Fatherhood - Colossians 3 21 — Mack Tomlinson

The Negative Admonitions to Husbands and Fathers

Colossians chapter 3. We're going to hear and look at and examine two verses. I'm speaking today and God willing next Lord's Day on the subject of fathers, being a father, fatherhood. Today is part one.

Today is the negative admonition. God willing, next Lord's Day, we'll see the positive side. So Colossians 3. Two verses we're going to read. Verse 19 and verse 21. Colossians 3 .19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

Verse 21. Fathers, do not provoke your children. Ephesians 6 .4 adds, do not provoke them to anger. Do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Let's pray. And then we will look at the heart of these verses.

Father, thank You for the Bible. Thank You that it is words that are true and unchanging, that men cannot alter except to their own destruction, that will never pass away. And we thank You this morning for the privilege of setting our minds on things above and equipping us as families more to be what You want to make us as husbands and wives and families.

Lord, so speak this morning in the way only that You can. Give us Your Holy Spirit for utterance, for spiritual sight, for spiritual hearing, for receptive hearts. Give us faith as we hear, Lord Jesus, Your voice.

For Your glory we pray, Amen. In the 1960's, the Beatles, some of you have never heard them, and you never should, they had a hit song called The Long and Winding Road. Anybody remember that? No. Well, good.

But here's some lyrics that were in it. The long and winding road will never disappear. The wild and windy night has left a pool of tears. Many times I've been alone, and many times I've cried. You'll never know the many ways I've tried, and still they lead me back to that long and winding road.

Words and phrases there, long and winding road, wild and windy night, tears, being alone, feeling alone, many times crying, many ways trying, and it doesn't seem always to work. And they lead me back to that long and winding road of fatherhood.

Fatherhood as a Lifelong Calling

I want to speak to present fathers and future fathers. I want to speak about this difficult challenge today of being a father, and what major pitfall to at all costs avoid. Now, I want to ask young couples, I think I asked Nathaniel this, I don't remember, he'll remember.

Was marriage, I know I asked Philip Hensley, was marriage or having children a bigger adjustment? How about you, Lee? Both children, he says. Married or married with children? I think for me, it was having children too, because it took my exposure of my self-centeredness to a new level.

Now, it wasn't just she and I. We couldn't on Saturday mornings just lay in bed, have coffee, and read missionary biographies, which we did the whole first summer. No, marriage with children was a different adjustment for me.

Being a father, it begins when your first child is conceived. And you pick up the phone. Mom! Dad! I'm a dad! I don't know if mothers having a first baby do that, but dads do. I'm a dad. It starts then.

Fatherhood starts then. And it ends when you die and you are gone. It's truly a long and winding road. Many curves, many hills to climb. A friend of ours who sang, he was a groomsman in our wedding in May of 1978, and he was a musician and he sang this hymn or this contemporary song, Climb the Hill Together.

And I talked to him on the phone last week. It was our 41st wedding anniversary. I talked to my friend, and he said in hanging up, keep climbing the hill together. He remembered. And he knew I would remember.

Being a father, I'm speaking about fathers and parents today also. I'm speaking to fathers and parents. Now those of you who perhaps had a bad father, or an absentee father, or no father, please don't let this message discourage you today.

It's not meant for that. Indeed, I don't want it to discourage you. I had no father to raise me. My father died when I was eight. My adoptive father died when I was 11. Having no dad, I would never know what it would be like to have time spent together, to have direction, family trips, or guidance, correction, encouragement, or memories.

Some of you have had great fathers. Some of you today sitting here have great and awesome, wonderful fathers. Some of you have had a poor father, a good or a bad one, and some have had no father. But now in this room today, you men who are dads, you are fathers.

The fact is, fatherhood is a great privilege. It is a high calling. Children are a heritage from the Lord. And the fruit of the womb is what? His reward. It's a great honor. It's a deep reality. It's a great mystery, fatherhood.

And it's a mammoth and unending responsibility. Those in this room today who are fathers, we run the whole spectrum from new fathers, brand new dads in our church, who right now are experiencing the joys of sleepless nights, and increasing diapers.

