The Father's Blessed Duty

Well, good morning to you. Open your Bibles to Proverbs 1, please. Proverbs 1. Let me go ahead and go to our Lord in prayer now. Well, Father, we are so grateful to you this morning. We are grateful that you have called out a people to yourself through Jesus Christ the Lord Lord, so that we have a reason to wake up and see your glory revealed and to worship you.

We have a reason, Lord, to look at your word and respond and lament over our sin, but yet have ultimate and great hope in a Savior. It's because of this Savior who has redeemed us and covered us by his blood that we have a reason to gather this morning together as your church To sing praises to his name and to remind ourselves once more of the grace and mercy that's found in Christ. I pray, Lord, that as we look at the subject of fatherhood, parenting, Lord, I pray that you would help us to feel the weight of it.

That's what was already said earlier today. I pray, God, that we would see that Christ is the one who is able to lift that weight for us and to help us along in obedience. Help us, Lord, to then, because of these things, to look to Jesus together now. Let all of our worship and all of our looking into the Word, searching for you, let it all find its terminus in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For we know that he has done all things well for our salvation. And let us never grow weary of singing that, saying that, proclaiming that. Let us, Father, always enjoy the worship that comes with understanding what Christ has done for us. So we thank you and we praise you and we ask for your help now by your good Holy Spirit. May he, Father, help us to worship you in a way that's delightful to you, that's pleasing to you, that's acceptable to you through the Lord.

We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, we have the World Cup. We have the World Cup now for the next, I don't know how long it lasts. And it's a time in which we as Americans are supposed to care about soccer for a few weeks.

And as long as America winning I kind of entertain that and I turn on the game and check it out And America so far is doing very well And so being a bandwagon fan that I am I turned on the end of the last game And I found myself completely confused as any true American should be when they watching soccer because it a very confusing sport So at the end of the game, it was towards the end, I think, at least they stopped playing after that, so it has to be the end of the game. And the ref, the referee, was hurt. And the referee was hurt on his back.

And one of the players was helping the ref get back to health. And I thought that was strange. You know, usually you have people come in as medical professionals, and this player was, I guess, a medical professional and helping the ref out. But what was even stranger about that is that I looked at the time, and the time was still going. And I thought that was strange because the referee is the one who's hurt, and the other team is down by two, and the time is still ticking away.

And I'm like, doesn't anyone care about this? Don't you want to try to catch up? And here this referee can't get off his back. This is a problem, right? And then it's even more confusing beyond that because the time was ticking upward and not downward. And so it's like, when does this stop?

You know, in football, we know it goes down to zero, game over. And here it's like at 90 minutes or something like that. I don't know what's going on. I don't know when the game ends. And then randomly after like, it was like 60 or 90 minutes. I can't remember which one it was, point something seconds.

And then everyone's like, okay, game's over. I'm like, how does that work? Who decided at what time this would all end? And I found myself at the end of the soccer game very utterly confused by the game. And I'm sure I will continue to be confused as I watch it. I told Samuel Say that I'll have to watch the next game with him in order to understand what's going on because he's the only non-American I know around that will help me with this.

But I got to thinking, I was thinking, if you don't know the objective of the game, if you don't know the objective of any sport game that you're playing, you are not going to do too well once you get onto the field. Let's say you have a soccer team that's going on the field, but they think they're playing football, that is real football, they are not going to do very well, right? If you do not know your main objective, in which football you carry a ball into the end zone, if you don't realize that in soccer you try to kick the ball into a net, you are not going to do well at the thing you're trying to do well at.

If you do not know the objective, if you do not know what's going on, you will not do well. Now, I was thinking of this when it comes to today being Father's Day, and just this basic question I think is really helpful to ask ourselves as fathers as mothers as parents what is the objective of being a father You as an individual, what is the objective of being a father? What is my main objective?

What am I doing out on this field? What am I trying to do? Or as a mother, whatever the case may be, what am I trying to do? If you do not have an answer for that that's rooted in scripture, you are going to do very bad or you won't be doing very well at that thing. And so today, this morning, again on Father's Day, I want to look at what is the main objective of a father?

What is the main objective of fatherhood? What should we be doing or what should we be thinking? This is what I'm trying to do out on the field. Well, if you look at Ephesians 6.4, we're going to look at two verses that we often think about when it comes to parenthood or being a father, and we're going to see what that main objective is. Look at Ephesians 6.4.

