders will seek to learn about their wives or children as they change. They’ll consider others’ interests more important than their own (Phil. 2:3).

Humble leadership confesses sin. Our default is to give voice to our inner defense attorney whenever it may appear that we’ve done something wrong. But this is the rotten fruit grown in the seedbed of pride. Instead, the humble leader can confess his sin to his wife and even to his children. Yes, this will make us appear less significant. But it will emphasize our need for grace and mercy. In our decreasing, we aim to see God increase (John 3:30).

Humble leadership submits to God’s authority. We can do this by reflecting His design for leadership. We can also do it by reading the Bible, instructing our family in the Word, and praying with and for them. In this, not only do we equip others, but we model a humble dependence on God.

Rev. Erik Raymond is senior pastor of Redeemer Fellowship Church in Watertown, Mass. He is author of several books, including Chasing Contentment.

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