Over the last twenty years, I’ve had several great fathers in the faith. These men of God reached down to invest in me, and were far enough ahead of me that they could guide, challenge, and spur me on.

When I was a teenager, my Young Life leader Kevin Jamison helped me begin following Jesus and make the Christian faith my own. Bryan Lopina, who was a couple grades ahead of me, taught me, even then, how to invest in men younger than me. He also taught me that sexual sin was serious and would ruin me.

Then, when I was in my twenties, Tom Steller taught me how to read the Bible for myself, to see more than I’d seen before. Dieudonné Tamfu taught me to consecrate my time, my attention, my whole life more fully to Christ. Dan Holst taught me how to love a family, and then fold younger men into that family. Mike Meloch taught me how to know and pursue a wife and how to be a witness in the workplace.

And all along the way, my dad — my biological father and father in the faith — taught me how to work hard “as unto the Lord” (Colossians 3:23 ASV), how to love a woman like Christ loves the church, how to give generously to bless and support others, how to navigate difficult and tense situations with a calm and confident strength in God.

I’ve had wonderful fathers in Christ. Some of them have been in my life over decades; others for only a few years. Some have been much older than me (sometimes 30 or 40 years older); others have been just a few years ahead. Some came and found me; others I sought out myself. They’ve all, however, shaped and counseled and cheered me on in Christ. And they’ve each played different roles in fathering me. It really hasn’t been one man, but a village of good men.

Because I’ve tasted the fruit of such fatherhood, and because I see this kind of fathering again and again in Scripture, I want to encourage you to do what you can to find the spiritual fathers that you need.

God-Breathed Fathering

Where do we see these kinds of fathers in the Bible? Again, we could go to a number of texts, but I was drawn to the book of Proverbs, a whole book written by a father, for a son.

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,     and forsake not your mother’s teaching,for they are a graceful garland for your head     and pendants for your neck.My son, if sinners entice you,     do not consent. (Proverbs 1:8–10)

Proverbs isn’t just a catalog of wise sayings. It’s a letter from a good dad to his boy. “My son . . . My son . . . My son . . .” — 23 times in 31 chapters. The book models the kind of fatherly counsel that young men need to navigate life. The book shows us (among other things):

How to make hard decisions (Proverbs 11:14; 12:15; 15:22),
What to eat and drink (and what not to eat or drink, or at least in moderation) (Proverbs 20:1; 23:20–21),
What kinds of friends to keep (and avoid) (Proverbs 27:10; 1:10; 13:20; 14:7),
The kind of woman to marry (and avoid) (Proverbs 18:22; 31:10; 5:3–5; 21:19),
How to love a wife and children (Proverbs 22:6; 31:11, 28–29),
How to make and spend money (Proverbs 30:7–9; 3:9–10; 14:21, 31),
When to speak up, and when to keep quiet (Proverbs 18:21; 12:13; 15:2),
How to become humble (Proverbs 3:5; 11:2).

Proverbs then, as a book, gives us a portrait of a good father. In it, Solomon applies wisdom to all the spheres of life, trying (in many practical, earthy details) to prepare his son to live well as a man of God.

So, you might think, Well, if this is the God-breathed counsel of a spiritual father, do I really need to find another father? Why not just memorize Proverbs? Well, that certainly wouldn’t hurt. Men who internalize and apply the 31 chapters of Proverbs would be in better shape than many. But we really need more than words (we all know this instinctively). Every young man needs men who can guide, teach, and train us. We need flesh-and-blood, life-on-life fathers.

Everyday Masculine Faithfulness

We see this kind of fathering all over the New Testament. For instance, why did Jesus spend most of his ministry on twelve men? He could have just hit the preaching circuit and wrote bestsellers, but he chose to focus his three short years of ministry on Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, another James, Thaddaeus, Simon, and Judas. Think about that. Some vans hold more than twelve people, and yet that was his focus. Why?

Well, in part, because he knew his disciples needed more than a few great messages or books. For them to really get it, for them to live like God wanted them to live, they needed to see his life. They needed to see what masculine faithfulness looked like in real time — real situations, in a real place, among real people and challenges and temptations. They needed to see him when he was tired, when he was sick, when he was hungry, when he was distracted and interrupted. They needed to see him care for his family members, and talk to strangers, and make tough decisions in the moment. They needed to see him not get to everything he wanted to get done in a day. They needed to see him pray in secret.

