FATHERS DISCIPLINE WELL EPHESIANS 6:4

Goldie McGoldie Blessing and honor Glory and power

Unto the ancient day From every nation

All of creation Bow for the ancient In every tongue

Oh every tongue in heaven and earth Shall declare your glory

Every knee shall bow at your throne In worship you'll be

Exalted oh God And your kingdom Shall not pass away

Oh ancient love Blessing and honor

Glory and power Unto the ancient day

From every nation All of creation Bow for the ancient

In every tongue Oh every tongue in heaven and earth

Shall declare your glory Every knee shall bow at your throne In worship you'll be

Exalted oh God And your kingdom Shall not pass away

Oh ancient love Your kingdom Your kingdom shall reign

Over all the earth Singing to the ancient of days

For none can compare To your matchless work Singing to the ancient of days

In every tongue Oh every tongue in heaven and earth Shall declare your glory

Every knee shall bow at your throne In worship you'll be

Exalted oh God And your kingdom Shall not pass away

Oh ancient love Blessing and honor

Glory and power Be unto the ancient of days

Ancient of days And some of you may remember that song We brought a very old song back

To some of you it may be new But that is an old song the church has been singing for decades now Basically what this means

The ancient of days is acknowledging that our God is The preexistent everlasting creator of all

There is none before him There is none after him All other so called gods being worshipped today

Had a beginning Our God the one true triune

God Is the beginning and the end Amen The world may not want to acknowledge that fact

They suppress the truth in their unrighteousness As some of our saints came yesterday

And saw downtown as they paraded sin And many of our brothers and sisters came here to pray

And then also went out there to share the good news of the gospel And we pray that that was fruitful

Many don't want to acknowledge God for who he is Bo But for those of us

Saints that Those of us that have tasted and seen that he's good Through the regenerating power of the

Holy Spirit Awakening us Bringing us from death to life Through the power of the blood of Christ Redeeming us

We now see him for who he is We acknowledge him as being the ancient of days

And for those of us who are in Christ today We come boldly before him don't we We get to come before that ancient of days

The one true triune God The creator of all things He is no longer

If we are in Christ today Hear me saints He is no longer your judge and executioner He is your heavenly father

That's good news That's good news We can come and worship him as such

Praise God There are no others All over the world That there are saints just like us

Gathering to worship us As we try and acknowledge every single week As we pray for a local church

And today we would love to pray for one That we've prayed for in the past First Baptist Church of Lepanto As a matter of fact if you look around Pastor Jeremiah is not here today

He is actually filling the pulpit For RJ over there His good friend Pastor RJ Platz Is the pastor at First Baptist And RJ is on a mission trip

And has asked if we could fill the pulpit there And Jeremiah has gone over to do so And so we want to pray for those saints this morning

We want to pray for Pastor Jeremiah As he's preaching And we want to pray for them That God would work in their midst

Pray for their leadership For Pastor RJ and all involved So if you wouldn't mind please

Before we start our worship Let's bow our heads Let's pray for them Dear Heavenly Father Lord we thank you

Thank you for your gracious mercy in our lives We thank you for redeeming us

And bringing us into the household of faith With a Heavenly Father that loves us

With a Savior who redeems us And allows us his righteousness

So that we can be made sons and heirs Lord we pray this morning

For our brothers and sisters At First Baptist Church there in Lepanto Lord I pray you be with them

I pray that you work in their hearts That you sanctify them That you who began a good work in them

Would see it to completion At the day of Christ Jesus as you promised Lord we pray for Pastor RJ As he's on his mission trip

Or keep him safe Allow that to be fruitful there I believe he's in Guatemala Lord I pray that you open up Gospel opportunities for him to speak the truth

And awaken those hearers God I pray for the brothers and sisters

That are here at the church There in First Baptist That you would mature them, grow them

Guide them Give them discernment With Pastor Jeremiah As he proclaims your word to them today

I pray that you give him boldness And clarity of thought I pray that you would speak through your word

Mold and guide Do the work that only you could do Lord we thank you for them

Help them to know our great love for them That feeds from your great love for us

In Christ's name Amen, amen You may be seated We actually have something Before we get into a call to worship

We have an exciting time Spencer and Angela come on up here We're gonna squeeze up This may seem like deja vu

To some of you old ones here Spencer and Angela Were members of 12 .5

Near the beginning We were over at the old building They're meeting it on our property

And they were committed members Spencer had been playing the cajon And the band And basically for a while It was just me and you

And then me and you and Karen But God moved them to Memphis And they thought

Man we're gonna go to Memphis We're gonna find a good healthy church And how many churches did y 'all attend?

Numerous ones, right? Five or six Five or six And researching And they kept calling me

Like hey what do you think of this one? I want to look into this one And then

God blessed them With an expansion of their family Right? And so that You know how that is parents

That kind of changes your perspective And they thought Man Jonesboro is a place We wanted to get away from We wanted to go to a bigger city in Memphis And then realizing church

The massive importance of a church body And a healthy church And correct me if I'm wrong

I'm not sharing y 'all's story right I'm just trying to give a synopsis of it And in the meantime He would call

They would come over They'd spend time with us and chat Until finally they were like We gotta move back I don't know what we're gonna do for work

We don't know how we're gonna do this But we're gonna We're gonna move back Because we want to be a part Of a healthy church body

And I'm grateful I've been praying that that would happen But God had changed their hearts

Through circumstances And through seeing That there is a drought

There is a famine in the land Of healthy church And King Jesus is worthy of a healthy church

Is he not? And so I'm not saying We're the pinnacle of church

Twelve -five has its warts, trust me We are only redeemed by Christ But we are seeking to say

Okay, what does King Jesus say to do? How does King Jesus say to structure? How does King Jesus say to function?

