Behave Yourselves Valiantly

The Forge of Character in the Christian Home

“Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God: and let the LORD do that which is good in his sight” (1 Chronicles 19:13).

At Victory Baptist Church in Coden, Alabama, the entire month of July is set apart for a singular focus: the home. During this season, we pause our regular expository journeys through Ephesians on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, and Jonah on Sunday afternoons. The pulpit turns exclusively to the family. This is not a concession to contemporary church trends; it is a return to first principles. The home is the first church a child ever knows, and the kitchen table is his first pew. A nation is only as strong as its families, and a local church is only as strong as its homes. If the faith is not living under our own roofs, it will not live long anywhere else. We turn the pulpit to the home this month to build where it counts the most, where the Lord Himself laid the first stone.

To close this month of focus, we invite our congregation and community to join us for what we pray will be an annual Family Bible Conference on Saturday, July 25, beginning at 3:00 p.m. We are privileged to have Pastor Jeremy Wilson of Heritage Baptist Church in Picayune, Mississippi, and Pastor Jacob Bogard of Calvary Baptist Church preaching in these special sessions. A complimentary fellowship supper will follow at 5:00 p.m. The following day, Sunday, July 26, Brother Jed Carson of The Bible Baptist Church in DeLand, Florida, will preach in our regular services to turn our eyes forward as we return to our settled course.

To inaugurate this month of family focus, we turn our attention to an ancient battlefield in the pages of the scripture. In the book of 1 Chronicles, we find a narrative that seems far removed from the quiet domesticity of our lives, yet it contains the exact steel needed for the modern home.

The Stillness of the Graveyard

If you walk down the roads of Coden on a warm summer evening, you will witness a manicured peace. The lawns are cut, the country air is quiet, and the scene appears tranquil. Yet behind the windows of many family homes, you will often find a stillness that is not the rest of a soul, but more like the quiet of a graveyard. Four or five people sit in a single room, sharing the same air but not a single thought. There is no conversation; there is only the pale, cold, blue glow of independent screens. We live in a culture of extreme connectivity, yet we are strangers under our own roofs. The device in our pocket has become the emblem of a character crisis, stealing our attention and breeding a lazy indifference to the duties right in front of us. 

When the family begins to rot, it erodes quietly, screen by screen, until the home is nothing more than a boarding house where strangers sleep. The frustration we feel toward the next generation is often the bill coming due for our own indifference. We get angry at the direction of the young, but we must ask: who allowed this to happen? Who was asleep at the wheel? 

In the text of 1 Chronicles 19:10-13, Israel was caught in a vice. The battle was set against them before and behind, with the Syrians in front and the Ammonites behind. It was a serious, deadly situation. Joab did not tuck his tail and run. He split the host, took the harder front against the Syrians for himself, and delivered the rest of the people to the hand of his brother Abishai to face the Ammonites. He pledged mutual rescue: if one was overwhelmed, the other would come to his aid. He did not promise victory; he called for character and valiance, and then he left the result with God.

A family’s strength is not in its comforts, and certainly not in its distractions. It is in its character. We are to forge it in the home, behave ourselves valiantly for one another, and leave the outcome to God. And here is the mercy of it: the God who set us in families does not command what His grace will not supply. The work is hard, but no home is beyond His reach.

I. Character is What You Are, Not What You Seem

When Joab called on his men to behave themselves valiantly, he was not calling for physical strength. Pastor Ron Ralph once defined valiance as stout-hearted. It is an inward, moral courage, the steady resolve of a soul that has decided what is right before the battle begins. If you have not decided what is important before the conflict, you will quickly abandon it when the pressure rises. 

Reputation is what people think you are; character is what you actually are, underneath their opinion. Reputation is the shadow; character is the substance. Other people can ruin your reputation, but only you can ruin your character. 

The scripture defines this clearly: “The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him” (Proverbs 20:7). The Bible does not say the just man talks about integrity; he walks in it. A walk is a consistent movement. His children were blessed because they did not have to guess who or what their father was. He was the same man in the marketplace as he was at the dinner table. 

But we have built a digital playground where we curate the image of a godly family while starving the reality. We post the family photo, smiling for the camera, while behind that glass, the father is cold, the mother is distant, and the children are consumed by their own desires. A household can be photogenic and yet hollow. As we noted in our prior writing, The Morning Sentry, a watchman who only pretends to watch while sleeping in his heart invites ruin. We cannot afford to be actors in our own homes.

Under grace, we look to the Son of God. The writer of Hebrews states: “God… Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things… Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…” (Hebrews 1:1-3).

Jesus Christ is the Word of life, the express image of God. In Him was no hypocrisy; He was perfect in obedience to the Father, even to the death of the cross. 

Consider Joseph in Potiphar’s house. When tempted daily, he refused: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). For this, his reputation was ruined and he was imprisoned. Yet his character stood. Reputation is the shadow, and men destroyed it; character is the substance, and it remained untouched. Build the substance, and let the shadow fall where it will.

