As Americans celebrate our nation’s founding on July 4, we remember the group of disparate leaders who came together in Philadelphia in the middle of the 1770s to forge enough unity to set thirteen individual colonies on the road to nationhood. What we have in the Declaration of Independence (itself primarily a document listing disagreements with the English government) came together with much contention and political wrangling. These founding leaders had much in common, but that commonality was put to the test over differences in regional interests, economic concerns, and political philosophy.

Different religious convictions also came into play. While most of the members of the Continental Congress were required to hold to basic Christian truths in order to serve in public office, their denominational commitments and doctrinal distinctives played in the background of the formal debates leading up to the ratification of the Declaration, and those tensions carried on into the founding era of the nation.

It is not hard for us to see in our rancorous times how political and religious differences intertwine as they did in our founding era. What was often in short supply then, as it seems to be now, is a model for holding differences in principles and convictions that do not undermine “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” which sets the people of God apart in a fractured world (Ephesians 4:3).

Among that group of eighteenth-century disparate leaders, however, I did find an unusual founder — in my estimation, a model still worth considering. His name is Elias Boudinot.

Uncommonly Christian

Boudinot (1740–1821) is an important but little-known member of America’s founding generation. He grew up a child of the Great Awakening, sitting under the preaching of George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, and, for a brief time, Jonathan Edwards in Princeton. He rose to prominence in New Jersey politics and was a man of national influence in the lead up to the American Revolution. During the war, Boudinot served on George Washington’s staff and later in the Continental Congress; he was also president of the Congress at the signing of the Treaty of Paris to end the war. Boudinot was a major player in the first three federal congresses and then served in the administrations of Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.

After retiring from public service in 1805, he spent the last decade and a half of his life supporting gospel mission in the states and abroad. His lasting legacy was his formative role in establishing the American Bible Society.

“Boudinot endeavored to lead an honorable life of consistent and ardent Christian faith.”

Throughout all of his public engagements, Boudinot endeavored to lead an honorable life of consistent and ardent Christian faith. Historian James Hutson, who has spent years studying the religious thoughts and lives of the founders, writes, “Boudinot is of particular importance, because he was a born-again Presbyterian, whose evangelical views were probably closer to those of the majority of his countrymen than were those of most of his fellow Founders.”1

Man of Gracious Convictions

Boudinot caught his view of God and the world in the great evangelical revival of the mid-eighteenth century, and he never deviated from the path of his early convictions. At the age of 18, he wrote to his friend William Tennent III,

May the Lord grant that we may make a proper use of the short time we have yet remaining. I can’t but record the great goodness of my gracious Protector as well as Preserver, in granting me restraining grace in my youth, and discovering the inestimable worth of an offered Savior unto me. I bless my God for the great hope that is wrought in us, by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, without which this life would be an intolerable burden, an inconceivable load of anxiety and despair, for vain are the days of man.2

Then, sixty years later, he would testify in his will to his

firm, unfeigned, and prevailing belief in one sovereign, omnipotent, and eternal Jehovah, a God of infinite love and mercy . . . [who] has been and is still reconciling a guilty world unto himself by his righteousness and atonement, his death and his resurrection, through whom, alone, life and immortality have been brought to light in his gospel, and, by all the powerful influences of his Holy Spirit, is daily sanctifying, enlightening, and leading his faithful people into all necessary truth.3

Boudinot did not cloister himself away from conflict and disagreement, however. An attorney by vocation, he made arguments for a living. He was a patriot, an identified member of the colonial elites who chose to rebel against the most powerful nation in his world. During the war, it fell to him to wrangle with the British over the treatment of captured American soldiers, who were treated not like prisoners of war but as traitors. In government, Boudinot was closely tied to Alexander Hamilton, the most polarizing politician of his era. He was also a committed abolitionist, which put him in unresolvable opposition with half of his country.

How might Elias Boudinot teach us, more than two centuries later, to stand on our own convictions with a firm but gracious disposition?

‘One Lord and Master’

First, Boudinot tended to major on what unites and not what divides.

Boudinot never wavered in his own doctrinal convictions, which were thoroughly Calvinistic. Yet the effect of the Bible’s good news on his life played out in both strong personal convictions and a gracious spirit that looked first for commonalities, not division. His interactions with those with whom he differed on issues of faith consistently displayed the biblical call to “pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Romans 14:19). It was a lifelong impulse.

