Well, I would encourage you again to turn your attention to Ephesians chapter 6 this evening. We'll be dialing our focus in particularly and especially to verse 4, finishing up our series here on the Redeemed Household. And I've appreciated your encouragement and some of the fun ways in which you have told me you have sought to apply these principles and these biblical truths to your lives throughout this series. The text reads, And you fathers Do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. There is perhaps no presence that can evoke a sense of safety, a sense of order and joy more than that of a dad.
He is perhaps the one that you eagerly run to when you hear him unlock the door after work. He is the one you crawl up beside when a thunderstorm wakens you in the night. And inversely, however, There's no presence that can also evoke a sense of danger, a sense of chaos and fear more than that of a dad. who does his his job incorrectly. Maybe your father was an unpredictable and loose cannon.
Maybe he was verbally or even physically abusive.
Well Regardless of which father you have, one thing is clear. One of the most influential relationships and formative relationships that you will ever have is the one that you have. with your dad.
Now, while popular TV shows seek to portray fathers as fools at best, Paul is not willing to dismiss them, and he's certainly not willing to let them get off the hook. You see, the Bible does not think of the father as some Background figure that's only useful for income and maybe discipline when a more stern voice is needed.
Now, while the world seeks to convince men that their role in the formation of children should be outsourced elsewhere, the Bible shouts. Absolutely not. Fathers are essential. And in our text today, Paul addresses fathers as those whose hands will either provoke a child to wrath, or those are the hands that are going to nurture a child towards Christ. In essence, Paul wants us to know one thing.
There is no such thing as a neutral father. In the home, there are only fathers who are going to seek to build up. or fathers who are going to seek to tear down. And as we turn our attention to Ephesians 6:4 for our final consideration on the redeemed household. We will learn that a spirit-filled father is to lovingly raise his children.
through Christ-like discipleship or Christ-centered discipleship. Recalling the key to this series, I'll turn your attention back to chapter 5, verse 18. There, the Apostle Paul. Spending the former part of this entire book talking about the glories of the gospel, this divine work of God, and moving towards it in practicality. In verse 18, he says, Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation.
But B field with the spirit. Following this, he begins to to bring forth what one commentator, Luther, would call the hostafelle, the family table. where he is gathering us together and he's talking to dads and he's talking to wives and he's talking to husbands. He's talking to the family.
Well Understanding the necessity of the Spirit, we need to remember that all of this is utterly impossible in the flesh. Wives do not happily submit to their husbands. Husbands do not love their wives in a way that is worshipful before the Lord. Children do not joyfully obey their parents. And fathers do not nurture their children in the things of the Lord without the Spirit of God working within them.
And that is what Paul wants us to know here this evening. And so now that we understand both the gravity Of a Father's influence and the necessity of the Spirit's work, Paul is going to give us two commands, and here they are. It's a two-point sermon. I don't even have a poem in here for you. First, he tells us the kind of men we are never to become.
Men who provoke our children to wrath. And then he tells us that we must be the kind of men who seek the spiritual well-being of our children.
So that's the structure. of this Paulinian argument tonight. And with that said, I want to introduce the first point, which is the danger of a displeased father. The danger of a displeased father. In Ephesians 6:4, Paul begins by forbidding.
The fathers of this Ephesian church to provoke their children to wrath. And that begs the question and invites us to ask: what does it mean to provoke? a child to wrath. But before we can answer that, we need to remember the cultural climate that the Apostle Paul is speaking into. He is speaking into a culture, a societal world underneath the Pax Ramona.
The peace of Rome. Rome has her fingers in everything and over everyone at this time. And we need to know a little bit about the culture. Under the Pax Ramona, we have what we have discussed over the last few weeks as the patreia potestas, this sense of father rule in the home. And it's not a sense in just dad knows best kind of thing, it's essentially the statement that fathers have absolute authority over their homes.
