“How A Father is To Raise Godly Children”
Eph. 6:4
INTRODUCTION What is the Meaning of Ephesians 6.4
Ephesians 6. In 1996, David Blankenhorn authored a book entitled “Fatherless America: Confronting our most urgent problem.” He writes “tonight, about 40% of American children will go to sleep in homes in which the fathers do not live. Before they reach the age of 18, more than half of our nation’s children are likely to spend at least a significant portion of their childhoods living apart from their father. Never before in this country have so many children been voluntarily abandoned by their fathers. Never before have so many children grown up without knowing what it means to have a father.”
He writes “fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend of this generation. It is the leading cause of declining child well-being in our society. It is also the engine driving our most urgent social problems, crime adolescent pregnancy and child sexual abuse and domestic violence against women.” He says that “within our elite discourse, it remains largely a problem with no name.” It is being ignored.
That we are living in an increasingly fatherless society is not debated. What’s debated in society is whether or not this is a problem. The book I mentioned may have some problems logically, but nevertheless our point this morning is that when you move away from the biblical model of the family, a true family “in the Lord”… Not a perfect family, but a family who whole heartedly follows the Scripture, if you move away from believing that or practicing that, sinful chaos will be the result.
From God’s perspective, the one perspective society doesn’t take into account … from His perspective, the father is essential to the biblical home. I would argue that the way that it is worded in our passage this morning indicates that the father’s leadership of the home is extremely crucial. Why isn’t the mother addressed here?
Let’s read Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Let me comment on the statistic I pointed out to you earlier, that in 1996 there was about 40% of children were living without their biological father. But the truth is that some of the other 60% may also be fatherless in a different sense. Kids today either have no father influence at all in the home, or live with an emotionally absent father, or live in the same household with a father who is not physically present enough to be emotionally present.
Dads, we need you!
90% of those surveyed about the fact that many children are living in biological father-absent homes agree that this is a [quote] “crisis.”[1]
Scientific research indicates that the fatherhood factor weighs heavily in our society’s worst social problems. The involvement of the father specifically is important.
Where there is no father, research indicates that children experience fewer behavioral problems and score higher on reading achievement. There is a correlation between father-absent homes and poverty. Father-absent homes are almost 4 times more likely to be poor.
Studies indicate that children born to single mothers show higher levels of aggressive behavior.
Even infant death is reported 1.8 times higher for unmarried mothers. And despite income levels, children in these homes are significantly more likely to be incarcerated then in mother-father families.
The conclusions of other studies are the same. Fatherless households factor in crime, teen pregnancy and sexual activity before marriage, child abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, childhood obesity, and educational abilities. When the father is present, these social ills decrease.
TRANS: We would know that naturally I think this morning. But I’d like to make a more biblical point. It is true that the father’s role is crucial and plays a vital part in the upbringing of the children. But if it’s true for larger social ills, than it is also true for normal upbringing as well. When it comes to things like how to successfully overcome relationship conflicts, how to reconcile, how to be responsible and work hard, what the Bible says about wise and foolish living … these basic life skills are best supported under a father’s leadership.
But of course for the believer it goes beyond that. Our relationship with the Lord is the primary concern and the Lord has written about all these things … relationship conflicts, how to reconcile, how to be responsible and work hard…and He has given us fathers the right tools for the job and the right spiritual medicine for the spiritual condition. This is fatherhood “in the Lord.”
So, I’d like to preach on “How A Father is To Raise Godly Children”
As we’ve said, Ephesians 5:18 is the head of this passage. There we are told to be filled by the Holy Spirit. And taking Col. 3:16 with it, we are told the filling is with the word of Christ. Filled by the Holy Spirit with the word of Christ.
A father’s proper raising of his children demands that we be filled by the Holy Spirit with the word of Christ. So a father is to be filled by the Holy Spirit.
What is a spirit-filled father? A Spirit-filled father is a father who does not provoke his children to anger but nurtures them in the training and admonition that comes from the Lord.
A Spirit-filled father nurtures the whole of each of his children, physically, emotionally, spiritually with the goal that each child grows to become a fully functional disciple of Jesus. And the means by which this is accomplished is the training and admonition that comes from the Lord. [I’ll repeat that.]
This is similar to our church’s mission statement …“Northlight Baptist Church exists to display God’s truth to the world, to make true disciples of Jesus Christ, and to disciple others to build up and cause the growth of His church.”