When he was 18, he wrote to a friend, “What a glorious Prospect (said I to myself) would it afford, if mankind in general would unite together, in living harmony and concord, and endeavor to make every circumstance of life tend to the common advantage.”4 Nearly sixty years later, he expressed his enduring desire to “pare off the rough points of party and conciliate minds of those who ought to consider themselves of one family, acknowledging one Lord and Master.”5

“Boudinot tended to look for what unites and not what divides.”

This Christian impulse toward unity when possible would serve him well in the public positions he held during the Revolution and beyond. It would also be a driving motivation late in life, leading him to gather support from across the Christian landscape to form the American Bible Society.

‘Truly Reviving to His People’

Second, Boudinot welcomed evidence of God’s activity even when he differed with those in whom he observed it.

Boudinot was a lifelong friend of the Anabaptist Quakers, seeing in them a piety that he aspired to emulate, though he disagreed deeply on important doctrinal points. Later in life, when the Second Great Awakening broke out in the early 1800s, though leaders in his denomination reacted with concern over its crowd-gathering practices and populist theology, Boudinot watched with fascination. While he shared their cautions, Boudinot had learned firsthand from his father and the leaders of the First Great Awakening to look for authentic spiritual fruit wherever it might be found.

In a letter written in the middle of the War of 1812, we get a glimpse of Boudinot’s mature view of the Christian revival experience.

Blessed be God, who in the midst of judgement remembereth mercy. Although our country is involved in a ruinous offensive war, yet is he proving to his church that he has not altogether forsaken us. The pouring out of his Spirit in various parts of the United States, is truly reviving to his people who stand between the porch and the altar, crying, Lord save thy people. In the eastern parts of New York, in Vermont and Connecticut, the revivals are more interesting than has ever been known. In Philadelphia, the appearances are very promising, and generally speaking in these parts, although there are no appearances of remarkable revivals, yet there is a growing attention to the ordinances of the gospel. Bless the Lord, O our souls, and let all that is within us bless his holy name.6

‘Hearts May Agree, Though Heads Differ’

Third, Boudinot valued denominational fidelity without succumbing to denominational sectarianism.

Boudinot was a man of national prominence for nearly five decades. By the end of his life, he was a revered statesman and a driving influence in Christian mission. But he was at heart a churchman who expressed his religious convictions throughout his life. He was a founding trustee of the Presbyterian General Assembly and was moderator of the assembly at the time of his death. He was also a trustee of the Presbyterian College of New Jersey for nearly half a century, and played a significant role in the formation of Princeton Seminary.

In retiring to Burlington, New Jersey, where there was no Presbyterian church, he could have simply enjoyed his wide range of Presbyterian associations. Instead, he joined the church across the street, St. Mary’s Episcopal, where his participation was lively and committed until the end of his life. A prominent Presbyterian joining an Episcopal church was eyebrow-raising in his day, but Boudinot’s actions demonstrated his large heart and vision for the church of Christ beyond its various and often competing expressions. He wrote to the pastor of his former Presbyterian church about his view of denominational differences,

Hearts may agree, though heads differ. There may be unity of Spirit, if not of opinion, and it is always an advantage to entertain a favorable opinion of those who differ from us in our religious sentiments. It tends to nourish Christian charity. I welcome with cordial and entire satisfaction everything that tends to approximate one denomination of Christians to another, being persuaded that he who is a conscientious believer in Christ cannot be a bad man.7

In a day where the church is wrestling with how to engage the society (and often internal differences) with Christian conviction and conduct, the example of Elias Boudinot can provide a much-needed perspective. Even in times of contention, we can stand with conviction without forfeiting a gracious and peace-loving spirit, and the very conduct commended by Christ and his apostles.

Thank you, Dr. Piper. A lot to think about, a lot to pray about. I feel like I have 35 things to process, but man, the concept of kept — amazing. I think about the early days of Acts 29, when so many of us that are older planted churches, and then in the early 2000s someone gave us the book Desiring God, and we read it. We didn’t really understand it the first time, so we read it again, and then we read it again. Then we listened to the Jonathan Edwards biography, and then we listened to that again. Then we listened to the Adoniram Judson biography and the Lloyd-Jones biography, and we’re shaped so much by the Reformed theology that we learned from guys like R.C. Sproul and John Piper.

