Setting our kids up to succeed.

Introduction

Ephesians 6:4 KJV 1900

4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Colossians 3:21 KJV 1900

21 Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

If there was one phrase in the Bible that I would identify as “the most influential” for myself as a parent it would be this phrase that appears twice in Paul’s letters.

“Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath/anger.”

Men, this is not a joint command to you and your wife. God has singled you out, specifically in this area.

If it’s important enough for Him to say it twice, I would think we would be wise to identify this as a main objective for our life.

As we will see, though, this objective will require awareness, strategy, and the Grace of God, if we are to be successful.

First let’s start by...

Defining this word, “provoke.”

Paul actually uses two different greek words for these verses.

In Ephesians, Paul uses a word that literally means “to push someone toward anger or wrath.”

In Colossians, Paul uses a word that means “to stir someone/something up.”

These are two totally different word pictures.

One is pushing them towards a destination.

The other is activating something that is already inside them.

Both are great illustrations of what a father could potentially do to his children.

Why target fathers specifically?

In Greco-Roman society, the man/husband/father of the home was the undisputed ruler.

Often this authority was despotic and uncaring.

Women, children, and slaves cowered in the presence of the man of the house.

Society had granted them few rights to change their situation should it become abusive.

This led to several counter-cultural commands from God in the Pauline epistles.

In Philemon, Paul tells Philemon to receive Onesimus (a believing slave) as a brother.

In Ephesians, Paul tells husbands to love their wives in the same selfless love with which Christ loved the church.

Here, Paul tells fathers not to push or stir their kids up to anger.

I believe men also struggle when it comes to nurturing and encouraging their children.

Femininity is much more conducive to nurture and encouragement.

Masculinity has a tendency to be more harsh.

By addressing fathers, Paul is dealing with the fact that the men of his day were fighting agains their culture and their own personalities.

We mustn’t throw a pity party for ourselves.

Christianity and christian principles have always gone against the cultural norms of the day.

This is especially true in parenting.

Paul is urging the fathers that read his letters to strike out on a different path than...

Their fathers took.

Their peers took.

They had taken in the past.

How does a father provoke his children?

This is easy, all we have to do is examine what it takes to provoke us as adults.

How many of you get frustrated and discouraged when it seems like you can never do the right thing?

How many of you get frustrated and discouraged when someone keeps moving the goal posts?

How about when it seems like people only see you when you mess up, but never when you succeed?

What about when you are placed in a position where you almost certainly doomed to fail, and then you get punished?

What about when you have to deal with someone that is always unpredictable in what mood they may be in.

If you get angry about any or all of these things, how do you think your kids feel?

Let’s think of another adult situation that we can apply to our children.

How many of you that are here would say, “It takes a lot to get me upset?”

How many of you would say that, “It doesn’t take much at all for me to get upset?”

How many of you have noticed that your kids tend to be one or the other?

Some are easy going.

Others are little firecrackers.

Provoking your children can be done regardless of their personality.

You can take that little boy or girl that is just so positive and cheerful and you can provoke/push them to the point of anger and resentment to you.

You can frustrate them.

You can discourage them.

In this word there is the idea of breaking their spirit.

You, dad, are especially at risk of doing this.

Some kids don’t need our help provoking them to anger.

It’s not something outside of them that we push them towards.

Instead, it is something already inside of them that we stir up/activate.

You can take that kid that already struggles with anger and you can treat them in a way that stirs up the wrath that is already within them.

This is not helping them.

You’re not being a disciplinarian, you’re being a bully.

Having high expectations of your kids, or disciplining them is not the same as provoking them, however...

When you’re involvement in their life seem to be exclusively pointing out the places where they have failed; you risk provoking them.

When you draw a line or set a standard one day, and then change it on your kids the next day, you risk provoking them.

When your kids never know if you are going to respond to them with patience and love or whether or not you will blow up on them, you are provoking them.

When you put your kids in a situation in which they are almost guaranteed to fail, and then punish them for failing, you are provoking them.

What is the alternative?

Nurture

We won’t spend a lot of time on this because it’s a word that means exactly what last week’s message was about.

It means training.

We prepare our kids in advance of each new life stage or situation.

We don’t leave things up to them, we narrow their choices to protect them.

We put safeguards in place to prevent them from getting off-track.

Admonition

This word is new.

It it is the exact opposite of what we have seen with this word provoke.

Though admonish has a negative connotation today; it’s definition is not solely that of correction.

A more accurate synonym is encourage.

A superior alternative to provoking our children to wrath is encouraging them in the Lord.

This means praising them when they do right.

This means talking to them about the way of the Lord in attractive terms.

It is easy to provoke our children to wrath. It takes the grace of God to be able to consistently nurture and encourage them in the Lord.

Be consistent.