 Colossians chapter three. Again, I mentioned we're gonna be looking at verses 20 and 21 today in as much as it's Father's Day. I wanted to emphasize these verses here. So beginning at verse 20, reading to verse 21, the apostle Paul writes, "'Children, obey your parents in all things, "'for this is well pleasing to the Lord. "'Fathers, do not provoke your children "'lest they become discouraged.'" So we've arrived at a section here in the book of Colossians where Paul begins to speak concerning family relationships. Now, as we've gone through this particular book, Paul had been encouraging the church to seek those things, he said, which are above. So as believers, they belong to a different kingdom, and Paul is exhorting them to new priorities. Even as Jesus taught us in Matthew 633, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well, while this new understanding of life and its priorities are to change the way that Christians live. This new understanding of seeking the things that are above is to change how they respond to the world, and it's to change the way the world actually responds to them. He had said in chapter one, verse 13, that God had rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son that he loves. So this new way of living is fueled by our love for the Lord and our desire to be with Jesus Christ. And this is to be the attitude and the way of life of every believer and every follower of Christ. That's simply being a Christian, loving God and ordering everything under that as our top priority. Paul was speaking to the Philippian church in chapter three and verses seven through nine, and he said, whatever was to my profit, I now consider a loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God, and is by faith. So this attitude of seeking the kingdom first is what sets the foundation of our life. It sets foundation for everything. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That's the foundation of every believer's life. That's supposed to be my foundation. So seeking the kingdom first is a foundation for all other things. And so Paul has made that very clear. The seeking the kingdom first affects everything. It affects how you see yourself as a believer. It affects how you respond to teachers and their teachings. It affects how you view the troubles that you endure. It affects how you relate to your church family and other believers in general. It affects everything. And Paul has been saying that up to this time. When we got to chapter three, verses 12 through 17, he outlined how the Christian community is to live. In verses 18 and 19, he speaks of how this new mindset works in marriage. And in verses 20 and 21, he speaks of relationships between parents and their children. That's what we'll look at today as we look at verses 20 and 21. So again, in verse 20, notice what Paul writes. He says, children, obey your parents and all things for this. He says, it's well pleasing to the Lord. Children are commanded to obey their parents, but someone asks the question, why? Why should they? Why is it necessary for children to obey their parents? Well, the first thing is, God created us in such a way that by nature, you know that that's right. In Ephesians six, verses one through three, Paul said to the church there, children, obey your parents and the Lord. For this, he said, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. So when he speaks concerning this command, this command he said that is the first with promise, the command that he's speaking of is one of the 10 commandments. When you look at the 10 commandments, you have the first four. The first four of the 10 commandments found in the book of Exodus chapter 20, the first four of those commands that are given are commandments that relate to man's relationship with God. So when you look at the first four commands that speaks specifically of my obligations to my God, that's why he says I'm to honor, that's why he says I'm to have no other gods before God, that I'm not to worship idols, that I'm not to take his name in vain, that I'm to keep the Sabbath. Those first four are the foundation and so that's the relationship that I have, that's that vertical relationship that I have, me and my God. So that's a vertical relationship but there are other relationships that are horizontal. Those relationships relate to how I take my faith in God and work it out amongst people. And so the commands that follow the first four are commands that speak of man's obligations to other men. And honoring your father and your mother is actually presented to us as a fruit of my relationship to God. If I am obeying the first four, the fruit of that will be how I relate to mom and dad and it's interesting that he says honor your parents in all things, honor your father and your mother. And it's brought out that this is a command with promise. Honoring your father and your mother is a fruit of the relationship I have with my God. So as children, he's saying you owe your parents obedience and you are to follow their proper orders. A godly parents advice can save a child great heartache and unnecessary pain. You see we who are parents gain to experience over our lifetimes that can help our