Fathers (Part 1 of 2)

Music playing Our text for this evening is the 21st verse of Colossians 3, or they will become discouraged. Peterson paraphrases it, Parents, don't come down too hard on your children, or you'll crush their spirits. Phillips paraphrases it, Fathers, do not overcorrect your children, or they will grow up feeling inferior and frustrated. Now, as in our previous three studies, we will make our cross-reference—our primary cross-reference—Paul's statements in the same vein which we find in Ephesians and now in chapter 6. And the verse in chapter 6 reads, Fathers, do not exasperate your children.

It's essentially the same word of warning, and then it is not followed by an explanation, Don't do this, because if you do, this will result. But when he writes to the Ephesians, he follows his warning with a directive. He says, Instead of exasperating them, you should bring them up in the training and instruction of the LORD. Now, the interesting thing is that the word that is given here to the fathers is a word for fathers to exercise restraint. Make sure, he says, Fathers, that you do not embitter your children. Now, that ought to be immediately and obviously surprising to us. We might have thought that he would launch very quickly into the reinforcing of parental responsibility, forgiving direction, and so on to the children.

But he doesn't do that. He begins by saying, I want you to make sure that you don't exercise your jurisdiction as a father in such a way so as to harm, so as to crush, so as to endanger and discourage and dispirit your child. Probably we will be helped in grappling with that by recognizing the fact that Paul is addressing this subject within the culture of Roman jurisdiction. We discover the fact that Paul is writing in a context where the father had in Roman jurisdiction supreme power—the patria potestas, father power. And William Berkeley, whose commentaries you ought to read with great caution but who is usually very helpful historically and grammatically, comments as follows. A Roman father had absolute power over his family.

He could sell them into slavery, make them work in the fields in chains, he could punish them as he liked, and even pronounce the death penalty on them. So that was the extent, not simply of parental jurisdiction, but that was the extent of a father's power in the timeframe in which Paul writes this particular letter. So what we find him doing is urging upon fathers, as he has urged upon children and husbands and wives, the living of their lives in such a way as to testify to the radical difference that is made by the gospel. Now, what Paul does then in this is simply warn the fathers against rules without love, or, if you like, warns us of law without grace.

Now, I'll tease this out for you as you go along. But Paul, in his letter, is urging upon his readers the nature of the father's love for them. Now he turns and says, essentially, as the father has loved you and loves you, so I want you to love your children. How does the father love you?

Well, in a quite remarkable way. And we are to love our children in that way. We are to love our children for who they are, not for who they ought to be.

We're to love them not for what they should have been or for what they might become if they only try a little harder, but we are to love them as the very gifts of God entrusted into our care. That unless we get down to our children sharing in their simplicity, sharing in their joys, sharing in their very childlikeness and sometimes childishness, then we will never woo them with the nature of a father's love, and we will never wow them with the implications of this gigantic person called Dad descending to who I am and to where I am, because he tells me that he loves me with an abiding passion. Now, it is in direct contrast to that that we may, as fathers, exercise such a control over our children so as to exasperate them rather than to encourage and delight them. And we could spend all evening talking about ways to exasperate your children. I'm sure there's a book there, you know, Ten Ways to Exasperate Your Children, or Ten Ways Not To—maybe that's the way it needs to be. There are no surprises in these, are there? If I had a board, I could write them up, you could call them out.

There's an almost limitless list. Injustice. Injustice will exasperate our children.

Why? Because our children are moral beings, and they have written into them a sense of fairness. Children know about fairness. Children say to one another, That's not fair.

They may be misguided at times, but they understand fairness. And they understand fairness when it comes to a father's discipline. And when a father acts arbitrarily or impulsively, and certainly unkindly, children identify that. They are equally able to recognize inconsistency, a widening gap between dad's mouth and dad's life, a hypocrisy which becomes almost pervasive and all-embracing, that sends a boy or a girl into his bedroom, shutting the door, and saying to himself, I don't ever want to be like that. Mr. So-and-so down the street thinks my father is so this, so that, and so the next thing.

If he ever came in my house and saw what my dad is like, he wouldn't even believe it. And the child recognizes the radical impact of inconsistency. Severity will exasperate a child. Severity. The kind of severity that was part of the father's power in the Roman culture—it has no place within a Christian home. Now, we may think that we will accomplish more by driving our children, but the fact is, we will accomplish more by drawing our children.

And some of us, by nature, are drivers, and we need the power of God's Spirit and the dictate of God's Word to teach us how to draw. Fourthly, favoritism exasperates children. Favoritism. Why can't you be like your brother? We just had a letter about your cousin.

She seems to be doing so well. The inference is, the parent never needs to say anything. The parent doesn't need to finish the sentence and say, And how come you're not doing so well? The child understands. The child is exasperated.