I calculated one time with six children how many diapers we purchased. I wasn't good at the math, but it was a lot. So we have dads here who are fathers of toddlers, five-year-olds, 10, 20-year-olds, and then those with children in their 30s and approaching 40.

You have children, some of you, perhaps here, have children that are older than them. All different places as fathers, different experiences, different joys, different struggles. Fathering like motherhood is the lifelong work that's difficult and challenging and rewarding.

But, the common single fact is this. Fathers, are you listening? When a child is born into this world, every parent has been entrusted with an eternal soul in the person of that little bundle of beautiful and cute.

That's an eternal soul. We have been entrusted with the lifelong stewardship of an eternal soul. As a dad, you have been entrusted with this great reality of being a father. Now, so let's unpack this today with some introductory general thoughts, biblical thoughts.

In the Old Testament, fathers were told, in essence, to take the truth and to instruct their families, instruct their children, and to live a life that trains and exemplifies and models godliness. Take the truth.

Instruct. Live a life that models godliness and the reality of God. In the New Testament, it's quite remarkable, though we know how important fatherhood is, it's amazing how minimal amount of material there is or instruction there on the issue of being a father as far as specific responsibilities.

Very little given as far as specific directives. For example, two verses in all the New Testament tell fathers how to be. And both are negative commands prohibiting something. I may have missed something.

My elders will surely correct me if I have. But it's pretty minimal. Both are negative commands prohibiting something. Fathers, do not. All the New Testament says specifically to parents, and particularly fathers, do not discourage or embitter or provoke your children.

Don't do it. Colossians 3 .21. Ephesians 6 .4 Don't provoke your children to anger. Ephesians adds that text lest you make them angry. This is a unique and a singular and an apostolic parental guidance.

Paul does not launch into a list of principles about fatherly leadership, direction, controlling, shaping, being authoritative, trying to make your children into what you want them to be. He doesn't do that.

The New Testament says one directive to each family member. Well, three to men. Love your wife. Live with her in an understanding way. And don't provoke your children to anger. To women, be submissive to your husbands.

And I think Peter, or later it says in the New Testament, that older women are to teach younger women to love their husbands, right? But these are direct commands here. To women, be submissive to your husbands and to children, what?

Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. So let's unpack a little bit here the meaning of Colossians 3 .21. The word fathers is generic. That is, it is translated parents. Parents are in view here.

The father is the head of the family, is responsible for both parents to not do these prohibitions. Fathers can be harsh, and mothers can be harsh, right? Fathers can have bad attitudes toward their wife and children.

Mothers can have bad attitudes toward their husbands and their children. Fathers can be overbearing, and mothers at times can be overbearing. Either parent can drive children into discouragement, bitterness, withdrawing, and even anger.

Now, for the children present, the word children in the text is not referring to young children. It's referring to any children still living in the home who are being provided for who are under their parents' authority and covering.

Now, it's interesting when you just survey the different translations of these verses. Let me give you a few. The wording, the variety of it. The NIV says, fathers, don't embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

Another one, don't exasperate your children, or they will lose heart. What does exasperate mean? Literally, to irritate them or infuriate them. Don't exasperate your children, or they will lose heart.

One translation says, don't vex your children. What does vex mean? It means to annoy or frustrate them over trivial matters. Do not vex your children, or they will lose heart. The Amplified says, don't frustrate your children with trivial or unreasonable humiliating demands.

Another translation says, do not unnecessarily make your children angry or mad, so they won't feel like giving up and become resentful. Another one, loosely translated, fathers, don't nag your children.

If you're too hard to please, they will stop trying. Well, most translations say, do not provoke. Do not be provocative with your attitude, with your tone, with your words and with your action, so as to lead your children to become discouraged in heart and in mind.

Colossians 3 verse 21, don't provoke your children. Ephesians 5, love your wives. Ephesians 6, don't provoke your children. And 1 Peter 3, live with your wife in a relationally understanding way. What do all these admonitions that are short and pungent and exhortive, what do they all have in common?

Relational behavior. How you relate to your children. How you speak to them. How you treat them. How you correct them. Your tone, your attitude, your harshness, your spirit. That is all talking about behavior.

