In this special Father’s Day sermon, Pastor Babij explains how to be a biblical father. Using the Scripture, Pastor relates several “do nots” and major mistakes for Christian fathers to avoid as well as several positive principles to follow. Pastor Babij concludes by exhorting fathers to make teaching the way of God to their children a clear priority.
Note: The video’s audio improves at 17:33.
Full Transcript:
Because it is Father’s Day, I wanted to give some instruction to fathers knowing that there are some new fathers. When I became a Christian and then a father, one thing I figured out quickly was that I didn’t know how to do this, so I was scrambling and reading all of these books about how to be a father. Some things were good, but then I decided to just study Proverbs.
Over the years, I gleaned some things from that, which was helpful for me to raise my kids. If we are called to be fathers, have been a father, or whatever stage you are at in fatherhood, we do it imperfectly, but we also want to have instruction on how to do it.
Through the years and because of certain accomplishments, sometimes people give you a pen. When you graduate or do something, they give you a pen, so I have a lot of pens. However, there is one pen that is above all the other pens. It is a cross pen, and on the cross pen it just says one thing on it and it says, “daddy.”
When my kids were young and got together, they all contributed to buy me this pen, so this pen is above all pens. For one reason, and it’s because it says “daddy” on it, and as I was thinking about that, it touches you when your kids do stuff like that for you. So, I want to look at some things the Bible specifically says about fathers instructing their kids, which is what a father does as he is the leader in the home.
In our Ironman group, we have been studying through a book called Disciplines of a Godly Man. In that book, one of the chapters was on the family, and the author of the book, R. Kent Hughes, wrote this important statement to fathers:
Men, the mere fact of fatherhood has endowed you with terrifying power in the lives of your sons and daughters, because they have an innate, God-given passion for you.
He went on to say:
The terrible fact is, that we can grace our children or damn them.
Then, he continued:
As fathers you have such power! You will have this terrible power until you die, like it or not – in your attitude toward authority, in your attitude toward women, in your regard for God and the church. What terrifying responsibilities! This is truly the power of life and death.
Now, that quote should bring to the mind to fathers and parents that we have an awesome responsibility. Parenting is so important that it is a matter of life and death. Maybe you never thought about it like that, but the Bible does bring to a high level the responsibility of a mother and father raising their children and influencing their family, which influences a society, which influences the church, which influences the nation.
Maybe you are at the beginning of fatherhood, in the middle of fatherhood, maybe you are not a father at all, but you know people who are fathers. Possibly you are a grandfather or a great-grandfather, so you never really get away from the concept of father. It is always there. By our Lord’s design, the design of the family, which is the basic unit found within the broader context of society, includes a father, a mother, one or two children, or more, and sometimes no children.
As we go forward, let’s have a word of prayer:
Lord, I Thank You for the instruction that You give us in the word of God about what fathers are to be. One thing fathers are to be is to be wise. Not worldly wise, but wise in the things of God. Wise in the instruction found in the word of God. He needs to be very aware of what God requires of him. I pray, Lord, that we do feel the weight of that responsibility. Lord, in this world, there is no help. If there is any, it is very little. So, Lord, we must find help in Your word. We must find help within Your church. I pray, Lord, as we look at this passage and break it down and think about this, I pray that You would impress upon us, as fathers, that we have a responsibility and that we should be this kind of person. I pray this, in Christ’s name, Amen.
In our text, the most basic obligation children have is toward their parents, which is that of obedience. Our passage, in Ephesians, is about children acquiring knowledge to live wisely, so this passage moves us from instruction of a subordinate group, which is children, to instruction to the imperative group, which are parents. Ephesians 6:4 says:
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Here, fathers are named as representing both parents and the discipline and governance of the home are given to the father since he is the head of the home. Christ is the head of us, and the father is the head of the wife and family, which is the way God made it to be. When it functions like that, it functions quite well.
Don’t forget, the context, in which we find this instruction in the Christian family, exists in our relationship to obeying the Holy Spirit. This passage is about living a spirit filled life. As children obeying their parents, who are submitting to the Holy Spirit, fathers are given this responsibility. The passage mentions the negative and positive duties of a father.
First, we will look at the negative. The father has the capability, as the leader and authority, to do the opposite of what he should be doing. Given that anger is a fleshly and strong desire, that desire must be instruction on how to use it in the right way. Because the father is the head, and has been given, by God, authority, that authority can be misused. This authority must come under the control of the Holy Spirit.
