Now, Reverend, conscious that
there may be some here this morning who were not with us for the
first message last night, let me take just a few minutes to
highlight the central thrust of the things addressed in that
first message. I began by asserting that the
foundation for all of the instruction in the three messages is to be
located in the first three words of the title of the messages
the Christian man with his wife, with his children, with his church. And the key to understanding
everything in this series of studies is to understand what
I meant when I chose that title, the Christian man. And you ask
why? And I answered last night, because
the pattern of Scripture demands it. According to the Scriptures,
What we are and have become and possess in Christ is the basis
and the soil out of which grows what we are to be and to do in
obedience to Christ. What we are and what we have
and possess in Christ is the basis and the soil out of which
grows what we are to do in obedience to Christ. In other words, and
some of you have heard this terminology, God's indicatives of grace precede
and undergird His imperatives of grace. An indicative statement
is a statement of what is. An imperative is a statement
of what we ought to be or to do. And God's imperatives follow
His indicatives. It is what He says we have and
are and possess in Christ that must be appreciated, understood,
embraced in active, present faith. if we are to have both the motivation
and the strength to do what God commands us to do, both as husbands,
as fathers, and as children. Without those indicatives of
grace being true of us, if we are not real Christian men, we
will have neither the motivation nor the power to obey the precepts
of God. Then we considered what I called
the two central commandments to Christian husbands. From Ephesians
5, we are to love our wives with two distinct, clearly defined
patterns constantly before us. We are to love them with the
selfless, sacrificial, purposeful love wherewith Christ loves His
church, and with the natural, nourishing, cherishing love that
we have for ourselves, for our own bodies. And then, according
to Peter, We are to dwell with them in an understanding way,
the attendant responsibility giving honor to them in two directions,
as weaker vessel and as joint sharers in our spiritual privileges. And then the great motivation
set before us by Peter is, if we are delinquent in that duty,
our prayers will be hindered. Now in this session, we come
to the second major concern, the Christian man with his children. And what I purpose to do, as
I alluded prior to beginning this session in a more formal
way, is in this first hour to set before you what I am calling
a condensed biblical theology of fatherhood. And then in the
hour after lunch, some pointed, practical, and much-needed pastoral
exhortations and applications of that theology. In so doing, I will simply be
following the pattern of II Timothy 3.16. All Scripture is given
by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching. That's
what we're going to get in this hour, but not stopping with the
teaching, for teaching for reproof. for correction, for training
in righteousness. And so we will take the teaching
of this hour and apply it very specifically by way of reproof,
correction, and training in righteousness. Or I am simply obeying the charge
that Paul gave to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 and verse 2. Preach
the Word. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all longsuffering, that's the disposition and attitude and
ethos of that reproving, rebuking, exhorting, and teaching. That's to be the substance. So
with the substance of the teaching, I will then move, God willing,
in the hour after lunch into the practical reproof and exhortation
derived from it. So then, this morning our task
is to come to grips with a condensed biblical theology of Christian
fatherhood. And I will seek to set this before
you along three lines. First of all, your identity as
a Christian father, or who are you by divine designation. Your identity as a Christian
father, who are you by God's designation? Then secondly, your
task as a Christian father, what is your job by God's definition? And then thirdly, your resources,
what are your enablements by God's donation. So your identity,
your task, and your resources with respect to God's designation,
God's definition, and God's donation. And I use those words in parallel
construction not to appear clever, brethren, but to help you to
have handles in your brain whereby you can call these things to
remembrance. Now I start here because these
issues are foundational to any God-honoring, Spirit-empowered
fulfilling of your role as a father. If you do not think biblically
concerning your identity, your task, and your resources, no
amount of sermons, seminars, books, and videos, and tapes
on being the good dad will cut it. Romans 12, 2 is clear. We are to be transformed by the
renewing of our minds. to the end that we may prove,
that is, work out in our experience the good, the acceptable, and
the perfect will of God. And let me say by way of a parenthetical
aside to all of you brethren, the minute you cease to love
vigorous doctrinal preaching, you have given up God-honoring
practical living. Never forget it. The tap roots
of life are theological. How you think about God, about
sin, about yourself, about grace. And I see a tendency in some
of our churches to get restless with vigorous doctrinal preaching. Now granted, If you have vigorous
doctrinal preaching that does not take you to its application
in life, it does not answer the question, so what? That is defective. But you cannot answer the so
what until you've addressed the what. And so I propose this morning
to do what I believe scripture mandates I must do in trying
to address the subject of the Christian man with his children. We start together with a condensed
biblical theology of fatherhood. Now let's take up the first of
those three strands along which we will develop this theme. your
identity as a Christian father, that is, who are you by God's
designation? Christian man and father. Let me ask you a simple question.