children avoid the mistakes that we made. And a child is protected and the character is developed when they pay attention to the commands that are given and by obeying their lives can be blessed by God. In Proverbs three, one and two, my son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands for length of days and long life and peace, they will add to you. Listen to me when I speak to you. Do the things that I'm saying and you can actually live longer. My mom tried to teach me to follow commands. I wasn't real good at following them, but she tried. She tried to teach me not to do certain things, not to go certain places. She did her best, the best that she could do at that time. I can still remember my mom had habits that I thought were kind of cool and interesting. And my mom would say to me, you need to stay away from this, not do that, but one of the things my mom did when I was young is my mom smoked. And my mom, she looks just so cool. Now she was telling me stay away from fire all my life because fire burns and you can be hurt. But I was watching my mom and my mom was at that time a smoker. She stopped smoking when she got saved. But prior to that my mom smoked a pack every day. I used to go score her cigarettes for her at the liquor store. They used to give us little notes and I'd say one package of such and so. It used to be a quarter at that time and I'd go and buy her cigarettes and I did that. And so I started wanting them. So I started forging and I'd go buy myself a pack. And I was probably about 10 years old. And I'd say please give my son a package of cigarettes. And I can still remember. My mom would stand by the stove and my mom would put that cigarette in her mouth and she would turn the flame and she'd lean over and she'd put that cigarette and then she'd pull back and she'd take a hit and the smoke would just waft into her eyes and she'd get this dreamy kind of cool look. I said, man, I gotta be cool like that. I gotta be cool like that. And I was about, at this time I was about 15. And so I was what they called a continental. Only old people know what that is and you had to probably come from my area. That's the guys who used to wear their hair out kind of a jelly roll kind of thing. All slick and cool. And used to spray like a half a can of spray on it. So if I was riding a motorcycle and I fell off it wouldn't hurt my head if I hit the ground. It was so hard. But I had that kind of look, you know? And I remember trying to do what my mom did. I still remember. Mama said, stay away from fire. But you know, you need fire to light a cigarette. And I put it in my mouth and I light the burner and I put my cigarette and my hair caught on fire because it had all of that hair spray on it. And I still remember pulling back, looking like Wiley Coyote from the Road Runner. And my hair was like that and I was hitting my head and it all kind of curled up. You know, it all curled. So I had the first Afro in Norwalk. I still remember that very well. And they tell you to do things or not to do things, not so that they can rain on your parade, but to keep you safe. And when my mom would say, don't do this or do that, it was so that you would help to preserve my life. And if I learned to do the right kind of things by following the orders, then my life would have been prolonged. It would be a blessing. And in a sense, that's basically what we're seeing. Honor your father and mother. This is a command with promise. It's the first command with promise he's saying to us because that may provide for his long life. And so God was giving to us advice to follow advice, actually commands to follow the advice and direction of our parents because a parent's advice saves a child great heartache and unnecessary pain. Now, sometimes our friends when we're growing up or some other adult can become a surrogate parent. That's especially true when either or both of the parents are uninvolved in a child's life. A child needs somebody to help to direct them. And what a child will do if the parent doesn't provide that form is they'll find someone who will. So there may be a coach or there may be a teacher, there may be a principal, a counselor, or just one of their friends. And that's a person that they begin to trust and that's a person they begin to listen to and it's a wonderful thing if it has to be at all when that coach or whatever is a God fearing, a believer, somebody who can help them, that's better than nothing. But very often they're not. And very often the person who's giving the kid directions isn't even an adult. Many times it's a friend. And the bottom line is we need to remember our friends normally don't love us the way our parents do. And often time they will not give counsel to do the right thing, especially when we're dealing with life-changing decisions. So we're thinking, you know, I'd like to drink and we speak to one of our friends. We say, you know, that looks good. I see this on TV all the time, my mom and dad drink or I'm thinking about, and your friends say, well, go ahead, no big deal. Or you're thinking, you know, I want to take off, do something, mom and dad are gone, mom's gone, dad's gone. I wonder if I could just take the car without