God must take all of us and put us under the control of the Holy Spirit, so the word provoke denotes not only the cause of irritation or exasperation by parental actions and demands, but further the awakening of anger by treatment that is hard, oppressive, and often unfair. This is not to say that the father must never refuse to allow a child to have his own way or must permit a child to do wrong for fear of arousing its anger. Nothing can be unkinder than to let a child believe, by an exposition of temper, that he or she may get what they want. A father must help a child steer away from self-indulgence.
The relationship of authority and submission, which is in this context of Scripture, should exist between father and child, and is guided by a father, who desires to find what is pleasing to the Lord and what lines up with walking by the control of the Holy Spirit.
By way of practical things, the DO NOTs of fatherhood come by belittling criticism in the absence of appropriate praise, being overly strict and controlling, being overly irritable, being unpredictable, being inconsistent, or even by playing the favorite game. These are the DO NOTs that can provoke anger within your children’s heart.
In other words, a father’s submission to the Lord will be seen in the way he shows that he is humble, gentle, patient, and bearing with his child in love. Such a father will not cause his child to become angry, which is the goal. The goal is not to cause your child to become angry.
In some way, all of us have been introduced to some kind of parental approach. If you don’t know the Bible very well, get married, and start having kids, then you may think of doing it the way your parents did it, or the way you think it should be done. All of us do this: when we get older, we say we are not going to be like our parents. Then, we find out that we are just like that. As a parent, these are the things not to do.
Our parenting approach is going to be one in which you are a permissive parent with not many boundaries, too much freedom, and with some concern in love, or you are going to be a parent that is neglectful with no boundaries, no love, or no confidence or security within the children. Then, you can be one who is an authoritarian parent with lots of rules, but not a lot of love. Also, you can be an authoritative parent with high support to their children, lots of rules, boundaries to which you can and cannot do, there are penalties if you break the rules, and there is a lot of love, which produces confidence and security within the children.
Here are some mistakes: when raising our kids, we tend to raise our children the way we were raised, which is not always a bad thing if you had a good example. Secondly, we tend to develop our own methods with no foundations, such as the way we think it should go. Then, there is those who tend to compare our children with each other, which is always a dangerous thing to do. Also, we could leave our children to societies directives or to its experts. There are experts who have no founding or root in the word of God.
Now, I’d like to interject some thoughts about somethings I have wondered about while studying the word of God and raising my children. They came in the form of asking myself two questions as a parent: what am I doing right and what I am doing wrong? Then, are there right parenting formulas that guarantee you will have godly children?
For instance, some parents prefer a particular method of discipline. Others insist that a certain type of education is the key such as classical education, Christian education, home schooling, a trade school, or secular or private schools. While others still promote a specific curriculum that is guaranteed to instill godly character into children, and these parents all believe that by carefully following that prescribed system, they will be assured of success. Proverbs 22:6 says:
Train up a child in the way he should go,
Even when he is old he will not depart from it.
However, are there really any fail-safe methods of child raising? Does the Bible prescribe specific methods of parenting that promise success every time? The Biblical answer to that question is no, which may shock you a bit, but we must know that. There are no foolproof methods of parenting. The fact remains that the Bible mentions many parents who have experienced misery and sadness at the hands of their children, including our first parents, Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve had high hopes for their two sons, and they sought to raise their children to serve the Lord. While one son, Abel, honored both God and his parents, the other son, Cain, was stubborn, self-willed, and hot tempered. Ultimately, this rebellious son murdered his younger brother, and spent the rest of his life separated as a vagabond on the run from his parents and brothers, who loved him.
It is hard for you to imagine the anguish that Adam and Eve experienced. Though, it might not be hard since you have gone through the same experience, same misery, and sadness at the hands of some of your children. In order to understand the meaning of Proverbs 22:6, we need to grasp the nature of Proverbs overall.
The book of Proverbs is not a collection of promises, and some people have taken this Proverb as a promise that will be fulfilled as long as conditions for the promise are met by us. Instead, Proverbs are maximums that wisely describe, in a general sense, the way that God has made the world to operate under a curse.
Then, Proverbs 22:6 is a wise truism, not a promise, but a warning. It is true that God often blesses godly parenting. Generally speaking, children from Christian families, who honor the Scriptures, turn out much better than children raised in unbelieving homes, who reject the word of God.