We exasperate them when we belittle their achievements, when they can never really achieve anything. Nothing is ever good enough. It's always the next game. It's always the next point. It's always the next lap. It's always the next report. It's always the next B. Or it's the next A.

Or it's the next triple whatever it is. And eventually, the children are thoroughly exasperated. We exasperate them when we fail to treat them as individuals. If you have any children at all, you know that children are individuals.

One size does not fit all. That's true in every decently made garment, and it is true in golf instruction, and it is true in the raising of children. This is a very complex thing, the fathering of children. And the book of Proverbs ought to be a reminder to us of the diversity of what's involved. You don't need to read every chapter of Proverbs to every child you have in the house, but you will need to read some of every chapter to every child you have in the house. And the skill in being a father is in making sure that you read the right chapter to the right child, because if you read the wrong chapter to the wrong child, you'll exasperate them.

Why are you telling me that, Dad? And right along with that goes nagging. Nagging. And right along with nagging goes constant fault-finding.

And right along with constant fault-finding goes a failure to appreciate their attempts to please and a failure to appreciate their simple kindnesses. I said to somebody the other day, God is very gracious if he grants us grandchildren. Because in one sense, vicariously, he gives us a second go at this. Because the video of my children's lives cannot be rewound.

It can be replayed, but it can be rewound. Now, let me just work this forward with you. In relationship to that, given those exasperating factors, we keep in mind that each of our children has their individual personalities. And it's all too easy for us to either indulge and spoil them or, at the other end of the extreme, to humiliate and suppress them.

The hard thing is getting it right—matching love to need and matching the punishment to the crime. And the skill in fathering under God and enabled by the Spirit and helped by everybody that we can get help from at all, the skill in fathering is in learning quickly that children are little people in their own right. Yes, they are children. Yes, they are interested to our care. But they're little people in their own right. And therefore, they will become the grown-up version of the little person that they are. And we may have accomplished very little in seeking to ensure that they become just like us—or, worse still, just like the person we wish we were. These little ones are individuals in their own right. Wise parents, says John Stott, recognize that not all the nonconforming responses of childhood deserve to be styled rebellion. Let me say that to you again. That's a great word!

I wish I'd learned it earlier. Wise parents recognize that not all the nonconforming responses of childhood deserve to be styled rebellion. It is not necessarily rebellion when she appears with a yellow sock and a blue sock. I mean, it is if you told her, I only want you to wear two red socks. But if you gave her freedom to go up to her room and dress, and she came down like this, welcome to her little world! She's going to be artistic. She's going to be interesting.

But she's her! The father says, What are you doing with the ridiculous socks? What's that? A style?

Huh? And the tiny spirit who thought about those socks before she put them on either acquiesces to my sarcasm and dresses more appropriately or suppresses a spirit of deep defiance and says, If he thinks this is bad, wait till I show him what else I'm wearing. It is by experiment—this is still Stott—it is by experiment that children discover both the limits of their liberty and the quality of their parents' love. Now, obviously, Stott is not talking about the expressing of liberty beyond the bounds of moral propriety and biblical orthodoxy, if you like. He's talking within the framework of what we've just been reading in Proverbs.

But what he's observing is that within that big framework, there's a tremendous amount of opportunity for self-expression in the discovery of who this person is. We can never teach our children to ride a bicycle as long as we hold the saddle. The only way they're allowed to ride a bicycle is when you let go of the saddle, and when you let go of the saddle, it's a big risk. It's a big risk for you as a parent, and it's a big risk for them as a child. But if you want to spend the rest of your life running up and down Psalm Center Road holding onto the saddle of your child, then go ahead and do it. Not only will you look dumb, but your daughter or your son will never thank you for it. And people will be coming out of their houses to stand in the front yard and see you as you come by.

I've never seen anything quite like this. But do you know how many fathers are essentially running behind the saddle of their son or their daughter, either because they are unprepared to trust them or because they are unprepared to allow them, or whatever it may be, and all under the guise—the disguise—of the exercise of my fatherly intervention? No, failure here may result in our children acquiescing to our rules while actually living in a sense of disobedience, or they may in turn overreact and they become boastful and anxious in their self-assertion. Now, let's remind ourselves—'cause I've been using parents and fathers interchangeably—let's just keep this in mind.

The focus is on fathers, as grateful as we are to the part played by mothers in contemporary child-rearing and inordinate amount of responsibility given to mothers in contemporary child-rearing, and as thankful as we are for it, it doesn't let us as fathers off the hook. And in the Old Testament, the picture of the father is the picture of that man who takes both the word and uses it to instruct and takes his life and uses it to train. The Old Testament, in Proverbs, gives to us this great and perplexing verse, 22-6, train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

The positive side of the equation is there in Ephesians chapter 6. Don't exasperate them, because that will only crush their spirits. Instead, bring them up in the training instruction of the Lord. Or, as Peterson paraphrases it, take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master. I quite like that.