When you throw back the covers in the morning, swing your legs
over the side of the bed and put them on the floor, and there
your wife is lying beside you, or maybe she's gotten up before
you, and your children are in the other room. How do you view
yourself when you stagger into the bathroom and take some cold
water and splash it up on your ugly face and then have the courage
to look at that face in the mirror? Who are you looking at with respect
to your relationship to your children? What is your identity
as a Christian father. Your identity by God's designation,
not by societal consensus, not by cultural tradition, not by
your independent judgment, not by your personal inclinations,
but by God's designation. What has God said you are as
a Christian father? And I believe the basic answer
from the Word of God is this. You are, as a Christian father,
you are by divine appointment God's authorized governor of
your family, responsible to administer God's rule by the biblical constitution
concerning family life. The governor of a state is responsible
to administer his rule by the constitution of that state. You as a Christian father are,
by divine appointment, God's authorized governor of your family,
responsible to administer God's rule by the biblical constitution
concerning family life. It has nothing to do with your
size, whether you happen at any moment to be bigger and stronger
than your wife and all of your children. It has nothing to do
with your educational background. It has nothing to do with your
IQ. It has nothing to do with your
previous experience. It has nothing to do with the
suffrage and the consent of your family. It has to do with God's
appointment and God's designation of who you are. It is a unilateral assignment
of your identity. Now, on what biblical basis do
I make that assertion? Well, I answer by saying it is
everywhere assumed in the biblical data, whether in the Old or in
the New Testament, wherever matters relative to the family are addressed,
the assumption is that the father is indeed God's appointed governor
to administer the biblical constitution for family life. But consider
several specific lines of biblical evidence, beginning with the
fifth commandment. The fifth commandment, honor
your father and your mother. Listen to this perceptive insight
regarding this commandment. One author has written, within
the Ten Commandments, and even within the whole Pentateuch,
the command to honor one's parents has pride of place among the
horizontal commandments. It provides a hinge between the
first four commandments to do with God's holiness and the remaining
commandments in that the parents to be honored stand in the place
of God and mediate His will to the entire household. Very perceptive insight. And
in that fifth commandment, it is assumed that a dimension of
honoring is the authoritative direction given by the parents,
Ephesians 6, 1, children obey your parents in the Lord. Why? For this is right. And though
the father is not specifically and explicitly designated as
the head of his wife, Paul has established that in chapter 5.
So when he says parents, he envisions a relationship in which the woman
has voluntarily taken her place in submission to the husband
so that when children are told, obey your parents, here's the
chain of command. The child the wife in submission
to her husband, the child in submission to husband and wife
in their authoritative directives in administering the rule of
God within that home. For this reason, the Apostle
Paul is not at all reluctant to use the concept of paternal
government as an indication of true piety in 1 Timothy chapter
3. When he is giving the character
requirements for those who would aspire to and whom the church
would recognize as its pastors, its elders, its shepherds, notice
what he says. 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 4. One that rules well his own house,
having his children in subjection with all gravity or respect. But if a man knows not how to
rule his own house, how shall he, a different verb, take care
of the church of God? The assumption is that in the
pursuit of genuine godliness, this man knows his identity as
a father. I am God's vice-regent to impose
in wisdom and in grace, in the power of the Spirit, the rule
of God in my home. That's who God has made me. That's my identity as a Christian
father by God's designation. And when a man embraces that,
notice how God speaks in the commendatory way of him way back
in Genesis chapter 18 concerning Abraham. Genesis 18 and verse
19. Speaking of Abraham, this is
what God says, For I have known him to the end, that he may command
his children and his household after him, command them what? According to his whims, his desires,
his philosophy of family life? No, that they may keep the way
of Yahweh. that they may keep God's way. Why? Abraham sees his role as
God's governor, God's vice-regent, appointed to impose the rule
of God upon his family, that they may keep the way of the
Lord to do righteousness and justice to the end that Yahweh
may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him. Or noble
Joshua comes to the end of his life and the end of his ministry,
Joshua 24 in verse 15, and he throws out the challenge to the
entire nation. Choose this day whom you will
serve as for me and my house. We will serve the Lord. Now, Joshua could not put grace
in the hearts of any of his children that may not have embraced God
and covenant fidelity from the heart. But he says, as for me,
in my place of administrative responsibility, God will be served
in this place. And then as you read through
the book of Proverbs, the father does not say, now son, I have
my own religious convictions and I'd like you to put them
in the hopper with what you hear out there in the street and what
you hear where the philosophers gather and discuss life and the
meaning of... No, no, he says, my son, listen
to my commandments. Keep the law of your father and
your mother. Why? It is God's law that I teach
you and I set before you with the authority of my God. Hence, when God is describing
the depths of human depravity and sin in those catalogs such
as we find in Romans 1 and in 2 Timothy chapter 3, nestled
in the midst of the most vile kinds of sins are this phrase
in Romans 1.30, 2 Timothy 3.2, disobedient to parents. Disobedient to parents. practically, evidently, pervasively
defiant of God's rule, administered by God's governor, the parent
who is set over him. If you do not understand your
identity as a Christian father, who you are by divine designation,
you will be cut off at the knees from doing what God has called
you to do in the ordering of the life of your family. You
are, by God's designation, His authorized governor of your children,
responsible to administer His Constitution in spiritual wisdom,
in spirit-wrought love, in patience and kindness and gentleness,
but with unflinching commitment with manly courage and dogged
determination by the grace and power of God to be faithful to
what God says you are in your identity. And it works its way
down in the most practical things. Very early in the patterns example
of disciplining my children, I tried to school them in this
Son, why is Daddy going to spank you? Because I disobeyed you. And why must I spank you? Because
God in His Word says you must do it. So, son, Daddy's not spanking
you because he's just gotten mad and he's giving vent to his
temper. Why is Daddy spanking you? Because
God says you must. So if Daddy's going to be obedient
to God, I must put you over my knee and spank you. Yes, Dad. And why does God say that? That
it might deal with the sin in my heart and drive away the foolishness. So we're going to pray. that
before Daddy spanks you, that God will use the spanking for
the end to which God says, Daddy must spank you. What was I doing?