However, there are exceptions. Just as it is possible for a hardworking man to remain poor, it is possible for kids, who have had faithful parents, turn from the truth. We must realize that there are no promises that God will always, in every case, save our children no matter how diligent we are in directing them to the Lord and the things of the Lord.
Perhaps you have trained up your children in the way they should go. That is our job to do so, which is the admonition the Scriptures give us, yet they have departed from it. Don’t automatically assume that their rebellion is your fault. We must consider the fact that the Bible teaches three factors, not just one, that determine how a child will turn out.
First, parents are responsible to humbly honor the Lord and faithfully obey His word in the training of their children. Now, that is a given, but there is also the child themselves, who are to obey their parents. This is in a home, which people are trying to do the word of God and want to live by the spirit, so the command must come to the child too, which is in Ephesians 6:1-3:
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH.
In fact, there is a promise to this where you will live longer. This doesn’t mean that the parents will kill you if you don’t obey. Nonetheless, it brings to our attention that if the children have to obey, then there is something wrong with the child and their heart.
Parents, get this through your mind: you have children, who have sinful hearts and live in a sin-cursed world. You are sinners yourself. Even though you are redeemed, you still have remaining corruption that God is working on.
Secondly, children are responsible to humbly honor their parents and the Lord by responding in faithful obedience. This is what they are supposed to do, and you cannot make them do that. I always say to people:
When your kids are young and little, that is easy. You have control and the power, man! When they get up there, taller than you, and they think they are smarter than you, then you have a problem there since there is resistance and a little pushback.
Thus, the child is responsible for truth also, and they are not exempt. Thirdly, the Lord is ruling sovereignly over the lives of both parents and children, directing them according to His good purposes. Fathers, who are Christians, have an advantage because we are given a command by the Holy Spirit on how to parent negatively, which I mentioned. Meaning, don’t do this.
If you think about it, it’s pretty simple. In fact, the Lord just gives us one passage here. Maybe, he just needs to keep it simple for us, which brings us to the second thing: duties of fathers are to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. As men, this is what the Lord is telling us to do. As we do it, then we will do what we ought to be doing.
The father is responsible to humbly honor the Lord and faithfully obey His word in training their children. Although it is true that God doesn’t absolutely guarantee success in response to our faithful parenting, the Bible does make it very clear that parents are responsible to train their children according to God’s principles.
There are three things I want to glean from Ephesians 6:4, and the first simply says to bring them up. Meaning, nourish them, feed them, and give them the necessary things to be able to become a wise, functioning citizen within your family and broader context of the world. This may mean several things for us.
One, it may mean that we have the power to direct our children. Proverbs 29:15-18 says:
The rod and reproof give wisdom,
But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.
16When the wicked increase, transgression increases;
But the righteous will see their fall.
17Correct your son, and he will give you comfort;
He will also delight your soul.
18Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law.
The word vision means where there is no revelation of God or instruction from God. There are no boundaries, and sin is not restrained when that happens. In other words, to bring them up means that, as a father or parent, we have the power to direct them. Don’t leave that power to someone else. That is your power that God has given you, so you have the influence to use it when they are young. Believe me, use it. If you don’t use it, someone else will fill that void, and you don’t want that to happen.
Secondly, under bringing them up, is the power to restrain them. You can restrain your children, so do it in a calm, controlled, and respectful manner, not out of control as someone who is filled with anger, which will never produce what you want it to produce. The anger of God never produces the righteousness of God, which is in the epistle of James.
Thirdly, under bringing them up, is the power to test and judge them. So, you’re watching and looking at your kids, and you are testing them along the way. You are looking at where they are at and where they should be. For instance, are they getting the message you are teaching them? Then, you have the power to judge them. If you do that correctly and are fair and balanced in your judgement with each individual child, then you will be able to bring them up.
Second, in our passage, he says that we are to discipline them. Today, this is a subject that people often avoid, and this is where they really go wrong. People say that they can’t do something to their child because it is child abuse, or it wouldn’t be right in the society or community. However, the Bible is saying to discipline them.
Of course, discipline means to educate by training with verbal reproof and remonstrance because a child’s nature is sinful. Sin is bound up in the heart of the child, and a father needs to reprove his child from errors of the child’s own ways. Thus, we are to diligently discipline our kids in the hope that God will work through our discipline and nurture them, so that we may draw our children to God himself. The goal of all discipline is going to be conversion.