This is a very common verse that we see for this topic in which Paul says, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This is a very rigorous, bringing them up is a very rigorous thing. Bring them up completely in the instruction of the Lord, right? Or we think of Deuteronomy 6, 4. Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9, and we read this earlier with the reading of the law.

When Moses says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. There we have a similar instruction that fatherhood or being a parent means that you rigorously bring up, teach your child the way of the Lord. And not just like a whimsical kind of, I'll maybe talk about it every now and then.

There is a certain tenacity we have in both of these passages where I need to be serious and total in my instruction of the Lord to my children. What is the main objective of a father? It to teach to discipline to nurture their children in God word in a full and rigorous way And I think that a vital main point main objective we can hold on to because I think we I know we live in a culture today where everything is specialized So if I want my child to be taught, I bring them to the people who can do it in a very, with great expertise in a professional way.

One of the negatives of public school is this idea that teaching is something that's done out there by professionals. Where we need to understand fatherhood is one of which I teach and train up my child in a rigorous and full, complete way, the way of the Lord. Teaching happens in my home by me. Scripture has a lot to say about the goal of the Father in a place that we don't think of, but we should, is the book of Proverbs.

The book of Proverbs, we ought to consider, its highlight, one of its main objectives, is a father teaching their child. We see, look at Proverbs, I ask you to open up to that, look at Proverbs, look at chapter 1, verse 1. Notice it here at the opening verses of this book. The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction and wise dealing in righteousness, justice, and equity.

And here it is, to give prudence to the simple knowledge and discretion to the youth. Let the wise hear and increase in learning. And the one who understands, obtain guidance to understand a proverb, a saying, the words of the wise and the riddles, Books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Nehemiah, Joshua, Job, Psalm, 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, 2 Timothy, 2 Corinthians, 1 John, 3 John, 3 John, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 42, 45, 47, 50, 51, 42, 51, 42, 45, 51, 42, 46, 51, 42, 45, 52, 46, 51, 42, 42, 45, 45, 51, 42, 45, 46, 51, 42, 42, 45, 45, 45, 46, 51, 42, 45, Proverbs is an introduction to the Proverbs of Solomon.

And in these first nine chapters, we see over and over and over again, my son, listen to my teachings. Listen to my instruction. We see a father teaching a child. And just to see a flavor of this, look at Proverbs 1, look at verse 8. Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching. Or Proverbs 2, verse 1.

My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, and we'll get into that more later. Or look at Proverbs 3, 1. My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. And on and on it goes in this first nine chapters in 3, 11 through 12. Look at chapter 3, verse 21. Chapter 4, verse 1.

Verse 10, verse 20. Chapter 5, verse 1. Verse 7. Chapter 6, verse 1. Verse 20. 7, 1.

7, 24. 8, 32. The point is that this same theme goes on in the first nine chapters of Son, Listen to My Instructions. It's a father teaching a child. So, with that in mind, I want to this morning grab a few general principles from the first nine chapters of Proverbs on fatherhood. Focusing on what it means to train up, to teach, to discipline your child in the way of the Lord in a rigorous and intentional way, which should be our objective as fathers, as mothers, as parents.

Now, I know what you're thinking. I don't have any children, so I don't need to worry about it. I know some of you were thinking that way. Well, if you're planning on one day to have children, you ought to be considering, when I have them, what should be my goal or objective? Or all of you know someone who has a child in the home, and you ought to care about how your friend, how your close brother or sister in Christ is doing that very thing.

And so we all care about what's going on in homes, about what our fathers think about parenthood, that they're not being persuaded by the world of what their objectives are. We ought to all care about this very fundamental thing in our church of what our father is doing with their children. So here we should all care about these general principles that we see in the first nine chapters of Proverbs.

So let's look at the first general principle we get from Proverbs about teaching our children. About teaching our children. The first one, teach your children the word of God needs to be... I'm sorry, excuse me. Teaching your children the word of God needs to be a display of God love and your love as a parent The first general principle that we going to see is teaching your child the word of God needs to be a display of God love and your love as the parent Now this isn't first in the first nine chapters, but I think it's the most important one, which is why I'm starting with it.