Here we are now in 2024, and we asked you to speak on this topic because a lot has changed in our culture and our society since 1999, when Acts 29 started. I’d like to ask you this question: In your decades of ministry, 33 years of pastoral ministry, how have you seen the culture change? You just preached on what is completely unchanging. How have you seen the culture change, and do you sense an increased hostility toward the church in today’s culture from when you began in 1980, or do you feel more like there’s nothing new?

Well, that doesn’t depend on my perception. There are statistics that show clearly that the hostility is greater. I don’t usually read statistics, but you have to do what you’re asked to do. In the last ten years, the question has been, “Is it a good thing that more and more people are nonreligious?” That’s the question. Is it a good thing? The movement has gone from 25 percent of the people saying, “Yes, that’s a good thing” to 47 percent between 2010 and 2020.

Twenty-five percent said, “I wish more people were not religious,” and now 47 percent say, “It’s a really good thing that people are less religious because religion is bad for us. You guys are all bad for us.” Yes, that’s an easy question to answer just statistically.

But as far as other changes go, I’m old. I started pastoring before personal computers, before email, before smartphones, before the Internet, before social media. The world has changed. You all have computers in your pockets, and on those computers is every manner of evil, and Desiring God, and lots of other good things, so that’s huge. You preach to people who are looking at their phones because it just bumped and they’re getting a text message from Africa or a different time zone, and you’re looking at them and saying, “Would you pay attention to me? Would you turn them all off?” That’s a small, little issue.

The bigger issue is what’s happening to people as they soak themselves in an entertainment culture. I’m trying to think, What’s the main issue regarding social media? I don’t know the answer to that. I just say it’s huge that I think most people live from eye candy to eye candy and entertainment to entertainment so that the mind is not as reflective. To walk through the airport forty years ago, nobody was talking into the blue with an earbud in their head, and nobody was reading a phone. They had books in their hands or something else like that. It’s a different world. So, that’s a huge piece that’s changed.

Let me just mention one other thing, because it’s just so prominent: the battle lines of sexuality and the battle lines of abortion. Let me go back one step on why I would go there. When I was in high school, I knew there was such a thing as Democrats and Republicans, and I wasn’t a political animal at all in high school. What high schooler is? I just knew they were out there. Both kinds were in my church, and they basically had some different ideas about economics or whatever.

It didn’t enter my mind that you’re bad if you’re one and you’re good if you’re the other. It didn’t enter my mind. I didn’t think that way. Today, it’s very hard given the love affair with killing children, and the love affair with celebrating two men having sex and calling it marriage, and the love affair with taking eight-year-olds and surgically turning them into the opposite gender. (I hate that word. I try to avoid the word entirely because it’s so politically and culturally twisted. Sex is the right word.) Just take those three things. It’s very hard to meet somebody and find out “I’m totally pro-choice, I’m totally affirming of LGBTQ, I’m totally affirming of transgenderism,” and not feel like that’s wicked.

The word wicked wasn’t in my vocabulary for another human being. Theologically, I suppose you’d say it was. I wasn’t a Calvinist in those days, so maybe it wasn’t, but I just mean that makes relationships really hard. You could put on it names, Republican and Democrat, but that’s not really helpful because both those groups are really sinful, and your job as a pastor is complicated by that dynamic, but it should not be consumed by that dynamic. That’s just a big, big change regarding how one navigates relationships.

Here is maybe one other thing. Carl Trueman has done us a good service with his books — the big one and the little one — and now he has a new one of identifying underneath the modern world a kind of autonomy that decides our own nature, and therefore “I can be a woman if I choose to be a woman.” That deeper autonomy, I think, has never changed.

Pastor John, that leads into a second question. So many of us, when we planted Acts 29 churches, were looking. We valued conservative Reformed theology, but we also valued cultural engagement, and we wanted to reach our cities. We wanted to stick to the truths of Scripture, and we wanted to engage with lost people and reach lost people. How can church planters and pastors culturally engage our cities on this hand while also living as people set apart on this hand?