Absolute authority in the sense that he can take the life of his child should he please. And this authority is so, um, so. Powerful that even once his child is married, if he's disappointed with that marriage, he can initiate the divorcement and bring the child back home. He has power over that child, over that child's life, over that child's belonging, over that child's marriage. The Roman father has absolute power over the life of his children, and he can do all of these things without appealing to the Roman court.
This is an unbelievable amount of power that these dads have. Another thing we need to know is about the relationship of a father with a young child. When a wife would give birth to a child, She would come and she would lay that child down between the feet Uh of her husband. If the husband stands up and walks away, the child has been rejected from the home. and the child is either taken outside and left to the elements or the child is taken down to the courts and is sold and would be raised up as either a slave or a prostitute.
Horrible. Horrible. And we particularly find in excavations that this was done very commonly, particularly to young girls. We'll find mass graves of young infant girls in the Roman culture.
So this is something that took place quite often. But if he picked the child up, the child will be brought underneath the care of the home. I say all this to say this. For Roman families, a father never once asked the question or thought about there being a problem with provoking his child to wrath. Rather, a Roman child always lived with the idea in mind of, I better not provoke my dad to wrath.
And so I think understanding the dynamics of the Roman home, you can see how countercultural it is for Paul to look at the house, to speak the way he does, to husbands, you love her sacrificially, and then to dads, stop provoking your kids to wrath. He is speaking into a culture that's not wrestling with these things. They're totally deaf to them. This is extremely countercultural. This is sending a shockwave.
So To provoke your child to wrath, what is it?
Well, to provoke your child to wrath might be understood as to so mishandle your child. that that child is brought to resent you. as their parent. To provoke your child to wrath is to incite resentment. It's to cultivate a sense of bitterness within their heart.
It is to exasperate. your child. We could put it this way in more common imagery. Imagine that you have a young son. He's anxiously waiting all day for his dad to get home.
And as the dad unlocks the door, the boy grabs the drawing that he made of them together to go and show his dad. And as his dad opens the door, he looks and he says, not now. And he walks away. You've got to think in the heart of this young boy how hard that is that I've anxiously waited all day for my dad to show him this drawing. But he's tired.
And there's nothing condemning that. In particular, we know, especially as parents, there's no tired like parent tired, right? But it's not this one-time fatigue that's going to be a problem here. It's day after day, month after month, year after year, there is this sense of presentation to the child that you are not a priority to me. The child is pushed off, and instead your focus is spent elsewhere.
This kind of not now, son, or later is going to begin to cultivate within that child a sense of unimportance. Because it seems that in their mind, there's always a call, there's always a hobby, there's always a show more worthy of your attention than me. And so I'm not a priority to my parents. And this sense of being unloved. Because it seems that the only time you make time for them is to rebuke them or to reprimand them.
is going to cause them to have a sense of resentment towards their parents. And it really is a discouraging thing, especially when I speak with people, maybe in millennials, that you'll hear them speak about never hearing that their father loved them, never being told by my father that he loved me. There's this sense of I'm always laboring for the affection of my father, the approval of my father, and the fathers regularly withhold that one thing that that child wants from him, namely his overwhelming commendation and approval. That's provoking your child to wrath. That's provoking your child to wrath.
One of the most important things that we must realize as fathers is that our fathership Our fatherhood will profoundly shape how our children understand authority. If they cannot respect you, they will respect no one else in society, so it's absolutely crucial. That they respect you not because you're bigger and you have more bass in your voice and you're stronger than they are, because eventually they're going to be bigger and stronger than you are. They have to respect you because God Himself has deemed you as an office holder worthy of respect. And if they can't respect you, they won't respect anyone.
But not only do we shape how our children understand authority, the way that we father our children will often color their understanding of God. All authority, Paul tells us in Romans 13, is derived from the center of authority, namely. God. And so The question I have for us this evening, brothers, is: when our children learn to pray, our Father. Our Father who art in heaven.