Let's try that We're not gonna do it perfectly But we're gonna try to do that And he's drawn Spencer and Angela back

They wanted to go through The new member class again So we did a one -on -one Kind of condensed thing

And unfortunately I'm not giving you another Bible It's not happening, right?

You're not getting that I've told them jokingly They only moved away So that they could come back

And get another Bible But that's not gonna happen But we as the elders

We would love to present Spencer and Angela Back to twelve -five

For affirmation To become covenant members once again They've signed the membership covenants again

They know exactly what they're stepping into And the commitment and involvement in that So members of twelve -five

If you affirm Spencer and Angela becoming part of this covenant body Once again, please stand

Amen, amen Guys, I'm excited to see how God works In y 'all's lives now

You're in now You gotta move back at this point By the way, yes They are driving from Memphis Every weekend

To come be here on Sundays Until they can get moved over So be in prayer for them

Let's pray for them now Dear Heavenly Father We thank you for your grace and mercy We thank you for how King Jesus, you are

You are raising up And growing your church Lord, you have gifts And specific

Unique people That you have called To come be a part of this particular body

And Lord, we ask That you would be with Spencer and Angela Lord, bless their families As their family is growing

Lord, give them wisdom and discernment Lord, I pray that we could be A great blessing to them

Because I know they are going to be A great blessing to us We thank you for your providence In Christ's name, amen

Amen, awesome Well, welcome guys Everybody, you can stand

Let's start off our service Let's get to it Are you ready? I'm ready to worship

We gotta start with a call to worship We're not just gonna say Oh, well, we're just gonna start We're gonna start with His words

And a read in response And our call to worship Comes from a portion of Psalm 119 Don't worry, we're not doing the whole of Psalm 119

Only a few of the verses There's a section in here Verses 89 through 96 That we want to remind ourselves

Of the glorious truths of the God That we worship this morning In the psalm, it says Forever, oh

Lord, your word Your faithfulness endures

To all generations By your appointment

They stand this day If your law had not been my delight

I will never forget your precepts

I am yours, save me Oh, the wicked lie in wait to destroy me

I have seen a limit to all perfection Oh, your commandment is exceedingly broad

There's a limit to all other things There's no limit to the Creator God We worship this morning

Let's pray a prayer of adoration To that great God Who is broad and limitless

Dear Heavenly Father We bow before you once again Oh God, we humble ourselves before you

Because we are but the creature You are the Creator God There is no limit to you

Your precepts stand and are forever They are good Your law is good and righteous

For you are good and righteous It is merely a reflection of you We long to know you more today

Oh Father, I pray that you would Grow us in the fear and knowledge of you

Mold our hearts and minds That they may be renewed by your truth and your word I pray that as we sing these truths about you

That our hearts would just be Exuberantly excited for The glory of who you are

I pray that as we look around, as we sing We are to sing psalms, hymns And spiritual songs to each other

This isn't one -on -one time us and you Lord, this is corporate This is your children

The brothers and sisters coming together To worship your great name All creatures of our

God and King Call upon the name of our Lord All creatures And we, as your children

Long to be among The stars that declare your glory

The mountains that declare your magnificence The ocean that declares your immense glory

Oh, but we, being your image bearers And then adopted as your children With great mercy

May we worship you all the more Creatures of our

God and King Lift up your voice and with us sing

Oh, praise Him Alleluia Thou burning sun with golden beam

Thou silver moon with softer gleam

Oh, praise Him Oh, praise

Him Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia He's a creator blessed

Worship Him in humbleness Oh, praise

Him Alleluia Praise, praise the

Father, praise the Son And praise the

Spirit, three in one Oh, praise

Him Oh, praise Him Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia Redeemed washed by His blood

Come and rejoice in His great love

Oh, praise Him Alleluia Christ has defeated every sin

Cast all your burdens now on Him Oh, praise

Him Oh, praise Him Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia He shall return in power to reign

Heaven and earth are joined to sing

Oh, praise Him Alleluia Men who shall fall on bended knee

Oh, creatures of our God and King Oh, praise

Him Oh, praise Him Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia You may not grow weary or fainthearted

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood

Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the

Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him For the Lord disciplines the one

He loves and chastises every son who He receives

It is for discipline that you have to endure God is treating you as sons

For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them

Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them

Oh, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it

This is God's word, and it is good If we are children,

Christ Jesus is disciplining us Our Father is disciplining us, the Holy Spirit is disciplining us

And He is working within our hearts If you are not dealing with discipline from your sin, then maybe we need to reevaluate

Because He chastises those that He loves And you know what that implies, guys?

The writer of Hebrews is putting this in here that we are disciplined What are we disciplined from? Sin There is therefore no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus We never suffer the condemnation of sin

Oh, but we are chastened from a good Father that is loving us But what are we chastened from?

