The Christian Man With His Children, Part 1

Review of the Foundation: The Christian Man

0:03 Now, brethren, 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 answer, 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.

1:21 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...

1:57 of what we ought to be or to do. And God's imperatives follow His indicatives. It's 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 wants. And that's what God commands us to do, both as husbands, as fathers, and as children.

2:36 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. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian husbands. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives.

2:58 Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives.

3:02 Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives.

3:06 Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives. Then we considered what I called the two central commandments to Christian wives.

Introduction to the Christian Man with His Children

3:10 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 the Bible. And then in the hour after lunch, some pointed, practical,

4:34 and much-needed pastoral exhortations and applications of that theology. In so doing, I will simply be following the pattern of 2 Timothy 3.16. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching.

4:50 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...

5:04 the teaching of this hour and apply it very specifically by way of reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Or I'm simply obeying the charge that Paul gave to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 and verse 2. Preach the word! Reproof, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering, that's the disposition and attitude and ethos.

5:33 Preach the word! Reproof, 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.

5:41 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.

6:14 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.

6:33 What is your job? Your job by God's definition. And then thirdly, your resources. What are your enablements by God's donation?

6:47 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. 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.

7:28 If you do not think biblically concerning your identity, your task, and your resources, no amount of sermon, seminars, books, and videos, and tapes on being a 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 worked out in our experience, the good, the acceptable, and the perfect.

8:03 Will it? 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.

8:26 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.

8:56 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.

The Christian Father's Identity: God's Authorized Governor

9:25 Along which... Along which we will develop this theme.

9:29 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.

9:56 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?

10:26 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? What has God said?

10:56 What has God said? What has God said? What has God said you are as a Christian father? And I believe the basic answer from the Word of God is this.

11:05 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 no...

11:57 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.

12:16 It has nothing to do with the suffrage and the consent of your family. It has to do with God's...

12:27 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...

13:28 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.

14:13 Very perceptive insight. And in that fifth commandment, it is assumed that a dimension of honoring is the authoritative direction given by the parents, as it is in Ephesians 6.1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord.

14:33 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.

15:04 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.

15:57 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.

16:40 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.

17:08 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 philosophies.

17:27 The authority of family life? No. That they may keep the way of Yahweh. That they may keep God's way.

17:38 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...

17:57 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 and verse 15. And he throws out the challenge to the entire nation.

18:14 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.

18:33 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...

19:01 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.

19:18 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.

19:57 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? 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 truth.

21:17 Son, why is daddy going to spank you? Because I disobeyed you. And why must I spank you? Because God in his words says, you must do it.

21:32 So, son, daddy's not spanking you because he's just gotten mad and he's giving vent to his temper. Because he thinks it would be...

21:41 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.

21:52 And why does God say that? That it might deal with the sin in my heart and drive away the foolishness, so we're not going to do it. 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?

22:09 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.

22:42 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.

The Christian Father's Task: Nurturing Children (Ephesians 6:4)

23:15 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 rule 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 designation?

23:58 What is your job by divine definition? And while I acknowledge that there is 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 administration. God's constitution for family life.

24:33 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 part 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.

25:39 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.

26:00 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.

26:16 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.

26:56 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.

28:13 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 is 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,

29:39 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.

29:51 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're 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.

30:22 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.

30:47 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?

The Mandated Climate for Nurturing: Avoiding Provocation

31:05 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?

31:29 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 is 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.

32:38 It is one thing to conquer their will. It is another thing to crush their spirit. Now what is the issue? Here is the issue.

32:47 He is 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 are a good father, there will be many times when your kid will be mad at you. That is not what he is saying.

33:22 Some people read it that way. Oh, I may never upset little Danny. Yeah, that is right. Hopefully.

33:29 I had a pastor friend once. It came to mind. It is not in my notes, but I am going to give into it. And I was in his home.

33:38 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.

33:47 And she was doing things she shouldn't. And he said, Pastor, I don't know what is wrong. And he said, I spank her. You should have seen what he meant by spank.

33:56 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 is not spanking.

34:07 I said, that is 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 are red.

34:18 You watch. It will work. And it did. And it did.

34:22 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?

34:42 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?

35:08 You fathers provoke 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.

35:23 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,

36:49 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.

The Essence of the Task: Holistic Nurturing

37:15 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?

37:28 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.

37:43 Nurture them. Now that word, nurture, Paul has 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.

38:20 And all that then 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.

38:56 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.

39:29 Them. What is them? Them is created image bearers of God. That's what them is.