What do we want to come into their mind? What do we want to come into their mind? We are flawed fathers. We are failing fathers in comparison with our divine heavenly father. And yet, in some sense, we are a living illustration, a statue communicating forth the glory, and the patience, and the care, and the protection, the security, the warmth of the heavenly Father.
Do our children associate fatherhood with love and patience and faithful correction? Or do. Or have we maybe made that title harder for them to embrace because we've been hard and we've been distant and we've been harsh and we've been indifferent? I don't know about you. I don't want my son and daughters to grow up struggling to pray Our Father because all they can think of when they hear that term is that that title invokes an image of a harsh, unloving and distant man.
Certainly, there are no perfect heavenly fathers here, or earthly fathers here, but that doesn't give us a license to provoke them to wrath.
Now, dads, I know what it's like. I think we can all agree what it's like to grow. Deaf to those little voices, especially when you hear dad or mom for the 25th time in a two-second span, you just kind of tune them out. But there is a sense in which, when we are devoting our full attention to them, that we are communicating to them something about the Heavenly Father. Does the Heavenly Father care about us?
Yes, He does. Does the Heavenly Father care about what we care about? Yes, He does. Does He have glory and fellowship and communion with us? Yes, He does.
Are they learning about that kind of Father through the way that we are Fathering them? Are we present and having an embodied presence with them and teaching them about the presence of the Heavenly Father? Certainly, again, there are no perfect earthly fathers. But this does not give us a license to provoke them to wrath. I want to look at three ways.
that we provoke our sons to wrath or our children to wrath. These are umbrella statements. Let's look at them first by being overbearing. We provoke our children to wrath by being overbearing. on our children.
Colossians chapter 3, verse 21, Paul making the same argument, but he finishes it different, says, Fathers, Don't provoke your children to wrath. lest they become discouraged. lest they become discouraged. The discouraging parent is someone who pelts their children with endless criticisms. They are the type of parent who holds impossible expectations over their children and notably withdraw affection from that child when they can't meet these unattainable expectations.
This is the parent who can never celebrate an achievement of the child or never recognize the unique contributions or personality of that child. Instead, there's always something that that kid could have done better. You could have done better. You got a 95.
Okay. If you'd have studied just a little bit harder, you could have gotten a hundred. It's a sense of which there's always something for you to be improving upon this overbearing criticism of your Child, one of the things I loathe to hear when I when I hear people speaking of their dad is something like this. My dad was a really hard man. But I know that deep down he loved me.
I hate hearing that. Brothers, if our children have to pull out a shovel. To mine the depths of your heart in hopes of finding some shred of assurance that you actually have affection for them, you've sinned against your child. And you are wounding them. for the rest of their lives.
Our Heavenly Father has lavished us. with his love. And likewise, we too should readily and joyfully shower our kids with our love. And just in case you're tempted to validate your hard-heartedness by talking about how they don't perform up to par like you would want them to, might I remind you of the gospel? God Commended his love towards us in that while we were yet perfect sons, Christ died for us.
No, while we were yet, sinners. Christ died for us. It isn't while you were yet winners. It isn't while we had cleaned ourselves up. It was while we were yet sinners.
And if our God, who we have committed. Innumerable acts of cosmic treason against loved us that way. How dare we as earthly fathers withhold such affection from our own children? Don't provoke your children to wrath.
So, parents, let us ask ourselves: does my child know that I love them? Not in theory. But in a real way, do you reaffirm your affection for your child on a regular basis? Are they assured of our love for them, or do they feel that they have to constantly chase down approval to find some shred of assurance there? Being overbearing.
Being overbearing. Second is by being neglectful. Being neglectful. One of the clearest examples of neglectful fatherhood is found in the life of David. By the opening of 1 Kings chapter 1, David is an old man.
He is nearing his death. As his strength fades, he has a son, and his son's name is Adonijah. And Adonijah, looking at the failing health of his dad, sees the throne is just within reach, and so Adonijah begins to party. He calls all of his friends together. They're having massive coronation feasts.