them knowing. And when your friends will say, well, why not? Let's go. Or you're starting to make life choices and you like somebody and you're starting to think, I wonder if I should sleep with this person, have sex with them. And you talk to your friend and your friend says, can't hurt, might as well. That's kind of what happens a lot is we ask people who don't really care for us and our future for advice. You see a responsible, caring Christian parent simply wants their kid to be blessed. And in the end, God's word commands children to obey their parents in the Lord. Now Paul has been speaking of unity in the church and that principle of unity is also in the family. Obedience to parents is seen as a fruit of a child's relationship to God. Under the foundation of submission to God is the proper ordering of a family. And the actual fact is obeying and honoring a parent is to honor and obey God. You see as children we owed our parents our obedience but as we grew to be adults we now owe them honor and we show our honor to our parents by loving them and respecting them, by being concerned for them and helping them. You see when we have that attitude it opens children up to the blessings God has. And obeying parents, they have the greatest chance of living a blessed life. In Proverbs 7, one through three it reads, my son, keep my words and treasure my commands within you. Keep my commands and live and my law as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart. So bringing children of faith in Christ is of utmost importance. It's a spiritual task and it's filled with spiritual warfare. It isn't easy, there's no guarantee of success because our children possess wills. And that makes it all the more difficult to impart the faith of Christ to our children. But raising children who fear the Lord is difficult and there's no guarantee of our success. Now read your Bible. Some of the most godly people in scripture have had some very ungodly children. It begins with Adam and Eve. They had a son named Cain. Noah had a son named Ham. Allie the priest had Hofney and Phineas. Samuel had sons named Joel and Abiyah. David had Amnon and Absalom. Solomon had a son named Jeroboam. Obviously, godly parents can raise ungodly children. We Christians are handed the baton of faith from faithful witnesses who shared with us. And we are especially responsible to share this knowledge of God with our children, regardless of whether they listen or not because we're laying a foundation in their lives. I knew that I was supplying their conscience with ammunition so that when I would give them the word of God in devotions, I would pray with my children. When Marie would do that, that this was information that was being poured into them so that in their moments of temptation and making decisions, they would make decisions based on what they knew. And their conscience was being informed by God's word. Their conscience will accuse them or excuse them. It's kind of, it's not the Holy Spirit, but it is a lot of information that they can draw from to make decisions. And when they would make the wrong one, it would violate their conscience. And so part of what I wanted to do in their life was to supply them with the biblical answers to the questions that they one day would have. And if they made decisions that violated that, that that could be a place where conviction could occur. And that's what I wanted to do. And I knew that it was God's call in my life. It was my responsibility to do that. In Deuteronomy in chapter four, verses nine and 10, it reads, be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Remember the day you stood before the Lord, your God at horror when he said to me, assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children. See, so God gave the word to Moses and Moses gave the word to the children of Israel. The children of Israel were to give that word to their children and to their children's children. The grandparents were to have an influence and impact in the lives of the babies. So bringing Christ to the children is of utmost importance. It's a spiritual task. We have to work at it very hard. We must be dedicated to do it. Joshua 24, 15 says it like this, if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. Whether the gods or fathers serve beyond the river or the gods of the amorites in whose land you're living. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And so there's that decision you make. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Now, you have to make that decision. There are those who say, well, I'm gonna let my child decide what faith, if any, they're gonna have when they get older. That's unwise and it actually reveals the parents' own lack of a real faith. Because God's word makes it clear that parents are to take responsibility to ingrain faith in Jesus. And that's because we are their first and their most basic teachers. Think about it if you're a parent. We teach our children everything. We teach our children how to talk. We taught them how to walk. We teach them how to chew their food with their mouths closed and not to speak with their mouths full. We teach them courtesy and patience. We teach them trust and love. We teach them to respect each other. We teach them how to dress themselves. How to comb their hair. And then we get mad when they dress weird and have strange haircuts. We show them how to wash behind their ears to brush their teeth and things like how to make sandwiches, how to pour milk without spilling it. We teach them how to blow their own noses to take their own bath, to put on their shoes. We teach them not to speak to strangers. We teach them to look both ways before they cross the street. We teach them not to ride on the car seats, not to pull wallpaper off the walls. How to wash dishes, how to mow lawns so we don't have to. How to pick up after the dog. Don't be mean to the cat too often. We teach them how to clean up their rooms to take the trash out. We teach them to be nice to other kids, to share their toys. We teach them how to drive. And then we suddenly hurt when we realize they're driving away from us. We teach our sons to shave their faces. Our daughters to shave their legs. And then we get mad when they use our razors. We teach our girls how to apply makeup and encourage our boys not to. We make them use deodorant and breath mints. And one day we send them out on their first date after embarrassing them by staring at their dates when they come over and making them meet Grammy. We wonder if they'll ever move out yet when we do meet the one they finally marry who never is good enough. We end up mortgaging the house for a wedding. We cry when they leave. We get mad when they don't visit and we miss seeing the grandchildren. It's all part of life. We do this. We taught them so many things. But then in matters of eternity we say find your own way, make your own choice. Choose your own God. That just never has made any sense to me. The Bible teaches that we parents are to carefully raise our kids to love the Lord. This isn't something that's natural for them. They're born with a nature that's in rebellion. Proverbs 14-12 says there's a way that seems right to a man. In the end it ends in death. This is why we parents are given command to raise our children in the Lord. It's our responsibility to train up our children in the things of the Lord. It's not the churches. It's not our schools or our friends. It's not the childcare personnel. It's not members of our family. It's not their job. It's our job. And to do this we parents adopt the values of the kingdom, not of the world. And we need proper priorities and we need to hold fast consistently to them over a lifetime. And as we grow in maturity our kids will continue to be influenced in their own. Our priorities must be built on our Christian faith and how we can give that faith to our kids. And that requires time. It requires sacrifice. It requires prayer and careful education in the ways of God. And we need to realize how important it is to raise our kids to love the Lord. Our kids grow quickly. We need to give them attention and training while we have them. There are millions that are being neglected. Many that are actually raising themselves. They're dropped off at movies late at night. Dropped off in malls or left at a stranger's home. And the result is a growing rebellion in every facet of our society. Proverbs 30, 11 and 12 says, there's a generation that curses its father does not bless its mother. There's a generation that is pure in its own eyes. It is not washed from its filthiness. And I believe we are living in a time when this generation is recognizable. It's amongst us now. Many years ago, God began a move that was called the Jesus Revolution. And in that revolution, many young people came to the Lord and lives were changed radically. But it seems obvious that many who are veterans of that revolution fail to pass on the knowledge of Christ to their children. In the book of Judges chapter two, verse seven, it reads, the people serve the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the Lord which he had done for Israel. And in verse 10, he goes on to say, when all that generation had gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel. And we're seeing that today. People who were veterans of a movement of God, people who got saved in this amazing movement that was called the Jesus movement, who failed for some reason or other to hand their faith to their kids. And so for us, this teaching is intended to encourage us to do our best, to teach our kids. Now I say it like this, this has been a difficult journey for me. I haven't been the perfect father. I've tried, but I fail like everybody else. I'm simply somebody on the same journey with you. My children are older now. That doesn't mean I cease being a father to them. I still am that influence in their life. I still am that major focus of their attention. I still am because that's what dads are. But my part as a parent has always been to do my best to teach my children life skills and spiritual lessons. In Psalm 78 verses two through four, it says, I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard and known. Our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done. And that's what we do. We talk, we share, not just with our kids but I now as a grandfather with my grandchildren. The other day I was speaking to