And they needed to be seen by him. They needed to see his life, and they needed him to see theirs — up close and consistently. He knew these men well enough to correct and train them, to comfort and rebuke them — and specifically, not vaguely, like a good father.

Or look at the apostle Paul, and the many men he discipled from church to church, city to city — Timothy, Titus, Silas, Barnabas, Epaphroditus, Aquila, and more. Christianity gets passed from fathers to sons, who become fathers to more sons, who become fathers to more sons. That hasn’t changed because there’s two billion professing Christians in the world. God still says to spiritual fathers, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2) — father to son, father to son, father to son. From some men to you, and then from you to other men.

First Steps Toward Fathers

Finding good fathers in Christ can be hard, so I want to end with some practical advice. If you know you need a spiritual dad, but don’t have one, what can you actually do? Do you just wait for an older, wiser man in the church to notice you and put his arm around you?

No, in my experience, the younger man will often need to identify and go after the older man. You’ll probably need to ask to be fathered. It’s not always this way (and it really shouldn’t be this way), but it’s often still this way. So, what can we do as younger men in need of fathers?

LOOK

First, identify the godly, older men around you. You can’t pursue a father in Christ if you can’t name him. Start studying the older men God has put around you. And what are you looking for in these men? You’re looking, first, for mature Christianity, someone who has followed Jesus faithfully for longer than you have.

As a guide, you could look at the elder qualifications of 1 Timothy 3:1–7 or Titus 1:6–9. These men don’t have to be pastors or elders or even deacons to be a spiritual father, but those two passages sketch out dimensions of Christian maturity — Is he a faithful husband? Is he sober-minded and self-controlled? Is he gentle? How does he handle his money? How does he handle the Bible? Apart from competency in public teaching, every other qualification is something God expects of all believers. They’re traits he expects of you. Men don’t have to be spiritual superheroes to be good spiritual fathers. They only need to be far enough ahead in wisdom and faithfulness to stretch you to grow and mature.

In addition to maturity, look for overlap. It’s not enough for them to be more mature than you and for you to see them briefly on Sunday mornings and at a midweek gathering. You need to have actual access to their life — and, ideally, somewhat consistent access. Meaningful discipleship doesn’t happen in one-off conversations here and there. It requires time and space, and it requires regularity.

You need to see faithful men when they’re not dressed up for church and serving up front. You want to see them when they’re in their Saturday clothes and on the couch, when they’re disagreeing with their wife and when they’re watching football. To be a true son, we need some meaningful overlap.

ASK

Once you’ve identified the mature men around you, then try to initiate intentional time together. Again, don’t wait for a father to come find you. Go and ask them for wisdom, for counsel, for time, for fathering. And then as you start meeting more regularly, look for ways to come alongside them and help them in the ordinary rhythms of their lives. This isn’t just for their sake (who couldn’t use another set of hands?), but it’s also for your sake. Again, you want to see them doing ordinary things — yard work, grocery store runs, home repair, making dinner, watching kids — because real Christlikeness is often clearest in ordinary things. So, join them in those everyday, easily overlooked rhythms. Make it as easy as possible for them to spend time with you.

LISTEN

Lastly, listen carefully. Ask lots of questions. It’s actually a way to honor older, wiser men. We can sometimes be afraid we’re going to look a certain way if we start asking dumb questions, but questions about how to follow Christ — even the smallest, most random ones — are never dumb. And truly godly men, men worth following and imitating, won’t think they’re dumb. They’re going to be encouraged by your questions, honored by your questions — and they’re going to encourage you to keep asking them.

So, brothers, identify mature men to imitate, men who can teach you, challenge you, encourage you, and shape you. Initiate regular time with them (make it easy for them to spend time with you). And then ask lots and lots of questions. Listen well to what they say and observe carefully how they live, and then imitate their faith.

We have surrounded ourselves with screens. On the desk. In the family room. Even in bedrooms and kitchens. Increasingly in automobiles. One for every passenger on the airplane? And most importantly, hitchhiking on our person everywhere we go, the Precious in our own pocketses and handses.

Once upon a time, screens came attached to heavy, unwieldy boxes. Not anymore. Now they’re as thin as picture frames, and thinner. Some of us can count more screens in our homes than wall décor.