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Fathers, Do Not Provoke Your Children to Anger
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Fathers
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Fathers are addressed here.
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And the fathers are addressed here. Paul does not have in mind here the mothers. There is a term in the Greek language for mothers. In chapter 6 verse 1, Paul did speak of the children obeying their parents, and that word parents is not the word ‘fathers’ in verse four.
If Paul wanted to speak of both fathers and mothers in verse four, he could have used the word from verse one, the word parents. But he didn’t; he chose a different word, the word for father which primarily is translated father. The switch in wording tells us he wants to speak to the fathers. If Paul wanted to speak to only the fathers, what word would he have used? This word!
And so the father alone is in focus here. And to suggest otherwise takes away from that point. The fathers are the ones primarily responsible for the upbringing of their parents. The physical, emotional, mental, spiritual support and protection and education all stems from him.
The kids are the way that they are because of the father’s leadership of his wife and children. It is the job of the wife and children to obey that leadership. But the father is commanded here to lead his family in the raising of his kids.
The fact that only the father is mentioned here is God’s way of focusing us on the father’s responsibility and leadership. But man’s way today is to address the mothers. Because of the fatherless society that we live in, general parenting manuals today are typically addressed to mothers. Why is that the case?
Well, an article in Time Magazine seems to have the answer.[2] Bringing Up Father
By NANCY R. GIBBS Sunday, June 24, 2001. She makes the point that beginning with the Industrial Revolution, the workplace and the home became separated. No longer were many men working at home, they were working outside of the home.
And then in the 1800s, the father began to be shut out of the life of the household. And then by the middle of the 1800s parenting manuals became addressed to mothers and by 1900 the husband and father were practically just a mere Sunday experience. And from Monday to Saturday, the husband and the father were in every way, gone. So, of course you have to address the parenting manuals to moms![3]
But biblically speaking, the fathers are to be addressed about parenting. The fathers are the ones who need the wisdom to lead their kids. And when the fathers have the wisdom on training their kids, the design of God is that the mothers and children follow their leadership.
But if the mother is fully on board, trying to gain wisdom on how to be a good mom to her kids …and the whole time, which is often the case, the dad is uninterested or distracted, what you’ll have is a very frustrated mom trying to be both mom and dad kids. It doesn’t work that way.
And Paul is ministering to people under the Roman law. I won’t go into the details, but in Roman times, the father had absolute control over his kids who could choose to either let his children live or die based on his own choosing. He had absolute control over his kids.
And now, of course, the temptation is to provoke these kids to anger. And that temptation is still alive and active today. In our day and age, people begin to become concerned about you if you have more than 2.3 kids. And I know this is nothing of the newsflash for you, but our society does not view children as a blessing from the Lord … People view children today as a slightly more valuable than puppies.
Kids are cute, they are fun to play with and they can make me happy if I am not. This is a very selfish society, a very “me first” generation way of thinking. Kids who grow up thinking that the universe revolves around them … these kids grow up and then they have kids and they will use their kids for themselves very selfishly.
TRANS: But there are bigger responsibilities, when it comes to the father’s relationship to the Lord. And the first is negative … Fathers, don’t provoke your children to anger.
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Do Not Provoke Your Children to Anger
The command not to provoke your children to anger makes it sound like that a father could, if he’s not careful, provoke his children to anger. In other words, a father could be a source of temptation for his child, in this case, a temptation to the child to become angry.
This is what dad’s tend to do: give greater cause to their children to become angry.
The noun form of this verb … To provoke to anger… Or to make angry, occurs back in Ephesians 4:26. Please just turn a page back in your Bible … Ephesians 4:26 BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
And that last word “anger,” is the noun form of the same word “to make angry” in Ephesians 6:4.
And when we studied Ephesians 4:26 together, we gave many applications and principles on how to overcome sinful anger. If you are struggling with anger or your family is, studying and practicing that message will help you. It’s on the website, check it out if you need to.
If you give your heart to overcoming sinful anger by using the principles of that message, you will find great relief for you and your family. And to motivate you with working at this, Ephesians 4:27 teaches that Satan can get a foothold into your family through the sin of anger.
Ephesians 4:26-27 26 BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity.
Sinful anger is not something to play around with, it does give the devil opportunities in your life. Give diligence to overcoming sinful anger. It takes work, specific work in the word of God to overcome sinful anger.
