This Lord’s Day sermon will be on Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Fatherhood is perilously absent in our culture. Some of us still bear the scars of absent or wicked fathers. Our culture has reduced fatherhood to being the “breadwinner” for the home. There is a great temptation for fathers to find their measure of success as a man outside the home rather than in the home. But Ephesians 6:4 gives us another picture. A biblical father knows how to cultivate and nourish the hearts of his children. He is active in their lives. He builds them up through both correction and instruction. His disciplining hand is consistent. He is not petty or unrealistic in the rules of the home. His discipline is driven by the fear of the Lord and his love for his children. He loves his children far too dearly to let them go their own way. He never gives empty threats, and he never disciplines out of anger.
Furthermore, he teaches them how to live wisely in God’s world which begins with the fear of the Lord. He warns them of the dangers of folly and the deception of the heart. He keeps a close watch over what influences his children. He shows them where to find wisdom. He walks beside them in life, and he, appropriately, lets them go ahead so they can grow on their own. He is a constant source of encouragement to them. He brings them to the house of the Lord. He fervently prays for them as Job did every morning for his children, and above all, he desires for them to come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ so that they might glorify God and enjoy him forever.
A biblical father sees his breadwinning as a way to serve the home, but it is not the metric of his success as a father. There are plenty of homes with great material wealth, but there you will find wilting children and a sad spiritual state because the father is absent, distracted, or has settled for a lesser aim in his duties as a father. What kind of man can be a biblical father- A man who is consumed with the love of our heavenly Father and a man who seeks to love his children as his heavenly father has loved him? A biblical Father builds up his children from his heart while aiming for their hearts. Even if you are a struggling Father, a regretting Father, or a son or daughter with the scars of a difficult earthly father, be still and consider your heavenly Father and the grace he has lavished on you in Christ.
In Love,
Pastor John