Even so that Bathsheba says to David, they're already standing up and chanting to him, long live the king. But you told me that Solomon was going to be. The king.
Now After Solomon is crowned and he eventually is, Adonijah attempts one final scheme. In that story, David is given a woman among the Jews who is going to tend to him and keep him warm. The text is very clear. He never had relations with her. That's not his wife.
And that's important. And the reason it's important is because Adonijah knows if I can marry her. then everyone else out there is going to think that I'm the rightful heir to the throne because In the ancient Near East, if you assumed the throne, one way you did it was you took the previous kings' wives. And so when Solomon gets the th it gets the throne Adonijah says, can I just make one request of you?
Solomon says, sure, anything. Can I have that woman? And then Adonijah takes that as a weapon to try and overcome the throne, and ultimately, Solomon executes him.
Now I say all this, all I have to say this. 1 Kings chapter 1, verse 6. It is it is convicting. Listen to it. And his father, Adonijah's father, David, had not rebuked him at any time.
By saying, What have you done so? And then he adds on. He was very good looking. Other translations might put it this way. David never rebuked his son.
Ever. David never rebuked his son. Ever. And he was good looking.
So this is a handsome boy. Who is the center of his universe? Who thinks that all the world revolves around him, and all of his scheming and all of his conniving pays off because I'm Adonijah and I get what I want. want. His son grew up to be what my grandmother would call a spoiled brat.
Or in more polite terms, Adonijah grew up to be a man who thought the world revolved around him. And in Proverbs chapter 29, verses 15 and 17, we read this, The rod and rebuke give wisdom. But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. And then it concludes. And correct your son.
And he will give you rest. Yes. He will be a delight to Your soul. The point I'm getting to on this thing of neglect Is that there's a growing trend. I don't want to talk about gentle parenting in particular, but it's some sort of that.
We could call it permissive parenting. And there are different ways that people approach this practice, but the gist of it. that I think is the most problematic forum. is that it makes the home child-centric. The home is not to be child-centric.
As you can imagine, this child-centric kind of home, it emasculates the father, it degrades the role of the mother, it elevates the feeling of the child to the place of king in the home. And beloved, the scriptures are not vague here. If we refuse to discipline our children, And whatever way you deem necessary at that time. If you refuse to discipline your child, you hate them. You hate them.
Proverbs chapter 13 verse 24, He who spares the rod hates his son. And so one way that we provoke our children to wrath is I think if we took a poll here tonight and said, since gentle parenting has taken a rise in the last 20 years, would you say that this generation's children love and respect their parents more or less? I think we would have almost a unanimous agreement that children today despise their parents and have less respect for their parents and authority than just about any generation that we could scale in the last 100 years. Would we be in agreement there? And so, what we find is a way that we provoke our children to wrath is by making them think that they are the authority in the home.
And if they pitch a big enough fit, everyone's going to go along with what I want. And they'll despise you as a servant, a slave to. their desires. While different children might require differing levels of severity and discipline, and certainly personalities are something we should consider there, one thing is clear. If we refuse to discipline our children, They will bring you heartache down the road.
They they will bring us heartache down the road. This is the scriptures. Third, by showing favoritism. We provoke them to wrath by showing favoritism. A final way a parent might provoke their child to wrath is by favoritism.
Perhaps the best example of this comes from the life of Jacob. We know the home that Jacob came from. Jacob was a mamma's boy, and Daddy really loved Esau. And there's a lot of scheming going on there, and then down the road, Jacob has his voice. And what do we find with He has a favorite son.
And he dons his son with this. Co of many. Colors. Joseph's brothers are then provoked and consumed with jealousy and sin against him by selling him off and faking his death.
Now God ultimately in His sovereignty works it for good. But in this story, we are reminded, I believe, that favoritism can produce jealousy and resentment in the hearts of our children. We might never say that out loud that we have a favorite. But we need to ask ourselves, do I tend to celebrate one child over another? Do I ever say to them, why can't you be more like your other sibling?