And so go to Proverbs 3, 11 through 12, as we see that principle played out. Now, Proverbs 3, verses 11 and 12, Solomon says, My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves. And then he likens it to a father, human father's love, as a father, the son in whom he delights. And so this principle here is that we need to teach God's word rigorously and intentionally, completely, and we do it in a way that's revealing the love of God for our children and our own hearts as well.

You know, it can be an extremely difficult thing to be under rigorous training, can it? Anyone who has gone through a time of training, intense training, it can be difficult. You can want to give up. You can get frustrated, bitter. I was running a few miles yesterday and my legs felt like cinder blocks for the first few miles. It is so frustrating and it can be irritating.

And so a child who is being faithfully trained by their father can get discouraged very, very easily. In fact, that can be a reason why a father will say, oh, I need to stop doing this. And so here we see this in this proverb. He says, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary. Because it's a very easy thing to happen when it's being done even right.

Solomon here says the antidote to feeling discouraged as a child is to know that such discipline comes from God who loves. That is the antidote. That the difficulty, the training, and the word of God, it comes from a God who loves you, is what Solomon is saying. And like a dad who delights in the child as well. So in other words, a father, a human dad who delights in their child as well.

So there we see the principle that the rigorous training we put our children through as we ought to with the word of God needs to come in a way of this God loves you and my heart delights in you It means fathers, you need to discipline your child in the word of God while displaying a God who loves them in that disciplining and showing your own delight for them in that training. First, reveal God's love for them. God does not command His law in a cold, demanding, cold obedience with no love in the equation.

And so we cannot teach His word and correct our children as if that's how He does it. And if we are to display God's love to our children, if we are to do this faithfully, it needs to be centered where the Father has expressed His love most potently, His response, Combat internal ties and conflicts with God. Jesus spoke that truth and måste have the same Easy one, right?

For God so loved the world, he did what? He gave his Son. God showed his love to the world and said, Here he is, my Son. And the Son, when he walked this world, he says, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle, lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Oh, the burden it is to try to learn God's word and apply God's word and do God's word. And God says, let me show you my son as an act of love to you. And the son says, come to me all who are burdened and I will help you. So you cannot show the love of God in your preaching or teaching of God's word to your children without showing Jesus in the word.

So as you teach your child the law of God, to walk according to it, it must be done with eyes on Christ, who forgives sinners and enables the work of the walk to be done. He is the one that makes the burden light and manageable. When you teach a child how to walk you don just set them there and just go way back and don give them any kind of support and say well good luck kid You right there for them And he knows it right When a kid first learns to walk his eyes are on you and he focused on you You the support as he goes You there to hold him when he kind of goes off You help him right When you teach a child to walk you don just set them on their feet and walk away You provide support to them as they learn Teach your children to put their eyes on Christ as they begin to learn and practice the Word of God He is the support Teach them to walk out in faith in Christ.

Teach them, you need to obey God. You need to do the law of God, but teach it in a way in which they're looking at Jesus as they do so. They have a confidence to walk out in obedience to God because of who Christ is and what he has done for sinners. Teach them to walk out in obedience to God in faith in Christ. And when they sin and fall, which they will do, to rely upon him for forgiveness and healing, and to gain the courage to get back up and continue to walk in the law of the Lord by his strength and healing.

For he has promised not only to forgive sinners, but to help his people overcome the practice of sins too. You see, if you're teaching the law of God of do this, and it's not with Christ as their focus, They will not want to even walk out in obedience. And whenever they fail, they'll get discouraged, bitter, because they don't know the one who says, I will come and bandage you and help you and heal you so you can get back up and walk once more.

So when your child sins and needs to be disciplined, let the disciplining finish with them asking Christ for forgiveness and help for the future. We have this parenting in Christianity where it's like an experience thing. Like, salvation is just one big experience. Teach your children how to have faith in Jesus. Teach them how to repent and ask help from Christ.

Don't just say, well, I'm just kind of waiting to see what happens. Waiting for some experience. Teach them how to put their faith in Jesus. Teach them how to say, Christ, I messed up and I need your help. And then teach them to cry out to Christ, help me to sin no more, Lord, please. Your disciplining needs to be finished or culminated in that look to Jesus now.

This issue, because he's promised to help. They need to be taught that Jesus is for them in love to overcome sin and walk in the law of God. Reveal the love of God to your children by training them to look to Jesus as they learn to walk in the commandments of God. And, of course, we saw again Solomon say, just like, you know, the instruction comes from God who loves.