I do have to admit that I emphasize the second one more than the first one because that’s where I think we’re weak. I think most of our people do not live for the age to come, and they’re out of step with the New Testament in that regard. That’s cheating to just go there.

“Do you know what the answer is to persecution and criticism, which drive men out of the ministry? Joy.”

I was at a lecture on Thursday on “Augustine Against the Neo-Stoics,” and I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Stoicism is making a comeback. There are half a dozen books that are very popular, and it’s recapturing Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca. It fascinated me because when he was done, I said, “That’s the answer I’m going to give in Dallas. That’s what I’m going to say. Thank you.” Because what he showed was that Augustine was totally culturally engaged. He wrote City of God. If you read City of God (which is good — nice and thick), it’s just one engagement after the other philosophically with the Roman times.

The Stoics said that happiness is found through virtue, not circumstances. If a bad thing happened to you, you could just say, “I didn’t feel that. I’m a stone. I didn’t feel that.” Virtue is about rising above circumstances and maintaining your equanimity. That was the stance of the Stoics. That’s being offered today in our culture, which is so fragile and so uncertain, and these new Stoics are saying, “You can do that. You can just rise above it all. You don’t feel any of that. You’re just your own person.” And yet, the Stoics argued for suicide, and they described what would bring you to the point where it was noble and virtuous to end it with equilibrium.

Augustine saw right through that contradiction. He said, “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that happiness is from rising above circumstances and turn around and say, ‘Circumstances can get so bad that you can end it.’ You can’t.” What he did was to go into the mindset of Stoicism and undermine it by just thinking it through as self-contradictory.

What I said to Zach, who gave this lecture, was “Zach, happiness was the common denominator there, and Augustine just took it for granted. They’re seeking happiness, and he’s saying, ‘You can’t have it your way. It can only be had by hope in an everlasting life.’” It’s about rejoicing in hope (Romans 5:2). And I said, “Do you think that’s the way Augustine tackled all the issues, making happiness and its quest the apologetic means by which he hooked the culture?” And he said, “I think it’s probably not the only way.” I said, “But it’s almost the only way, right?”

I haven’t read a lot of Augustine, but I read enough to know sovereign joy is his thing. Augustine is the greatest philosopher-theologian in the history of the church outside the apostle Paul, lots of people would say. Maybe Jonathan Edwards would come in second. If that’s true, we should not be ashamed, both from the history of theology and the Bible, to say the way to engage with culture is to tap into the universal pursuit of happiness. The message I just gave is my way of showing how deep that is. That’s not superficial. That’s not light. That’s weighty because God is supreme. You’re not.

That sounds to people like, “Oh, you’re going to make the pursuit of happiness the goal of life. That’s just selfish. That’s small. That’s man-centered.” Then you use the Bible, the God-centeredness of God, and Christian Hedonism to say, “No, no, no, no, you’re not getting it.” You take them up. This is just Piper’s bent. You hear Piper’s bent.

If I’m going to talk to any unbeliever in any country in the world through any language, I know one thing about that person: They don’t want to be sad. They don’t want to be discouraged. They don’t want to suffer. They want to be happy. They want to be glad. They want to have soul satisfaction to sleep well at night and feel good about the happiness they enjoy during the day without any guilt feelings at all. And only Christianity has the answer to that. For that to be true, you have to make much of the world to come.

I have one more story. Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of Joni Eareckson Tada. She’s one of my heroes, and her new book, The Practice of the Presence of Jesus, just came out last fall and has an introduction in it that calls her a five-point Calvinist. It’s all there. I am teaching on that at my church. I read them this introduction, and then I said, “I’m going to write to her and say, ‘Why’d you do that? That really tips your hand. That makes a lot of enemies. We’re trying to just keep that underneath.’”

I wrote to her, and she wrote me back the day before yesterday. We know each other. I knew what she’s going to say. She said, “Why would I want to keep secret what keeps me alive? Why would I want to keep secret what sustains me every day of my life?” So, the sovereignty of God in the life of a sufferer is another thing that makes it universally culturally relevant.