my grandson, my Josiah who soon to be 16. He's got a little girl, girlfriend. Not a little girl, girlfriend. Somebody's like, oh boy. No, I call her a little girl. She says, girlfriend. We had a talk. He and I the other day in my office came in and I said, so you got a young lady, huh? Yes, he calls me papa. He says, yes papa. I said, well, that's wonderful. And I began to speak to him. I said, my son, because I call him my son. I said, my son, make sure that your relationship is in the Lord. Make sure that Jesus is there, please. You at a young age may not see the need because you're just dating. But see, I taught my kids this when they would say, we're just going out on a date. I would say, I married the girl I took out on dates. That's how it happens. So I was having a grandfather, grandson visit the other day in my office. Why? Why am I meddling in his life? Because that's my job to meddle. Because I'm gonna take these dark sayings, these hidden sayings that took time for God to reveal to me through his word, by his spirit. And I wanna utter them to my children and to my children's children so that they might have a relationship with the God who blessed me. And I told my grandson, I said, do you see your grandmother and me? He said, yeah. I said, do you think we have a good relationship, son? He says, yes, Papa. And I said, how do you think we ended up with a good relationship, Sai? How? I said, we put Jesus first. You've got to learn that as a young man. You've got to learn these things early in your life. That's the bottom line. See, so that's what we do. So I don't speak to you as somebody who's completely perfect. I might have a fault somewhere, I'm not aware of. No, I don't, I'm just speaking to you as a fellow traveler on the same road. And I really believe that that is important for us. Bible teaches for us to instruct our family. And so he says that in verse 21 here in chapter three of Colossians, fathers do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. So Paul speaks to the fathers because fathers are the natural representative of authority. Under ordinary circumstances, fathers have less gentle ways of caring for kids. We can be more direct, more impatient, less understanding, less tender. He's saying to us as fathers, he's saying, don't provoke your children. I'll show you another scripture in a moment. But we're different than the mamas and all. I mean, if you're watching your kid, your father on the sidelines, you're sitting there in the bleachers, your kid's playing the little league, and someone hits the ball and the kid gets hit, you know. What do you yell to your kid? If he's the guy who got hit by the ball, you yell to him, shake it off. Shake it off, man. Shake it off. Mama's running out there with a cry towel. Oh, my baby, my baby, you know, but the guy's the same man you get. That's what happens in sports. You get hit by the ball. Shake it off, right? I can still remember my Joseph. Joseph was playing third base. It was a little league game. He was about eight or nine at the most. He played third, and I still remember that the kid hit, drive down third base line, couple bounces, and he hit Joseph in the chest. Boom. And he bent down, picked the ball up and promptly threw it over the first baseman's head. The kid ran to second base. And Joseph's just standing there. The third out came, but I knew my son. I knew my son. So I climbed out of the bleachers and I walked over to the sidelines, to the fence, where he would be coming by to get into the dugout. And the second he saw me, he came running to me and he jumped into my arms and I held him and let him cry it out because he got hurt, you know? But then I said, son, this is baseball. This is what happens. You get hit and it hurts. So shake it off. Get back in there, play the game, because that's what you do. Mama would have taken him home with a snow cone. Me, sit on the bench and shake it off because that's what you do. Fathers can be that way. We play rougher, you know? We encourage competition. We do teach them to play fair, play hard, but play fair. We want them to be courageous in life. We share with them, take some chances, see what'll happen. We encourage them to have personal discipline. That's what we as fathers do. And very often a father is less physically affectionate. We kind of figure that mama's had that maternal instinct and we don't have it, let's face it. I mean, if we're yelling at our kids, shake it off instead of mama's crying and dad saying, oh yeah, I've been hit, I know it hurts, yeah, you'll get over it. We just don't have exactly the same amount of affection in all of that. That's a fact and we know that. But it's interesting, that was one of the things that I was aware of very early in life. Let me share this briefly with you. And so I made a decision as a man that I wanted to be more physically affectionate. Because I came from that background where it really was divided, roles were divided much differently than today. And so mama's showed certain affection and dad showed their affection differently. My dad was one who didn't show any affection. He never said I love you, he didn't reach out to touch you. He didn't do any of that. And I grew up saying