Introduction
Church, we've been walking through this Better Men series, and we now come to the place in our teaching on healthy households where we turn to parenting.
We've been building from a healthy heart in Christ, submitted to His lordship and walking in His ways, all the way out to the household, where so much of the fruit of our lives is expressed.
The household is where the everyday stuff of life happens. It's where so much of life is lived: your relationships, your work, your fruitfulness. And children are no exception.
What you believe about your children, and how you raise them, expresses in very tangible ways what you believe about God, the health of your heart, and its maturity.
So this morning, we're going to press into parenting.
I want to say up front: I'm a parent of young children. My oldest is six. So this isn't coming from a place of tremendous experience. There are people in this room who have raised children, and who have much more practical wisdom than I do. So I want to approach this from God's Word.
Scripture Is Sufficient
Read 2 Timothy 3:16–17.
The Lord has given us what we need for training in righteousness. If we want to know how to live, we come to God's Word as our source. How to parent. How to be married. How to be single. How to be a child. We get our training in righteous living from His Word. It is sufficient.
A Culture Without an Anchor
One of the problems with our culture is that it swings like a pendulum between parenting trends, especially around discipline and training. On one side is the authoritarian. On the other side is the extremely gentle, focused on the child's needs and emotions.
For the last decade, our culture has embraced what some call gentle parenting: high warmth, highly engaged with a child's emotions and needs. There may be some consequences, some ways authority plays out. But many children have not been taught the role of a parent's authority, in the home or in the classroom. And in a lot of ways, it has wreaked havoc.
Now Gen Z parents have watched the millennials: their poor boundaries, their lack of authority, kids walking all over teachers and parents. And they're trying a sort of hybrid: "Yes, gentle parenting is valuable, but we need boundaries. We still need to be the parents. We're allowed to say no."
Gentle parenting was itself a course correction. It pushed against the authoritarian parenting many millennials grew up with: high consequences, shame, spanking, and very little engagement with emotions. "I'm the dad. I said so. Therefore, obey."
I don't think we'll swing easily back the other way. In 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly recommended that parents not spank their children. I think that's a sad reality, because God's Word instructs us to discipline, and I believe that includes spanking. It instructs us to exercise authority and to train our children. We don't just let them form themselves and become whoever they are. We are called to shape them and train them in righteousness.
The reason our culture keeps swinging is that it has no foundation. It has no anchor. Generation after generation, it will keep swinging.
But church, God's Word is our anchor.
Our heavenly Father, who is training us in righteousness, calls us to train our children in the way of the Lord: according to His Word, His kingdom, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
If you want to be equipped for parenting, don't just follow the trends or read the latest books. Seek God's face. Consult the church. And ask: What has God said about the purpose of parenting?
The Big Idea
So what is the purpose? Here's the big idea:
God gave the gift of parenting as an image of His fatherly love. His love is made manifest through our self-giving love to our kids: in diligent training, discipline, protection, and provision. Our goal is to parent from a deep knowledge of God's overflowing love, and to pass that love on, so that the next generation sets its hope in Christ.
This morning we'll see how God's love overflows to us in creation, how our parenting is a response to and a picture of His fatherly love, and how He calls us to train in righteousness and discipline.
The Overflowing Love of God
Turn with me to Revelation 22.
Read Revelation 22:1–2.
What an incredible picture of heaven. Out from God comes abundant life. Jesus offered Himself as living water (John 4:10; 7:37–38). The life of God is overflowing: abundant life, abundant love, abundant goodness, abundant truth.
Love Within the Trinity
But this is first and foremost something in God. God is love. God's overflowing love was not created when He created humanity. It has existed eternally in Himself.
When God created man, He said, "Let us make man in our image" (Genesis 1:26–27). That word "us" shows that within the Godhead, there is already a community.
The Word, who is Jesus, was with God and was God. All things were made through Him. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1–3, 14). Jesus said it was His very food to do the will of the Father (John 4:34).
Love existed in the Father, the Son, and the Spirit before creation. Jesus prays, "You loved me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24). The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, and the Holy Spirit has been described as the bond of that love. And that love was poured out in creation: "Let us make man in our image."
Michael Reeves says the Father finds His very identity, His fatherhood, in loving and giving out His life and being to the Son. Wayne Grudem says the eternal love of the Father, Son, and Spirit makes heaven a world of love and joy, because each person of the Trinity seeks to bring joy to the other two.