At Desiring God, we have a mission statement, and the mission statement says, “Given the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, we exist to help people glorify God by helping them be satisfied in God above all things, especially in their suffering.” We didn’t always add that little thing at the end. When I wrote Desiring God, do you know the first criticism I got? People said, “This is just naive, typical American self-help. That’s what this book is. It’s just another book about how to be happy.” And they couldn’t have missed it more. I realized, “Okay, I have to make this clear.” So, the next edition had a chapter on suffering: “Suffering: The Sacrifice of Christian Hedonism.” That’s not in the first edition.

Suffering is universal. Everybody suffers. Even the rich people in the suburbs living in their mansions, having total insurance, are miserable. One hundred thousand of them overdosed with opioids last year. That’s not poor people. That’s middle-class people, desperately needing something more than what this world gives them, and they’re dying in droves. If you tap into suffering, and you have a theology big enough to carry you through suffering, that’s another cultural engagement that really does carry the day, I think.

Thank you. Now, you told us earlier tonight that you’d spoken at twenty Passion conferences. How do you hope your legacy of ministry lives on — or do you?

Yeah, I think about that. Should you live and influence the moment? The Bible says they minister to their generation, and I think that is your primary responsibility. I don’t think you are responsible for influencing people fifty years from now — or let’s just say one hundred years from now because some of you will live fifty years. A lot of you will live fifty years. I won’t.

Number one, don’t worry too much about living to make an impact one hundred years from now. That’s not your responsibility. It isn’t. I don’t see anything about it. You are responsible for those people sitting in front of you on Sunday and loving them well, and if God wants to do something with that after you’re gone, he can. If you think about it, then what would you want it to be? I would want it to be this: “He loved God, and he helped people love God. Through that, he helped people love their neighbor, which is the great commandment.” This is not rocket science. There is one great commandment, and there’s a second one that’s like it. Did he love God? Did he help people love God? Did he love his neighbor? That’s huge for me.

I would like to be known as somebody who was faithful to his wife all the way to the end. I sit beside this woman 55 years now every night, and we just look at each other and say, “So, who’s going to take care of the other one?” In other words, when we take the dining room table out and put a hospice bed in there, which one of us is it going to be? The answer is, “Whoever it is, I’m taking care of you. I’m going to be there. I’m not going to any conferences when you’re there.” I’ve watched men and women do that in our church, and I just stand in awe. I stand in awe of a man or a woman who gives up almost everything to be there for the dying spouse. That’s another big one.

We have a lot of potential church planters in here, and we have church planters that are just starting to plant churches, and we have church planters that are planting churches in countries across the world. We were just in Latin America this week with planters from nine countries. What do you think are some of the challenges you’re seeing church planters face today?

I knew that one was coming too. The more I thought about it, the more they are changeless. They are changeless. I thought of ignorance. I thought of death (that is, the people are dead). They’re ignorant. They’re dead. I thought of opposition or persecution. And I thought of discouragement. Now, let me just say a word about each. How much time do we have?

Plenty of time.

Okay, I won’t take long, but I think those are universal. I think they’re in every generation, and I think they’re the deadliest opponents we have. What was the first one? Tell me my first one.

Ignorance.

Ignorance, thank you very much. (This is called being 78 years old.) In Ephesus, is it not amazing that in Acts 19, when he’s driven out of the synagogue, he rents the hall of Tyrannus, and he teaches every day? Now, several manuscripts say from 11:00 in the morning till 4:00 in the afternoon, or whatever. He teaches every day for two and a half years. All of Asia heard the word of God in one place (Acts 19:10). That’s the antidote to ignorance: teach, teach, teach, teach, teach.

Your people don’t know God. They don’t know God, and those poor Ephesians were saying, “Who is this crazy guy?” They could say, “Well, just go down into the hall of Tyrannus. He teaches every day down there.” Isn’t that amazing? I just think, “God, I want to do that. I want to do that.” That’s my little ignorance piece.

Next, consider opposition. Do you know what the answer is to persecution and criticism, which drive men out of the ministry? Joy.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11–12)

That’s a miracle. The best antidote to being criticized and reviled and persecuted is that you have a great reward in heaven, and it is so great and so sure that you can smile and be happy. The world needs happy people in the face of suffering. That’s opposition.