that's what men are like and I never felt unloved. I knew my dad loved me because he told me, he said I put shoes on your feet, I put food on the table, I get up and go to work and I bring home a paycheck and I make sure you have a house to live in. And that's how I, and I think a lot of us were raised, my dad did these things and that showed me he loved me. So I didn't necessarily have to have him draw me over, hug me, I didn't have to have that. I was good with the way he was. I never thought he should do it in the house. That was him, but I at the same time thought this. I said, you know, it would have been nice to have a father who was more confident in his affection and didn't feel that it was not a good thing. So I made a decision and how did I make the decision? I've told you this before by reading the Bible. And as I read the Bible, I looked at the most manly man who ever lived. When you think of Jesus Christ, sometimes you may think of him improperly. A lot of it has to do with medieval artists who would draw pictures of Jesus with a little sad smile and a lamb in his hands. But when you read the Bible, and Jesus was a carpenter, not only was he a carpenter working with wood, which means that he got splinters in his hands, but he also was a stone mason. And Jesus wouldn't go to Bethlehem Lumber to get a tree. Jesus would go out to a forest and he would cut it down. Then he would transport it back to a shop. Then he would work with that wood with his hands. Jesus's back undoubtedly was strong. Undoubtedly he had powerful shoulders and powerful arms and powerful legs because that's what he did. He carried things. He worked with his hands. I'm sure he had a rough look to him. Sometimes we think, oh, he would have been a beautiful man. I suspect he was just an average-looking Jewish man of his day, but he was every bit a man. And yet, when I look at this man that was strong and authoritative, I also see people bring a baby to him and I see him hold it. Bible talks about it. He held those babies and he blessed them. And as a new believer, I'm reading the Bible. And it says, and they brought children to him to bless and he held them in his hands. So I'd never held kids. I wouldn't even hold my own nephews. The first kids I ever really held were my own. And so I'm thinking, it's okay. It's okay, it's okay. It's not like, oh, I've been longing to do this, but I guess it's okay too. And that's what started changing my mind. You believe this or not, you don't have to, it doesn't matter, but it's true. I never cried. I didn't cry. I got arrested for breaking into a jewelry store and stealing diamond rings and the lawyer representing me told my dad, this kid has no emotions. He hasn't shown a single bit of remorse or any sorrow over what he did because I wouldn't cry. I didn't cry in front of people. How come I cry now? I asked myself that, how come I cry now? You know why? Because Jesus wept over a city called Jerusalem and he wept over a friend in Lazarus. And I said, you mean it's okay to hurt sometimes? It's okay to have sorrow that people note Jesus wept and he's still a man? I learned that from reading the Bible. Holding children, showing your emotions. How comfortable Christ was with men when you read about John putting his head on Jesus' chest. What man in here would want me to walk up and put my head on your, what man? He said, oh man, come on, what are you doing? You know what I'm saying? I just read the Bible and I said, do you mean there are natural affectionate ways I as a man can be? Why not be that with my children? And why not be that with my sons? Because I want my sons to be men in every way. A man is to be a man. And so just last week, Bill Page was here excuse me, I was in the back and I was in church in the back in my office. And after church, Bill came back there and as he was seated, both of my sons at different times came walking in. My son David comes walking in. David's 40 years old. My son David walks in. First thing my son does is he sees me seated there. He walks up and kisses me on the side of the face. Hi dad and hugs me. I say, hi papa, how are you? He walks out. Five minutes, 10 minutes later Joseph walks in. Walks directly up to me, puts his arms around me, kisses me on my face. Dad, how are you papa? I'm good son, good, doing good. And Bill's sitting there and he looks at me and he goes, I wish I'd have seen this before I preached today. He says, because that's what I was trying to say. Affection and love in the body of Christ should be expressed in a natural way. And I said, you know Bill to be honest with you, I raised my kids, my boys, I raised them to be men and men show emotion and men love one another. I said, my pops, my dad never did that but I knew he loved me. I just made a decision that I was gonna break some barriers and that my sons would know how to love. Not just me, but they would learn how to love their children. That's what I really wanted. Not for them to show daddy affection, I'm good with that either way. But I want them to love their babies. And that's how I went about doing it. And men, there's nothing wrong with loving your babies, holding your babies, telling them every day how deeply you love them