What are we disciplined from? Sin Meaning, you and I, we keep sinning

That's a fact, isn't it? I do, you do That's why we often like to pray a prayer of confession and assurance

When we come together, reminding ourselves we must confess our sins We must acknowledge them

Oh, but, oh, there's assurance And we are chastened in them And we learn from it

And we seek to be more like our Savior Christ So please bow with me as we pray this prayer of confession and assurance

Father, we come before you once again And now we want to acknowledge our frailty

We want to acknowledge this flesh that is warring within us We do the things we don't want to do

We don't do the things we want to do Oh, who will deliver us from this wretched flesh? But we sin

We fall short Oh, but God, your chastening, loving, gracious hand

Does not allow us to stay in it You discipline us, you care for us, you pull us back in You leave the 99 and you go after the 1

And you bring us back into the fold and you care for us We are so grateful because we stand righteous

We hold fast to the fact that you promise there is no condemnation For those of us who are in Christ Jesus, covered by the blood of Christ this morning

And that leads us to want to just confess our sin even more

You've already forgiven it There's already perfect forgiveness You've thrown it as far as the east is from the west

And you work in our hearts And we thank you And we'll be honored in our worship this morning as we are confronted with that great truth

For you are a great God You are good and kind and gracious And we long to sing of your greatness this morning, in Christ's name

The splendor of the King Clothed in majesty

Let all the earth rejoice All the earth rejoice

He wraps himself in light

And darkness tries to hide Trembles at his voice

Trembles at his voice How great is our

God Sing with me How great is our

God Oh, sing how great How great is our

God Age to age he stands

And time is in his hands Beginning and the end

Beginning and the end The Godhead, three in one

You're the Father, Spirit and Son The Lion and the

Lamb The Lion and the Lamb Sing with me, how great How great is our

God Sing with me, how great How great is our

God Oh, sing how great

How great is our God You're the name above all names

You are worthy of all praise

My heart will sing How great is our

God You're the name above all names

You are worthy of all praise

My heart will sing How great is our

God Sing how great How great is our

God Sing with me, how great Is our

God And all will sing how great How great is our

God Do you feel the world's broken?

We do Do you feel the shadows deepening?

Do you know that all the dark Won't stop the light from getting through?

Do you wish that you could see it all? We do

Is all creation mourning? Is a new creation coming?

We do Is the glory of the

Lord to be The light within our midst? Is it good that we remind ourselves of this?

Is anyone worthy? Is anyone whole?

Is anyone able to break the seal And open the scroll?

The Lion of Judah The cock of the grave

He is David's root And the lamb who died To ransom the slave

Is he worthy? Is he worthy?

Of all blessing and honor and glory Is he worthy?

Of you Does the

Father truly love us? Does the

Spirit move among us? Is Jesus our

Messiah? Where from those He loves Is our intent to dwell again?

Is anyone worthy?

Is anyone whole? Is anyone able to break the seal

And open the scroll? The Lion of Judah The cock of the grave

He is David's root And the lamb who died To ransom every people

From every people and tribe And every nation and tongue

He has made us a kingdom Of priests and gods Who reign with the

Son Is he worthy? Is he worthy?

Of all blessing and honor and glory

Is he worthy? Of you

He is He is

He is He is

He is worthy He is worthy He is worthy

Of all blessing and honor and glory Is he worthy?

Of you He hideth my soul

In the cleft of the rock That shadows of dry thirsty land

He hideth my life In the depths of His love

And covers me there with His hand And covers me there with His hand

Oh wonderful Savior It's Jesus my

Lord Oh wonderful Savior to me

He hideth my soul In the cleft of the rock

Where rivers of pleasure rise He hideth my soul

In the cleft of the rock That shadows of dry thirsty land

He hideth my life In the depths of His love

And covers me there with His hand And covers me there with His hand

Oh wonderful Savior It's Jesus my

Lord He taketh my burden away

He holdeth me up As I shall not be moved

He giveth me strength as my way He hideth my soul

In the cleft of the rock That shadows of dry thirsty land

He hideth my life In the depths of His love

And covers me there with His hand And covers me there with His hand

Clothed with His brightness Transported I rise

To meet Him in clouds of the sky His perfect salvation

His wonderful love I'll shout with the millions on high

He hideth my soul In the cleft of the rock

That shadows of dry thirsty land He hideth my life

In the depths of His love And covers me there with His hand

And covers me there with His hand

He hideth my soul In the cleft of the rock That shadows of dry thirsty land

He hideth my life In the depths of His love

To you this morning

Lord Just so grateful for this opportunity This chance Lord that you blessed us with To come and gather as brothers and sisters

As saints Lord And worship and praise you Lord Lord I'm so grateful and thankful for my salvation

That I cannot be moved Perfect salvation Lord I pray this morning

Lord That you would just continue to bless this service Lord I just pray that you would

Just use Pastor Nathan this morning as a mouthpiece

And speak through him Lord And just give us open hearts And open minds and open our ears

Lord Lord I pray that you would bless our offering this morning As we take it up Lord We're so grateful

We praise you, we love you We ask all these things in your sign Jesus precious and holy name

In Jesus name, amen Well saints we've come

Now to the seventh And final week of our little mini series here

God's design for the family As we've been working through Ephesians And come to this section

And I pray that for those of you That have been able to be here as part of it That it's been beneficial for you

I know it has been beneficial in my life As I've prepared for these And I've spoken with many of you in here

Who have shared with me Maybe some changes And even some repentance

In your own lives For falling prey to the world's distortion Of God's good design

And you're seeking to align your lives To his truth To his precepts

To his good design And praise the Lord for that I see the Holy Spirit working

In many of your hearts and lives And your families In that process

However Today is the final one I want to give warning There is a danger

When teaching on matters Such as this There's a great danger

And that is our Our flesh Our legalistic

Self righteous Do better Be better In the rules propensity

That often overrides And are overwhelming

Never ending Dependence upon the spirit As Paul had said back in chapter 5

To be being filled With the spirit Not other things And we forget that often

All of this designed by God For the family Husbands leading and loving well

Wives submitting and honoring Children obeying Are in no way

In and of themselves Principles of promised success and happiness You get that right?