“I stand in awe of a man or a woman who gives up almost everything to be there for the dying spouse.”

Regarding death, in 1 Corinthians 1:23–24, Paul says, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” The reason the Jews demand signs and the Gentiles call it foolishness is because they’re dead. They can’t see anything glorious in Christ crucified. They think, “That’s just idiotic, a piece of meat hanging on a stick. You call that God and Savior? That’s foolishness. We need a sign. You come down from the cross, and then we’ll believe” — which was a pure lie.

Paul preaches that crazy gospel. Some people believe, and they believe because of the sovereign call of God, who says, “Lazarus, come forth.” That’s great. That’s the way you preach. So, the antidote to deadness is to preach Christ crucified, call down the power of the Holy Spirit, and watch the dead be raised.

What was the last one? Discouragement. Well, this was a big deal because I preached it a few weeks ago at Kevin DeYoung’s Coram Deo pastors conference, and they wanted me to do an exposition of 2 Corinthians 4. Oh my goodness. Throw me into the briar patch. (That’s an allusion nobody in here understands.) He says twice in that chapter, “We do not lose heart” (2 Corinthians 4:1, 16). Losing heart is a big enemy for church planting or for enduring in ministry. “I just lose heart. It’s just too hard, too discouraging.”

He has several arguments. I gave eight arguments for why they shouldn’t be discouraged, but the one that’s so clear in 2 Corinthians 4:16 is this: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” So, this 78-year-old nature is wasting away, but our inner nature is being renewed day by day. Then he says,

We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)

There it is again, the remedy to losing heart and the wasting away. I said to them, and I’ll say to you, “If you say this ministry is killing me,” my response is, “That’s no reason to quit.” It killed Paul. Paul said, “I carry about in my body the death of Jesus” (see 2 Corinthians 4:10). This ministry is killing me. That’s what your people watch. They’re watching how you die. Does this man die with joy? Does he have his eyes set on things that are eternal, or does he want to write more books? Does he want to get his name on more placards? Does he want to get more followers? Is he all about money and about fame, or is dying in the ministry for us?

That’s what the whole of 2 Corinthians is about. That’s all it is. We are being comforted in our sufferings with the comfort with which we want to comfort you. We want to comfort you with the comfort with which we are being comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1:4). Pastor, your suffering, your discouragement, your dying in the ministry, is remedied by “we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.” They are eternal.

Thank you, Pastor John. You’ve served us for 25 years of our history and some of us for even longer. We’d like to close tonight with praying for Pastor John, so can I ask you to just extend a hand toward him? We’ll thank God for his presence in our lives and pray for him.

Father, we thank you for the celebration of Reformed theology that we’ve heard tonight, the celebration of who you are, the celebration of the fact that we are kept, and nothing can pull us away from you. We thank you for using the gifting that you gave Pastor John to impact so many of us, but our ultimate goal is that we would make much of you. So, I pray tonight that as we’ve heard what we’ve read, as we’ve heard what we’ve preached, as we have heard what we believe, that we would walk away from here and make much of you.

I pray that you would be magnified like we began singing tonight. Christ be magnified. We do pray that you would continue to bless Pastor John and his ministry as, hopefully, he has many years left to serve us, and to minister us, and to teach us how to make much of you. So, we thank you for his ministry, and we pray over him tonight in Jesus’s name. Amen.

Audio Transcript

Today we look at parenting, particularly parenting through the teen years. Parenting teens is full of pressures and challenges. One source of those pressures are the demands and the questions put on mom and dad for which there are no easy answers. We’re trying to help our teens think for themselves with discernment in a very complex world. And it is one of the pressures Pastor John has identified as a trigger in men of what we call a midlife crisis, a crisis that often hits a dad in his early forties, when he has teens at home. We saw that connection in APJ 1173.

Dads, as leaders, bear a particular calling to their homes of self-sacrificing leadership, all to avoid giving the devil a foothold in our homes. Ephesians 4:26–27 raises the stakes that high when it commands us, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” High stakes.

In a 2007 sermon on this text, Pastor John spoke directly to dads of teens. He began with a word on modesty but then transitioned to talk about a dad’s hardest role in parenting teenagers. Here’s Pastor John.

