The Father's Responsibility

Well, good morning. It's good to be with you all. Today is Father's Day, if you were unaware. And I decided that today I would preach from Ephesians 6, verses 1 through 4. This section of Ephesians, Paul is going through, and people may refer to it as the family codes, right? It's instructions to families, to fathers and mothers and children. And this passage that we're going to read is addressed to fathers. Now, just like the commandments, many commandments in scriptures, it's not limited to fathers, right? It's in the context of the fourth commandment to honor your father and mother. And we know that this command goes beyond strictly fathers.

It has application to church officers. It has application to those of you who are teachers, to employers. It would apply to older siblings who are taking care of younger siblings and standing in a figure of authority. But today, my words are going to be focused on fathers, and you all can listen and apply to your own lives. Most of the commentaries on this passage will say, obviously these verses apply to more than fathers, and then they'll talk about parents, and they'll use a plural. Very few of them that I skimmed made a big deal of the fact that Paul addresses fathers. And I think that's a shame, especially in today's day and age.

There's a reason that Paul instructs fathers. It's significant that he comes to men and gives these commands. As a man, God has made you a husband and a father. And as a husband and father, God has made you primarily responsible for your families. That's why we have in a male inclusive. That's why Paul can say to fathers and include in it, the mothers and these other authority figures as they deal with children. It's because it's an inclusive word because the fathers are representative of the people who are under them. In the Garden of Eden after the fall, God does not go to Eve. He goes to Adam first. That's who he's holding responsible. That's who he's holding accountable. And God makes covenants with Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David.

And Jesus, all these men are the fathers and they represent the people below them. And he comes to them and addresses them. And so that's what I'm doing this morning. I'm addressing us as fathers and everyone else under their umbrella. But specifically, we're gonna talk to fathers. My desire this morning is to encourage you in the work of leading and of being a father. We're going to begin by looking at the basis for the Father's authority, and then we'll look at the negative command, and then we'll end with the positive side of the command. So our focus is in verse 4. Please stand for the reading of God's word. This is Ephesians chapter 6, verses 1 through 4. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. And then the primary focus this morning. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Now, notice in verse 1 and in... Verse four, it says, in the Lord and then of the Lord. God is the father of us all. We're told in another part of Ephesians that he is the father from which all fathers derive their name. Fathers get their position from God. Every father is an underfather, if you will. God is the father.

And then he delegates that authority and that name and that title to individuals as fathers. Men as fathers. You think about it. God is not known as the father because God saw that we were fathers. And then he thought, well, father is the best word to describe my relationship with Christ. And then adopt it. It goes the other way. God is father. Christ is his son, and he's had that relationship through all eternity. And when he created the world, he created first Adam, and then all men after as fathers following in that footstep, those footsteps. And so he's the one who defines fatherhood. He holds the position, as fathers, we hold the position as a placeholder, a representation of God, the Father.

And so when we see in our passage that children are to obey your parents in the Lord and that fathers are to discipline and instruct their children in the ways of the Lord, there's two things that we should pull from that. The first is that our obedience to earthly fathers, our submission to them, is... in line with God's word, that if we are commanded to do something that is in opposition to God's word, we are not obligated to obey that command, right? Because it's in the Lord, it's of the Lord. So our obedience is in line with God's word, right? We think of the apostles saying, is it better for us to obey man or God? We obey God. So that's the first thing, but that's not gonna be our focus today. The second thing, though, that we should learn from this, is it means that we are to be nurturing and discipling, teaching, commanding, and instructing all in accord with God's word, and that our authority as fathers comes from God. That our authority in teaching and raising our children does not come from ourselves. It's not self-derived.

It's not derived from the world. It's derived from God. That the authority that we have and the power that we have and the duty and responsibility that we have is given to us by God. Another way of looking at this is to say that our children are not our own. That our children are God's. And our children are given to us by God as if it were on loan. That the responsibilities of teaching and raising are we were given them by God to deal with and to teach and to train up for him. So this is a great responsibility. In Psalm 127 it says, Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Every kid is created and knit together and intimately formed by God.

They are his, and he blesses us with them. Sometimes he blesses us with them for a very short time before he calls them home. Sometimes he blesses us with children for the extent of our lives. But they are his, to call home when he desires. But they are given to us to teach and raise and admonish, to love him. The point is that you are giving your children by God He wants you to teach them and raise them, but you were given your children by God because you are the best person there is to raise and to teach and admonish your children. Other people will help us in that work, but God saw fit to give you your kids, which means that there is no one else better suited to care for their needs, to teach them the truth of his word, than you.