I think you might too. Now, the verb here for bringing them up is a verb which really means to nourish them. To nourish them. Martin Lloyd-Jones, in one of his writings, makes a passing comment when he says, If fathers spend as much time nourishing their children as they spend nourishing their roses, their families would be able to speak to the better of it. If you think about how much time as fathers we give to the nourishment of our physical frame, to the nourishment of our career, to the nourishment of a whole host of things—not bad things, necessary things—there's only so much nourishing can be done, because there's only so much strength in a body, and there's only so much time in a week.

Nourish them. Now, the good news is the bad news, I think. Because the good news is that what we're called to do here in bringing them up in the training and instruction of the Lord, nourishing them in this way, is a long-term project. It's a long-term project. That's both the good news and the bad news. The bad news is it's a long-term project.

The good news is it's a long-term project. What is being called for here is not something that you can knock out on a weekend. I'm intrigued by how many weekends there are in America. I mean, weekends are good, and day conferences, and, you know, a twenty-four-hour conference to put yourself to rights. You know, you can fix your marriage over a day and a half at the Marriott with Mr. So-and-so. He comes in and fixes you, and if you come, you can get your kids fixed, and you can get your everything under plan and gone and everything else. And I look at all these conferences.

They're generating millions and millions of dollars and flushing people all over the place. And here I am, along with my colleagues, pastoring a little flock here, and we've got all the flock here, and their marriages, what do they like? Whoo! A challenge!

And their children, what do they like? Whoo! A challenge! Hey, what's up? Didn't you go to the thing, the twenty-four-hour special? How was it? Well, it was good. What did it do? Nothing.

That's exactly right. Well, it did something. Don't let's be unkind. You'll learn something. But it's the long haul! It's the long haul!

Now, you see, remember this, because short-term gains can be deceiving. Don't start to strut your stuff, Dad, because your son is thirteen, and he's walking around with a giant Bible and a navy blue jacket, and he thinks he's me. That's a bad role model to start with.

And so, and then, and I came, and so then, and so that's it. I'm not impressed with that, and you shouldn't be either. You can be thankful for every gain. But don't put that on your website. Don't put a picture there. And I suggest don't put it in your Christmas letter. Says Sinclair Ferguson, I was delighted to find a compatriot here. Just the other day, Sinclair writes, The boasts of one Christmas letter may be the griefs of later ones. Don't blow your horn too fast.

This is a long-term project. Our sons are not raised. Our daughters are not raised. The journey is not over.

Just because they graduated from somewhere—and in some cases, kindergarten. Believe me, kindergarten was a long time past. And therefore, our short-term losses and our disappointments, of which we know a great deal, need also to be viewed in light of eternity. Yes, we're in trouble. Yes, things are not going as I hoped with my child. Yes, this is like pushing a rock up a hard place. Yes, I don't want to write about this.

Yes, I don't really want people inquiring about this. Only my closest friends and those who love me most may share in this with me. You stand back from it, and you realize that the phraseology here is not something knocked out in a weekend or banged out in a day conference or figured out in weeks, even months, and sometimes years. It may take a lifetime to see this come to fruition. And it may be that some of us will die and never see the fruits of what we do, and that the joy of heaven will be to discover a daughter walking across the portals, a daughter that we thought was lost and gone for good, because we never saw what we expected to see when we expected to see it.

God makes everything beautiful in his time. Trust him. This is not day trading. This is long-term investment. As we train and raise the next generation, we are making a long-term investment. We'll continue learning about the investment we make next weekend in part two of this message.

You're listening to Truth for Life Weekend with Alistair Begg. Well, today's message is addressed to fathers, and the timing of this message could not be better. Many of us are celebrating fathers this weekend.

On behalf of all of us here at Truth for Life, we want to wish you a very happy Father's Day. If you listen to Truth for Life Weekend regularly, you know that a lot of thought is put into selecting the books that supplement Alistair's teaching, and the book we are featuring currently is a vital one. It alerts us to the fact that each of us as believers is involved in a spiritual battle, and we need God's provision. That's why we're recommending a book titled The Whole Armor of God, How Christ's Victory Strengthens Us for Spiritual Warfare. This book teaches us that Satan is indeed a very real enemy, and we don't stand a chance against him unless we are fully equipped with each piece of armor God provides. Chapter by chapter, you learn how to put on the pieces of spiritual armor, like the belt of truth or the shield of faith, how to be prepared for spiritual combat. Don't be caught off guard by spiritual attacks. Request your copy of The Whole Armor of God today by visiting truthforlife.org. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Join us again next weekend as we'll learn why fathers should keep loving their children even when the benefits aren't obvious. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.