The Hebrew term, drawn from this situation, is to restrain from doing wrong and to reform by words or actions. It’s a verb that means to chasten them or bring them under something. Of course, you want to bring them under your authority and the discipline or training of an individual is in areas where he or she is unruly or does not want to be told.
Whether our children are passive or aggressive, they all have that tendency. We must identify them. Parents identify things in their children and each child needs to be directed and taught differently. This term means to correct and even to scourge, or to spank. The word is used in this way: to take one into something.
As parents, we are given that responsibility to discipline them. You cannot always speak sweet words to your children such as “honey, five minutes in the corner and everything should be fine.” Sorry, that doesn’t work with a sin nature. Christians should understand the sin nature. So, we must apply the force necessary to cause them to follow our verbal instructions.
In other words, we are getting our children to obey our voice, but before we get them to obey our voice, we have to bend them over and tend their hide for two reasons: disobedience and rebellion. We bring them to listen to our voice, so that someday they would listen to God’s voice and obey the Lord, which is always the goal.
Secondly, there is the pressure to hold them back from what they would do if they were left to their own will and desire. Again, it is that matter of the pressure we need to put, in that individual child’s life, to restrain them from what they would do if they were left to themselves. If you say, “tonight, we’re going to have steak and potatoes, but whatever you want.” Well, you know they’re going to go to the freezer and get an ice pop, ice cream, and candy. They’re not going to eat the steak and potatoes, so you must say, “no, we’re having this tonight.” You must apply the needed pressure so that they conform, and you get them to do what they normally don’t want to do.
Lastly, once you do all of those things, then there is the adjustment of pressure to evaluate how far your child has come in a specific area. As they obey and mature, you must adjust your authority and give them more and more freedom as they grow up. Then, the father decides how much freedom based on certain things such as their attitudes, their responsible behavior, and their obedience.
When you tell a child to sit down, a parent knows, in their heart, they are not sitting down, so those are the things where they can rebel against you and not say one word. As a parent, we must know the attitudes. In Proverbs, there are several passages of Scripture that bring to our attention this such as Proverbs 29:17:
17Correct your son, and he will give you comfort;
He will also delight your soul.
In other words, the rest and delight come from the child’s obedience. Proverbs 19:18 says:
Discipline your son while there is hope,
And do not desire his death.
Then, Proverbs 23:13 says:
Do not hold back discipline from the child,
Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.
Of course, this is all contained in Proverbs in the context of a wise parent, not a foolish parent, not a naïve parent, not a parent who is a scoffer, but a wise parent. Now, parents are using and observing everything, so they can properly discipline their children, not improperly.
There is no abuse in the context of Proverbs when these verses come up. They are directing their will to this narrow path where they are comfortable walking on it. The Lord encourages us to train our children because we might be the very means that He will use to rescue our children from destruction and protect them from the foolishness that resides in their heart.
Lastly, in that passage of Scripture, the Bible says that we are to instruct them. This is different than disciplining them, but it goes along with it – all three go together. Really, this is where the parent is proactive in bringing them instruction that they are going to need in life. They are going to need this in life to survive and do what is right.
First, we must develop a taste and thirst for righteousness. Parents, we can do that as we have a taste and thirst for righteousness ourselves. Remember, the Lord said in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5:6:
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
There is a hunger that we are to give our kids for doing what is right, which includes doing what is pleasing to the Lord.
Then, the next thing is that we are to develop in them a submissive and respectful demeanor. If we think about what we have been taught in 1 Peter 2, there is a godly submission that comes to all of us when it comes to authority, and your children learn how to submit to your authority. Then, we are to discipline their will toward obedience, which is all part of what we are doing. We are directing them in a course where they know what to do and what is the right thing to do.
To do that, parents must understand the fallen nature of their children. If anybody should have a good doctrine of sin, it is Christians. We know that our kids are sinners, but as we observe their sin, we must observe what the Bible says in Proverbs 22:6. In other words, each child has a way about them. Proverbs 30:18-20 says:
There are three things which are too wonderful for me, four which I do not understand:
19The way of an eagle in the sky,
The way of a serpent on a rock,
The way of a ship in the middle of the sea,
And the way of a man with a maid.
20This is the way of an adulterous woman:
She eats and wipes her mouth,
And says, “I have done no wrong.”