I was seeking to embed in the conscience and understanding
of my son that I was God's vice-regent, God's governor, and the constitution
by which I was to order the home demanded that I spank him. So let's say you've got to know
who you are if you're going to begin to do what God has called
you to do. My dear Christian father, you
must not be tentative. You must not be insecure. You
must not be confused about who you are by divine designation. Don't pay any attention to the
latest pronouncements of sociologists, of psychiatrists, of feminists,
and the so-called evangelical experts on family life. Soak your mind in your Bible
to know who you are by divine designation, and then cry to
God that He will increasingly make clear to you and that you
will embrace from the heart your identity as a Christian father
and plead with God for grace to discharge that role in a way
that is well-pleasing unto Him. But not only does a biblical
theology draw within its orbit the matter of your identity,
that is, who you are by divine designation, but secondly, your
task as a Christian father. What is your job by divine definition? What is your job by divine definition? And while I acknowledge that
there's some overlap between point one and two, the distinction
is neither arbitrary nor unimportant. Some men have a biblically based
understanding of who they are by divine designation as fathers,
but they have a very fuzzy idea of what they are to do in administering
God's constitution for family life. Many lines of biblical
truth could be brought to bear on this second heading in this
condensed biblical theology of Christian fatherhood, but I want
us to park on what, in my judgment, is the most pivotal, epitomizing,
watershed passage in all of Scripture, and that's Ephesians chapter
6 and verse 4. And now I'd like you to turn
with me in your own Bibles to that portion of the Word of God. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4. And you fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the
chastening and admonition of the Lord. Now we're going to
pry open this passage with several questions. We're going to pry
it open with several questions. Question number one, who is addressed
concerning the task of the rearing of the children in a Christian
home? Well, the text is clear, and
you fathers. Paul had used the word parents,
including father and mother, in verse 1. He could have used
it again. But by the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, he focuses upon the fathers, because the fathers are what?
In their identity. They are God's appointed governor,
God's vice regent to administer God's constitution for the family. And since they are, and the whole
matter of the training of children is going to be addressed, it
is right that he addresses fathers explicitly and predominantly. But what kind of fathers does
Paul have in his mind? Well, he has in his mind, as
we saw at the beginning of our study last night, and I underscored
in our review, fathers who know the grace and power of the salvation
described in chapters 1 and 2. Fathers who elect in Christ have
been redeemed by the blood of Christ, have been effectually
called by the Father into union with Christ, have been sealed
with the Holy Spirit to the day of redemption, who though they
were dead in trespasses and sins, they have been quickened together
with Christ, raised up and are seated together in the heavenlies
in Christ. They have been saved by grace
through faith, and they have been recreated unto good works
which God before ordained that they should walk in them. Paul
is thinking of fathers. who are in the orbit of that
gracious, powerful, almighty salvation wrought by the triune
God. Fathers who know the grace and
power of that salvation. Fathers whom He assumes are deeply
embedded in the life of the Church. Chapter 4, where he speaks of
that which every joint supplies, assumes that there is no such
thing as one who has experienced that salvation, who is not vitally
involved in a body of Christ in a living organism called the
church. These are churchmen fathers exposed
to the ministry and discipline and fellowship and mutual interaction
of the various members of the body fathers who not only know
the grace and power of salvation in Christ, but fathers deeply
embedded in the various contributions made to Christian life and development
by the Church of Christ. But then it's fathers whom he
assumes are taking seriously how to love their wives. Fathers who are exemplifying
before their children what it is to love a wife with a sacrificial,
selfless, purposeful love, who are as solicitous for the well-being
of their wives' spiritual, emotional, and physical condition as they
are for their own. Fathers who exemplify what a
Spirit-filled husband looks like and acts like. fathers who are
united with their wives in the task of family government because
he just said children obey your parents assuming they are one
in their directions of the household. You don't have the mother running
this way and the father this way so that when the father gives
directives that the child doesn't like he can go hide under mommy's
skirt and she can stroke his head and say well daddy's a little
harsh and daddy's a little No, no, no, no, no such thing. Listen
to me, men. It is your responsibility lovingly
to nurture, instruct and guide your wife into oneness with you
in your parenting goals and in the means you are going to take
to attain those goals. And when she whimpers, well,
dear, he's such a sensitive little boy, I don't think you should
spank him. You sit her down and say, dear,
he's a sinner little boy. And God says, if I don't spank
him, I am cooperating with the devil to send him to hell and
in time to bring you shame. I will not! That's the kind of
father that Paul assumes he is addressing. a father who recognizes
these realities. That's who's addressed, but not
just any kind of a father. The kind of father Paul assumes
would hear this letter read in the assembly at Ephesus. So question number one, Who is
addressed concerning the task of rearing the children? It is
the fathers explicitly and predominantly. Question number two is we try
to pry open what is in the text, not import things into it, but
pry it open. What is the mandated climate
for fulfilling the task? What is the mandated climate
for fulfilling the task? Look at the text. And you fathers,
do not provoke your children to wrath." Here in this negative
statement, with a present imperative that we could paraphrase, do
not be provoking your children to anger, The word to provoke
to anger is a compound word which means to bring someone along
to deep, settled anger. In other words, there is a pattern
that provokes in such a way that a seething, burning fire of resentment
and anger is kindled and constantly stoked in the heart and in the
soul. of a child. In the parallel passage
Colossians 3 and verse 21, it's nuanced a little differently.