They are in no way Principles of like a promised Guarantee of happiness and success

As a matter of fact I've said it before For those of you that Maybe are not regenerate

That are unbelievers You are completely incapable Of following it at all

Unbelievers can't even follow these principles If they were principles of promise Even unbelievers would

Gain the benefit from them But they are incapable of following Fathers who are unbelievers

Cannot love and lead Mothers who are unbelievers Cannot respect and honor

Children who are unbelievers Cannot truly honor and obey As God has called them to do

Only those Who have been freed from sin And hear me out

Freed to righteousness That's a key Because once you're freed from sin You're freed to righteousness

Even have the capacity To follow God's precepts Yet Even though we have the capacity

We know that we don't always do it And sometimes

We think we're doing it We're doing it outwardly And we're doing it from wrong motive

Because we still have this Always allowing the distortion

Of the world and sin To affect how we see things Meaning For example

I want my family To function as God designed So that my family can be healthy

Productive and happy Let's be honest When we come to precepts in scripture These outworkings of the theology

That we study When we come to them Sometimes we want to follow them As some sort of external outcome

That's our motive Instead of I want my family To function as God has designed

As an act of worship From a heart of thanksgiving To my God and Savior So that he and he alone

May receive the glory and honor From my obedience Knowing that the result of that worship

Through my obedience Will be a family that is healthy Productive and joyful With a good design

So saints hear me now This is essentially my warning Don't get the cart before the horse

Do not Make his precepts Your God Do not make them

The object of your attention Do not fixate on the gift

And lose sight of the gift giver We see those gifts

And we see these precepts And we are to do so in proper order

Why do you Why do you love God's good design for the family? Why do you love what we've been talking about Over the past seven weeks?

Why do you love these things? Many of you have come to me and said Man I love this, this is great truth I'm not reading into your heart

I'm asking the question Do you love it for what it does for you and your family Or because it's a reflection of him?

There's a big distinction between those two One of them you're actually walking in those precepts

And the other you're not You're just giving some sort of an outward adherence to them The intentions of our hearts

Are rarely as exposed in this area of idolatry As they are in our topic and verse for today

As a matter of fact, open your copy of God's word Ephesians chapter 6 Ephesians 6

We're going to be looking at verse 4 Two weeks ago we saw verses 1 through 3

We talked about children obeying your parents and the Lord For this is right And then he talks about the commandment of Honor your father and mother

That your days may be long And you may be blessed essentially And then by the time he gets into verse 4 here

He kind of switches gears a little bit He's no longer talking to the children

He now turns his attention to the father And in verse 4 there of chapter 6 of Ephesians He says fathers

Do not provoke your children to anger But bring them up in the discipline

And instruction of the Lord This is the reading of God's perfect holy inspired word

I would ask that you would pray with me once again That our hearts and minds would be illuminated to its truth

Lord as we do every week We bow before you

And we acknowledge our frailty And our propensity to distort your good, clear, precise words

We misunderstand them We read our perspective into them

Do not allow us to do so today Guard us from that Guard my lips from error

I pray that I do not overstep That I only speak what is truth from the text

Lord be with those here Guard their ears Help them to be discerning

Lord Holy Spirit Illuminate our hearts and minds to your truth In Christ's name, Amen Well as I said a moment ago

This topic of discipline Specifically involving our children It really has a way of exposing our idols

In a unique way And it's probably because of Let's be honest, how much emotion

For those of you that are parents in here That have children There's so much emotion and love and compassion

That's all wrapped into it There's tension, right? You know what it's like raising children

There's tension at times It can be intense There's a lot of expectations in it

Because this is your child These are your children You want what's best for them All of these things are intertwined

Within our relationship with our children So much so That some of us even make idols

Out of our children themselves Right? The human heart is a perpetual idol factory

We're constantly placing things On the throne of our heart That don't belong there And sometimes we place our children there

After all, Scripture speaks of children As a gift and a blessing And I think of Psalm 127

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord The fruit of the womb, a reward

Children are a gift A good and amazing and wonderful gift

To a parent So it's only natural that our love for them And our desire for their well -being

Is a driving force in our lives But again

We must not disproportionately elevate The gift above the gift giver

We're constantly guarding ourselves As Christians from this And since children are such an amazing gift

That even Scripture acknowledges What an amazing gift That temptation is great

I will acknowledge that There's a great temptation for us And what does our flesh do

When we turn a good thing Into an ultimate thing? You know what I mean by that, don't you?

We take a good thing Meaning a good gift like children And we turn it into a

God that we worship We turn a good thing into an ultimate thing What happens to that gift?

When we turn a good gift Into an ultimate God What happens to that gift?

We destroy it You realize that, right? What you worship, you destroy

That gift cannot bear the weight of being your God It can't

Your child cannot bear the weight of that worship Your neediness will destroy that child

Their shoulders can't bear it Only the gift giver, the creator

God Is worthy and capable of your worship That's it Everything else will be crushed under your neediness

And even when our children are not our idol

Because they're not always Some of us don't struggle in that area Some may not, some may at different times

But even when they're not our idol They are still a reflection of us

That's how we perceive them, right? When your child is acting out in the grocery store What do you feel?

You feel embarrassment You feel a reflection on you Because your child is a reflection of you

And so, whatever you worship Whatever your God is Whether it's your career

Whether it's your spouse Whether it's your image and your reputation

Whether it's your church Whatever it may be

Whatever your God is We will demand that our children conform to the image of that God That's just the reality, isn't it?

You will demand that your children conform to the image of the God you worship They are a reflection of you

You don't think that's true? Just look around, guys Look in your own lives, look at others

Look at how families who worship financial success in their career Disciple and raise their children

It's a reflection of them Look at how families who worship athleticism

Disciple and raise their children It's a reflection of them Look at how families who worship the church

Disciple and raise their children Children who obey their parents as we saw two weeks ago

What are the standards, expectations, and values that are to be obeyed?