Do I pressure my child to try and measure up? to the personality, to the standard, to the achievement of their other siblings. If you don't have his book, it was... It's an older book by John MacArthur. It's called Successful Christian Parenting.
I believe you probably have some copies out in the bookroom. He writes: You really want to destroy your young child? Just make him feel inferior to everyone else in the family. portray him as the black sheep of the family, and you will saddle him with a terrible sense of frustration, and you will provoke him to wrath in the process. in the process.
Now While there are a hundred examples that we could probably use, I felt like these were most scripturally warranted and displayed. But we need to move on for time's sake.
So, three ways that we provoke our children to wrath: overbearing. being neglectful. and showing favoritism.
Now thankfully, Paul does not just tell us what kind of dad or mom that we should refuse to be. He tells us the kind of demeanor we must avoid, and he also tells us the kind of parenting that we should be doing. Which leads me to my last point. The last point is the duty of a diligent father.
So we have the danger of a displeased father, and now we have the duty of a diligent father. Paul writes. Bring them up. In the training and the admonition of the Lord. The word for bring them up here carries the meaning of nourishing.
Providing what is n or providing what is necessary for one's growth. This passage provides another beautiful reminder for us, brothers, that as dads, we are not only physical providers for the home. Your job is not done when we're done working. We are providers of spiritual nourishment for the sake of our home. This is a full orb provision for them.
The nourished word that we see here, this bring them up, is the same one used back in chapter 5 for how you care for your wife. No man hates his own body, but nourishes it, or cherishes it, and cares for it. And he applies that to the wives, and likewise brings it back here for children.
Well, what is this supposed to look like? Does Paul give us any idea? And he does. He gives us two things. And while they're similar, I'm going to try and And bring out their differences as much as possible for practicality's sake.
The first is that we, brothers, are to provide Christ-centered training. In our home, bring them up. In the training. An admonition of the Lord, of the Lord, of the Lord.
So we are to provide Christ-centered training in our home. The word that Paul uses for training here is one that's gotten really popular in the classical education community. It's the word paideia. The Paideia of the Lord. While no English word captures it directly, we don't have a word that gets it right.
But I'll try to give you an understanding of what it means. It's essentially. the comprehensive formation Of a boy. into what it meant to be truly Greek. The Paideo was extremely popular among the Greeks at this time, and Paul writing to the Ephesians is picking up on it.
I don't know. It is the process by which a dad is going to raise his son to speak, to eat, to eat. to think, to hate, to love like a Greek. You were gonna grow up Immersed in the culture of the Greeks, my boy. You are going to know what it's like to be a Greek through and through.
And this is going to include the child's education, his disciplines, his habits, his virtues, his worldview, and his culture. It's shaping the boy to be thoroughly a Greekman. Speaking to the Ephesian church. Paul takes that word. And he looks and he says, Dad, I want you to bring those kids up.
Not to be full Greeks. But to be like Jesus. I want you to bring them up. in a culture that is perfumed with the scent of Christ. and the home.
Bring them up in a training that is Christ-centered. You're to be so present and so intentional in that child's life that they leave your home knowing what it is to speak, to eat, to think, to hate, to love like a Christian. This is not in any way I have some things I would like to add. This is in no way assuring us that our children are, without a doubt, going to be saved. But in the first appendix of the 1689 London Baptist Confession.
They assume that the Presbyterians are going to tell them, you reject the privileges of a Christian home to your children. They write back and say, in no way do we do this. We shower them with the privileges of being underneath godly Christian parents. We are to so build, as it were, a Christian culture in our home that exudes and has the fragrance of Christ that when they leave the home, being Christian or not, they know what it is to eat, talk, work, speak, love, hate like a Christian. Because that's the culture that they know.
It's all they know. That is what he is calling us to do. And so. A good question for us to ask ourselves this evening is: what kind of people is my home producing? What kind of people is my home producing?
