How To Be A Good Father?

Introductions

What Does It Mean To Be A Good Father?

What are some (your) barriers to being a Good Father?

What challenges do men face today in being Godly fathers?

Questions around fatherhood?

The Responsibilities Of A Father

A Good Father Knows The Heavenly Father

John 20:17 ESV

Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

Do your children say: “I serve the God of my father”

Genesis 26:24 ESV

And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.”

Genesis 32:9 ESV

And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’

2 Chronicles 17:4 ESV

but sought the God of his father and walked in his commandments, and not according to the practices of Israel.

Isaiah 38:5 ESV

“Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.

Why did the children of the patriarchs follow the God of their fathers?

He kept His promises to them

A Good Father Loves The Mother Of His Children

What does this look like?

Ephesians 5:25–26 ESV

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

Ephesians

A Good Father Loves His Children

1 Peter 3:7 ESV

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

A Good Father Loves His Children

How does a Father love His children?

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

A Good Father Is Responsible For His Children

A Good Father Teaches And Instructs His Children

Genesis 18:18–19 ESV

seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”

Deuteronomy 6:4–8 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

1 Timothy 4:16 ESV

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

A Good Father Trains & Disciplines His Children

Proverbs 22:6 ESV

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Hebrews 12:5–11 ESV

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

A Good Father Encourages His Children

1 Thessalonians 2:11–12 ESV

For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

A Good Father Comforts His Children

2 Corinthians 1:

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 ESV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

A Good Father Warns His Children

1 Thessalonians 2:12 ESV

we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

Proverbs 14:12 ESV

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

A Good Father Does Not Provoke His Children

Ephesians 6:4 ESV

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.