That is what they are being disciplined and discipled in To be conformed to the image of your

God This is why I believe that Paul immediately addresses the fathers

After commanding the children to obey To help us disciple our children into obedience to the right things

That's important And Paul does so with two approaches As Paul often does, as we've seen so far in this letter

He starts with a negative command And he follows that up with a positive command Let's look at the negative command

The negative command And fathers, do not provoke your children to anger

I think we've got some slides up here Yep, fathers discipline well

A negative command The first thing I want us to see as far as this negative command Is a father's responsibility

Notice, it says fathers Not parents Not mothers

Now, this word in the Greek that Paul used It can be translated parents

As a matter of fact, we see it translated parents One other time in the New Testament In Hebrews 11 .23

Speaking of Moses' parents It says, by faith, Moses when he was born Was hidden for three months by his

And it's the same Greek word that we see for fathers over here But it's translated parents in this passage

However, this, like I said, is the only other time This word's translated into anything but father

And it's done so because of the context Referring it in the plural

Meaning, because the passage goes on It says, because they saw that the child was beautiful And they were not afraid of the king's edict

So this word was translated to parents here But in almost every other case in the

New Testament This word is referring to fathers Now, does that mean that mothers are exempt from this command?

Of course not That's not what it means at all As a matter of fact, we see all through wisdom literature

In the Proverbs Hear, my son, your father's instructions And forsake not your mother's teaching

A mother has a role This is repeated all through Proverbs A mother most certainly has a responsibility

To teach and disciple and discipline her children And there are cases where a father is not present in the home

We know that And the mother assumes full responsibility of this We understand broken situations

Yet that is not God's good design The design is that the father, the patriarch

Is the one that God has given the great responsibility Of leadership within that home

As we pointed out a few weeks ago Husbands are the head of their family Whether they like it or not

It's not a recommendation It's not even a command in Scripture That the husband is the head of the household

It's a given It's a fact They are either a good leader Or a bad one

But a leader nonetheless, right? And so when Paul addresses the fathers here

He is assuming That the father is the one Who is setting the pace

The values And the culture In that home When it comes to everything

You hear me, right? We don't see much of that today, do we? But even though you don't see it

And you see the mother setting the pace And the culture in the home Trust me, the father is actually the one doing it

Because his neutral passivity Is creating that pace and culture

So anytime, it's the father It's the husband And specifically in this context

Of discipline In my home, my wife has The authority to discipline and instruct our children

She does it every single day Because she represents me in the home

I've told my children many times I'm like, if your mother says it It is as if it came from my very mouth

Because we are one flesh And she is representing me in the home Bad fathers shrug off this responsibility

They leave it to their wives Mom always has to be the bad guy

When it comes to discipline We see a lot of that, don't we? That's our culture's mindset

Dad is passive These types of men have fooled themselves Into thinking they actually love their children

It's sad They seem very loving fathers They seem like they care for their children

They seem like they want to provide for their families But scripture tells us otherwise And I'm going to go with scripture

I'm not going to go with what he's trying to convince me of Proverbs 13, 24

Whoever spares the rod Hates his son But he who loves him

Is diligent to discipline him These types of men

Are selfish Hateful idolaters No matter how kind and loving they may seem

They may seem like a good father But if they do not discipline Their children

Diligently They hate their child They only care about themselves

And their very own children Are being delivered up as a sacrifice To that man's

God It's how much he hates them In comparison to his love of his idol

But a father who loves his children Is one that sees His responsibility in light of The revealed will of God In his word

And cares enough To guard his children from harm Through the means of discipline and training

That Is a father's love Anything short of that is hatred

The father Under the headship of Christ And through the guidance of the Holy Spirit Is responsible to set the trajectory

Of discipline in the home And the mother follows suit You get that right?

We've been hounding on that For the past few weeks This is the design by God Nevertheless Us fathers often do it wrong

Don't we? I do I fall short

A lot Far more than I would like To just come up here and admit

And I know you do too We fall short That's why we needed

This negative command That's why we needed This father's responsibility

And the second thing Father's propensity Look at the text again

Fathers Do not provoke your children To anger

Over in a correlating text In Colossians 3 We've referenced it a few times But Colossians 3 .21

Paul says the same thing But he goes on And gives us some insight Into what he means here

He says fathers do not provoke your children Why? Don't provoke them

Or they will become discouraged Mothers are guilty of this also

But us fathers We are the king of it aren't we? We're the king of discouraging our children

Our heavenly father Is good and kind And gentle with us But our sinful flesh

Leads us to selfish anger Short fuses That provoke our children

Instead of edify This is A broken father's

Propensity And how do we do that? How do we provoke our children?

How do we drive them To be discouraged? The third thing I want us to see

A father's expectations We do so because of our expectations This This fathers and mothers

Is where our idolatry often shows its ugly head Okay? This is where our idolatry

Begins to kind of show Even though we've tried to hide it When we are not seeking

To train up our children The fear and admonition Of the one true God We are training our children

In the fear and admonition Of worthless powerless idols And the weight of that expectation

Will most certainly provoke them Remember they can't bear the weight of it

It's not reasonable It's not true It's not clear The word that Paul uses here

Is a single Greek word That we have translated Do not provoke

And we've added the word At the end of the phrase To anger Because this singular

Greek word Encompasses this idea Of provoking to anger

We see the same word used One at a time In Romans chapter 10

In verse 19 Where Paul quotes Deuteronomy 32 We see the same word He says

I will make you jealous Of those who are not a nation

With a foolish nation I will make you And here's the same word And it's translated angry here

I will make you angry This is why we have it translated

Do not provoke your children to anger In Ephesians As a matter of fact

Let me go back to Deuteronomy 32 Because that's what Paul's quoting here

And I think he gives us even a clearer picture Of what is meant here Back in Deuteronomy 32 21