Everything God creates flows out of that love, overflowing to others.
We Are God's Offspring
Did you know the Bible calls us God's offspring (Acts 17:28)? Jesus is the unique Son of God. But we were made as an overflow of God's love, and we are called His offspring.
Parenting Images God's Love
When God created marriage and the children who come from marriage, He was creating an image of what happens within the Trinity.
Marriage is two becoming one flesh, and in their love, multiplying. This is an image of God: the Three-in-One, in love, creating the world.
Love Is Self-Giving
And love, as God defines it, is self-giving. When Jesus washed His disciples' feet, He said, in effect, "You see how I have loved you. Now go and do the same" (John 13:14–15, 34). Love is service. Love is self-giving.
At the cross we see the greatest love: "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son" (1 John 4:10).
So if love is self-giving, when a husband and wife give themselves to one another in love, the gift that comes from it is children.
Do you see how we are imaging our God?
Children Bear Our Image
Read Genesis 5:1–3.
The Holy Spirit ties together this image and likeness. God created Adam in His image, and Adam had a son, Seth, in his image. Parenting is a gift that expresses God's own fatherly love, to us and to all creation.
Children Are a Gift, Not a Burden
We need to sit with this, because the world would say kids are not a blessing, but a burden. Few would use that language, but it's expressed in how we use birth control, in abortion, and in pushing children aside with anything that keeps them in front of a screen and out of my care and my energy.
But children are a gift. They are a heritage from the Lord (Psalm 127:3), a reward to the man who fears the Lord (Psalm 128:1–4). Our culture wants to set children aside. God says they are an image of what He Himself did in creating the world.
So that's the foundation: overflowing love. The love of the Father, Son, and Spirit, manifested in creation, poured out in the design of marriage between one man and one woman. And through that self-giving love comes the gift of children.
Spiritual Offspring: How Every Believer Images This Love
No One Is a Lesser Image-Bearer
Now I want to pause and speak to those who are single, and to married couples who cannot have children. You can image God in this way too. No one is a lesser image-bearer for being unmarried or without children.
Jesus never married. Paul wished more people could be like him, unmarried and fully devoted to the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:7–8). So how do the unmarried image God here?
By bearing spiritual children through self-giving love.
Bearing Spiritual Children
Whether you've chosen singleness for the sake of the kingdom, or it's simply where God has you now, your sacrificial love, poured out for the advance of the gospel, displays God's love moving outward. As you share the gospel, spiritual offspring become yours.
The same is true for married couples without children. And there's an overlap for those with kids: we train our children in the Lord, and we make disciples through the home.
Every one of us was born into a household. In the new covenant, we are also born again into God's household, becoming children of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26). This is how the kingdom of God grows in the new covenant: not through natural birth, but by spiritual birth.
And we can have many spiritual children. This is why Paul can call himself a father to the Corinthians: “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15). Like a father or a mother, we can nurture others in the faith.
A Name Better Than Sons and Daughters
Your reward will be greater than earthly sons and daughters.
Read Isaiah 56:4–5.
The new covenant makes singleness a legitimate and godly path to fulfilling God's call to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
I think we have underemphasized this truth in this teaching. And for the ways that has been painful or confusing to you, church, we are sorry.
Called to Train in Righteousness
Now, if that's the reality, what do we do with our children? We've been given the incredible gift of children. What now? And particularly, what now for the men?
We have been called to train in righteousness, to train our children up in the way of the Lord. And this isn't just a New Testament reality. It's an Old Testament reality.
Deuteronomy 6: Love First, Then Teach
Turn to Deuteronomy 6. It's the foundation for the commands we read in the New Testament, and for training up a child in Proverbs. We read it this morning in our call to worship.
Read Deuteronomy 6:4–9.
Notice: parents love the Lord first, and then pass that love on to the next generation. These words are on our hearts first. Then we teach our children, formally, and informally: as we walk, talk, sit, and rise.
Abraham: Commanding the Household
Genesis 18 tells us why God chose Abraham.
Read Genesis 18:19.
God chose Abraham so he would lead his children and household to keep the way of the Lord. Friends, God's purpose in giving you children is that you would father them, mother them, and train them the way the heavenly Father would.
Ephesians 6: Bring Them Up in the Lord
The household commands in Ephesians and Colossians are no different. "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4).
But sin has twisted us, and tempts us toward ditches. One ditch is harsh, domineering parenting, which provokes our children. The other is passivity: absence, inconsistency, not training at all.