Fathers, provoke not your children that they be not discouraged. Do not treat them in such a way
that you kill their spirit. It's one thing to conquer their
will. It's another thing to crush their spirit. Now, what is the
issue? Here's the issue. He's saying
to fathers, do not administer the government of God's Constitution
in a loveless, harsh, brittle, unreasonable way that will unnecessarily
provoke anger or crippling discouragement in your children. He is not saying,
don't ever do anything that makes your kid mad at you. If you're
a good father, there'll be many times when your kid will be mad
at you. That's not what he's saying. Some people read it that
way. Yeah, that's right. Hopefully. I had a pastor friend
once. It came to mind. It's not in
my notes, but I'm going to get into it. And I was in his home. He had a very willful son. No,
this was his daughter. His son was very willful. But
then he had a daughter. That was his only daughter. And she
was doing things she shouldn't. And he said, Pastor, I don't
know what's wrong. He said, I spank her. You should
have seen what he meant by spank. She had these thick diapers on.
And then I watched him. He just kind of flicked his wrist
like this and tapped the diaper. I said to him, dear brother,
I said, that's not spanking. I said, that's kidding yourself.
Take her diaper down. Get your wrist nice and stiff
and bring it to bear on the pointed part of her little buttocks until
they're red. You watch, it'll work. And it
did. It did. But you see, there is
this matter of parents who think, oh, I must never upset my children.
That isn't what Paul is saying. What he is saying is, you are
not to unnecessarily provoke a disposition, a climate of anger
or crippling discouragement. And what is it that does that?
Well, there was one commentator who brought the things together
in a very succinct and helpful way. I quote him. Now, specifically
within the family, fathers are urged to avoid those attitudes,
words, and actions which would provoke their children to anger. Has the your been inserted to
remind fathers that the children belong to them? You fathers provoked
not, it doesn't say the children, or children generically, but
your children, the children of you. You fathered them. You passed on your Adam to them. Don't forget it. But then he
goes on to say, this is what will do it. He is ruling out
excessively severe discipline unreasonably harsh demands, abuse
of authority, arbitrariness, unfairness, constant nagging
and condemnation, subjecting a child to humiliation, you dummy,
you klutz, you this, you that, and all forms of gross insensitivity
to a child's needs and sensibilities, Behind this curbing of a father's
authority is the clear recognition that children, while they are
expected to obey their parents in the Lord, are persons in their
own right who are not to be manipulated, exploited, or crushed. It's a beautiful, comprehensive
statement of the things which, if indulged in as a pattern,
will create a climate of seething anger and of crippling discouragement. So as we ask the second question
of our text, what is the mandated climate for fulfilling the task? It is to be one of fairness,
of restraint, of godly gentleness, of consistency, even-handedness,
And in the midst of doing the task, the child never has a legitimate
ground to wonder, does my dad really love me? But now the third
question with which we pry open the text, who is addressed? Fathers. What's the mandated climate?
It's the opposite of one that provokes unnecessary anger and
crippling discouragement. Question three, what is the heart
or the essence of the task. Look at the text. And you fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them. That's the heart. That's the
essence of the task. Nurture them. Now that word,
nurture, Paul is already used in this context. Verse 29, no
man ever hated his own flesh, but here it is, nurtures and
cherishes it. He nourishes and cherishes it. As a father is to be committed
to establishing and administering a scheme aimed at the development
of the whole child from birth to maturity. That's what it means
to nurture them. And all that them is and are
is to be the concern of your nurture. And that's why I use
the term scheme. You are responsible to establish
and administer a scheme aimed at the development of the whole
child from birth to maturity. The dictionary definition of
scheme is this, a carefully arranged and systematic program of action
for attaining some object or end. And it's in that sense that
I use the word. As a father, I must be committed
to establishing and administering a scheme That is, a carefully
arranged and systematic program of action for attaining some
object or end. And what is that object or end?
