What does it mean to be a faithful father? And what is God’s heart for your family?
Join Andy Lamberton in conversation with Ray Ortlund, as we lift our gaze from our own limitations to God’s expansive, generational vision. This is God’s heart for your family far into the future.

What Does it Mean to be a Faithful Father?

And what is God’s heart for your family?

I pick locker number 78 when I go swimming because I like Psalm 78 so much: “One generation commends your works to another.” It’s a favourite of Sunday School teachers, youth leaders and anyone involved in passing on faith to the next generation. But I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that this psalm unfolds God’s faithfulness across not just one, but five generations. The vision this Psalm gives us is our great-grandchildren putting their trust in God.

God isn’t just interested in our momentary successes or failures; He’s thinking generationally, inviting us into an influence that will outlast us all. Your family, as Ray puts it, is “God’s plan.”

I had the privilege of speaking with Ray Ortlund about faithful fatherhood and God’s heart for your family. Full conversation on our podcast here. 

Here’s what our chat sparked for me:

Belonging in an Isolated World

The world often feels fragmented–our lives like islands in society’s sea. As Ray pointed out, “Our society has atomised human existence and has reduced us… beaten into us the belief that we are autonomous individuals.” But the Bible paints a different picture. We are not meant to be isolated units; we are designed for connection, born into what Ray calls a “pre-created beauty,” with family at its heart. 

Yet the number of places that treat us as a family is few. Everything is you, not y’all. Me, not us. Family is rarely honoured as a unit.

So, where are the places that welcome us as whole families?

I drive a 5+2 seater car, the Seat Alhambra. With four kids and two adults in our family, it’s only when we are all going somewhere I have to put the back seats up. If not, we can drive a 5 seater with a massive boot (that’s a trunk for all you Americans!)… For us, the only time I put up the back seats is on a Sunday morning. Church is the only place in our lives that welcomes us as a whole family. 

What about you? 

Do you observe the same?

And for those of us in church leadership: let’s recognise the unique calling we have from God “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph 3:15), to help families flourish. To give families in our communities space and the dignity to thrive.

The Generational Echo of a Faithful Father

Ray mentioned his father wrestling him in the living room after school and even… skipping school for “unexcused” beach days, making it “obvious to me how much I mattered to my dad.”

My own father, a farmer, passed faith on to me through the simple act of reading his Bible aloud on a Saturday morning.

David Smyth, NI Lead for the Evangelical Alliance, shared on one of our LIVE podcast episodes about hearing his dad pray as he went to bed each night.

These aren’t complicated strategies, or even big moments; they are the humble, consistent rhythms of hearts turned towards God and their family, leaving in each of us an indelible mark. 

They were faithful fathers whose actions have a generational echo.

How do I change as a father

We want to become faithful and faith-filled fathers. 

Don’t we? 

I do.

Yet when we look at ourselves, many of us can relate to my granda’s old joke when giving directions: “Well, if I were going there, I wouldn’t start here.” 

We feel inadequate for the task and incapable of change. If we are going to become disciple-making fathers, we wouldn’t start with the twisted, tiresome man we see in the mirror.

As I presented this challenge to Ray, he pointed back to the gospel: There is a distinction between living a “Ray Ortlund centered Christianity” – where I have to strive and ultimately exhaust myself, and a “God-centered Christianity” – where Christ is at work in us, giving us His Spirit and inviting us into His larger story. This is God’s work, and “God is doing a profound work through you… through every father who’s listening to this. All we have to do is step in and say, Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done.”

Our ordinary lives are how God accomplishes generational glories. Ordinary lives, lived in step with Christ, marked by love for our families. –, God’s heart for your family reaches far into the future, and you, as a father, are more important than you think.  

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We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children
that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children,
so that they should set their hope in God

Psalm 78:4-7

Find Ray Ortlund’s book, co-authored with his wife Jani: To the Tenth Generation: God’s Heart for Your Family Far into the Future, here.

Ray Ortlund Quotes

Ray Ortlund: “The world trivialises us every day. But when we open up our Bibles, we find out the true magnitude of our lives.”

Ray Ortlund: “God is working not only in the moment-by-moment of our lives, but He’s thinking generationally.”

Ray Ortlund: “Our society has atomised human existence… We don’t walk into reality undefined. We’re walking into a pre-created beauty, and part of that is the family that we’re born into.”

Ray Ortlund: “If it’s God-centered Christianity, it’s like, Oh, my goodness, I’m part of something far larger. I’m not making this happen. God is making this happen and I have the privilege of stepping into it.”

Ray Ortlund: “The indicator a man is following Jesus is not that he becomes more tiresomely religious. The indicator that a man is following Jesus is that he’s flourishing, coming alive as never before, bearing fruit.”

Ray Ortlund: “God is doing a profound work through you… through every father who’s listening to this. All we have to do is step in and say, Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done.”

Andy Lamberton Quotes 

Andy Lamberton: “The stories, the values, the priorities that we set today in our family will have a lasting impact long after we’re gone.”

Andy Lamberton: “He would just read his Bible out loud… and that was our family time of worship… That’s how he passed faith on to me.”

Guest: Ray Ortlund
Ray Ortlund is a prominent Christian author, pastor, and speaker. Founder of Immanuel Church in Nashville and a founding member of The Gospel Coalition. Author of books like The Death of Porn, You’re Not Crazy, Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, and: To the Tenth Generation: God’s Heart for Your Family Far into the Future.

Host: Andy Lamberton
Andy Lamberton is the director of Legacy. Speaker, writer and author of Letters for Exiles: Faithful Living in a Faithless World.

Links:
Legacy
To the Tenth Generation – Book