How you are and how you relate, brothers, to your wife or your children. In harsh ways. In wrong ways. In summary, the New Testament summarizes it this way. Love your wife, your children's mother. Live with her in a loving, relational way.

And do not, by your fatherly behavior, produce and provoke discouragement, bitterness in any of your children. None at all. Ever. Now, why does Paul give these specifics that way? Wives submit. Husbands love and be understanding.

Children, be obedient. Because these are tendencies that hurt the family structure and the family relationships. When husbands are provocative and harsh toward their wives or their children, when wives are rebellious in attitude and not submissive to their husbands, when children push back and are rebellious toward their parents, the family structure relationally begins to break down.

When wives resist their husbands and are not submissive, when men are harsh, when children rebel, you have one dysfunctional mess. Welcome to 21st century America, right? It's a mess. And such were some of you and some of your families.

But, Paul says, you are washed, you're sanctified, you're justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian does all things new. He does life in a brand new way. In work, in life, in marriage, and in parenting.

Husbands who once were blind and hard-hearted jerks, now are to love. Wives once stubborn, controlling women, are to live in proper God-given submission. Children, once disobedient, are to obey their parents within biblical guidelines.

So, Colossians 3 directives are actually setting the relational unity and tone and eliminating dysfunction. If a husband and father isn't loving and non-provoking, there are problems. If a wife and mother isn't submissive to her husband, problems.

If children, small or older, in the home aren't obedient, but they're rebellious, problems. Problems ensue. You, now in relation to fathers in verse 21, Paul's admonition, we've got to see this, men, is purely behavioral.

It's not cerebral. It's not what you believe theologically. It's not what you know. Not what you've read. It's how you live and behave and talk and treat your family. It's behavioral in nature. It's to shape and control.

His admonition is to shape and control our behavior toward our children. Toward your children, Paul says, don't be this way. Ephesians 6, verse 4 adds the positive. Bring them up in the nurture and admonition.

But today, only Colossians 3. Fathers, do not provoke your children. We're going to unpack this meaning of this, but let me just say this. If I, as a father, provoke or irritate or over-control or drive my children authoritatively with strictness and harshness and thus dishearten my children, discourage them, their disheartenment, their discouragement is not their fault.

It's mine. I cannot correct them for it or shift blame when I'm violating Colossians 3. It's not on them. It's on me. I've been there. I've done that. I've burned the t-shirt. But it's on us, guys. If we behave this way wrongly toward our children, it's going to produce the weeds of discouragement and being disheartened and hurting and withdrawing.

Where there is much rain, guess what? There's flooding. Amarillo's flooding right now. Kirksville, Missouri, had 13 to 15 inches of rain this last week. Where there's much rain, there's flooding. Where there's no rain, there's drought and famine.

Where there's strong wind, guess what? There's collateral damage. Listen, where there's a lack of love, where there's provoking content, there's damage always. Fathers must be relational. They must be real.

They must be humble. They must be accepting of their children. They must learn to be good listeners. They must become sensitive to their wives and their children and their grandchildren. They must be non-pushy.

They must be Colossians 3 fathers. Fathers must love their children for who they are, as they are, and not for what we want them to be. And think about it. Why would Paul just simply say, don't provoke your children?

It's quite remarkable when you think, because fathers overall can have a tendency as leaders to be pushy, to be dissatisfied, to be displeased, to always want to produce the best. And so, they become provocative in a damaging way.

We cannot conduct ourselves toward our children in such a way as to frustrate them, put them in their place, disapprove of them, or alienate them. We must, Paul's going for this, with the negative, we must win their heart.

We must win their trust. We must win their affection and inspire them. We must conduct ourselves in a manner that makes children say, that's attractive. That's winsome. That's how I want to be. That's what I need and want from Dad.

And Paul's saying, don't provoke your children, because that's what he wants. He wants loving fathers. He wants godly families. And listen, in the Roman world, the fathers, they could do anything to their children they wanted to.

They could make accusations. The fathers ruled. The family was just servants. They could even make accusations and get their children executed if they wanted to. Well, we've got to realize, our children, thank God we don't live in the Roman Empire, but we've got to see our children on this long and winding road accurately.

