A Word for Fathers

One of the greatest problems in our country today is a lack of fathers. A brief look at statistics will prove to any thinking person that when fatherhood is neglected a society suffers. Consider the following statistics:

92% of parents in prison are fathers.

80% of rapists were raised in a fatherless home.

71% of High School dropouts were raised in a fatherless home.

71% of pregnant teenagers are from fatherless homes

Children are 279% more likely to carry a gun and be involved in drug trafficking if they are raised without a father.

Now consider that 1 out of 3 children in the US do not have a father in the home.

If your father is in your home, you have reason to praise God. But it’s not enough to merely have a father in the home. Our goal is not to raise kids who stay out of jail or get an education. Our goal is to raise kids for the Lord.

Our text this morning is very simple. It tells fathers what not to do and what to do. That is how we will outline our message.

1. Do not provoke your children to wrath.

What doe that mean? It means don’t raise your child in such a way that they become resentful because that emotion will lead to rebellion against God. The sister verse to this is Colossians 3:21. It says:

Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

Angry, rebellious, discouraged children will go the wrong way in life. Fathers should be aware of this. How might we as fathers provoke our children to wrath? I’m going to share a few ways you can guard against this.

A. Do not be an angry father.

There are times we must discipline our children. The Bible says the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God (James 1:20). Getting angry at your kids is not going to correct their behavior. Especially if that anger is released through words.

A man controlled by his temper is not controlled by the Lord. When you lose your temper, you lose your testimony. When you talk to your children you need to recognize they have dignity. They are created in the image of God. They are not to be humiliated.

There are some who think this is the only way to discipline. They don’t realize they aren’t helping the situation at all.

I once shot a squirrel with a 30-30. It got the job done. But it was too much. The only thing left was a tail. I learned my lesson. When disciplining our children, we need to remember that we can give them too much. If we are not careful there may not be much of them left when we are done. Overcorrection can lead to discouragement and rebellion.

B. Do not be an abusive father.

It frightens me to think that there may be some children in the church who are physically abused by their father. If that is true of any child hearing this message tell someone about the abuse. There is a huge difference between biblical discipline and abuse.

Men who abuse women and children are not men at all.

Illust. At 15 years old I had to hold an abusive stepfather off by gunpoint as he was beating my mother.

Illust.- Once when I was working in Piggly Wiggly in Graceville Florida a young girl ran screaming into the store. Behind her came her father screaming at her and beating her with a broom.

Abusive fathers are not respected. They may be feared, but they are not respected. They are not leading their children to the Lord. They are driving them away.

C. Do not be an authoritarian.

13 weeks of boot camp is enough for the Marines but not for some fathers. They raise their children like they are in the military for 18 years.

The bedroom must be spotless.

The grades must be perfect.

There is no grace. There is no mercy. A godly father is filled with grace and mercy.

Illustration. A few years ago I saw a young girl in a softball uniform running down the middle of the highway. She was sobbing. Behind her was a pickup truck driving slowly. This road had traffic moving up and down it. It was hot. That poor girl was humiliated. She was tired.

I can only guess that she must have done something wrong at softball practice and her father punished her by making her run down the highway in front of his truck for all to see. That is an authoritarian father. It doesn’t encourage a child at all.

D. Do not be an absent father.

Some people hate their fathers and they have never met them. Their desertion has caused a deep seeded disgust. Children can become angry with God, jealous of others, and disillusioned about what it means to be a man because their father deserted them with no explanation.

2. Raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

What does that mean? It means to raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

We are called to discipline our children in a godly way.

We are called to disciple our children in the Word of God.

I want to share some practical ways we accomplish this.

A. We must look to our heavenly Father.

Many fathers do not have a good example to look to. Perhaps they had:

An angry father- he was avoided at all costs.

Apathetic father- he went to work and he came home.

Absent father- he wasn’t there at all.

For that reason, I want to encourage you to go easy on our men. I’m not letting them off the hook. I’m recognizing that most men have dropped the ball. Most men do not have a good example of a godly father they can look to. Even some of our good fathers did not know how to raise godly children.

I never had a man I could call dad. Frankly, I never met one I wanted to call dad. When I became a dad, I had no idea what I was doing. This is all I knew:

I don’t need to sin.

I need to stay married.

I need to be involved with my kids.

That was enough to get me started. But the only way I was able to be a halfway decent Father was I picked up a book on parenting.

It was the Bible. That’s where I looked. That’s where we are all to look.

You don’t have to have a perfect Father to be a godly dad. God has given you a book. It’s the only book you need.

The world is going to give you a lot of advice on parenting. Make sure you filter it all through the Bible. When you look to your heavenly Father you will teach your children to:

Be humble- we are all sinners in need of God’s grace.