We are living in stunningly image-driven and visually-oriented times. We do well, then, to query ourselves regularly, and thoughtfully, about what images we’re allowing to pass before our eyes, and how they are shaping us. Moving pictures are powerful. They can arrest and extract attention we don’t mean to pay them (say, at a restaurant). And our habits related to screens don’t leave us unchanged.

Yet, in such days, it could be easy to be captivated by the screens and overlook the deeply formative and re-formative power of the great invisible medium that accompanies them: words. Words, especially spoken words, are the great unseen power that give meaning to our world of images and shape how we choose to live.

Words for Good, and Ill

Perhaps even more than our other four celebrated senses, our ability to hear makes us deeply human.

“Words are the great unseen power that give meaning to our world of images and shape how we choose to live.”

After touch (at three weeks), hearing is the next sense to develop in the womb, at about twenty weeks, and it is widely considered to be the last sense to go while dying. Which makes sense for us as creatures of the Creator who is (amazingly!) a speaking, self-revealing God. First and foremost, he made us to hear him, to receive and respond to his words. He created the world, through words, saying, “Let there be light.” He speaks new creation into our souls by effecting new birth through his word, the gospel (James 1:18; 2 Corinthians 4:6). And he grows and sustains our souls in the Christian life through his words (1 Corinthians 15:1–2; 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

When the serpent slid into the garden, he didn’t show Eve an Instagram video, or perform a TikTok dance. He spoke. He slid his poison into her heart through her ears. After all, God had spoken to create the world. He had given Adam instructions through words about how to live in the world. So too, when Satan attacked, he came with something more perilous than a sword or boulder. He came with words, leaning on the stunning power of the audible and invisible, seeking to unseat God’s words. “Did God actually say . . . ?” (Genesis 3:1).

Who’s in Your Head?

In our day of striking media saturation and consumption, we will do well to remember the profound shaping, world-changing power of words.

Whether they are the words accompanying television and YouTube, or the written words of articles and tweets, or the purely audible media of podcasts and audiobooks, words form and fill our inner person, penetrate deeply, and quickly shape our desires, decisions, and outer lives — the whole of who we are. It’s not a matter of whether words are shaping us but whose.

Whose voice — whether through audio or written words or video, or old-fashioned face-to-face talk — whose voice is most regularly streaming into your ears, and going down into your soul? Whose voice captures your finite attention, and focuses you, or distracts you? Which voices do you long to hear most? Whose words are you welcoming most to enter into your soul, to sow seeds of life — or death? Whom do you welcome into that intimate space that is your ear?

Entertaining Demons

Do the words you hear and cherish most “follow the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2)? Are you becoming “conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) rather than “transformed by the renewal of your mind”? How “highly online” and “Internet-formed” are you? Some have entertained angels unawares (Hebrews 13:2), but are we showing hospitality to demons?

Two lines from a recent Gospel Coalition email stopped me in my tracks:

Internet-formed Christians are increasingly being catechized by partisan politics and secular pop culture. The result? Divided and fragmenting churches, declining church membership, and weary leaders.

It stopped me in my tracks as a spot-on diagnosis. Christian parents, pastors, and disciple-makers were once the most formative catechizers. What happens when the words, and perspectives, of television and the Internet shape Christians more than their churches? We’re already seeing it.

Whose Words Are Changing You?

For many, the fight for faith in this generation — to not only survive but thrive as a Christian — is about not just what we see, but perhaps just as pressing (if not more so), what we hear and to whom we listen.

God made us for the gospel, which is first and foremost a message to hear. “Faith comes from hearing,” says the apostle Paul, “and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). And how did you receive the Spirit? “Hearing with faith” (Galatians 3:2). “He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you” does so not “by works of the law,” he writes, but “by hearing with faith” (Galatians 3:5). The voices we habitually allow and welcome into our heads have profound shaping power. “In the sensorium of faith,” writes Tony Reinke in his book on today’s countless visual Spectacles, “the ear is chief” (148).

“Whom you hear with delight today will be who you become like tomorrow.”

A new year is as good a time as any to take inventory of the audible voices and written words we encounter daily, especially those we habitually choose. Whose words do you welcome? Whose words do you not only hear, but listen to with rapt attention? Whose words fill your social feeds and podcast queues? What do you listen to on the way to work, or while you walk, exercise, or clean? To whom do you turn for advice? What podcasts, what shows and series, what musicians, what audiobooks? Are your choices governed by the pursuit of entertainment, or the pursuit of God? Instant gratification, or progressive sanctification? Shallow, mindless consumption, or careful, thoughtful growth?