To see them brought to maturity in the totality of who and what
they are. The object of the nurturing is
them. Them. What is them? Them is created
image bearers of God. That's what them is. That's what they are. I know
I'm using poor English. I'm doing it deliberately. That's
what they are, created image bearers of God. Secondly, they
are fallen, perverse sinners. They are marred images of God. Contrary to everything that a
doting grandparent may say when they stroke his or her little
head and say, Isn't she an angel? No. She's a child of the devil
by nature. We are by nature children of
wrath. That is not only created image-bearer
of God with the dignity of an image-bearer, but a fallen, perverse
sinner, a marred image of God. But thirdly, what they are, and
we are to nurture them as such, they are salvable through Christ,
that His grace and power can cleanse them from sin, break
the dominion of sin, begin to recreate them back into the image
of God after the pattern of the God-man, Christ Jesus. And they are them in their distinct
individuality. Fathers nurtured them, image
bearers, marred images, salvable in Christ, but distinct individuals. And here Sinclair Ferguson has
a very helpful insight from his lovely little commentary on Ephesians. Let's study Ephesians. He writes,
Treating our children in an even-handed way means treating each of them
as uniquely created in the image of God. Zealous Christians are
sometimes convinced that it's possible to clone children according
to a one-size-fits-all pattern that's been described in a book,
perhaps even a Christian book, on child rearing. Beware! Scripture gives us wonderful
principles, the entire book of Proverbs, for example, but it
never releases us from the responsibility to learn how to apply these principles
to individual and very different flesh and blood children. We need to trust the promises
of God and plead, as we will see in the third heading, for
divine grace and wisdom, to respect that individuality. And if you've
had more than one child, you know that you may have a child
that it takes a severe, intense, repeated spanking to break their
will on an issue and bring them to true repentance, whereas another
child rarely needs the spanking. Just the look and the finger
and the word and they break. How do you explain the difference?
For those of us who've had several children, we scratch our heads
all during their development period saying, how in the world
did these creatures come out of the same cookie, not the cookie
cut, how did they come out of the same cauldron? It was you
and me that mothered and fathered them, but so different. And that's
the point that Sinclair Ferguson is making, and that if we take
seriously what this text says, you fathers do not provoke them
to wrath, do not tolerate a climate that unnecessarily causes a seething,
burning fire of resentment and crippling discouragement from
the Colossians 3 passage, but we are to nurture them concern
for the development of the totality of who and what they really are
according to God's definition of who and what they really are. That's why the paradigm of Luke
2.52 with regard to our Lord Jesus is so helpful. Though there
was no sin in Him that had to be dealt with in His training,
yet it is said, in subjection to Mary and to Joseph, He went
down to Nazareth and was subject unto them. He grew in wisdom,
in stature, in favor with God and with men. There was intellectual,
moral, discerning development, a feeding of the mind with facts,
but an ability to know how to use those facts in life situations
so as to honor His Father in the choices that He made. He
grew in stature. I don't think we have any appreciation
for the physical strength that our Lord must have cultivated
in those years in the carpenter shop. Some of us who have preached
to several hundred people in the open air. We know the tremendous
strength it takes to continue to be thrusting from way down
here and not sound like you're shouting or you're screaming.
He spoke to thousands in the open air, day after day after
day, hour after hour after hour, poured himself out in entering
into human suffering. And when he did, the Scriptures
indicate that he didn't do it magically like some electrical
power went out of his fingers and he touched them and that
was it. He entered in sympathetically to human suffering. He groaned. He experienced tremendous trauma
by the graveside of Lazarus. He wept. He grew in stature,
in physical strength and vigor and discipline. Then he grew
in his social, his spiritual relationship. He grew in the
favor of God. Think of it. God growing in the
favor of God. It was the God-man growing in
all of those dimensions of the development of his relationship
to his heavenly Father and to the task assigned to him. that he grew. Each new path of
obedience, each new expanded embrace of the will of his father
as it was unfolded brought increased delight in the heart of his father. And he grew in favor with men.