But the Lord has come. The God who calls you to this is the God who equips you for it. Hebrews 13 prays that God would "equip you with everything good that you may do his will" (Hebrews 13:20–21). His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).
So whether you have one child or five, whether you feel ready or not, God will not call you to something He won't equip you for. He is the one at work in you, to will and to work for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).
Our Children Must Be Born Again
But one guardrail on everything I've said. As I mentioned before, in the new covenant, no one is born into the kingdom by natural birth. All who believe in Jesus are given the right to become children of God, born not of blood or the will of man, but of God (John 1:12–13). Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).
Our children are not saved because they grow up under our instruction or in the church. It does matter. Scripture calls the children of a believing parent holy (1 Corinthians 7:14). God sees the simple faith they're being taught right now. But they must profess faith. They must believe and be baptized.
So, family, if we think we can bring heaven on earth in our homes without Christ at the center, without Christ transforming hearts and causing our children to be born again, we will miss it in terrible ways.
Joseph: A Father Who Keeps God's Commands
An Ordinary Man, an Extraordinary Assignment
So what does all of this look like in a real man's life? Not in theory. In a home. With a job, and bills, and a child who needs him.
Look at Joseph.
Joseph was a working man, a carpenter in a small town. And God gave him the most extraordinary fathering assignment in history: to raise the Son of God.
Here's what's striking. Scripture records not a single word from Joseph. No sermons. No speeches. Everything we know about his fathering, we know by what he does. And what he does is keep, one by one, the very things God commands of fathers.
He Receives the Gift
God says children are a gift to be received (Psalm 127:3). Joseph receives a child who is not his own.
Before he understands what has happened, he chooses mercy. He resolves to spare Mary public shame (Matthew 1:19). When the angel speaks, he takes Mary as his wife (Matthew 1:20–24). And he names the child Jesus. In that day, naming was the father's legal act. Joseph claims Him as his son (Matthew 1:25).
Every child is a gift, whether they come by birth or by adoption. Men, receive them that way.
He Protects and Provides
God calls a father to provide for his household (1 Timothy 5:8), and to show his children a father's compassion (Psalm 103:13).
Joseph gets his family to Bethlehem and finds shelter, even if only a manger (Luke 2:4–7). When Herod's soldiers come, he flees by night to Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15). He brings Jesus home only when it's safe, and settles where his son can grow up in peace (Matthew 2:19–23). And he gives Him a trade. Jesus was known as the carpenter (Mark 6:3).
He Teaches Him the Ways of the Lord
God tells fathers to teach His words diligently, when you sit, when you walk, when you lie down, and when you rise (Deuteronomy 6:7). Joseph builds the Law's rhythms into his home.
He marks Jesus as a son of the covenant on the eighth day (Luke 2:21). He presents Him at the temple with the offering of the poor (Luke 2:22–24). He takes Him to Jerusalem for Passover, year after year (Luke 2:41). And Jesus went to the synagogue every Sabbath, as was His custom (Luke 4:16). Where do you think that habit was formed?
At home.
He Leads by Obeying God
God chose Abraham to command his household to keep the way of the Lord (Genesis 18:19). Joseph leads his household the same way: by obeying first.
Four times God speaks to him in a dream. Four times he gets up and does exactly what God says (Matthew 1:24; 2:14, 21–22). No delay. No debate.
Now, I know you'd like to say, "Well, God hasn't given me a dream." Church, God has given us something better than dreams. He has given us His Word.
Oh, that we would be like Joseph. When God speaks, may we say, "Yes, Lord," and go with haste.
He Bears the Weight Without Provoking
Fathers are told: do not provoke your children to anger (Ephesians 6:4).
When twelve-year-old Jesus goes missing, Joseph and Mary search for three days. When they find Him, Mary speaks for them both: "your father and I" (Luke 2:48). That is anguish, not rage. And the fruit is plain: Jesus goes home, is submissive to them, and grows in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:51–52).
Joseph Shows Us It's Possible
Joseph is not a perfect man. He needed a Savior, like we all do. But he is a faithful father. He received. He protected. He provided. He taught. He obeyed. In him, God's commands to fathers take on flesh.
Men, you don't have to be eloquent to be a faithful father. We can't quote a single word Joseph said. What your children will carry is what you do.
And notice where it all starts. In Deuteronomy 6, the command comes to the father first: love the Lord with all your heart, and let these words be on your heart. You cannot pass on what you do not possess. A healthy household starts with a healthy heart.