Whom you hear with delight today will be who you become more like tomorrow. As Jesus himself says seven times in the Gospels, and then seven times more in Revelation, “He who has an ear, let him hear.”

New Year’s Defiance

As we continue to sort out the effects of new media and algorithms, and how the Internet shapes Christians and our churches in particular, we do have one clear, simple, ancient, decisive act of defiance.

To those of us willing to hear and heed the cautions, the solution, of course, is not to plug the ears that God has so wonderfully dug, but to open them and eagerly receive words and voices that are true, good, life-giving, balanced, and Christ-magnifying. Even more important than what we keep out of our heads, and hearts, is what we fill them with — and none are more worthy than the words of God himself.

God made us to meditate, not flit endlessly from one message to the next. It is a remarkable design feature of humans, that we can pause and ponder, ruminate and think, that we can stew over truth (and not just lies), and over the good God has done (and not just the evil of others). Perhaps, if you’re honest, you find your mind fragmented. Texts and notifications, tweets and memes, audio and video ads and clips seem to have eroded your capacity for serious, meaningful attention, and you’re not sure where to turn next, but just hit refresh. Make the word of God be where you turn.

Make his voice, in Scripture, the first you hear each day. And his voice, above all, the one that you welcome most, and try to take most deeply into your soul through his words. Let his words be your unhurried meditation, in the morning, and the place you return to regain balance in spare moments. Pray for, and aim to have, his word be “on your heart,” and central in your parenting, and present in conversation, with you “when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7).

Discover Good

Let meditation on God’s word be one great new-year’s act of defiance in our media-driven age. Half an hour of such unhurried, even leisurely, lingering over and enjoying God’s words just might fortify your soul for the unavoidable drivel of distant dramas, hot takes, and idle words we seem to encounter at every turn in this world. “Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord” (Proverbs 16:20).

You will find, over time, that God can indeed restore what the locusts have eaten. He can rebuild your mind, and your capacity for focus and sustained attention, and he can restore your heart, and give you wisdom and stability.

How different might the next year be because of what you resolved to do with your ears?

Audio Transcript

International missions is a huge theme in the life and ministry of John Piper. That word missions has appeared 250 times on this podcast alone. The church has global aspirations. Our ongoing prayer is the prayer of the psalmist: “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy” (Psalm 67:4). “Amen! Let the nations join the chorus of joyful praise to our God, through Christ! And use us, Lord, in that process.” And so we pray regularly here at Desiring God that the Lord would bless our global outreach and translations efforts and our international travel.

But you may be like Pastor John and myself — we live in large cities in the United States. And here, it’s very easy to be buffered from the needs of the world. And yet, we too are called to feed global aspiration in our own lives and in our own churches. Missions was woven into the fabric of the church from its inception. It’s why our Savior told his very first followers in John 10:16: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Here’s Pastor John, in a 2011 sermon, to explain why we need these words in America today.

I am praying that John 10:16 will fill you with a confidence that the saving, global, worldwide, all-peoples-including purpose of God — and your place in it — cannot fail, will totally succeed. That’s the last thing I want to try to make plain. You might say, and you’d be right, “We’ve already seen that. I mean, if he sovereignly saves as effectively as you say he saves his sheep, he can’t fail.” Right. So I could close the book.

But we’re not going to stop because there is so much in this verse I have not said yet that is so massively important for your life and for the mission. I want you to feel now the thrust of the words “not of this fold.” Are you with me? “I have other sheep that are not of this fold.” And then the other thing I want you to focus on is “one flock” and “one shepherd.” Those are the two things we’re working with for the last few minutes of this sermon.

‘Not of This Fold’

“I have sheep. They’re not of the fold that’s already in existence.” In that case, a Jewish fold. I could say here, “Okay, here we are, fold or gathering. Here’s Bethlehem. He has other sheep besides us. And he must bring them, not necessarily to Bethlehem, but to himself.”

“Jesus has other sheep besides us. And he must bring them.”

“I have other sheep that are not of this fold” — that is, they’re not of ethnic, Jewish Israel. “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock” — that is, from all the ethnic groups. You may think, “Well, that’s an overinterpretation.” It would be if I didn’t have a lot of John’s other statements in mind, which I’ll show you. “So there will be one flock” — from all the other ethnic groups around the world, with the Jewish sheep — in one fold, in “one shepherd” (John 10:16).