Um The question that we must deal with isn't necessarily is my home forming my children, but what kind of children am I forming at home? What kind of children am I forming at home? As we said, there is no. No neutral fatherhood. And this leads me to ask now: how can, biblically, how can I give my child a Christ-like training?
I would really love to go preach the Shema. I don't have the time to go through that. But here's a list of practical questions that I was asking myself in the study this week. Are we leading them in family worship? I appreciate the ministry of Joel Beke.
I think he's probably one of the best gifts that we have for this time and one of the most prolific writers that we have in the Reformed faith. One of his focal points is the recovery of family worship. Do you lead your home, your children, your wife in family worship before the Lord on a regular basis? Are we leading them in family worship? Are we praying both for them and for them?
Are we modeling repentance? By admitting to our failures, and that's a big thing. Dad, have your children ever heard you come to them and say, I'm sorry, I messed up? I'm sorry, I messed up. They need to see that.
They need to know. Dad's a sinner in need of grace, just like everyone else. Congregates need to see it of pastors. Children need to see it of their parents. We are not salvation figures.
We are sinners in need of grace. Do they hear you repent? Do they hear you repent? Another one, are we disciplining them biblically? Or are we disciplining them abusively?
Or are we ignoring their discipline completely? Are we showing our sons what it's like to work as a Christian man? Uh one of the privileges I have is is outside of the pasture, all my work was blue-collar work. And you think that uh These lady shows on TLCs complain a lot. You've not heard anything until you go work on the docks with men.
They complain more than any drama queen you've ever met. But if the Lord's glorified in our work, Do you think he's glorified in complaining? Do we not see what he did to the children of Israel in the wilderness?
Son, I want to show you what it's like to work as a man who knows that my work glorifies God. Let me show you how Christian ethics comes to bear on this and how work ethic comes to bear on this. I want to glorify God in the work that you're going to see me do, and you're going to learn to work with me. Because a man who does not provide for his home is worse than a what? Than an unbeliever.
Are they invited into these kind of things? Are we showing them what it is to work as a Christian man? Moms, are we showing our daughters? How a house can be made a home. One of the most Important.
Privileges. Is that a young lady grows up, Titus 2 teaches us, knowing how to love her husband, how to make a home. Man, we can build houses. We can provide the resources for a house. Women, you make homes.
You make homes. You make places where warmth is received and people are nourished to just keep on going. Moms, are we teaching our daughters how to do these things? Dads, are we showing our daughters how a woman should be respected and valued as someone? Who knows her maker?
Mom and Dad, we need to ask ourselves this question. Is there a Christian culture that permeates our household. and its mission. If not, this is your invitation. The invitation we have tonight is to begin pursuing such a thing by God's grace.
By God's grace, this takes us to my last point for the evening, which is that a diligent father should provide not only Christ-centered training, but Christ-centered admonition. And these words are are quite similar. But I do want to highlight that the word admonish here is particularly focused on speaking. On speaking. My grandfather, my mom's dad, was not much of a talker.
But I just like to watch him. I like to be around him when I was a kid because he was a godly man, one of the most godly men I knew. He just oozed grace. He was just scented with the perfume of Christ, and he didn't really have much to say to me. But I just like to be around him.
He invited me into the paideia of the Lord. He just taught me what it was like to go about your business as a man, as a Christian man. But now we want to talk about speaking the word into their life. This is the admonition aspect of this. To put it simply, Paul wants Christian parents to speak the truth of God's word into the lives of their children.
To admonish here means to give loving instruction, to give correction, to give warning, to give exhortation, or most simply, it means to apply God's word to their conscience. to apply God's word to their conscience. You can You can see. a beautiful picture of this in the book of the Proverbs, can't you? My son Just give me your heart.
Just give me your heart. Because there's no one on earth who wants better for you. Then your dad. Right. I've heard it said, there's no other man on earth that wants you to be better than himself, except your dad.