II. Character Is For Others, Not For Self

Joab told Abishai: “let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God” (1 Chronicles 19:13). Character looks outward, sacrificing self for the benefit of others. The death of character in the modern home is the worship of self: my rights, my space, my devices, my screen time, my desires, my needs. We have allowed the home to become a battlefield of competing egos, trying to extract the maximum comfort with the minimum effort. 

The scripture shows the opposite. Job lost his wealth and children, yet held fast his integrity (Job 2:3). His character was anchored in the Almighty, not comfort.

We see the ultimate example of this self-giving character in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Lord Jesus Christ, facing the cup of God’s wrath, prayed: “Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). Being in agony, He prayed more earnestly, His sweat falling as great drops of blood (Luke 22:44). This is character at its peak: the total surrender of self-will to the purpose of God for the salvation of others. Christ did not view the cross as an inconvenience; He laid down His life that we might live.

In our homes, this self-giving character wears the plain dress of manners: yielding your seat, opening a door, listening fully when another speaks. We have lost our manners because the self has swelled to fill the horizon. A soul curved inward over its own comforts has quietly abandoned the commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself. As detailed in The Woman Who Fears The Lord, a home is built on the law of kindness and daily self-denial. 

The moment you say “I do,” the self-centered life is over. When children arrive, the notion of personal space and uninterrupted comfort is gone. The mother who works astronomical hours, laboring nonstop to keep children alive, does not clock out at four o’clock. She is constantly spending herself for others. The father who steps into the home must lead in sacrifice. We must behave ourselves valiantly for our people.

III. Character Glows in the Dark

The home should be a lighthouse. The scripture calls the children of God to shine: “Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14-15). This requires decisions made by conviction, not whim. Settle convictions now before the pressure comes. Settle it now that you will not defile yourselves or get lost in the allure of this present evil world. 

Building this character requires discipline. Today, the ultimate test of discipline is the screen habit. If you cannot put your phone down, you have no rule over your own spirit. A thumb that cannot stop scrolling is controlled by a machine, not by a regenerated mind. We have lost the ability to sit in silence, to meditate on the word of God, and to think deeply about our souls. 

In our homes, “glow in the dark” has taken on a tragic meaning. It is no longer the light of a blameless life, but the literal blue glow of a smartphone under the covers of a child’s bed at midnight, or the father sitting alone in the study at two in the morning. The private screen allows us to indulge our worst desires in secret. But God is not mocked. What you do in the dark will eventually ruin what you do in the light. 

To combat this, we must implement what we explored in The Altar of the Intentional: we must establish boundaries by conviction, pulling back from the digital currents that carry our families away. Turn off the screens and let the light of God’s word search your heart.

IV. Character Can Be Trusted

Character lived out in the dark ripens into trust in the light: dependability. In the description of the virtuous woman, we read: “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil” (Proverbs 31:10-11). Her husband’s heart is at rest because she has proven her character.

Can you be trusted? Let us bring this test into the home. Parents, can you trust your children with the screen no one else sees? Young people, can your parents trust you when you are alone? Do you close what you open and turn from what you should not see? 

If you need a watcher to keep you honest, you do not have character; you only have fear. True character is self-policing, answering to God. If you only teach rules, your children will abandon them when they leave your house. But if you teach them to behave valiantly because they love the Lord, they will stand. 

We must stop using screens as babysitters to avoid the hard work of parenting. It takes time to talk to a child, to listen to their fears, and to direct them to the scripture. Do not trade their character for your comfort. We must raise trustworthy children.

Conclusion: Do Not Sleep on Guard Duty

In the book of Hebrews, we find a great transition of scripture. In chapter ten, the writer warns against quitting: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). Today, people quit the local church and their families for the most petty reasons. They are consumed by their own happiness rather than faithfulness.

But chapter eleven names those who endured by faith. And in chapter twelve, he brings us to the focal point of history: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds” (Hebrews 12:1-3).

Character endures. It does not fall asleep on duty. Parents, you are on guard duty over a home. A sentry who falls asleep on watch is guilty of a capital offense. We are living in a day when the enemy has bypassed our physical walls, entering the minds of our children through the internet connection in their pockets. And we have fallen asleep.

Do not simply beat the standard into your children; model it. If you tell them to put their phones away but you cannot keep your hands off your own device, you are a hypocrite. The frustration we feel toward them is often the bill for our own neglect. 

Yet take heart. The gospel of the grace of God does not leave us to forge this character in our own strength. The same Lord who endured the cross for us now dwells within us, and He is able to make the weakest father a faithful watchman and the weariest mother a valiant soul. We do not build alone. Grace supplies what the flesh cannot, and no home surrendered to Christ is past hope. 

Let us return to the words of Joab: “Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God: and let the LORD do that which is good in his sight” (1 Chronicles 19:13). We cannot control the culture, but we can control what we do in our homes. We can decide to do our part and leave the results with God. This must begin with me today.

Pastor Thomas Irvin
Victory Baptist Church
Coden, Alabama