Because, just like an earthly father delights in their son. And so you need to delight in your child as you do this. As you are teaching this, it needs to be done with delight for your child, not irritation that you have been disturbed by your child's sinful behavior. And oh my goodness, I did not want to preach this because fatherhood is the hardest thing for me right now.

There's no question, the hardest thing in my life right now is fatherhood. And this is overwhelming at points. It is so easy when your child fails to obey the law of God for it to be an irritant to you, and so your discipline is based off of that. When it needs to be based off of my desire for my son, I love my son, I have affection for my son, and I want to help him with this and correct him in Christ for this.

So not only are you pointing them to the teachings of Jesus in his word, but you're doing it in a way in which it is so obvious that your affection is for them. So not only are they getting truth from God's word, but they're feeling the affection of Christ coming from you. That they're loved. So they receive the love of God and the affection of God's love through your teaching and your affection for them.

For the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights. If we fail at having this affection for our child, and if we fail to point them to Jesus and the love of God, then one of two things will happen. One thing that could happen is we raise up a child who obeys God by their own strength, and we create a proud Pharisee. There nothing worse than a very highly moral child and adult that thinks they do it by their own strength And so if we fail to point to the love of God in our training and instruction we run the risk of raising up a proud Pharisee that relies upon himself to be moral The other ditch we could fall into if we fail to reveal God's love in this way is our child could grow so weary, so burdened, as we see from Jesus, that they will leave God in bitterness as soon as they can.

This is a mountain I could never climb, and I'm tired of trying, so I'm leaving the moment I can and just do the better and easier thing to live in flesh. If we do not reveal God's love as we are training them up in the word of God, they could easily turn into a Pharisee or a heartless or a sinful Gentile. So, teaching our child God's law needs to be done with love as we show God's love for them in Christ.

Now, a second general principle. I have five. Don't think I'm going to get to them all. I just don't think so. We'll see, though. Let's just keep going.

The second general principle we get from Proverbs for teaching our children is teach the bigger picture of the reward of obedience and misery of disobedience in this life. Let me say it again. The second general principle we get from the book of Proverbs here is make sure you teach the bigger picture of the reward for obedience and the misery of disobedience in this life.

I remember growing up with a half-baked Christianity being taught to me. I thought that sin is the greater thing. It's pleasurable. That's the thing you want to do. But you got to limit it enough in order for you to get eternal life. I don't want to end up in hell.

And the fact of the matter is what the book of Proverbs teaches is that it is misery to live in sin. And there is great reward to live for God and righteousness. And we need to connect that to our little ones' hearts so that they learn that, Yeah, I'm jumping ahead here, but yeah, this sin looks and feels good, but it's going to lead to misery. I know it.

And we can train our kids to understand that soon. It is good for us. So again, the second general principle is teach the bigger picture of the reward of obedience and the misery of disobedience in this life. And we see this in Proverbs 1, starting in verse 8 and 9. Look at that with me, please. Proverbs 1 8 and 9 Now we going to go back and go through Look at what Solomon says He says Hear my son your father instruction and forsake not your mother teaching And look, here's the reward of it.

For they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. So here he's equating that obedience to the law of God, obedience to their instruction, makes them look good, beautiful. It makes them look regal, right? It makes them have a wreath about their head and pendants, a nice looking pendant around their neck. It's always better to see an 18 year old at this time of year wearing a graduation robe than a prison garment, right?

It's nice to see them looking regal and good in that graduation robe. Even better when they wear stoles and cords and other things that show greater achievement. It makes them look good, as it should, because their hard work paid off for this reward that they are receiving now. So much better than the person who gave themselves up to fleshly desires, and now they're wearing a prison robe.

Or a prison, not a robe, but you get the deal. Solomon is pointing out there is great reward, and he's liking it to looking and wearing nice, regal things. I remember showing up in boot camp wearing civilian clothes, and they switch you very quickly to sweatpants and hoodies. And as you get later on in boot camp, you got to wear more of the actual uniform in the military.

And you could tell who was further along and who was about to graduate because they looked really good. And meanwhile, I'm wearing sweats and a hoodie. And it was great to look the part, to look like you're in the military. And I remember at graduation, you're able to take off your recruit cap and you put on the full actual military cap and it felt great.