You are the one that God has given the responsibility for teaching and raising. You are the one who God will hold accountable and responsible for that work. And so, that is both a great honor and privilege and a great weight. Why did he give them to you? Well, he gave them to you to nurture and admonish them in the way of the Lord and to raise up a godly seed. Now, that may feel overwhelming, and in some ways it is. It's hard work. It is overwhelming and hard work. But God in his mercy equips us. He equips us for that work. And as we see in this passage, the beauty of it is that God has given us both the responsibility and the authority to do that work. And that is something I want to encourage us as fathers to remember. God has given us as fathers the authority and the responsibility. Now, those are two important things, right?

Think about this. When you have an interaction with a company and it doesn't go well, they charge you too much, they rip you off, they do something, right? When you go in to deal with the company, who do you want to talk to? Do you wanna talk to the first person that answered the phone? No, you don't. You say, no, sorry, I need to talk to a manager, right? Why do you wanna talk to the manager? Because the person who answered the phone doesn't have the authority to do anything, right? You want the manager because you want the person who has both the responsibility and the authority to make whatever the issue is right. I've talked to guys about their jobs before, and there are times where a guy's like, well, my company wants to do this thing for me. You know, they want to give me this new position, and it's like, okay, okay. Does it come with any authority, though?

Oh, so they want you to be very responsible for all these people that work for you, but you have no authority to do any sort of discipline or to control for their failures. Well, that's a bad position, right? You never wanna be in a position where you're responsible for everything, but you have no authority in the position, right? And so the joy of fatherhood. One of the gifts that God has given us is not only are we responsible for our families and responsible for our children and our wives, but he also has given us the authority that's needed to rule in our homes. And so as you consider what to do with your children and how to raise them and how to discipline them and how to admonish them, the world hates the fact of fatherhood and the authority that comes with it.

And they want you to be responsible, but they don't want you to be authoritative. You can't have that. You must bear the authority and the responsibility. And that's a good combination. But having one without the other is not good. So you should not be ashamed to use the authority that God has given you as a father. It's a mighty and weighty thing, but as man, you were built to wield that. Now. There are certain guardrails that are given to us in this verse as to what that means then. And the first thing we have is the negative command, which is that as fathers we are not to exasperate our children. And so I have a few different things for us to consider. You know, the idea is that we do not provoke our children to anger.

We do not exasperate them to the point of resentment with demands that are trivial or unreasonable or humiliating or abusive. So what I want to do is I want to walk us through a few points to help us consider what it means to not exasperate our children. And again, this is a command which is given specifically to the fathers, though I think we all, whether you're a father or not, can learn. about exasperating in ways that we can exasperate others. And again, we don't want, the other caveat I will give is as I walk through ideas about exasperating and how we're not to be doing that, we can't apply these things woodenly. I'm not saying that in every case these things are wrong, we should never do them. But these are ways that can lead to exasperating our children, which we are commanded specifically as fathers not to do. So one, that thing that can lead to exasperation is when we have unrealistic or inconsistent expectations. So this is when we fail to be clear or consistent in our commands or when we apply them in a way that's unjust.

one thing that we may tend to do is that we may give commands to our children that are not achievable to them, that are unclear, that are too high of a bar for them. So one thing you may think about is what is your child capable of? An example may be when you have a three-year-old and you're trying to teach them how to clean, or a young child, right? If you tell a very young child, around three or so, to go clean the room, they won't do it. Because you've given them a command that's beyond their comprehension to just clean a room. What you have to do is you have to break it down into steps for them. You give them discrete tasks. Hey, first, you need to pick up all of these Duplos and put them in the red Duplo bin. You break it down into these steps. They're not capable of handling...

Just a generic, just sort of clean your room. It's beyond what a three-year-old can handle. And we have to be thinking about this in terms of whatever age our kids are and what they can understand and deal with. Because if we just give them commands that they do not know how to do, you're going to cause exasperation. They're going to be put out. They won't know what to do with the command. And think about it. In our own lives, this is true as well. If we're given a job at work or something that's beyond our capabilities, that's frustrating. Another part of this is that we have to be consistent. We can't suddenly change rules if today the kids are not allowed to stand on their chairs and they're not allowed to put their feet on the coffee table, but yesterday they were allowed to do those things. You can't all of a sudden just switch and discipline them for that.

You have to teach. You have to say, you know what? I have allowed this before, but now the rule in the house is changing. We're no longer allowed to stand on the couch. You're no longer allowed to put your feet on the coffee table. Okay, that's fine to make that rule, right? But when we change, when we're inconsistent day to day, we're gonna cause exasperation on our children. We have to have consistency, and when there's a change, we have to give some. acknowledgement of the fact that we're changing, that we're making a new rule, right? Part of this idea of having unrealistic or inconsistent expectations as well is when we tell our children no, it should not be an arbitrary no because we're angry at the child, because we're just frustrated, and so everything they want to do, it's just no.