And Solomon, writing his wisdom, says, Just give me your heart. Just give me your heart. But an example of that being forsook is powerfully seen in the minister of Eli. Eli, the priest of the Lord, has two sons, Hophni and Phineas. And boy, what wicked men they were to profane the temple of the Lord, committing fornication in the entryway of the Lord to...
Disgrace and I show disrespect to his offerings by eating them for themselves, by heeding the unwise request of Israel to take the Ark of the Covenant into battle like it's some sort of good luck charm. And what does God allow to happen for their sin? They die, and the ark of the covenant is taken. And what does Eli do when he hears that? He falls over and dies.
Yeah. But 1 Samuel chapter 3, verse 13, tells us, Eli and their sin. did not restrain them. Eli did not restrain them, which is to say, Dad did not confront his boys with gravitas. But the weight.
over their sinfulness. If Christ-centered training asks, invites us to ask, what kind of people is my home producing? Then Christ-centered admonition invites me to ask, what kind of conversations are we having at home? What are the conversations that we're having in the strength household? What are we talking about?
And by this, we need to ask ourselves: how often am I setting Jesus Christ before my children? When I catch them sinning, do I seek to confront them with the law and show them that Christ is the hope of sinners? Or do I immediately skip all sorts of gospel and immediately begin to reprimand them? We could think of it this way. Every failure in the home is an opportunity to disciple our children.
When my child complains about a job, do I show them what it is to work to honor the Lord? When my child complains, do I show them how the Lord hates complaint in the Old Testament, but that Christ has come and there was not a word of complaint found in his mouth, but this Lord has died for complainers like you. When our children are angry and disobey their mothers, do we show them Jesus loved his mom? And that Lord has kept the commandments for us, and He died for you. Run the cry, son.
Doesn't mean that we don't discipline them. I think that we can make a biblical argument for the practice of spanking. I think, if anything, it teaches sin hurts. And it does hurt. That doesn't mean that we leave out just the beautiful depiction of the gospel.
I believe it may have been Ted Tripp. in his book on on how to handle the hearts of children. He talks about you grab them by the hand when there's time for discipline, never disciplining them publicly to humiliate them, and you bring them in and you explain to them in such a way that they know exactly what they've done wrong, and you don't spank them out of anger. Their backsides are not some sort of therapy cushion for us to get our wrath out. We spank them with control and in a way where they know that sin hurts and disobedience will not be tolerated.
And then we embrace them and point them to Christ and we walk out reunified. I love that. I think that's one of the best articulations of how it should be ter uh be carried out.
So when our children lie, for instance, do I show them that God loves the truth and that Satan is the father of Lya's son? We do not tolerate lies. Do we have conversations? about the things of the Lord. with our children.
So not only what what kind of What kind of home are we curating? What kind of conversations are we having? To repeat myself, we can begin thinking in the disciplined realm of things that every failure. It's an opportunity to disciple our children. and having a six-year-old, a three-year-old.
Uh the the the format old can do no wrong. You know, with this age group, we are living in Discipline City. Every day is disciplined city, isn't it, when you have them that young? And yet we point them to Christ. And when we're tired of doing that, the Lord says, don't grow weary and well-doing.
This is your job. This is your job. What kind of culture am I cultivating? What kind of conversations am I having? In conclusion, Ephesians 6 teaches us that spirit-filled fathers, spirit-filled parents.
must refuse to provoke their children to wrath. And we should instead seek to capture every moment. for the good of our children, for the glory of Christ. Like arrows sent out, David teaches us.
Now I know A great deal of you have children that are grown or almost grown. And so I'm reminded of Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 9. Moses commands the people to recall the law of the Lord and the works of the Lord, and then he tells them: you recall it and you teach it to your children. and to your sons-sons. You teach it to your sons and your sons' sons.