This is God He says They have made me jealous with what is no God They have provoked me

To anger with their idols So I will make them jealous

With those who are no people I will Provoke them to anger

With a foolish nation It's God saying

I will provoke these people to anger With a foolish nation Now here's the thing

God can do this righteously God can provoke them to anger Righteously But we are commanded not to do so Especially with our children

Because we do it From an unrighteous place And with an unrighteous intention We are not perfect as he is

So in what ways Do our expectations Provoke our children to anger What are some of the ways

That they provoke One of the meanings of the Greek word Do not provoke Is to exasperate

I had to look up this word Exasperate in its definition Thought I knew what it meant But I was close

It just means that Someone is annoyed Because there's no way

But I'm still held to a standard That I can't Actually achieve I'm exasperated

That's why The people of Israel That God said I will provoke them to anger With another nation

There was nothing they could do about it There was absolutely no way For those people

To stop that from happening Or to fix the problem And they are provoked

They are exasperated By what we value

Right Our expectations are grounded In what we value

If it's money If we value money above all things We will exasperate our children

Into the pursuit of it Remember we will disciple And train them

To conformity To our idol If our idol is money We will seek to force them

To conform to it If we

We can never be comfortable enough And our children will be provoked To anger

Because they cannot provide Or achieve enough comfort For you and for themselves

Exasperated If it's religion And law And legalism If that's your God If you're just trying to follow precepts

For precepts sake You will crush your children Because they are babies

That put too much pressure On their children To live up to those standards And they are crushed

Under the weight of that idol Because they cannot bear it And let's be honest

We hold our children To a higher standard Than we hold ourselves Don't we Young people who do not have children yet Be prepared

That desire to hold your children To a higher standard Than you hold yourself

Is strong in you We do it with our spouses We do it with others

But I don't know that it's ever seen More blatantly than with our children I'm sure glad that God Is patient and loving with us

That he's long suffering Always forgiving and gracious And understanding But our expectations for our kids

Don't often reflect that nature And we exasperate them

So in the nature of God Turn with me to Psalm 103 We're going to look at verses 13 and 14

Of Psalm 103 Oh how I love wisdom literature

If you notice when I preach I go back to that quite often For our minds are being renewed

Into true wisdom In Psalm 103 In verse 13

The psalmist says Oh as a father shows compassion To his children

So The Lord shows compassion To those who fear him The Lord shows compassion

To his children Because his children are the only ones That fear him, right? Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

And so just like a father Shows compassion to his children Which in this wisdom literature It's not saying that we always do it

But he's giving us this understanding So the Lord shows compassion To those who fear him But verse 14

Let's think about that for a second What is a frame? It's how we're designed It's how we're built He understands the foundations

He understands the walls that are built He understands our frame That body and that soul

Has been built up He remembers that we are dust Interesting, right?

You see our heavenly father Understands our limitations He knew

That we could not stand Righteous under the law He knew it

We were hopeless Our frame couldn't bear it We were but dust

So the one that could Stood in our stead Right?

Who's that? Christ, right? Jesus Christ The one that could bear it

Whose frame was designed for it And even now Christ sits at the right hand of the father

Interceding for us Because he knows our frame He knows our frailties

He knows our inabilities And the total inadequacy of ourselves

And living according to righteousness completely He remembers that we are dust

And when we Fathers and mothers Remember that great truth

When we gaze upon the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ He is the object of our worship

Not our career Not our family Not money

Not comfort Nothing else When we see the glorious truth of the gospel

What do we see? We see the savior We see the heavenly father

Through seeing Jesus now We see the righteousness of Christ And we are worshiping him accordingly

All other idols burn away Under the penetrating light Of that magnificent savior

You ever notice that? When you are truly being reminded Of the gospel of Jesus Christ When you're reminded of your position

In Christ Jesus that he paid for you And you're constantly looking at that You're not looking elsewhere

You're looking this direction Because he's that way Because everything else

Just pales in comparison To his magnificence and his glory And when you're looking to him

You are worshiping him Then and only then are you worshiping him Then and only then can we have

A proper expectation for our children Because we are seeking to have The heart of God And when we have the heart of God We're reminded of our position with him

And now we're looking at our children And we're going I am made from dust

I understand what they can bear I know what they can bear

And I will not expect more of them Than that can handle Otherwise we don't

We expect them to conform to our gods The practical way that we can do this

Is when my father I believe he did it well I'm sure he had moments You know we look back at things

With rose colored glasses sometimes When I was a young teenager

I was an unregenerate young man And I wasn't saved until I was 17

I was an unbeliever And just like all young men and women

I did things that were wrong I sinned, right? That was my frame

I was a sinner And honestly looking back I did things that really should have

Embarrassed him as a pastor He was a pastor And that should have embarrassed him greatly

It reflected on him And yes there were consequences To those actions of mine

I was disciplined But I don't really remember being disciplined

From a position of embarrassment It was with a gospel saturated discipline

That's what I remember I'm sure it happened I don't remember it But it was a gospel saturated discipline

Of setting me down and saying Yes son there's consequences To your actions

This is why son What you did is wrong It's sin against God You sinned against God And you know why you did it son?