Children as Bearers of God's Image

Alistair Begg, and I attribute to him many thoughts and helps in these two messages. He said this, children are people just as much as their parents are. Little people, but they are people. They're not objects.

They're not toys. They're little human beings created not in our image, but in the image of God. They are His, not ours. End of quote. We are stewards, men, of this privilege of having children. They have their own brain and their own mind, don't they?

They aren't you, so don't try to make them like you. They are and they will be who they are, and we pray by God's grace, they will become what God wants them to be. Now this makes being a parent a complex and a changing thing, right?

Because a child is a different person at two years old than when they're a newborn, right? They become a wholly different person. A mom can say, suddenly my baby is taller than me. It's a new person, altogether different.

From birth, think about it, from birth to when they're 18, they're about 10 different stages of becoming 10 different people. Then you add about three more stages by the time they're 35. If you raise four children, by the time they're 40, you have parented 52 different people.

Because they're different all the way along. They change. And these persons are entrusted to our care for a time. And we will have either messed up or accomplished less if we try to make them like us, or like what we demand them be, or like what we idolize for them to be, or what we wish we had been, and are not.

The arrows in our quiver are meant to be lovingly helped to be shot forth to be themselves. Not to be kept in the quiver as showpieces of our perfect parenting. Now, what does verse 21 mean? It means that as fathers, our behavior must be, week in and week out, year, month after month, year after year, be exemplary.

In our tone, in our attitude, in our words, in our discipline, in our treatment of our children. Because if it becomes provocative, if we grow into relating to our children in an irritating way, in a harsh way, in an impatient way, it begins to brand their hearts and their minds with negative effects.

They begin to withdraw. They feel put down. They feel lesser. They feel attacked. They feel confused. And if that pattern keeps on and is not stopped, there can set in deposits and even strongholds of hurt, discouragement, bitterness, and anger.

And the seed planted takes root. And a father may be clueless and doesn't even realize that the fault lies here. Do not embitter your children. Don't live in such a way with your children that your demands are too harsh and you hurt them by how you relate to them.

Have you as a father ever had to go to your children and say, I was wrong in how I related to you. I was wrong in how I treated you. I was wrong in how I spoke to you. I was too harsh when I spanked you or corrected you.

The punishment wasn't fitting. The punishment was more than what you actually deserve. I was doing it in anger rather than in line with Scripture. Do not provoke or embitter or discourage your children.

Four Ways Fathers Frustrate and Alienate Their Children

Alistair Begg gives four ways to provoke and alienate your children. And I want to share them with you because I couldn't improve on them. How to frustrate, discourage, and alienate your children. And the reason I'm on this today is because Father's Day is two weeks away.

I don't know who's preaching and I don't know what they'll preach on. But I had on my heart to address fathers today, these two weeks. And nothing is more clear than the New Testament's primary directives that our behavior is all-important and all-shaping even more than what we profess we believe.

Even more than our Bible reading with our children and our teaching. We can nullify totally what we teach by our behavior of provoking our children. How to frustrate, discourage, and alienate your children over the years.

Injustice and the Need for Fairness

Alistair Begg. Number one. Injustice. Injustice. Children are moral beings, aren't they? And they have a God-given sense. They have it written in their conscience of fairness and rightness. And when we're not fair and just, they sense it.

Intuitively, it registers as they begin to get older. We cannot afford in anger to treat our children unjustly. A verbal scolding for a minor infraction. Letting the punishment be more severe than the behavior.

They know, children know, when it's fair treatment or when it's unjust treatment. They sense it. They may not be able to figure it all out, but fairness is built into them. How many times I've heard from my children or grandchildren, that's not fair.

Even if I do something for one of them, the others begin to think, you didn't do it for me. Is that fair? Fairness is built in. It's a God-given intuition. Parental injustice produces hurt and growing bitterness.

Consistency, Favoritism, and Comparison

Second, inconsistency. Not only injustice, but inconsistency. What do I mean? A widening gap between what I say to them and how I live. If you and I as fathers don't live out consistently what we say and what we teach, they're going to see it.