He learned social graces that made him adapt himself comfortably
to all of the various strata of society, religious and non-religious. And it's that goal that we must
have before us with our children, to nurture them, to see them
under the blessing of God grow and develop, not just in raw
intellectual power, no, in wisdom. the intellectual stuff being
converted into the moral and practical and ethical dimensions
of life, to grow in stature, to make sure that our children
will not join the growing epidemic of childhood obesity. Read your paper on the matter. It is epidemic proportion. How are we going to have vigorous
servants of God, productive mothers who can bear the burden of birthing
the children, nursing the children, caring for the other siblings,
washing your dirty underwear and ironing your shirts and keeping
a neat home if they are fat and sloppy and out of shape physically? This is not just for men. We
must nurture them spiritually, physically, socially, intellectually,
and you as a father, I as a father, have a unique responsibility
to be committed to establishing and administering a scheme aimed
at the development of the whole child from birth to maturity. I may secure the help of others
in certain aspects of that scheme. There's the place of a cooperative
endeavor, whether as a homeschooler or using a Christian school. I may choose in the wisdom of
God and in the purpose of God to have some others take over
a certain part of that training, but at the end of the day, the
buck stops with me. You fathers, not the state, not
the church, not the school, You fathers, nurture them. Now we come to question number
four. We're going to pry open the text with one more question. Well, no, two more questions,
really. What are the means to be employed in the administration
of this task? What means has God given me as
a father? Look at the text. And you fathers,
Provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the
chastening and admonition of the Lord." The means are chastening
and admonition. Now, the word chastening, paideia,
has a broad use in the scriptures. Sometimes it simply means instruction
in general. That's the way it's used in 2
Timothy 3.16. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable for teaching, for instruction, for
training, paideia, for discipline, for instruction in righteousness. But in other settings, it has
a more limited use. It means discipline or chastisement,
learning by means of enforcing behavior with corporal discipline
or punishment. That's the way it's used in Hebrews
12, 5, 7, 8, and 11. My son, despise not the chastening
of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved of him. You have
the rod of God's correction, you have the voice of God's correction. It's used that way in 1 Corinthians
11, 32, about the chastening that God had brought by physical
affliction upon some of the Corinthians. And when you find it, as in a
context like this, coming from the pen of the Apostle Paul,
whose mind was steeped in his Old Testament scriptures, there
is no reason to see this word in any other light than that
of its more limited sense of corporal punishment, the use
of the rod, for Paul knew well, Proverbs 29, verse 15, the rod
and reproof impart wisdom. Reinecker and Rogers, very helpful
a little book or a little volume on the meaning of Greek verbs
especially, but also at times they give you help with the nouns.
They say of its use here, it means discipline used to correct
the transgressions of the laws and ordinances of the Christian
household. Here is the father, conscious
of his identity by God's designation, He sees the task before him to
nurture them. He has given some specific direction
to the child about how to relate to one of the siblings or with
respect to a given task, and he's made it plain, son, dear,
sweetheart, however he addresses his daughter, if you do not do
this, daddy will have to spank you. Now the moment of truth
comes, and he says to himself, I want them to be nurtured. What
must I do? God says, I've told you. nurture
them in the chastening of the Lord. And so He takes up the
paddle, He takes up the spoon, or some of us who didn't know
our own strength chose to use our hand that we might be reasonable
in the amount and in the strength of the application of the punishment. And when people say, Ah, but
your hand should only stroke in love, God speaks of His hand
being upon his people. The hand of God was stroking
in discipline his people. So don't give me that nonsense,
you shouldn't use your hand. I don't buy it. I've got scriptural
warrant that God speaks of chastening with his hand. And if I'm to
be like God in my parenting, I have a good conscience in using
my hand upon a child. But then he says, admonition.
Nuthacea. This is nurturing by word. And
this word can mean, in some settings, encouragement or instruction
in general. 1 Corinthians 10-11, the things
that were written about the early history of God's people, were
written for our nuthesia, our admonition, our instruction. But it's mostly nuanced in the
New Testament toward pointing out error in thinking or acting
reproving the error, and then pointing to the right way of
thinking and acting. And I believe it is being used
in that way here in Ephesians. Fathers, here are the means I've
put in your hands. I've put nurture as your task,
and I've given you the rod of correction, and I've given you
the tongue of instruction and reproof. Those are your tools. the rod of correction, the tongue
of instruction. These are the means that God
says are needed for all children, no exceptions except Jesus. And for any man sitting here
whose wife has calmed him, well, my daughter is just so sensitive
and spanking I hope you have the spiritual, I don't want to do more repentance, guts, guts to sit down lovingly
with your sweet wife and open your Bible and say, Dear, I don't
want that heretical nonsense spoken in this house. That's
what it is. It's humanistic heresy. It's not biblical. The rod and
reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame
to his mother. Do you want to be shamed, dear?
Now, don't talk to her like I'm talking to you. You're sitting
there with your arm around her and her head on your shoulder,
and you're talking very softly. Okay? Don't go home and say,
Pastor Martin said I'm not home. You'll see me tomorrow and want
to warm me, so please, please, all right? Put it in context.