Because you're a sinner Heathens gonna heave, right? You're gonna sin

You are a sinner And then in the moment Every single time

Son let me point you to the one cure for that Gospel saturated

He didn't expect me to be better, do better He said you are a dead spiritual corpse

You're not capable of doing better You will always do wrong

You will never seek after God You will always turn away Let me point you to the one

The one that can fix and solve all of that Anything and everything apart from that discipline

Everything is provoking your child to anger Everything Because their frame isn't made for it

They can't bear the law They can't bear all of the rules and the regulations

They can't live perfectly And you know what? You're expecting them to live perfectly I'm expecting them to live perfectly

But I don't You don't How dare we place that on them

We're just provoking them to anger We're exasperating them We're pushing them to things and expectations

That they have no power or capacity to fulfill Whatsoever Paul follows this negative command with a positive one

And this positive command gives us some insight into what to do We've spent quite a bit of time with our opening

And we've seen the negative What not to do and our propensities and all that But he shows us what to do

Let's spend a moment here Look at the text Look at the second half of the text But instead of In contrast to provoking your children to anger

Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the

Lord I want to say three things about this positive command The first is a father should not merely inform but nourish

A father should not merely inform but nourish

Notice the phrase bring them up And Paul uses this same word actually back in chapter 5 verse 29

When he says for no one ever hated his own flesh But And here's the word

And it's translated nourishes And cherishes it Just as Christ does the church

To care for them To nurture them Fathers this requires presence

This requires presence in your family Not bringing presence home

That's not what I mean I've seen fathers that do that They make enough money where they just buy their family things

And that's their love language That's not what I mean I mean being present

Many fathers focus so much on work Or they focus on ministry

And they forget their primary responsibility Well the mothers nurture them

I'm the provider I bring home the bacon She makes the bacon You know what

I mean That's our tendency isn't it Part of providing though Is bringing them up Is nourishing them

Is spending identity time With your children You're nourishing You're bringing them up We don't just give the edicts and the rules

And then go about our lives That's not the role of the husband As the head of the household Any man that just comes in Gives the rules

And then is absent Is not giving any rules at all He's just trying to rule with an iron fist

We give the rules based on God's rules And then we nourish them into compliance

To those rules Into a love for those rules That only the

Holy Spirit can bring about But you are preparing the soil

You are preparing their minds For that heart work

That only the Holy Spirit can do You are nourishing them Most of you are familiar

With the Deuteronomy 6 mindset I want to read this to you This is

This right here is nurturing This is kind of a picture Of what it means to be a father

And a mother for that matter In Deuteronomy 6, starting in verse 7 He says, you shall teach them diligently

To your children Teach what? God's precepts, God's law, God's goodness Teach them diligently

Not just partially Diligently to your children And shall talk of them

Speak of these truths When you sit in your house And when you walk by the way

And when you lie down And when you rise Boy, he just basically said the whole day, didn't he?

Right? When you are doing anything When you're mowing the yard When you're doing yard work

When you're cleaning the house When you're sitting down and having dinner When you're doing anything When you get out of bed

When you get ready to go to bed When you're preparing their minds

For what God's going to do in them You're speaking of them He says, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand

Right? We can get into all the imagery with that But there's a reminder of God's truth

That's right there on your arm and on your hand And they shall be as frontlets between your eyes

You shall write them on the doorpost of your house And on your gates Everything about your home

Father and mother Should be saturated with his truth And that, right there

Shows you where your God is What's written on the doorpost of your home?

What are you discipling your child in? Your career? Because that's a sure way

For a straight shot to hell for your child Sports?

Same thing Anything And I'll even go to religion If it's for religion's sake

If it's for morality's sake That's not the gospel

You're speaking of the truth of God's word Through the lens of the gospel and the goodness of Christ This is what it means to bring them up To nourish them

So what does this practically look like? The second thing I want us to see here is Nourish them through discipline, right?

Look at the text It says But bring them up Nourish them In the discipline

Okay? Just like everything else Our understanding of discipline has been distorted by sin

What is it? How do we do it? What is discipline to a Christian? What has God called us to do?

Our world tells us today That things like spanking are bad After all, all it does is provoke them to anger

And some of their studies and statistics Have proven that to be true That spanking drives them and provokes them to anger

The problem is Not spanking isn't working either Right?

It's provoking your children to anger Because they have no self -control anymore They don't understand actual consequences

So none of it's working Everything's just slipping through their hands Like trying to hold sand in your palm

It's just slipping through And they don't know what to do They don't have an answer And that's because the world's version

Of things like spanking Is a violent, angry, reactionary Quick and easy

Selfish desire for compliance Parents, you all know

You've felt that before, right? You're spanking that child

To get them to conform To what you want them to do in the moment And it's not always

For their best It's for your convenience And it's based on that parent's

That's why the world Can't do any of this Spanking doesn't work for the world Nothing works for the world

They're all condemned They're doomed They're just a bunch of Spiritual zombies walking around Incapable of any logic

Or capacity of anything righteous whatsoever Oh, but for us We need to have our minds renewed

What is this? Actual discipline is defined by God As something categorically different From what we accept of Turn over with me to Hebrews 12

I want us to see discipline From the heart of God We see the heart of God in discipline here

Hebrews chapter 12 We're going to start in verse 5 But I want to mention some passages

As you're turning there Maybe you can jot those down Proverbs 22 It says folly is bound up in the heart of a child

But the rod of discipline Drives it far from him Proverbs 23

If you withhold discipline from a child If you strike him with a rod He will not die Proverbs 29

The rod and reproof give wisdom But a child left to himself Brings shame to his mother

So what is the heart of this discipline? Hebrews 12 Starting in verse 5 You And we read this earlier by the way

I wanted this fresh in those minds And have you forgotten the exhortation That addresses you as sons

So we have the imagery of Children with their father My son, do not regard lightly the

Here's the word Discipline of the Lord It's the same word that Paul used back there in Ephesians Nor be weary when reproved by him

For the Lord Here's the word Disciplines the one he loves And he chastises every son whom he receives

Why does he do so? Because he loves them, right? Discipline and chastising

Is the most loving thing Otherwise God wouldn't be doing it You see that, right?