A widening gap between what I profess and how I treat my children or grandchildren. Inconsistency in your public life and how you seem with your children in public and privately how you are toward them daily, nightly.

A dad who praises God and prays at church Sunday morning, and that night he's harsh and unloving to his wife or children, his children may lay in bed alone that night in the quiet of their room and in the quiet of their heart and say, Dad praises God at church and he acts like this here.

I never want to praise God and I don't want to ever be like him. Inconsistency brands discouragement into children. Thirdly, consistency. Let's put it in the positive. Consistency is the order of the day for fathers.

Make sure you live in relation to them in private and in public, you live consistently. Be a man of God with integrity and humility and consistency whether it's with your brothers and sisters in church or your children and grandchildren.

Be consistent. Next, no favoritism and no comparison. Don't show favoritism and don't use comparison. Comparing one with another. Comparing yours to other people's children. It discourages them, it makes them feel less, it makes them feel not good enough.

It makes them feel like Dad's displeased with me, Mom's displeased with me. I'm less than. Comparison and favoritism does that. Treasure fathers. Treasure each child as an individual. And don't compare them to anybody.

Do you want the Lord comparing you to others? Treasure each one. Compliment each one. And treat them as individuals. It's just as important to praise a colored watercolor picture as a touchdown that was scored or a basket that was made or a paper that's written.

We must treat them as valuable individuals. One size does not fit all. A father and a son who like to play golf, they go for golfing lessons. The father who's been playing ten years, his lessons are different than the six-year-old who's starting.

One size doesn't fit all. Fault finding. Failure to appreciate their attempts to please you. Not lecturing them about doing their best when you feel like they haven't. But complimenting their efforts and complimenting their heart.

No comparison or favoritism shown. Then finally, last one. Severity. That's how to produce bitterness in your children. Severity will embitter, damage, and alienate your children. Always. Severity in tone and words will wound deep and possibly make wounds that won't heal for a long time.

Do not be unjust. Do not be inconsistent. Be inconsistent. No comparison and no favoritism. And do not be severe in your words, your actions, your attitude, and your heart. I want to quote Alistair Begg again.

Restoring Love, Trust, and Encouragement in Parenting

The video cannot be rewound of our children's lives. It can be replayed. It cannot be rewound. Now fathers, you are making that video every day. And it can't be rewound and started over. What does that one-time video show about me as a dad?

What will the video show about you as a father? As a mother? How you cared? How you were tender? How you spoke with controlled ways? Or how you were irritated, harsh, inconsistent? How you drove them rather than how you drew them with cords of love?

A lady author, Dorothy Nolte, wrote this about children. If a child lives with criticism, he will become critical and learn to condemn. If they live with ridicule, they learn to be shy. They'll withdraw.

If they live with hostility, they learn to fight. If they live with shame, they learn to feel guilty about everything. If they live with proper tolerance, they learn to be patient. If they live with encouragement, they learn proper confidence.

If they live with praise, they learn to appreciate. If they live with fairness, they learn justice. If they live with security, they learn faith. If they live with approval, they will properly like themselves and others.

If they live in an atmosphere of love, they learn to love and trust. Fathers, do not provoke your children to discouragement or bitterness or anger. That's the single greatest, it seems in Paul's mind, the single greatest thing to make sure you got right.

Because then, the Holy Spirit, in an atmosphere of cultivated safety and relational reality, He can flourish His work in the lives of your children. Whether they're 2 or 20 or 40. Linda and I would have a daughter if she had lived.

She died the first week. She would be 40, I think, this year. Right in there somewhere. Parenting never stops. Being a father ends when you close your eyes in death. Don't provoke your children to anger, but nourish them in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.

Amen. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we're thankful that You're our Father. That You're a perfect Father. But Lord, dad's here today. Confess we're not. Faults, blind spots, lack of sanctification, weakness, need, sin yet that is not mortified.

Lord, help us. Change us. Equip us to obey and fulfill. Colossians 3 .21. Strengthen every heart of every father today and the mothers. Lord, that You'd make our parenting more and more. Life in the Spirit.

In the joy of the Lord. With the blessing of the Lord our God upon us. In Jesus' name, Amen.