39:39 That's what they are. I know I'm using poor English. I'm doing it deliberately. That's what they are.

39:45 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?

40:04 No. She's a child of the devil by nature. We are by nature children of wrath. That is not only a created image bearer of God with the dignity of an image bearer, but a fallen, perverse sinner.

40:22 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.

40:56 Fathers nurture 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.

41:16 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! Exclamation point.

41:45 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'll 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 where, as another child, rarely needs the spanking, just the look and the finger and a 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.

42:53 How'd 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, concerned 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. And 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.

44:13 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's shop, some of us who've 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.

44:56 He spoke to thousands in the open air, day after day after day, hour after hour after hour of himself out and 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.

45:27 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.

45:45 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.

46:04 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.

46:48 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.

47:12 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 need 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 is the place of a cooperative endeavor, whether as a home-schooler 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.

The Means of Nurturing: Chastening and Admonition

48:34 You fathers, not the state, not the church, not the school, you fathers, nurture them. Now we come to question number four. We are going to pry open the text with one more question. Well, no, two more questions really.

48:54 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.

49:19 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 is the way it is used in 2 Timothy 3.16.

49:38 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 authority. That is the way it is 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.

50:22 It is used that way in 1 Corinthians 11.32 about the chastening that God had brought by physical affliction upon some of the Corinthians. Now, the word chastening 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. Reiniker and Rogers, very helpful little book or 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.

51:38 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 has 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?

52:07 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.

52:39 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.

52:52 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. Nuthesia. This is nurturing by word.

53:04 And this word can mean, in some settings, encouragement or instruction in general. First 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 to God and to God and to God and to God 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.

53:46 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 in proof, reproof. Those are your tools. The rod of correction, the tongue of instruction.

54:09 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 with...

54:33 I hope you have the spiritual... I don't want to do more repentance.

54:44 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.

55:05 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.

55:27 Okay? Don't go home and say, Pastor Martin said I'm the warmest. She'll see me in context. But seriously, brethren, these are the means God in His wisdom has given us.

55:42 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 description, but your task by God's description.

The Context of Nurturing: Of the Lord

56:10 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.

56:32 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?

57:04 Well, 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's Christ as our great Savior, who is in the tongue of instruction, constantly looking to the directives of the Lord Himself.

57:45 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 have a powerful exegesis and a sound, vigorous biblical theology, don't mess with it. It's a waste of time, and it'll poison your mind.

58:20 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 is responsible for your lives. He's the one who is responsible for your life.

58:48 And he's the God who gives you the power to do what you want to 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.

The Christian Father's Resources: God's Provision

59:20 Just try 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.

59:39 What 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.

59:58 We cry with Paul in 2 Corinthians 2.16, Who is sufficient for these things? Yet, we should answer as Paul did in 2 Corinthians 3, 4, and 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.

60:24 What are your resources as a Christian father?

60:29 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.

60:42 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.

61:03 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. Sobering. And when you realize that I've not only been God's instrument to communion, to communicate human life, soul, and body, but I've been the instrument to communicate the umbilical cord that ties us all to Adam.

61:49 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?

62:09 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 2 Timothy 3, the nature of Scripture, the function of Scripture, it's God-breathed, profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness.

62:46 Then he says, and it's 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, the warrants are saying my Bible can furnish me to be the dad I ought to be.

63:16 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, 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?

63:53 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.

65:13 It's 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, the churchman I ought to be, there are dads who've gone before me, who can see where I'm doing something not right.

65:46 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.

66:05 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 the 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?

66:37 Go do what you got to do. I'll be here when you're done. They take them downstairs and discreetly whomp their backside. They bring them back up, say hello to pastor.

66:50 I said, do what you got to do. It's all-out war. It's shoot-out time in the O.K. Corral.

66:57 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 them, 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.

67:35 And the issue may not be a big issue. My mother birthed 11 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.

67:50 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 wills in your house. And it's not that little Adamic manipulator. That's what he or she is at that point.

68:18 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...

68:28 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.

68:48 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.

69:02 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.

69:15 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...

69:25 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.

69:40 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.

69:57 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.

70:20 James 1.5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, and it shall be given unto you. I have given unto him exceeding great and precious promises. Plead them as a pop before the Lord.

70:36 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.

71:12 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're your gift from the head of the church, even the Lord Jesus.

Conclusion and Prayer

71:42 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.

71:54 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.

72:16 But beneath them all is the stuff of this biblical theology of being God. A godly, Christian dad. Let's pray together.

72:33 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.