But seriously, brethren, these are the means God in His wisdom
has given us. They're not complicated. You
don't need to go and take Psychology 101, 102. No, no, no, no. If you have your Bible and you're
prepared to believe that in this blessed book God is ready to
instruct you, then you have not only a wonderful sense of your
identity, who you are by God's designation, but your task by
God's description. And then the fifth question is,
what's the context of carrying out this task? Look at our text. You fathers
provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the
chastening and admonition of the Lord. That's the context. It is the God-centered, God-framed,
God-blessed context. And generally, when Paul uses
the term, the Lord, as opposed to just the general term, God,
he's speaking of the Lord Jesus. And he wants you to see Jesus
present in this wonderful and sobering task of the training
of your children. What does it mean, of the Lord? Well, let me suggest it means
using the directives that the Lord has given. Christ is the
author of all Scripture. Peter can speak of the Spirit
of Christ that was in the prophets, causing them to speak and write
as they did. And when we come to our Bibles,
it is Christ as our great prophet instructing us. And so we are
to use these two instruments of the rod of correction and
the tongue of instruction, constantly looking to the directives of
the Lord Himself. We do not look to secular psychology,
humanistic pedagogy, sentimental indulgence. Men resist it. with all of your might, and even
so-called some of the Christian experts who promote a view of
child training that does not grow out of careful exegesis
and a sound, vigorous biblical theology, don't mess with it. It's a waste of time and it will
poison your mind. Secondly, you need to be conscious
that your authority is from the Lord. It is the chastening and
admonition of the Lord. He's the one who's commissioned
you to administer it, and you need to constantly remember that,
as I, as a preacher, need to constantly remember, if I'm handling
the Word of God responsibly and accurately, I stand under the
authority of my Lord. That's why I can preach authoritatively,
not because there's something inherent in me that warrants
that authority or that is the seat of that authority? No, it
stands above me, behind me, and over me when I speak the word
of Christ. And then surely incorporated
into this is independence of the grace and blessing that comes
only from the Lord. Well, I hope those five questions
have pried the text open. And you've seen, that's what's
in the text. I didn't put something in it, just tried to open up
what God put there. Now we come thirdly and finally.
Having looked at your identity as a Christian father, who are
you by God's designation? We've considered your task as
a Christian father. is the job God's told you you
must seek to accomplish. Now we come, thirdly, to your
resources as a Christian father. What are your enablements by
God's provision? As with our responsibility as
husbands, so with that as fathers. We cry with Paul in II Corinthians
2.16, Who is sufficient for these things? We should answer as Paul
did in 2 Corinthians 3, 4, 5, and 6a. We are not sufficient
of ourselves to think anything is from ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God who has made us able. What are your resources as a
Christian father? Let me point out by broad strokes,
just name them, six of them. What are your resources? I look
out and I see Chris, who's going to become a dad here in a few
weeks. And he'll experience that awesome thing the first time
you look at that little one, Chris. And you'll say, I've cooperated
with God in bringing a never-dying soul into the world. I'll never
forget when I stood by my son's crib when he was brought home
from the hospital. And I stood there and I gazed
and I gazed. And I said, oh God, I've cooperated
with you in bringing something into the world that millions
of years from now will still exist in infinite bliss or in
unspeakable torment and horror. It's a sobering thing to be a
dad. And when you realize that I've
not only been God's instrument to communicate human life, soul,
and body, but I've been the instrument to communicate the umbilical
cord that ties us all to Adam. And what's been conceived and
birthed is a sinner tied to Adam's belt. And only Almighty Grace
can untie it and attach it to Christ's belt. and bring it safely
home at last to heaven. Sobering thing. Who is sufficient
for the task? You and I must know our resources,
and not only know them intellectually, but know them by frequent recourse
to them. The first is this. We have a
completely sufficient Bible to tell us how to perform the task. after Paul says in verse 16 of
II Timothy 3, the nature of Scripture, the function of Scripture, it
is God-breathed, profitable for teaching, reproof, correction,
training in righteousness. Then he says, and it is sufficient
in order that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished
unto every good work. In the context, he's speaking
of Timothy as his representative and minister at Ephesus, but
by extrapolation, I believe the total witness of Scripture warrants
our saying, my Bible can furnish me to be the dad I ought to be,
and by the grace of God, I want to be. My Bible is a sufficient
rule as to how to be the father I ought to be. But then in addition
to a completely sufficient Bible, I have a promised Holy Spirit.
If you then who are evil, Luke 11, verse 13, if you then who
are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much
more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those
who ask Him? And so I can ask the loving Father
for the sake of His beloved Son who has purchased every needful
grace for His children. O God, for Jesus' sake, fill
me with Your Spirit when I need courage to stand upon the biblical
principles when I need wisdom to guide my wife into a symmetry
of perspective in this or that aspect of the training of the
children, when I need the Spirit to empower me with courage to
stand up against a child, to be willing to have the frown
of a child, to be willing to have the frown of my fellow believers
in certain decisions that I must make respecting the child, I
have a promised Holy Spirit who can give me the wisdom, who can
empower me, who can nerve me for the task. And then thirdly,
I have an inviting throne of grace. Hebrews 4.16, where we
are told, Let us come boldly, boldly to the throne of grace. And I love the words that we
may obtain. that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. It is a throne of grace
where I obtain. I not only have subjective blessing
when I pray, I come away with full hands, having come with
empty hands, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help
in time of need. I have an encouraging, admonishing
family of God. If I'm the churchman I ought
to be. There are dads who've gone before me who can see where
I'm doing something not right, and they love me enough to put
a hand on their shoulder and say, Albert, I know you love
your kids and you want to do what God would have you, but
this is what I'm observing. Am I observing correctly? Yes.