Again, that is a way to cause frustration and anger within your children because it's sort of this inconsistent and lacking love for the needs of that child. You don't always have to have a great reason. You can tell your children no, but there's a problem if all the no's are because you are just angry at your child. That is a way to cause resentment. Another way that we can exasperate our children is if we are hypocritical and unrighteous in our discipline. Now don't hear what I'm not saying. We will be hypocritical and unrighteous in our discipline, right? But we should strive to not be. There's something very ironic if your children, if your child is yelling and being out of control, and then you yell.

and are out of control in order to rein in them being out of control, right? Well, what are we teaching them, right? We're just teaching them that whoever can yell the loudest and is big enough to control the situation is the winner, and that will be exasperating for them, right? So we should not, but it's not that we're never angry when we discipline, but the anger should be a righteous anger, not just... because we're annoyed with our child, right? Our discipline should not be simply out of annoyance for what the child is doing. Our discipline should not be reactionary. And this gets back at the consistency thing, right? Because what we'll see often is if you do not discipline, there's something the child does that annoys you. And you don't stop it. You just sort of let it be. But they keep doing it.

So you get more frustrated. But again, you don't do anything, right? And then finally, they continue to the point where you snap. Then you get angry. Well, the child doesn't know what the principle is or what the rule is. It's just apparently every once in a while, mom or dad gets so angry, they lose it and I get in trouble. You have to teach them what is right and wrong, and you ought to be quick in your discipline rather than being arbitrary and reactionary until you've let the frustration build up to a point you can no longer deal with it, and then you snap. That is a way to cause frustration, to exasperate your child. Because how many of us do well when we don't know what the expectation is?

And all of a sudden, discipline comes out of nowhere, and you're like, but I just thought, right, none of us like that. So we shouldn't do that with our children either. We shouldn't have these out-of-the-blue things. We ought to discipline because we're right, not just because we're angry, because our goal in discipline is to correct the child. It's not to release your emotions and frustrations. Another way that we can to exasperate and provoke our children to anger is if we are too harsh or we're shaming our children with the way that we discipline them. So one thing might be making mountains out of molehills. Think about this. We've all had this, right? Where you have a child who is a toddler and they spilled their drink because they're malicious and they hate you. No.

because they're a toddler and they're not very steady on their feet and if we erupt on them because they're being a child and they spilt their drink that is a way to frustrate because the child was not being malicious in what they did right and so we have to have enough awareness to see what the problem is and what the sin is if it is sin and we have to react with an appropriate level of discipline and instruction. Something that is in line with a child's age, in line with a child's reason, and to some extent, in line with their intent and what they're doing, right? We also need to be careful in that when we're doing this, we're not humiliating them. And what do I mean by that? Well, When it comes to discipline, we shouldn't, in general, we should not bring the whole house to come and see what's happening. Did everyone see what so-and-so just did? You take them to your room or to whatever the discipline space is in your house and you discipline them. And you teach them what they did wrong. But we don't need to announce to the world and to the house, maybe sometimes, depending on the...

publicity of the sin. But in general, we let our children's nakedness be covered. When it comes to harshness, another way that we can exasperate our children is by teasing them. It's good to tease your children. You should tease them. But you need to have a category for going too far. You have to know whether you have a child that's particularly sensitive and where they're sensitive. And then you need to be careful that you don't transgress into the point of just provoking them to anger or of discouragement because of the harshness with which you tease and joke. So we need to be careful that we do not exasperate our children with unrealistic and inconsistent expectations, that we're not hypocritical.

in our discipline of them, that we're not too harsh in shaming them. And another one is we can really provoke or discourage or exasperate our children when we do not give them the attention that they need, when we neglect them. So this would be things like when you come home and your child runs up to you and wants to show you the picture that they drew. or they want to show you the Lego creation that they built, or they want to talk to you about this really cool fact that they learned in school. They want to have a conversation with you about something. If we just brush those things aside, we have more important things to do. We're tired, whatever. Those are ways that we will exasperate our children, and we'll teach them not to bring us those things, not to come to us, not to share.

with them and their joys and excitements. And so that's another way that we need to be careful that we do not crush them when they have these things to share in with us. They want us to take pleasure in them. And we read this in, this is actually something we read in our assurance of pardon, right, from Psalm 103, it tells us that just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he himself knows our frame. He is mindful that we are but dust. And often I think that the reason we exasperate our children is because we are not mindful of their frame. We aren't taking into account their age, their level of understanding.