and letting them know that you break your back to put food on the table because that's how important they are to you. That's what fathers do. And that's how we're gonna change a society and the men will actually grow up to be real men. Not effeminate men, just total men because Jesus Christ is a total man. And that's what we want to be. That's how it works. So we show affection. Now we're less verbal than our wives. This is interesting. I read that women talk almost three times as much as men with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words a day, 13,000 more than the average man. I'll let that speak for itself. So we don't speak that much, but what we say matters. Now, we're different obviously than moms. Notice how we're commanded not to provoke our kids. We're not supposed to provoke them. That word provoke speaks of irritating them. And we irritate them by constant fault-finding, harsh commands. It speaks of bullying them with constant stupid orders and discouraging them. And the result of this treatment discourages the child. They can never please us. They're never good enough. So they lose hope of ever doing so. They grow up never hearing the words, good job, well done. I'm proud of you. They grow up thinking they'll just never be good enough. Someone said, he who always finds fault with the child who is never satisfied with what he does, who scolds and complains, eventually breaks his spirit and destroys in the delicate texture of his soul all desire of doing well. The broken child soon gives up every effort to please. He becomes sullen and indifferent since all that he does meets with the same reception from the parent. There are those today who say, we don't even need fathers in the home. If you're not watching the news or reading, that's being commonly said today. In the woman's movement, they're saying, we don't need men, we don't need you. We can do fine ourselves. The federal judge that overturned Prop 8, his name is Von Walker, said this in his ruling. He said, children do not need to be raised by a male parent and female parent to be well adjusted. And having both a male and female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well adjusted. Indeed, the evidence shows beyond any doubt that parents' genders are irrelevant to children's developmental outcomes. And so with a swoop of a pen, he completely threw away thousands of years of history and experience. We don't need men. And yet I was reading that a child, if a child in the home gets saved, there's a 3.5% chance that the others in the family will follow and become Christians. If a mother is the first to become a Christian, there's a 17% chance that the others will get saved also. But if a father gets saved first, 93%, there's a 93% chance everyone will follow the father's lead. That's how influential a father is in the home. When your father gets saved, the children have a tendency of following after their father. And so we have a responsibility. And I want you to see that again in verse 21. Do not provoke your children unless they become discouraged. You see in a society where a father's word was law, that was a new concept. The parent-child relationship is not to be one-sided. The child's feelings are to be considered. Now when he was speaking of this to the Ephesians in chapter six, verse four, Paul said, fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. In other words, fathers, love your kids. Treat them with kindness, treat them with gentleness. Correct your children with affection and concern, not with anger. Bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. To bring them up speaks of nourishing our children. Training is instruction which aims at increasing their virtue and admonition speaks of appealing to their understanding or exhorting them. He's saying nourish them, discipline them in the love of Christ. Use God's word as your guideline. Our instructions, our examples, encourage them to live godly lives. He's teaching us, don't break the spirit of your child. Direct it and shape it. Like it says in Proverbs 22.6, train up a child in the way you should go. When he's old, he'll not depart from it. When he says train, he's saying provoke them. Provoke them in a direction that is conformed to their temperament and gifts. And that's gonna produce a worldview that's founded on the word of God. It's gonna establish clear understanding for them. And so what do we do? Well, as a father, what am I supposed to do to encourage my kids, Father the Lord? Let me close with this. One, get married before you have children. And do your best to remain married. There are a lot of children who are right now being raised by moms and dad is absent. And dad goes out and has a relationship. Child is born and that child is not born with the benefit of having a father in the house. So make sure that you marry the woman before you have children with her. A second thing you can do is decide that you'll serve the Lord and raise your children to do so also. And so I'll close with a few suggestions for fathers to train up our kids. First, I'll close with this. First, love your wife deeply. Treat her with respect and tenderness before your children that they may see this. Love