Well, let me point out from the Bible where I think you need
to tweak the way you're dealing with that issue. You have those
who've gone before you to encourage you. More than once, I've stood
at that door over the decades that I've been here. And a parent
is trying to train a child to, in social graces, just a little
one, say hello to pastor. And the child says, I'm going
to draw a line in the sand right here and goes. And the parent leans over and says,
say hello to pastor. You know what I say to the parent?
Go do what you got to do. I'll be here when you're done. They take him downstairs and
discreetly whomp their backside. They bring him back up. Say hello
to pastor. I said, do what you got to do.
It's all out war. It's shootout time in the OK
Corral. It's you or her. In the downstairs hallway, one
day in the middle of the week that happened, five times the
parent had to take the child away and after the fifth time
the child broke. I don't know whether the parent
would have stuck with it if I hadn't encouraged and let them know
I didn't look upon them as some kind of a beast or making a big
deal out of nothing. When you make your will known
to that child and it's evident the child is defying you, you
must conquer the will at that point or you may be sowing seeds
that you'll regret for the rest of your life. And the issue may
not be a big issue. My mother birthed eleven children. Ten of us grew to adulthood.
And she said, with most of us, within the first two years, there
were one or two major Donnybrooks of crossed wills. And she said,
if I hadn't been faithful in those issues, I don't know what
you children may have become. You've got the guts, Dad, to
ride it through until one will rules in your house. And it's
not that little Adamic manipulator. That's what he or she is at that
point. Saying, may as well rear back
on the hind legs, shake both fists, and say, Dad, I'm going
to rule in this house. That's what they're saying with
the... And you say, no, you aren't.
No, you aren't. You teenage kids who are here,
and I'm glad you're here, you may be big enough to take Dad
on right now. But remember, you don't have
God sitting on your shoulder when you buck him. He's got God
on his. And it has nothing to do with
this. It has to do with whose will is going to govern. You
see, your job description as a kid still under your mom and
dad's roof is a very simple one. I try to tell the teenagers this.
Very simple. Children obey your parents. Even
when you think the decision they make is stupid, even when you
can't see any reason, You just do what they tell you. Simple.
You get out from under the roof. Life gets complicated, man. You've
got to figure out and weigh this with that and this with that
and this with the other thing. And you've got to... Life is
real simple for you kids. Just do what mom and pop tell
you. And God will never chastise you for being obedient to that
simple command. But there is a throne of grace,
brethren, to which we can go. We have an encouraging, admonishing
family of God. And then, fifthly, we have the
exceeding precious promises of God. That's the language of Peter. They are giving unto us exceeding
great and precious promises. Think of some of them. He that
spared not his own son. but delivered Him up for us all.
How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Romans 8.32. John 15. If you abide in Me and My words
abide in you, ask what you will and it shall be given unto you.
James 1.5. If any of you lack wisdom, let
him ask of God and it shall be given unto Him, exceeding great
in precious promises. Plead them as a pop before the
Lord. Say, O God, they are all sealed
and soaked in the blood of Your Son, and for Jesus' sake I plead
them as a dad. And then the sixth source of
provision is Christ's gifts. of pastors and teachers, Ephesians
4, 11 and 12. He gives them for the perfecting
of saints unto works of service. And no more noble work of service
is yours than being a godly dad. He's given you pastors to help
you. Tap into them. Tap into the older,
proven pastors who have left the legacy in their writings.
Don't dabble in a lot of the modern stuff that is theoretical
and so much of it diluted with pop psychology, but read the
proven, standard authors who have given us a marvelous legacy. They are your gift from the head
of the Church, even the Lord Jesus. Well then, my brethren,
the time is gone. Here is a condensed biblical
theology of fatherhood. Know who you are by divine designation. Know what your task is by divine
definition. Know what your resources are
by divine donation. May God help us, and God willing,
in the hour after the lunchtime, I want then to bring eight very
pointed, pressing pastoral exhortations and admonitions But beneath them
all is the stuff of this biblical theology of being a godly Christian
dad. Let's pray together. Father, what a privilege we've
had this morning to sit in this place without any fear that our
gathering would be intruded upon by military by fanatics who hate
our Christ and our Bibles. We thank you for that wonderful
privilege, that freedom, that protection. We thank you for
each other and for our mutual desire to honor you. We pray
that your Holy Spirit, who has been present with us and given
us joy in the opening up and interaction with your Word, would
help us not to be idle hearers of that word, but doers of the
same. Bless our time as we will in
a few minutes go to our lunch together. Sanctify, we pray,
our conversation about the table. May we strengthen one another's
hands in our mutual responsibilities and continue to carry us through
with blessing to the very conclusion of our time together. We ask
in Jesus' name, Amen.