Jesus: A Son Who Keeps God's Commands
Now look at the other side of that home. Jesus, the Son of God, placed Himself under the authority of a carpenter and a young mother, born under the law (Galatians 4:4).
God's commands to children are simple: obey, listen, and honor. Jesus keeps every one.
He Obeys
He says, "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" And right after that, He goes home and is submissive to them (Luke 2:49–51).
He Listens and Learns
Year after year, He goes to Passover with them. He takes part in their life as the people of God. He learns Joseph's trade. He's known as the carpenter (Mark 6:3). And He grows in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52).
He Honors His Parents
We see it with His mother at Cana (John 2:1–11). And even from the cross, He provides for her, entrusting her to John's care (John 19:26–27).
God's Design Is Good
So Jesus is the perfect image of a child. The Son of God submitted to these structures. That shows us God's design is good. God has intention in giving fathers and mothers authority over their children.
So here's where we've come. We've seen the foundation: God's self-giving love, poured out for us. We've seen that love lived out by Joseph, and returned by Jesus. Now let's get specific: passing on the faith, and discipline.
Passing On the Faith: Nourishing Input
Training Is Feeding
Think of your training as giving your children a nourishing meal. Just as we feed our kids every day for their bodies, God calls us to give them a spiritual meal: the bread of life, His Word.
The word for "bring them up" in Ephesians 6:4 is the same word used for how Christ nourishes and cherishes the church (Ephesians 5:29). Training your child is feeding. It is nourishing. It is cherishing.
The world says it's harsh to give your beliefs to a child instead of letting them figure it out themselves. God says the opposite. It is harsh to leave them to discover on their own who they are and who God is.
If God is the absolute center, and His Word is fit for training us in righteousness, how dare we withhold it from them?
This is the Father's love being passed on, one generation to the next.
Read Psalm 78:5–8.
Fathers Lead
Fathers, this is your job in particular. And it isn't just old covenant. It's new covenant (Ephesians 6:4). Mothers, yes, you share in the teaching (Proverbs 1:8). Lois and Eunice sowed their faith into Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5). But fathers, you are the head of the home. Ultimately, this rests on you.
Even if you didn't receive this kind of training as a kid, it's still your calling, and it's an act of self-giving love. Be diligent. Learn and grow, even if you feel inept, like you don't have what it takes. Love the Lord by giving Him your energy here.
Family Worship: Read, Pray, Sing
Two simple ways: a planned family worship time, and teaching on the way, in the ordinary moments of life.
Keep family worship simple. About ten minutes, especially with young kids.
Read: something from God's Word or a children's Bible.
Pray: teach them to pray. Pray the Lord's Prayer, the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 6:24–26), the Psalms. Pray Scripture together.
Sing: a song together.
Teaching on the Way
Then in the ordinary moments, bring God's Word into the conversation. At the table, ask: What are you learning? How is God teaching you? What's something beautiful in His world you saw today? At bedtime, pray with them, and pray a blessing over them.
Build rhythms and holidays with Jesus at the center, so your kids ask questions: Why do we do this? Why do we celebrate this meal? What is the Lord's Supper? What is baptism? And you tell them what it all means.
Start Small, Keep Going
Start small, and let it grow. Receive your wife's feedback. If she says, "Honey, that was great. But it was a little over their heads," don't decide, "I'm a failure. I quit." Try again. Make it simpler. Keep at it.
Withholding God's Word Is Cruel
I want to say something strong, but I believe it's true. It would be cruel to stop giving your kids food or clean water.
And it is cruel for a Christian, who believes Christ is our only hope of salvation, not to feed their children God's Word, and to do it habitually.
Tell the next generation: "You are a sinner in need of a Savior. Jesus is that Savior. Come to Him." It is not cruel to tell them who they are. We are commanded to.
If that convicts you, hear this: it's not too late. Start this week.
Discipline: The Father's Heart
I saved the tough one for last: discipline. And I want to start with the heart of the Father. God disciplines us because He loves us. Open your Bibles to Hebrews 12.
God Disciplines Those He Loves
Read Hebrews 12:5–6.
The Lord disciplines the one He loves. All of God's discipline comes from that overflowing love. His training, His rebuke, His correction. When He convicts us from His Word and says, "This is wrong. Repent and believe," that is not unloving. It is love. And we need to understand that if we're going to discipline our children.
The Goal: Sharing His Holiness
Read Hebrews 12:10–11.