In each one of those situations, there is a way about the thing. We can identify in our children their bents, such as what bent do they have to a specific sin? Some kids have a bent to lying about things, or someone has a bent to take things that are not theirs. One child may have a bent to be passive, but are rebelling inside of themselves, or a child is bent to being aggressive outwardly.
Thus, all those bents are identified by the parent, and by the father. As he does that, he wants to steer them away from any kind of bents to sin in that specific child. Then, we want to build godly character, teach our children wisdom, move them from foolishness, move them from being naïve about things, and from not becoming a scoffer, but a wise child, who knows how to implement and observe things to make the right decision.
We want to instill in the child dignity and respect. Also, we want to remove, in a child, all tendency of prejudice. Titus 3:2 says:
…showing every consideration for all men.
Prejudice is taught in the home, and it is also taught in society. It is a wicked thing, and it doesn’t help. When people come into the church, there is really no such thing because we have one thing in common, which is Jesus Christ. He is our Lord and Savior. It doesn’t matter the color of our skin or background. We come in the unity of the faith, and we develop and grow together as a family.
There is unity and love amongst diversity because of the Holy Spirit of God, which is what we want to teach our children. The family and the church go together. We must make sure that we connect those two things. This is what we do as a family, and part of what we do as a family is go to church, learn the word of God, implement Biblical principles in our life, and we don’t do certain things other people do because it is not pleasing to the Lord.
This is what we are communicating to our children, and believe me, it does take root in our kids even when our kids have tendencies to go off and rebel for a while. Maybe they will leave the home and are not believers, but they still have what you taught them. When they leave out that door and you taught them in the way they should go, even if they are not believers, they know what you believe, and they know what the right thing is.
Thus, their rebellion is no longer with you, but it’s with the Lord. The Lord will have to take care of them. Believe me, when your kids do leave, and you have no more restrain and power over them, that is when you trust the Lord, especially since you cannot help them or be there. You cannot lift them up every time they fall, and they are past the instruction in the sense where you tell them the way things should be.
Instead, you become wise counselors, and you give good advice to your kids wherever they are at in their journey and life. Of course, you will always want to direct them. I always do these subtle things, in text, by saying to always put the Lord first, to do what is right, to find a Christian person you can hang out with, to be going to church, and to be reading the Scripture. No matter how old they are, I always put that in there.
However, you cannot preach to them anymore. You just have to be there to show them love and be consistent in your Christian walk. If you do that, then you will definitely have a huge influence on your kids throughout your whole life.
In Proverbs, it tells us that if we’re going to teach our kids these things, then you must be learning those things yourself. You must be taught in the word of God before your children are taught in the word of God. You must live out what you are learning and teach them not by sitting down and having a bible study, but by your life, the way you respond to things, your behavior, by the words you use, by, husbands, how you treat your wives, by, wives, how you treat your husbands, and by, parents, how you treat your kids. All of it is important, and all of it is being observed.
The little minds are recording all of those things, and they will say, “that’s the way mom and dad did it.” Proverbs 1:8 says:
Hear, my son, your father’s instruction
And do not forsake your mother’s teaching
Then, this is how Proverbs 1:1-2 starts out:
The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
2To know wisdom and instruction,
To discern the sayings of understanding,
Wisdom is the skill of living out life beautifully, so it demonstrates to those looking on you that there is something different about you. You have a skill to be able to live life, which is a skill that doesn’t come easily. People can have a skill to be artists, mechanics, or a lot of things. When it comes down to skill for wise living, you don’t see it very much because it takes work.
Also, the wisdom and instruction are to bring them under the areas that they don’t want to be told. Then, in Proverbs 1:2, there is discernment. Meaning, to make them mentally mature. Mental maturity is necessary for spiritual maturity. It was Johnathan Edwards who said:
The way to the volition is through the intellect. If you do not understand the word of God, you cannot understand how to practice it. Our minds must be disciplined and mature for the word of God to affect our lives.
To teach the nature of life is what we ought to be doing. Then, Proverbs 1:3 gives us some instruction:
To receive instruction in wise behavior,
Righteousness, justice and equity;
Wise behavior means to be prudent. It is the ability to govern or discipline oneself by choice, which is what a wise person does. We can discipline ourselves by choice when we have thought about it, but not thinking about it in a vacuum. We think about it being informed by God’s word, and as Solomon did, by watching his father, David, and how he acted, responded to the Lord, and when he sinned, how he dealt with his sin.