Now, back to chapter 6. The command here in chapter 6 is that fathers should be careful not to make their children angry. Colossians 3:21 teaches us that if the father is making his children angry, they can lose heart, they can become discouraged.
If the child is overly nagged, demeaned, or if they feel like they can never please their father, or if the child is subjected to humiliation, or when a father is not sensitive to his child’s needs, … you can imagine, he will become discouraged … and I want us to think of this word… the child will become crushed in his spirit. And for a child in the home, this is the worst spiritual plague and can be at the root of much of a child’s sinful problems.
The child could be acting the way that he or she does because that child has a crush spirit. It very well could be that the child is feeling that way and acting out in that way because you as his father, you are provoking him to anger.
ILL: For the first time in North American history… for the first time in North American history … children now suffer more from mental health conditions than physical ones” begins a DocZone documentary on CBC, reporting the findings of the Journal of the American Medical Association.[4] One of the points in the video is that science … science has proven, these lost people say, science has proven that [quote] “the more nurture and stimulation a child has before the age of 6, the greater chances she’ll succeed in life.” This is a “revelation” just in the past 25 years the program says.
I’m encouraged that science backs of Scripture, but I’m saddened that they think this is a revelation that has been discovered in the past 25 years. It’s been in the Bible whole time.
The documentary proceeds to follow families in which there are children with anger problems. And the experts are saying that the problem is only going to get worse.
Dr. Mark Greenberg, Child Development Expert says, “Parents are busy in their own stressful and chaotic lives. And there’s very little time that children have where people are present with them just to be with them, just to play, just to read a book. And those circumstances, those quiet times where they get lots of language input, really help them to regulate their behaviour.”[5]
One doesn’t have to go very far to realize that children today are angrier than at any other time in the history of western society. Pick up a newspaper and read about the school shootings. Acting out childhood anger no longer just confined to the home.
And statistic after statistic and survey after survey indicate that everyone agrees. Parents, teachers, counselors, you name it, everyone seems to be saying that we have a child anger crisis on our hands.
And the Bible passage this morning relates childhood anger back to the dads. And we already know we live in a fatherless society in many ways. Men, take responsibility for your child’s anger and help them through it.
TRANS: Well, what is it that a father can do or say that can cause his children to become angry or discouraged?
What Can Get Your Children Mad
You take out that half sheet of paper you received. On that sheet you have an outline adapted from Lou Priolo’s book entitled Getting at the Heart of Anger. In that book he elaborates on 25 ways in which parents can provoke their children to anger.[6]
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Lack of Marital Harmony (Heb. 12:15)
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Establishing and Maintaining a Child Centered Home (Prov. 29:15)
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Modeling Sinful Anger (Prov. 22:24-25)
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Habitually Disciplining While Angry (Ps. 38:1; Ja. 1:19-20)
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Scolding (Eph. 4:29; Mark 14:3-5)
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Being Inconsistent with Discipline (2 Co. 1:18-18; Eccl. 8:11)
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Having Double Standards (Phil. 4:9)
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Being Legalistic ([Col 2:16-3:1]; Matt. 15:8-9)
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Not Admitting You’re Wrong/Not Asking For Forgiveness (Matt. 5:23-24; Ja. 5:16)
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Constantly Finding Fault (Job. 32:2-3; Prov. 19:11)
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Parents Reversing God-Given Roles (Eph. 5:22-24)
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Not Listening To Your Child’s Opinion or Taking His or Her Side of the Story Seriously (Prov. 18:3, 17)
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Comparing Them With Others (2 Co. 10:2)
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Not Making Time “Just To Talk” (Ja. 1:19; Eccl. 3:7)
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Not Praising or Encouraging Your Child (Rev. 2:2-4)
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Failing to Keep Your Promises (Matt. 5:37; Ps. 15:4-5; Col. 3:9)
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Chastening in Front Of Others (Matt. 18:15)
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Not Allowing Enough Freedom (Ja. 3:17; Luke 12:48)
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Allowing Too Much Freedom (Prov. 29:15; Ga. 4:1-2; Heb. 12:6-9)
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Mocking Your Child (Job 17:1-2; Ex. 4:11)
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Abusing Them Physically (Num. 22:27-29; 1 Ti. 3:3)
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Ridiculing or Name Calling (Eph. 4:29)
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Unrealistic Expectations (1 Co. 13:11)
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Practicing Favoritism (Luke 15:25-30)
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Child Training with Worldly Methodologies Inconsistent with God’s Word (Eph. 6:4)
And then he has a section at the end of that chapter on how to repent of this.