So for those who are retiring, You're not retiring from everything. You're not retiring from catechizing and teaching and instructing and building culture and having conversations. You just got re-enlisted as a grandparent to do it all over again. Teach them to your sons and to your sons' sons. Psalm 78 tells us that we are to do these things that they might hope in the Lord and glorify in His name.
I think about John, who, writing to the elect lady, says, There is no greater joy. Then you're children to walk in truth. I don't There is nothing. More than I look forward to in the whole world. than the prospect of my children professing faith in Christ.
and knowing them not only as father and daughter or father and son, but walking with them as brother and sister in the Lord. There's no greater prospect in all the world.
So if you're filled with regret, remember that The grace of God is greater than our sins and our failures, and certainly. thinking of myself and and probably us all, we have our own Shares of regret. But he's a merciful Lord. He is a gracious Lord. He's a Lord that can take the feeble attempts of parents like us as imperfect as we are, and for our failures can override them by sovereign grace.
And in our successes, He gets all the glory and He uses them to sow little seeds into their minds and hearts. If your children are out of the home, it's not too late. You can seek to establish a godly legacy by teaching your grandchildren the things of the Lord, by seeking to model a spirit of eager fervency and zeal for the Lord before your children. To the parent overcome by grief for parenting failures. Don't soothe yourself.
By telling yourself that there are surely parents worse than me. That is not Christian therapy. The Christian therapy has not gone, there's parents who are worse than you out there. That's not the pacifier you get to use. Because we're not measuring ourselves up against the sinners of this world.
We measure ourselves up against the perfect God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we have grief concerning our parenting failures, We find comfort in knowing There's forgiveness in Christ. And he's a gracious Lord. Let it run you to the gospel. And that same Christ who saved you and forgave you is the same sovereign Lord who can save wayward children and work where there seems to be.
No hope.
So fathers, don't leave here crushed by your failures nor complacent in them. Leave here looking to Christ. Repent where you have provoked your children. Repent before the Lord and also have conversations with your children if there's repenting to be done. Begin leading them in the way of the Lord tonight.
Seek to capture every moment, every ordinary moment for the glory of Christ. Seek to teach them His word. Go over the sermons that they have heard. Quickly ask them: Can you tell me the text that we talked tonight? And what did you get from that?
And hey, let's talk about the points that he had and how we can apply it to our home. Do that throughout the week. Pray with them. Teach them the word. Let them see you repent when you lose your temper with your wife.
Let them see you repent when you use harsh words against them. And when you find yourself growing weary and well-doing, pray for the Spirit to work in you. Back to Ephesians 5, 18. knowing that Christ is worthy. Christ is worthy.
of our intentional Fatherhood. And may the Lord give us homes. that prioritize. This kind of parenthood May God bless the reading and preaching of His Word. Our beloved God and Father, we come before you.
Knowing that you are a God. Who is a father to the fatherless? A God who is present and who is aware, who knows the hairs on our head, who knows our failures, who cares for us and takes care of us. Lord, I want to model. That kind of care for my son and daughters.
Lord, help us to show them this kind of Christian fatherhood. Help us to seize every moment, quorum Deo, before the face. Help us to repent where repentance needs to be done, and let us be repenting repenters. Help us to lead our homes. Help us to have tough conversations.
Help us to come and admit our failures and the fact that all we have going for us, too, is Christ. And may you, Lord, please hear the cry of us who have children together and grandchildren. Please save our children. Save our grandchildren. Lord, I've been so blessed by the faithful ministry of the women here at Beacon who meet together to pray for the children.
Mm. of our congregation. You have you have saved some. But there are some who have grown up under the word and who have gone astray. There are others who are regularly underneath the word.
They will not come. Unless you, O sovereign Lord, work in their heart. And you are a God who is ready to extend mercy and grace. You are a compassionate Lord. You've given us these children to steward for your glory.
Please take the seeds that we have sown and even take them tonight and convict them of their sins and give them repentant faith to put. Their trust in Christ. Lord, please save our children. Please help our homes to honor you, and we will glorify you. In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Okay.