There are spiritual dangers, brothers, coming at our families from every side today, innumerable and subtle. We need valiant warriors as never before, not with spears and shield, but with biblical discernment and courage. Husbands, pray for your wife and children every day without fail — over and over again during the day. “Protect them. Protect them. Lead them in paths of righteousness. Don’t let them go into temptation. Guard their lives. Make their marriages work. Make their children strong. Protect them, O my God.” That’s your job: to call down from God, hour by hour, blessing on this family. That’s what headship means. Pray for them.

Dads with Standards

Then set standards for your wife and children. Work them through with your wife. Here again, primary responsibility means talking to her about it. She’s probably got some better ideas than you, but taking initiative to talk is what she so longs for. Women are not eager to be dominated. They’re eager for their husbands to take initiative to make things happen in the moral sphere of their marriage. “Would you please help me set some standards for these kids and then help me carry this through?” She shouldn’t have to say that. She wants you to step up. Let’s do this together. Take some initiative.

“Husbands, pray for your wife and children every day without fail — over and over again during the day.”

We’ve got to figure out what this kid’s going to watch on TV. We’ve got to figure out what movies they’re going to go to. We’ve got to figure out what music is coming into this house. And we’ve got to figure out how low that neckline is going. And that’s mainly your job, dad. Now on that last one, I’m fully aware that it is mainly mom and daughter that worked that out from age two months to 22. However, dad, they desperately need your input on this. They need you to celebrate when they get it right and look beautiful and modest. And they need you to say, “You’re not going out of the house with that on.”

Anger: The Great Enemy

Here’s another one. The Bible is very clear about one of the most dangerous intruders, spiritually, in the family. Let me read it to you from Ephesians 4:26–27: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” How is the devil allowed into a teenager’s bedroom? How is the devil allowed at night into a married couple’s bedroom? Answer: when they go to bed angry. If you go to bed angry night after night after night, if that kid is seething at you in there, and no steps at reconciliation have happened, the door is just thrown open wide to the devil. And the havoc he can wreak over weeks, months, and years to destroy a soul, a marriage, and a family is awesome.

So, what are you going to do? I’ll tell you, dads. This is where headship is so hard that no woman would ever want it. This is the hardest thing in the world. Headship means you must initiate reconciliation no matter how many times it’s been her fault or the kid’s fault. You have not the luxury as head to say, “She did it, and if she doesn’t say she’s sorry, I’m hitting the pillow.” No way. Justice might say that’s the right way to act, but let me ask you this: Is that the way Jesus treated his bride? How many times has he come back to her and back to her? How many times has he come back to you and back to you and back to you and back to you, saying, “Here I am, ready to make up”? A thousand times. Seventy times seven times seven times seven he has come back to you when it’s your fault and not his. And he took the initiative to make it right. He died to make it right. Will we husbands say, “It’s her turn”? Yes, we will, without the Holy Spirit. This is impossible without Christ.

“Headship means you must initiate reconciliation no matter how many times it’s been her fault or the kid’s fault.”

You don’t want to be heads, women, because I’m holding the men accountable that this family not go to bed angry at night. You knock on that teenager’s door. Oh, this can be sweet, brothers. This is as hard as it gets. You knock on that door, and any little increment of fault that you bear over against his many faults, you confess it. Not many things will break a teenager, but that might, to walk in and say, “Son, my reaction to what you did was over the top. What you did was wrong; that’s not the issue here. But my reaction to it was over the top. I want to apologize and say it wasn’t in love. I just got out of control, and I’m sorry, and I’d like you to forgive me.”

You talk about sweet sleep. You talk about healing balms in the mind and the soul, dads.

Keep the Devil Out

Now, I’m not naive. Good night. I’ve been married 38 years. There are attempts at peace that don’t work, all right? But you have got to try. You get down on your knees. Noël and I have knelt beside each other, and we haven’t hardly been able to pray. We just kneel there in silence. Who’s going to pray first? Neither of us feels like praying. We’re so upset, and this hinders your prayers big time. And you can just eke out, “God, help us. I want it to be better.”

It’s your job, dad. Hardest thing in the world. Keep the devil out of the bedroom and out of the kids’ rooms by not letting the sun go down on your anger — inasmuch as it lies within you.