Repent from Provoking Children to Anger
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Identify the specific ways you have been provoking your child’s anger (Eph. 6:4)
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Confess these sins to God (1 John 1:9)
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Ask your child’s forgiveness for your sins against him (Acts 24:16)
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Develop a plan with your child’s assistance to replace those sinful behaviors with their biblical alternative (Prov. 28:13)
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Consider specific ways you can provoke your children to love and good works (Heb. 10:24)
Men, you would do well to go over this and ask your children if they feel like you make them made sometimes. And ask them that regularly. Listen, listen to your kids on this and don’t get defensive. You might not be able to give them every wish, but you can have a polite and honoring dialogue about it.
APP: If your child is angry, you need to talk. Then kids, open up to your parents, especially after a message like this. If you can help them in ways that the you feel angry, please let them know in a God-fearing way.
The intense emotion of your children is a flag that you need to go deeper into your child’s heart. Ask questions. Figure out what’s going on and get the help that you need.
ILL: And I realize that these things are different in younger children than older children. But for a while now, our family has been gearing up for Valentine’s Day with a focus on the biblical love. Every year we go over 1 Corinthians 13 and try to practice each one of the descriptions each day.
And this year, the kids they could tell us one way in which they loved somebody in the way of first Corinthians 13. They could tell us if they were patient and kind, not jealous, or not bragging. These kinds of things.
One night, it was Hudson’s turn to tell us what he did that day. And he decided that he did not want to tell me; he only wanted to tell his mother. He was tearful over that. So I asked him why, and he said that he was afraid of what I would say because of something that happened all the way back during Christmas! Because of whatever happened there, he felt I would discourage him and not tell him that he did a good job.
Of course, I totally disagreed with that assessment. I regularly praise my children about many different things every day. But I did not get impatient with him by the grace of God. I told him I appreciated him and praised him specifically for things he does, saying “good job.”
So we allowed the other children to go first. I praised our other children for their kind acts of love, and then Hudson was bold after that to tell me what it was …. and perhaps you could ask my wife what it was. I don’t remember!
But my point is, there was an issue in his heart, he felt discouraged. I praised him, and he opened up and was encouraged. It works differently in different children, at different ages of course. Back at Christmas time something I did discouraged him, and we tried to make that right.
TRANS: So instead of provoking your children to anger, nurture them in the training and admonition of the Lord.
And I retranslated that phrase to give us perhaps a more clear understanding. Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but “nurture them in the training and admonition of the Lord.”
Nurture: A call for gentleness
This word nurture or “to bring up” means “to bring up your children to maturity.”
Remember what we said a Spirit-filled father was? A Spirit-filled father nurtures the whole of his children, physically, emotionally, spiritually with the goal that each child grows to become a fully functional disciple of Jesus. And the means by which this is accomplished is the training and admonition that comes from the Lord.
So to nurture means “to bring up your children to maturity.” To bring them up to maturity, physically emotionally and spiritually, giving the child what the child needs to grow in order to become a fully functional disciple of Jesus.
And that word nurturing gives us the idea of a gentle provision of these things. There needs to be a gentle leading along of children to get them where they are to where they need to be.
And some fathers handle their young fragile kids like they’re meant to be roughhoused and beaten into submission. And this provokes to anger.
It seems like once a week I’m teaching the kids how to get people to do what you want them to do. The tendency as children and the temptation of many fathers is to yell and scream at people until they do what you want them to do.
ILL: Learn the lesson of gentle persuasion from one of Aesop’s fables entitled “The North Wind.”
[*left*] The North Wind boasted of great strength. [*right*] The Sun argued that there was great power in gentleness.
“We shall have a contest,” said the Sun.
Far below, a man traveled a winding road. He was wearing a warm winter coat.
[*right*] “As a test of strength,” said the Sun, “Let us see which of us can take the coat off of that man.”
[*left*] “It will be quite simple for me to force him to remove his coat,” bragged the Wind.
The Wind blew so hard, the birds clung to the trees. The world was filled with dust and leaves. But the harder the wind blew down the road, the tighter the shivering man clung to his coat.
Then, the Sun came out from behind a cloud. Sun warmed the air and the frosty ground. The man on the road unbuttoned his coat.
The sun grew slowly brighter and brighter.
Soon the man felt so hot, he took off his coat and sat down in a shady spot.