Be content- Our treasure is not in this world but the next.

Be kind- how we treat people reveals who we are.

Be generous- God expects us to use what we have to do His work and help those in need.

Turn the other cheek- God hasn’t called us to fuss and fight and seek revenge.

Be holy- God has a standard or righteousness and He expects us by the power of the Holy Spirit to live for His glory.

Be in church- we belong with the family of God worshipping the Lord corporately in Spirit and in truth.

Dad, it’s your responsibility to teach this book to your children. You aren’t to look to the school system. You aren’t to look to the Sunday School Teacher. You are to look to your heavenly Father. He is going to teach your children through you as you explain what the Word of God says.

B. We must embrace Biblical masculinity.

Your wife can’t teach your children how to be a man like you can. What does the Bible say about Biblical masculinity?

Men are providers. They work. If they don’t provide for their own house the Bible says they are worse than an infidel (1 Tim. 5:8).

Men are strong. I don’t mean physically necessarily. You won’t need physical strength as often as you will need moral and emotional strength.

Men are to be strong against temptation. Christ modeled this in the wilderness. If you are constantly failing morally, you are giving a false understanding of what a godly man is.

Men are to be strong emotionally. I’m not saying we don’t cry. We do. But the family needs someone who can keep it together when everything is falling apart. As David lay dying among his last words to Solomon were:

“Be strong and show yourself a man (1 Kings 2:1-3).”

Men are protectors. Eph. 5:25 says men should be willing to lay down their lives for their wives just as Christ laid His down for the church. God sent men to war in the OT. You may never have to use physical force to protect your family, but your family should know that you would.

Men are leaders (1 Tim. 2:12-14). We lead the family. We are not passive. We initiate work.

We initiate conversation.

We initiate spiritual duties.

Men are servants (Gal. 513).

We change tires.

We change oil.

We fix lights.

We mow the grass.

We clean up our mess.

We cook.

In doing these things we are teaching our sons how to be a husband and our daughters what they should look for in a husband.

Our men are confused today. Masculinity is looked down upon. Men who embrace a Biblical manhood are labeled as toxic. Because of this some of our men are sitting on the sidelines. They have given up.

The only thing they are in control of in their home is the remote. Let me speak to you men. Adam was a passive husband. He passed his responsibilities off to his wife and that’s how we got in the mess we are in. Don’t do what he did.

God made you a man. There is no reason to be ashamed of that. When men are men and women are women, this world is a better place. Remember, a father is always leading his family whether he realizes it or not. He is either leading with a good example or a bad one.

C. We must love Christ.

This is the ultimate characteristic of a godly dad. A real man recognizes when someone has done something for him.

A real man knows he has sinned.

A real man knows he cannot save himself.

A real man looks at what Christ has done for him, and he is humbled. He is thankful. It is devilish to reject Christ. To come to Christ is to be what God created man to really be.

You say “I’m a man!”

Are you?

Have you come to Christ?

Have you turned from your sin?

Have you humbled yourself at the foot of the cross?

If you haven’t you are more of a devil than you are a man.

You say “I’m a good dad. I took care of my family!”

Did you?

They finished school, did they?

They got a job, did they?

They retired and grew old, did they?

What happened then?

They died didn’t they?

What about then?

Did you teach them about heaven and hell?

Did they miss heaven and lose everything?

If they did it doesn’t sound like you were a very good dad.

There is not a dad in here who has no regrets. We have all messed up. We have all made mistakes as a father. But there is one regret you don’t want to have to shoulder.

Did you know in all my years as a pastor I have never been asked to go to a hospital and speak with a dying mother about her soul. But on several occasions, I have been asked by a child to go and speak to a dying father about their father’s soul. Too often children are more burdened over their father’s soul than fathers are burdened over their children’s soul. It should be the other way around.

Where are you this morning dad?

Sometimes a dad must start over. There are places you have failed. You need to ask for forgiveness from God and maybe even your own wife and children. That’s ok. God is a God of grace. One of the greatest lessons you could teach your children is through repentance.

Maybe you are saved but your home is a wreck right now. It’s time to take the initiative. It’s time to get things right.

Maybe you are not saved. Maybe it’s time to become a real man. You need to repent and believe in Christ.

Listen to me, men. God is going to hold us accountable. There are no excuses.

We can’t pout about not having a good dad.

We can’t justify our own sin because of the example of our sinful father.

We can’t be overwhelmed with sorrow because we lost our dad too soon.

We have a responsibility in the here and now. We have to man up and be the father God has called us to be.

Let me add this. If you have a godly dad, you ought to praise God. You ought to thank your dad as well. What a blessing it must be to have a father who loves the Lord. I never had that, so I don’t know. If you have a godly dad praise the Lord and show your father how thankful you are for him.