Fathers From God's Perspective

God’s Design For the Man From the Beginning

Genesis 2:15–17 ESV

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Man has a home

Man has a purpose (Ultimate purpose of course is to glorify God)

Work the Garden and Keep it

He must put forth God directed effort to work it and keep it (this is not basic housekeeping)

Gave him a command and mandate “DO NOT eat of the tree of good and evil)

God is preparing the man to make him suitable for an even greater purpose

To be a Husband and a Father

Genesis 2:23–24 ESV

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

God’s Design for the Husband

Ephesians 5:21–28 ESV

submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 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, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Some men are quick to beat their chest and say “See, I’m the boss!”

BUT WHAT IS THE STANDARD USED TO MEASURE HIS ROLE AS HEAD

He should be the spiritual leader to the family as Christ was to the church

Paul goes back to the beginning for emphasis:

Ephesians 5:31–33 ESV

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

God’s Design for the Father

Ephesians 6:1–4 ESV

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Father is the spiritual leader that takes instruction for the Lord. He must bring his children up in the DISCIPLINE AND INSTRUCTION OF THE LORD

The Man Needs to be a specific way before the wife submits and the children obey

FACTS ABOUT THE FATHERLESS HOMES

Destruction happens when there is no Father in the Home