“How did you do that?” said the Wind.
“It was easy,” said the Sun, “I lit the day. Through gentleness I got my way.”
Gentleness wins, men. Forcefulness and heavy-handedness demoralizes and crushes children.
TRANS: Your kids should know that you are a nurturing dad, a man who has his strength under control and knows how to lead by gentle persuasion. So nurture the whole of the child, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
And the tools for this nurturing are what follows in the verse
Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up [nurture them] in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Bring them up, nurture them … and the tools for this nurturing or for the raising of your children is discipline and instruction, that’s better understood for us as training and admonition.
And that training and that admonition the verses says is “of the Lord” … it comes from the Lord. Fathers, nurture your children by using the training and admonition that comes from the Lord. Nurture your children by using the training and admonition that comes from the Lord.
TRANS: So the first tool in nurturing your kids is training that comes from the Lord. To properly nurture your child, to raise them up so that they might become a fully functional follower of Jesus Christ requires training that comes from the Lord.
Training
The idea behind this word is that it is instruction with discipline. This word is more physical in nature. This word shows children what to do. This is physical, hands-on training.
ILL: It’s like training for a job. You don’t throw somebody into a job that requires a high skill set without giving them hands on training. Like a job in the medical field or driving heavy machinery, or whatever.
They first need hands-on training. That’s the idea behind this word.
And yes this would include things like spanking, but also how to work hard, learning responsibility, and things like that, but it would not be using the world’s teachings for this. Where does this training come from? A father’s training of his children comes from the Lord. And the Lord gives us training where? In his word! In the Bible we read of how to work hard and be responsible and things like that.
A father is to train his child in this way and the Scripture is sufficient. The training that we need comes from a the Scripture. You don’t need a lot of parenting manuals and things; you just need to know the Bible. Men, work hard at knowing the Bible and teach it to your kids.
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
And the word training in 2 Ti. 3:16 is the same word in Ephesians 6:4 translated discipline in the New American Standard. Scripture is sufficient to give us the principles of training that we need to live a godly and productive life.
Men, nurture your children in the training that comes from the Lord in the Bible.
And this is where the book of Proverbs comes in. And you could go through the book of Proverbs and teach through, for example, what a fool looks like, what is a wise son in Proverbs…
And our children need to understand that the Scripture is real and it functions in everyday life. This is training your children, hands-on training that comes from the Lord.
ILL: In our house, we finally decided to get a dog. There are many reasons why we think getting a dog would be beneficial. One of those is so that the kids are safe outside from the wild animals.
Another reason is so that the kids can grow in their responsibilities.
So what we did was we sat the kids down and led them through the good, the easy, and the fun side of having a dog versus the bad, hard, not so fun side of having a dog. And then we led them through how to make a decision.
I asked them about how we’re gonna make a decision and that we need wisdom. And so we prayed to God for wisdom on whether to get a dog or not. And then we told them that their mom and dad are not going to be able to do all the work by ourselves. And they of course immediately, said “We’ll help!”
Then we had a Bible study from Proverbs on faithfulness. They promised to help and to work. They should be faithful.
Proverbs 25:13 Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him, for he refreshes the soul of his masters.
Proverbs 10:26 Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the lazy one to those who send him.
And I taught them with these words. So the idea here is to take the Scripture and give your kids hands on experience on acting out truths in the Bible.
Men, have family devotions! Teach your kids the Bible and live it in front of them! And even if you fumble through family devotions, even if you sit down and are saying at least something to them, that is encouraging to them to grow. They get the sense that you know them and that you care about them just by you having devotions with them. Don’t feel like you’ve got to do a bunch of study before hand; just sit down grabbed the Bible do something. Make it regular.
Ladies, support your husbands in this. Often, men feel discouraged because their wives know the Bible better than they do. No matter what ladies, let your husbands know they did a great job and thank them for the devotions and tell them something you got out of it.
Men, you are called upon here to bring up your kids with the Lord’s training, training that comes from the Lord. Do that!
TRANS: Bring them up, nurture them. What tool are you going to use to nurture them? You need the discipline, the training of the Lord. You get that from the Bible.
And now you also nurture them and you bring up your children not only in the training that comes from the Lord, but also the instruction that comes from the Lord.
Instruction/Admonition
This word instruction in Ephesians 6:4 I understand as admonition. It has the idea of correction or warning. It’s more verbal in nature and not so much “hands on” as the previous word. Training is more physical in nature, but verbal instruction or admonition is more verbal warning. The word training may be more true of younger children and admonition here may be more true for older children.