their weaknesses, we have to know our children. And so as fathers, we must be on guard against provoking and exasperating our kids. And this is an area where we ought to listen to our wives. And we need, wives, you need to speak up to your husbands. Because often I think your wives' mothers are more in tune sometimes with what's going on, having spent all day with their children. And so we can work together. to help us understand, are we exasperating our children? Are we causing anger and frustration where we ought not to? Fathers, you may be trying to accomplish something that your wife may be unaware of. And so that's part of why you need to talk. Because maybe your teasing is purposeful, but it needs to be adjusted. So you have to talk. Your wife, as wives, you need to go to your husbands and you need to say, honey, you don't understand the context of what was happening today.

Or why this child's particularly emotional today, right? And as husbands, you need to listen to that. And you may say, well, no, I have another purpose and here's what I'm trying to accomplish, right? So we need to talk to each other. But we do need to be aware that this is a sin to just exasperate and frustrate and anger your children. And often it's done without purpose. And so Paul is warning us, we ought not to do that. And ultimately, why? Because that is not how God deals with us. I mean, think how much joy there is in the fact that God is a good father who cares for his children, who doesn't just exasperate them with senseless and useless commands, but that he cares for us and deals with us and our weaknesses. And he's patient. Well, we'll turn to the positive side. And the first part is, after warning us, do not exasperate, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up.

Now, bring them up to us in English is not as full as what Paul's getting at in the Greek here. This idea is that we are to nourish them, to nurture them, to bring them to maturity. So it has the idea of taking care of the physical needs of the child. This is an ongoing thing. We don't just provide one time and we're done. but this is the work of being a father, that you nourish and nurture and care for the physical needs, that you're gentle and loving with them. And then he tells us that as we do the work of providing physically for our children, that we're to also discipline and admonish them. And when it comes to these two pillars of discipline and admonishment, there's really two things going on here. In discipline, we're talking about Training, actions, structures, habits, correction, like the formation of living. So discipline, this idea of the discipline is that we have to teach them what is the right way to go, what is the right thing to do. We're talking about the behavior of the child. When we come to admonishment, we're talking more about the instruction side, the warning, the words, the speech. And so we're talking about

right thinking. So we have right action and right thinking. And as fathers this is our job that with our kids we teach them to act right and to think right. These things are obviously not disconnected. They come together. As we work on the behavior of our children we ought to be teaching them why what they're doing is wrong. what they're doing is right, why things are right, right? Tying it back to God's word. And again, who is this addressed to? He says, fathers. So it is your responsibility, it is my responsibility as a father to set the tenor and the state of our home. You can't slack off. You can't just outsource that to your wife.

She can't just be the spiritual one in the relationship. You have to have a vision for the discipline and the teaching of your kids. You have to lead your family in worship and in a love for the Lord. This isn't anyone else's job. Your children were given to you. Mothers, you need to help your husband in this work. You can't be the one to fighting him on every turn, right? You need to support and strengthen. husbands, as fathers. This is our duty. The reason God gives us children is to raise them up as a godly seed to worship and honor and glorify him. And so this is our primary work. This can't be outsourced to the school, even if it's a Christian school. Schools can help, they can supplement, but your children are your children. This can't even be outsourced to the church.

or to the Sunday school teachers at church. Your children are your children. Now, the church is to love and to teach and to help and to strengthen you in that work. But the work that we do here on Sunday morning must be expanded upon and sharpened and grown and worked on at home with you as the father teaching and explaining and helping apply the sermon to your children. You cannot just expect your children to grow in the nurture and admonition of the Lord on Sunday morning. This is a work that we are given as fathers. Well, how do we do this? We need to have a holistic approach. We cannot just live life as life comes at us. We need to think about every area of our lives, and we need to think about it as, Christians. And then as we set priorities for our families and as we lead our families in activities and in their schooling and education and reading, we need to do this as a Christian father. Every area of our lives, we can think of ways in which they can demonstrate our faith in God to our children. We should teach them what's important to us.

we will teach them what's important to us. If God is, that's what we ought to be teaching them, right? So our faith needs to be evident in our homes. They must be a place of visible Christian life. Listen, if you do not read your Bible, your children will not read their Bibles. If your children do not see you pray, your children will not pray. If you complain about church or are grumpy about it, then your children will complain and be grumpy about church. They'll pick up what you're putting down, and they'll go further down the path than you. You know, this is something that Ruthianna and I have talked about before. Like, because, you know, the week can get really full. You have evening meetings, and it'll be really busy. And so the question is, do I have to go to another meeting tonight, or do I get to go to a meeting to serve, right?