her deeply. My father, as I've said, was a very, very private man. His affections were very private. And yet I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was only one woman in his life that would ever exist. That was my mom. My dad never used my mom's name. He did when he spoke of her to friends, he'd say Bonnie. I didn't even know my mom's name. My mom had seven names, seven names. Every one of her sisters and brothers gave her a name. So her name was Bonnie Bertina Benita, Elizabeth. I don't know what her name is. We just call her Bon Bon. Her name was Bonnie, as far as I knew it. But my dad didn't use that name other than he would say it to friends. He'd say Bonnie. But when he was home, my father didn't use her name. My father didn't call her by her name. And all my life, you know what he called? He called her mama. That was mama, it was mama. So that's why at home he would speak to her and she was doing, he'd say mama. And that was it, that's all. And you know what's so tender about that memory for me is when my father had a heart attack and he was in the hospital and they had him hooked up with all of these tubes. And he passed on, he went to heaven. But prior to that, when my dad was in the hospital, my mom talked to me and she said to me, she said, you know, they won't let me into the room with him because he had a heart attack. She said in the second he sees me, his heart races. And the doctor said, I can't allow you into the room with this man. It's dangerous for him to have you in there. Because a minute he looked at her, his heart would start fluttering for this woman he was married to for 53 years. And he looked at her and mama said, you know the last thing he ever said to me? And I said, what? He mouthed because he had all these tubes in his throat. He mouthed his last words and you know what it was? He just said mama, mama. He never lectured me about how to love a woman. He just did. And some of you, if you know me, some of you do off of this pulpit and hang around, drink a coffee or whatever. You know, I don't call Marie by her name. I call her mama. That's her name. That's the name I've called her for over 40 years. Mama, why? Because that is a beautiful name for someone you love with all of your heart. My dad taught me that. Love, love your wife, father. Love her openly. Love her passionately. The children will know and you're doing them a favor by loving their mother. Number one, love your wife. Number two, love your children. Love your children openly. Tell them how much you love them and show them with unashamed affection. At a certain point, they're gonna say, Dad, drop me off three blocks from the school. They're gonna do that, that's okay. But be as unashamed affection wise as is allowable. Three, understand that you are their father and you're not their buddy. That's where a lot of people make a mistake. Fathers try to be like the pal. My kids don't need a big friend. They needed a dad and I understood that. Four, spend time with them because quantity of time is what they need. Some people say, oh, I give them quality time but not a quantity of time. I don't think that's wise. Well, why not? Quantity's better than quality, really? Rather quality's more than quantity. Oh really, so go and buy yourself a steak and they'll bring you a small slice and they'll say, but this is quality and I'd rather doubt that you'd like that. I'd say I want some quality and quantity too, if I may, I don't want an inch slice of filet. I'd like the whole thing, please. Well, when it comes to relationships with our kids, not only do you give them quality time but give them quantity time, spend time with them. Teach them. Teach them that working hard provides for them. Be responsible in front of them. Discipline them, not harshly and angrily but firmly and seriously. Encourage them, encourage them to study, to do well in school. Teach them, teach them to take personal responsibility for their actions and teach them to be humble but especially teach them to love the Lord, to love God's word, to love God's people. Do devotions with them, open the word, pray with them, tell them how much you love them because your example will last through their lifetime. And again, I made a decision to love my children, not so that they would just simply love me. But I made a decision to love my children so that one day they would love their own. I want them to take the baton of love for Christ and family and hand it to their children. And the way that I've gone about doing that is I have loved them openly. I've loved them fervently. I've loved them faithfully. I've loved them spiritually. I've loved them as a father and I will love them to the day that they put me in the ground. And when my kids stand up and speak of their father, they will speak words of truth. They won't have to make something up about that guy to impress people. They'll speak from their heart and they'll say, this is the man who raised me. This is the man who was my father. This is the man you didn't know, but this is the man who made me into the person I am. I can say that of my dad and I want my children to say that of theirs and that's being a father. May we become fathers to our children.