If God does it, it's the best thing Discipline and chastising Is the best, most loving thing

Now how do we do it? Verse 7 It is for discipline that you have to endure God is treating you as sons

For what son is there Whom his father does not discipline? Again, if you are left without discipline

In which all have participated Then you are illegitimate children And not sons Besides this, we have had earthly fathers

Who disciplined us And we respected them Shall we not much more be subject

To the father of spirits and live? For they, our fathers

Disciplined us for a short time As seemed best to them That's what we're seeking to do

That's why parents discipline their children Whether good or bad They're disciplining to what they believe

To be the best, I'm assuming But He, God, disciplines us

For our good That's discipline It's for our good, that's why it's loving Discipline is for our good

That we may share His holiness There's a purpose behind it

He's driving us to goodness and righteousness For the moment, all discipline

Seems, and here's the key I want you to understand this For the moment, all discipline

Seems Painful What does that mean?

It means discipline is meant to be pain Discipline that's not painful

Isn't discipline It must be painful

Rather than pleasant Oh, but later Later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness

To those who have been And here's the kicker Trained by it Discipline is training

And we learn from pain, don't we? We are teaching parents

To be obedient to God Through our parenting We are to nourish them through discipline To prepare them for obedience to God In their unregenerate state

They're incapable of being obedient to God We're trusting and hopeful That they will be awakened by the

Holy Spirit Through us declaring the gospel Over and over again Having it written on the doorpost of our home

And we are preparing their minds So that when the Holy Spirit awakens them And brings them into Freeing them to righteousness

They are awakened by that discipline And they have habits That are formed in their life

That allow them to better serve The Creator When you or I pursue sin

We are pursuing something That dishonors Him And honestly, it harms us, doesn't it?

He disciplines us so that we learn Not to do that thing again Not only that, but So that we don't

We don't incur greater harm To others We are being trained by it That's what you're doing in discipline

Tell me, what's What's more harmful to a toddler? Those of us that have had little toddlers

You know exactly what I'm talking about The loving Swift Spanking on the leg

And a stern no Or 110 volts of electricity Pulsing through their body

Through the fork Stuck in the outlet in the wall That one's more loving

I know that's extreme, guys But it's a reality, isn't it? I would rather my child

Learn the severity of doing that From my discipline upon them As a father

As a parent Than actual first -hand experience That takes their life from them

Wouldn't you? Now as our children get older The dynamic changes slightly, yes

We must give our children Enough rope to hang themselves At times While we remain close enough

To keep them from choking You know what I'm talking If you're a parent of a teenager You know what I mean

You try and keep those reins in too close On a teenager that's preparing To live on their own

And you are going to provoke them to anger But a good parent Just like our heavenly father

Deals with us Lets them go out And they're not choking themselves too badly

But I gotta let them Experience that bite a little That's discipline

And there's consequences that come Nevertheless, there's loving, stern Nourishing discipline that goes on I gotta rush through this

Not only do we nourish through discipline The last thing I want us to see Is we nourish through instruction

Look at the text again It says, but bring them up in the discipline And instruction of the

Lord We don't just tell our kids What not to do Through our discipline

We also instruct them in the way That they should go And the why Paul uses the same word for instruction

Over in Titus chapter 3 In verse 10 he says As for a person who stirs up division

He says after warning him once Right After warning him is what we have it translated as But it's the same word as instruction

To have nothing more to do with him We want our children Not as fear mongering

Keeping them afraid of everything But we want them to stay Things that we want them to stay away from That are gonna harm them

But warning them of danger Of not walking in God's precepts That's the key See the same word in 1

Corinthians 10 -11 Now these things happen to them Speaking of the people of Israel Who died in the wilderness

Because of their rebellion against God As an example Instruction On whom the end of the age has come

We are instructed This is what's happened before This is what will happen again

There is a warning We nourish our children through instructing them Of the consequences Of disobedience to the creator

I must say we can do all these things To the best of our ability And our children die in their sins

We all know that These aren't guarantees Of our children They can reject

God And live a life of foolish debauchery But let it not be Because of our idolatry and disobedience

Let it not be The blood on my hands Fathers do not provoke your children to anger

But bring them up in the discipline And instruction Of the

Lord Not of your idol Of image

Not discipline Instruct your children In ways of success

Athletics, religion, family Academia, church life Or anything else

Do not raise them up in that Raise them up In the discipline and instruction

Of King Jesus The Lord, the way, the truth and the life

He's the only one Who is worthy of And capable of Disciplining Our children in It's the truth

He's given us everything we need For life and godliness, hasn't he? Where's that at? What?

You guys are quiet today He's given us everything we need For life and godliness in his word And those truths

Are only seen, loved and obeyed When we have tasted and seen That he is good Everything done outside of him

And his righteousness Is imputed to us Is legalistic law

He is the Lord All you have to say Is He's the

Lord The Lord He's the

Lord Ever and ever May glory to God For the rest of your life Until the next one

Amen Amen Well, I want to thank everyone So for those of you that aren't familiar with it, there's tables on each side,

Pastor Keith will be over here, I'll be over here if you need to speak to somebody, but we'll come around the outside form lines, get the wine and the bread, go back to your seats through the center, and then

I will come up and I would like to read from God's word of the last supper there, and we will partake together.

So hang on to those elements, and when everybody has them, we will join together. But let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you.

Be honored in our worship through this, seeing your great truth, seeing the gospel represented through the bread that represents your perfect body that was given for us, seeing it through the wine that is a representation of your blood that was spilled on our behalf to bring about righteousness for us.

Lord, if there is any unrepentant sin in our hearts, unconfessed sin, Lord, I pray that we would lay that before you before we would come to this table.