How we speak of this tells what's in our heart, right? And if you resent the work of being an usher, of teaching a Sunday school, if you resent the services that you give to the church and you teach your children to resent that because of your grumpy attitude or your lack of joy in that work, then they will resent it. Right? So we must be joyful in our service to the church. And in that way, we'll teach our children to love the church, to love God, to love to serve. Because they'll see what our heart is and how we do that. If we want to teach them and raise them in the nurturing and admonition of the Lord, our faith must be evident in everything we do. That means that we should pray before meals. Right? Thank God.

Be very particular in your thinking of God for the food that you have. Teach your children that you rely on God. When you get in the car, pray for your safety. Pray for the safety of your family. Pray for the church with your children. Pray for the people of the church. Do you know the needs of the families of people in the church? Then pray for those with your children. Teach them to be praying for their friends and their relatives and the people that they know the needs of. We need to be leading our families in worship. As many nights as you can, have a set-apart time right after dinner where you sing a song or two, read some of the scriptures, make a couple brief comments, ask your kids a couple questions if they're old enough, and then everyone pray.

If your kid's talking, you can teach them to pray. You just feed them one word at a time. They'll pray right after you. And you'll teach your children to be praying people. These are the things that if we want our children to grow in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, then everything we do has to be teaching that to them, teaching them what's important to our lives. When we go on vacation, we find a church. We don't make excuses. We always go to church. When it's inconvenient because we're not feeling well, if you're not really sick, come to church. If you're really sick, you stay home and your husband goes or your wife goes with the kids that can, right? You always have a representative. Always go. And then all of a sudden, your kids will see what is important to you. And that's part of that work of teaching them to grow in the fear and admonition and nurture of the Lord.

We have to work to teach our children to think about politics, to think about science, to think about history, to think about their work, to think about the news, all of these things as Christians. And they'll do that if we think about it as Christians and talk to them as Christians. So when you watch something about nature and they start bringing up evolution and you just laugh at it, isn't that silly what they think? That this stuff wasn't designed by God? Mock it. It's mock-worthy evolution, right? Just as you approach, as you think about whatever political issues, whatever things that the children are hearing, approach it as a Christian. Well, what do you think God would like? How does God tell us to interact with the stranger, right? All of these different things, right? We're coming back to how does God think about it? And then we're teaching our children that we process things as Christians.

Of course, to teach them that, we must process things as Christians. But then we're teaching them to think like that. And then, Lord willing, they will follow in those footsteps. We must cultivate a home where Christ is attractive. And what I mean by that is that there's joy in the service of God. That we don't find it a dreary burden. If we teach our kids that church is just dull and boring and the real life is out there, but we have to do this because we don't want to go to hell, but that's all it is, you are setting a very poor and sour image for your children. You want the joy of the Lord to suffuse your home and your lives and your hearts. And so, remember, God has entrusted you with your children.

Each one of your children is a unique person. They have personalities. They have unique thoughts. They're not generic. And God thought it best to entrust you with that child. And so you need to bear that responsibility well. You're not parenting by accident. God's called you to that work, and he's given you that child. And as fathers, we need to remember that we are the heads of our home. that we have both the responsibility and the authority to lead and to care and to protect our family. And so we ought to devote much time and thought to that work, to have a vision for what we want and to how we're going to raise our children to love and to fear God. And we will fail in that work. We won't be perfect, right? But God is our example.

And he's patient with us and gives us strength for that work. It's a work that he's called us to. And so he'll give us the means that we need. And we ought to embrace that work and to lead our families. So, practically, consider your children and your interactions with them and work on not exasperating them. Work on loving your children. I think most of the times that we exasperate our children, the root of that is... a lack of love for them, that we don't realize the weakness of their frame, that we are just concerned about ourselves. And that's often, I think, what leads to the exasperation and the provoking of our children to anger. So we need to grow in our love for them. And then also, we need to think about the way our homes run and how we can bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. How do you approach any topic in your home?

ought to be as a Christian. We ought to be leading worship, which should be short, consistent, in a time of joy, happy, teach them to love reading the word of God and enjoy it, and filled with prayer. Teach your children to pray. And ought to be that we are diligently and consistently praying for the salvation of our children. Because with all of this, there's no formula that we can do to save our children. But, The Lord gives us good and mighty promises for our children and for our families. And the way that we will do best in that is if we are joyful in teaching them day in and day out, disciplining the sin and admonishing them, teaching them to love the Lord. But we'll start with us and the work that we do. Let's pray.