So what we spent the whole sermon doing so far is emphasizing the magnificent, sovereign salvation that God has worked to save his sheep. He chose us from before creation. He sent his Son into the world to lay down his life for them. He brought them to himself by his voice.

Christ’s Humble Sheep

Now, here’s the reason for emphasizing this second confidence. You would think (I hope you would think) that such a salvation — such a lopsided, God-dependent salvation that depends on nothing in me for being chosen, nothing in me for being called — would make me humble, wouldn’t you? You would think that the humblest people on the planet would be Christians. And it isn’t necessarily so, is it?

Because we’re sinners, here’s what’s happened. It has proved often in history that the church has become ingrown, indifferent to the world, and that our chosen-ness, our chosen standing, has been wickedly woven into the fabric of ethnocentrism and racism and nationalism. All you have to do is think about Nazi Germany and all the complicit Christendom in the hatred of the Jews, American race-based slavery and how Christian it all was, and the conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, just to pick three where Christians wove their chosen standing into the horrors of ethnocentrism and racism and nationalism.

And that’s what this verse is about. Jesus saw it in his day. Gentiles were hated. “To unclean, catfish-eaters and uncircumcised? We’re not going to even enter their house.” Jesus saw it coming, and it’s been there every century of this blood-soaked globe of ours. And he gave this razor-sharp warning to all of his flock. “I have other sheep. Don’t you dare become ingrown. Don’t you dare become ‘us few, us chosen few.’ I must bring them. It will cost me my life, it may cost you yours, and there will be one flock, with one shepherd, from every ethnic group on the planet.”

Every Tribe and Tongue

Now at that point, you have to say, “Aren’t you going beyond the text?” Yes, I am. I’m going all the way to chapter 11. Is that a huge jump? So go with me to John 11:51–52. John records a prophecy of the high priest, named Caiaphas, about the death of Jesus and what he would accomplish in his dying, and here’s the way he says it — different language than sheep, but exactly the same point: “[Caiaphas] prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only” — good, good, good; “I have other sheep; I have other sheep” — “but also to gather into one [flock, in different terminology] the children of God who are scattered abroad.”

He could have said, “the sheep”; he said, “God’s children are scattered.” And I’m just focusing on the word scattered here. Like, “Oh, well maybe they’re all in Minneapolis.” I don’t think so. “Maybe they’re all in America.” I don’t think so. “Europe?” No. “Africa?” No. “Asia?” No. “South America?” No. Every people group.

“The bloodline between you and your brothers and sisters in Jesus is a thicker bloodline than runs in your family.”

Now, aren’t you going beyond that text? Yes, I’m going beyond the text. I’m going all the way to Revelation 5:9, because John wrote Revelation too. Okay. So let’s finish it off, nail it down exegetically. In Revelation 5:9–10, the saints, the twenty-four elders, the four living creatures are just belting out this song over the Lamb who was slain to say why he was slain. Why was he slain? Here it is: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom” — one kingdom — “and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” And that’s enough for me. Now I know what he means when he says, “I have other sheep. I must bring them also.”

Death of Our Disdain

If you agree with me now, you’re seeing that he’s got a global purpose here for this people. “I have other sheep.” Must. It is a divine necessity, which means not only will you make it to heaven; this mission is going to succeed. He died. He ransomed people for God from every tribe. He died for them. The Father gave them to him. He’s going to speak over them. How? Missionaries, or whatever you want to call them, who cross a culture, learn a language, let the voice of Jesus be heard, and the sheep hear, and they come. Don’t you love to read those stories? You go into some utterly unknown people group. You take a few months, you try to make get it plain, and suddenly lights go on, and a church happens. Why? “I must bring them.” That’s why.

So we, Bethlehem, must not disdain potential brothers and sisters anywhere in any group. Oh, there is so much racism, so much ethnocentrism left over in America that thought we finished it all forty years ago. We didn’t, and you know we didn’t. It’s in your heart. It’s in my heart. It’s in black and white and red and yellow. It’s in every heart. And the word that needs to go out continually is this: “I have other sheep.” They’re in all of those groups. Don’t you dare look on any of those groups with disdain, as though you don’t have a brother there that’s closer to you than your mom (if your mom is not a believer). The bloodline between you and your brothers and sisters in Jesus is a thicker bloodline than runs in your family.