Do you see how this all holds together? God loves us. His love overflows in creating us with purpose and design. And then He trains us. Everything you endure until we see Him face to face is training in righteousness. He wants us to share His holiness. He wants to give us the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Fathers, we get to image this. Like every earthly father, we discipline "as it seemed best" to us. It isn't perfect like the Father's. But if we get the goal right, it will bear much fruit.
Here's the goal: that our children may share God's holiness, and that through the short pain of discipline, they would yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
This is God's fatherly care, flowing through you to your children.
The Rod
Turn to Proverbs 22. "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him" (Proverbs 22:15).
Folly Bound Up in the Heart
Folly is bound up in our children's hearts. Sin is bound up in our hearts. And the love of God does not leave us to our condemnation. He comes to set us free.
God's discipline is His loving act of saving us from sin. Our discipline is a loving act of helping set our children free from folly that will destroy them. Discipline's aim is to save from death.
Withholding Discipline Is Not Kindness
Turn back to Proverbs 13:24. "Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him."
Read Proverbs 23:13–14.
Hear this: withholding discipline is not kindness. And I believe the rod is included in this.
I understand why the American Academy of Pediatrics says what it does. They're trying to protect children from abuse. But Jesus doesn't call us to abandon discipline. He calls us to discipline lovingly. We love our children, so sometimes we spank our children. This is for young children, not teenagers. Discipline looks different at 3 than at 13.
The Rod
The rod is an image of pain. Hebrews describes discipline as painful. Avoiding all pain is not kindness. We are kind when we save our children from Sheol.
Guardrails and Ditches
Four Guardrails
God's Word gives us guardrails.
Not in anger. Do not provoke your children to anger (Ephesians 6:4). The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20). You may be angry at your kids, but do not sin against them.
Consistent, controlled, and proportional. We'll talk much more about this tonight with the men.
Always aimed at the heart. Discipline, and then talk: What folly or sin is bound up in your heart? Then show them the path of righteousness. Don't just say, "You did wrong." Show them what to do.
Restore and reconcile. Tell them why: "I discipline you because I love you. I want to see you set free and grow up in the Lord."
Two Ditches
The Bible shows us two dangerous ditches. One is harshness, which provokes and discourages children (Colossians 3:21). The other is passivity: David, who never once displeased his son Adonijah (1 Kings 1:6), and Eli, who did not restrain his sons (1 Samuel 3:13). Many were destroyed, and Eli himself died.
Hearts Turned
God's goal is that His fatherly, self-giving care would flow down through you to your children. We want our kids to turn to Jesus, to ask God for forgiveness, to learn that Jesus paid the penalty for their sin. More than anything, we want them to see that Jesus is Lord, and that their heavenly Father welcomes them through His Son to approach His throne boldly and receive His love.
Church, this is what revival looks like: your heart turned toward your children in self-giving love, and their hearts turned toward you in love, respect, and honor (Malachi 4:6).
That is a beautiful picture of revival. A beautiful picture of heaven. A beautiful picture of our God’s love for us and ours for him.
Conclusion
Grace for Our Own Ditches
I want to end here, church. We all make many mistakes. We've all experienced ditches in the parenting we received, harsh or passive. By nurture, by nature, or by our own sin, we are flawed and broken.
What we need is healing and restoration from our heavenly Father, who showed His love for us by sending His own Son. This is the chief display of God's love: His Son, sent for our sin, to rescue us.
So Here's the Call
So hold on to the big idea: God gave the gift of parenting as an image of His fatherly love. Parent from His overflowing love, and pass it on, so the next generation sets its hope in Christ.
And here's your next step this week: First, ten minutes of family worship, ideally every day. Read. Pray. Sing. Start small, and let it grow.
Second, sit down with your wife and make sure you have a discipline and training plan that you are on the same page about and get to work for the good of your kids and in the image of our heavenly Father. And make sure you get that family meeting rhythm in place for the ever-needed course correction process in parenting.
Generation to Generation
And God's love in His discipline and His training is for our good. We want that gospel truth, written on our hearts, to overflow into our marriages and into our children, as we train them in the Lord and tell the next generation, so they will raise their kids to love the Lord, and their children after them, on and on.
This is God's design for parenting: that His overflowing love would flow down into all the world, until it fills the whole earth.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for Your Word, which trains us in righteousness. Help us to obey You, to love Your design, and to parent from Your overflowing love. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.