Secondly, we are to teach them righteousness, which means to conform to the will and standard of God. Teach them what is right before the Lord. Then, we are to teach them justice, which is the act of deciding a case, dealing justly with people, or having a good and fair judgement in the face of God.
Then, there is equity, which simply means without wrinkles or smooth. Another way of saying equity is that which is pleasing to the Lord. They know the right way, and they know how the right way looks. Meaning, they know how to do it.
The bottom line, fathers, is to be sold on instructing the children, under your charge, in God’s way, which is the right way. Meaning, we can never let a child choose against the truth. We must insist that they do what is right, so we must expect obedience at all times, which starts when they are little. If you instruct and discipline them, then when they get older, there will be a sense of obedience in them.
Wise fathers make instructing their children in the way of the Lord a priority. Nothing is more important than teaching our children about life from God’s perspective by teaching them the realities of wisdom and of folly. Also, teaching them the realities of righteousness and wickedness. You don’t have to commit or do sin to know sin. It could be taught, and it is taught right in the word of God.
We must teach when you do the truth or error, there is implications and results that happen. We must teach the realities of God’s way and every other way. One thing we must do is teach them what God requires. In fact, God considers godly instruction to be of greater value than anything a young adult can take from the home.
If you want to give your children wealth and riches, then give them truth. If you have no money to give them and you give them truth, then they will be wealthy because they will know how to live life and hedge against foolishness and being naïve. They will know very clearly what a scoffer is, and they will stay away from them. They will pick good friends, and they will pick things in their life that will be a blessing to us as parents.
Bottom line, fathers, I want to admonish you to seriously consider your situation. If you have not, begin to implement these principles within your daily family lives. Parents are to teach into their children a submissive and obedient heart, and to drive out of them a stubborn rebellious heart, which is the bottom line of teaching the word of God.
For those fathers with young children, someday very soon – sooner than you think – your relationship with your children will change. One day, you will look up and see that your child has become a full-blown adult. At that point, you, the parent, then becomes the aged-counselor, but that is a good place to be. If all those things you have been toiling with for years to discipline, train, and instruct your children, though imperfectly, then at the end, we can pray that you will bare the fruit of a glad heart. Proverbs 23:15-16 says:
My son, if your heart is wise,
My own heart also will be glad;
16And my inmost being will rejoice
When your lips speak what is right.
Isn’t it great that some of the things you taught your kids is coming out of their life and mouth? If they get married and have children, they are doing the same thing. There is nothing more that will bring gladness to your heart than that. Then, if they open their mouth, they are opening their mouth with wisdom. Proverbs 23:17-18 says:
Do not let your heart envy sinners,
But live in the fear of the LORD always.
18Surely there is a future,
And your hope will not be cut off.
Someone who grows up like that, will have a future, and they will have a hope. I pray that the Lord may bless you fathers and mothers, and just your parenting. That I can just admonish you in just a short time to consider these things and implement them in your life. If you have already, keep doing it and don’t give up.
There will be down times, but don’t give up. Just continue to press-on and trust the Lord, which is why we must depend so much on prayer, the fellowship of believers, and the word of God to continue to keep us on the straight and narrow path. So, I pray this, and guys, Happy Father’s Day. Let’s have a hand for fathers.
Of course, we have a Heavenly Father, who is faithful to us in all ways. Let’s pray:
Lord, Thank You that Your word, Lord, is very clear in what it requires. Lord, we know that, by Your holy spirit, He causes us to put in place those things that are needful to raise our children. We do know, Lord, when we do this, the grace of God is in our home, and the possibility of our children coming to know You as their Lord and Savior is very high. Lord, Thank You for saving our kids. For the kids that are not yet saved from parents, who have diligently put these things into practice, I pray, Lord, that You not leave them alone. I pray, Lord, that they are under Your discipline now, and that You can bring them into situations that can humble them into a place where they remember what their mother and father taught them, and that they would call out to You. I pray You would do that, Lord. Our kids that have trusted You, please protect them and watch over them. I pray, Lord, for their future and hope that You give them in Christ, Jesus. I pray, Lord, that You would develop, in church, young people, who are godly and mature in Christ, Jesus. When they get married and have kids, then they will know what to do and know how to do it. Bless us in this way, in these last days. Lord, make Your church shine brightly in this area. I pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.