ILL: And the failure to give verbal instruction is illustrated perfectly in the life of Eli the priest in 1 Samuel 3. He failed to restrain his children.
My Valentine has done a wonderful study in the Old Testament. She has worked from Adam and Eve up to the life of David and she is digging up nuggets on parenting from the lives of those recorded in Scripture.
On Eli and his sons, she writes … “Eli’s sons were priests, but they did not know the Lord nor were they concerned about how priests should behave themselves (1 Sam 2:12).
When offering sacrifices, they were concerned only about their favorite cuts of meat, not on sacrificing to God or following His laws (1 Sam 2:13-17). Eli, himself, chose not to rebuke his sons for their disobedience to God’s ceremonial law. Rather, Eli overlooked his sons’ sins and participated in them, enjoying the choicest meat with them. In this way, he honored his sons above God and God punished Eli and his family (1 Sam. 1:29-36). A despising of God’s law in one area prepares the way for a despising of God’s law in other areas (1 Sam 2:22) and a failure to fear God’s discipline (1 Sam 2:25). Ultimately, Eli was punished for failing to rebuke his sons (1 Sam 3:11-14) and the cause of his death was aggravated by his participation in his sons sin (choosing the choice meats and becoming fat and heavy with this sin (1 Sam 1:29[sic]; 4:17-18).”
The Lord instructs Samuel to tell Eli … here is what Samuel was to tell Eli …
1 Samuel 3:11-13 11 The LORD said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. 12 “In that day I will carry out against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. 13 “For I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves and [Eli] did not rebuke them.”
And that word translated “rebuke” in the Greek translation of the Old Testament is the same Greek word in Eph. 6:4 in our Greek New Testaments, translated here instruction. Men, rebuke your children. Eli didn’t and suffered God’s discipline.
There must be rebuke and admonition and instruction that comes from the Lord, from His Word, and it must be applied to your children. Will you be lazy on this? If you give good direction from the Word of God with Christlike love, children are more likely to receive that.
In the end, the most important thing your child will learn in his growing up years in your household are not academics. Although academics have their place. The most important thing your child will learn growing up in your household, men, is the training and the admonitions and warnings that comes from the Lord … And that proceeds out of your mouth and out of your life into the heart and life of your children.
Men, if you are a father you will know if you are controlled by the Holy Spirit … You will know if you are filled up by the Holy Spirit with the word of Christ if … If you are not provoking your child to anger and if you are nurturing them and bringing them up in the training that comes from the Lord and nurturing them in the admonitions and the warnings that come from the Lord.
Men, be filled with the Holy Spirit! Get in His word and ask him for that. You’ll never be a godly dad without you personally knowing the training and the admonitions that come from the Lord in his word.
And if you have failed to respond to God’s word yourself you are sure to fail to model what it is to properly respond to the word of God. And thus your children will not be responding to the word of God.
So men are you going to be an anger-inducing, controlling dad or are you going to be a dad who gently nurtures the true training from the Lord and the true warnings and instructions and admonitions from the Lord? Which one?
Work at this men; it takes work to be a godly dad.
CONCLUSION What is the Meaning of Ephesians 6.4
Psalm 127:4-5 4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. 5 How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.
There are different ways of understanding this perhaps, but men let me motivate you… like arrows, your children can protect you.
Right now, your children may seem sometimes more like a handful then quiverful. But they are your living assets. If you offend your children or they go astray and they do not learn biblical principles, they will be less likely to be of assistance to you in your old age.
Being a dad is an awesome calling. You can expand your influence, in some cases, throughout the world.
Let us care for our children just like our Heavenly Father. Think of the God the Father and the Son of God, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).
He is not a Father who deserts his children, for He says Hebrews 13:5 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,”
Men, act like men; fulfill your good calling; nurture those kids with the Lord’s training and warnings. Give ear to God’s Holy Word, 729
Addressed to parents first, then to children. READ FIRST STANZA
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http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,161949,00.html ↑
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https://www.galaxie.com/article/emj19-1-01#ZGEMJ19A018 ↑
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http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episodes/angry-kids-stressed-out-parents ↑
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http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2014/03/26/angry-children-parents-drowning-in-stress-and-way-out/ ↑
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Taken from Lou Priolo The Heart of Anger Chapter 2. ↑