And so here Solomon's saying there's great reward for obeying God. It's like wearing, looking regal. And the contrast with that of not a reward but rather misery, he continues in verse 10 through 19. This is the contrast of obeying. This is not obeying. And so this is what you get instead.

He says, My son, if sinners, again, verse 10, entice you, do not consent. If they say, come with us, let us lie in wait for blood. Let us ambush the innocent without reason. Like Sheol let us swallow them alive and whole Like those who go down to the pit we shall find all precious goods Look at this It sounds good doesn it We shall find all precious goods We shall fill our houses with plunder Throw in your lot with us among us and we will all have one purse He says, my son, do not walk in the way with them.

Hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood. And here it is, for in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood. They set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain. It takes away the life of its possessors.

You see, the one who is obedient, they have the wreath about them, they look good. The one who is disobedient, although it looks like it would be a better way to go, hey, I'll get money. What does it lead to? They wear their own blood. They die. It's misery.

It is not good. So there's that contrast, right? The one who is obey, he receives a reward. The one who doesn't obey, he thinks he's going to get something good, But all he ends up getting is his own blood, his own death. So the truth is, the way of disobedience seems good at first, but leads to misery. If you can teach your child that, that is huge.

The way of disobedience seems good at first, it will, but it leads to misery. The way of obedience goes against the flesh, and it's not always pleasant because of that, but it is pleasant overall. It's important to give children a view of that. Encourage them. Encourage your children when they have obeyed and have naturally good consequences because of that.

Show that to them. You see what happens whenever you live in accordance with God's word. You see this thing that you get now, this good fruit that you get now. You see the wreath about your head. You see how beautiful this is. Reveal to them when they have given in to temptation and are receiving the rotten fruit from it that God's word stands true.

Not in a ha-ha, told you so, but in a patient, loving way. Don't you see, son, daughter, what happens when you disobey God? Look at the fruit you're eating now because of it. There's many times when the kids have, my kids, when they are getting along and they're doing great Thank you. Or to be fighting, bickering, which one did you honestly enjoy more?

And they always say, oh, having a good time. Well, why do you think that is? Because all you guys wanted your own way and still fought each other to get to it. Whereas the other one, you're looking out for each other, you love each other, you're being patient with one another. Do you notice how God's word rings true? Reject the flesh and there's a great reward.

Encourage and entertain the flesh, you reap the whirlwind. There's little examples everywhere if we have eyes to see it. It is vital that our children learn to see past the initial gratification of the flesh, of giving in to sin, and see that there is an even greater reward for rejecting those wayward passions. So if when you are disciplining, training, teaching your children the way of the Lord, and you do it with affection for them, and they see the greater reward of it on the other end, you will have a way into their heart as you teach.

Which leads me to the next general principle from the book of Proverbs on teaching your children. The third one is we get from Proverbs is teach the necessity of obedience to the law of God from the heart. Teach the necessity as you're training up your children of the obedience to the law of God from the heart. God is not interested in just cold outward obedience like a dog.

And you shouldn't be okay with that either as a parent. God is not interested in just cold, outward obedience. We desire an obedience from within the very emotions and desires of our children from the heart. That's where we want obedience to be. We see this in Proverbs 2, 1 through 5. Look at that with me.

My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, notice again, treasure up my commandments with you. Receiving the word means to treasure it. Making your ear attentive to wisdom, inclining your heart to understanding, inclining the heart. Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

He is saying it needs to be in your heart in order for you to actually understand the fear of the Lord and wisdom. Look at Proverbs 3, 1-8. Look at chapter 3 1 My son do not forget my teaching but let your heart keep my commandments For length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you, but bind them around your neck.

Write them on the tablet of your heart, so you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. He'll be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

It's important for us to highlight the need for our children to obey God, for ourselves to obey God from the recesses of our heart, from the deep emotions and desires within our hearts. And I think this is an important point to make because as Christians, we often emphasize denying the desires of the heart, which is true, Do not lean on your own understanding. And we ought to emphasize that we cannot just give in to the desires of our own heart.

We have to work against those wayward desires. We have to work against the wayward desires of the heart. We need to do battle, right? And we emphasize that, as we should. But that's not the end. That's a means to an end.

You get what I'm saying? Today, fighting and teaching our children to fight the desires of the heart when it's wayward is not the end of it all. It's a means to get to the end. What do I mean by that? The end, what we desire, is for our heart to submit to God and then do those things in submission to God. So if all we're ever telling our children is don't do the passions of the flesh, don't do it.

Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. It's incomplete because the end is, and do the things from your heart when it's obedient to God. You see, it's a joyful thing. We all experience that as Christians when our heart desires lawful things and we do it. You can think of that right now. Does that feel great?

That's life. That is true life right there. So if all we're ever telling our children is deny the passions of flesh, deny, deny, deny, All right, we're complete. We need to tell them that the end is that our hearts would then change to desire the things that God desires and then find life in doing those things And so obedience just cold hard outward obedience is not the end The end is obedience from within the heart we learn from Proverbs Believe it or not, God has created humans to do what the heart desires.

He has. He's created humans to desire things within the heart. That's a good thing. And then do it. That is what makes it enjoyable, pleasurable. And proper training is to deny the desires of the flesh so that over time your desires will shift to what is lawful and you will do it from the heart which is full of happiness and joy.

So this is what you're training yourself, by the way. This isn't applicable to you. I mean, come on. But we're training our children to deny the passions of the flesh so that their hearts will over time shift and desire the things that are lawful and do it and it will be pleasurable, enjoyable, it will be light. Indeed, if your child never learns to have obedience from the heart and just outward obedience to avoid punishment, they will not be equipped to overcome the heavy temptation of sin that comes in later years.

They will eventually give in to what feels good from the heart. But if they are trained early on and they see God working in the heart, changing their desires to do what's pleasurable, what is good, that will undergird them for when they face temptations when they leave the home. If your teaching does not find a home within their hearts, when your child is old enough to face temptations that are strong, they will have no defense for it.

God has created humanity to pursue the things we delight in. And by their teenage years, if they do not delight in the law of God at all, then they will pursue something else, especially as they get out of your authority. So teaching your children, your child to deny the desires of the flesh is a means for their heart to desire what is lawful and to obey from the heart.

So in other words, another means to train your child to obey from the heart is to not allow bad attitudes. This is just application at this point for this, and I'm running out of time. But this is a very good reason why you should not allow your young child to have a bad attitude when you're disciplining them. Because you are teaching them it's okay to have any kind of attitude within your heart.

You just give in to what going on in your heart You should actually spank bad attitudes out of your child heart so that they learn I not a slave of my attitude Actually my heart can change I don't have to feel this way when I'm getting disciplined. I can actually do something about it. This is why you should not allow bad attitudes when you're disciplining because you're teaching them, well, I can just give in to whatever is going on in my heart.

The fact is that their heart can actually be changed with this teaching. And you need to train that in them. But the most important means of changing the desires of the heart is, again, by relying upon Christ. Their hearts will never truly, completely change and be transformed and desire the things that are lawful and good if they are not changed by Christ.

Which is another reason why when you're disciplining, you need to point them to Jesus. And in your discipline, you show them the forgiveness Jesus offers, and you also teach them the promise that Christ says, I can change your heart if you rely upon me. So you tell your child, I don't want just outward obedience here, I want your heart to want to obey me here.

And Christ can help you, he's promised to do so if you put your faith in him. And so while you might spank as a discipline, do not end there, but talk to your child about Christ, and about his promise that he can change, and he has changed hearts, and he's promised to do so for those who believe and have faith in them. So challenge your child to rely upon Christ to have a changed heart.

And when they do, when all of a sudden you see them wanting to love their sibling, all of a sudden you see them wanting to do things, point to Jesus. To say, do you see what Christ has helped you to do there? As they have put their faith in Christ and said they would rely upon him. Show them when they see success that Christ is doing something. I see Christ working in you.

Encourage them in that way. Because it will encourage them to say the next thing that they face, the next sin, well Christ has helped me back there, he can help me here surely. It is necessary that we train our children to obey God from the heart. Okay, I have two more, but I'm not going to get through them. The fourth one, I'm just going to say it in a general way.

The fourth general principle for teaching our children in the book of Proverbs is the rooting out of laziness. We see in chapter 6, verses 1-5 and 6-11, very famous verses. One is someone owes someone money and he says, figure it out now, son. Go figure it out now. Take care of it unless you get put in jail. And then he goes on to say, look at the ant.

The ant isn't lazy. Don't be lazy. Figure out your issues. Figure it out and overcome them. And the point is that we need to train our kids not to be lazy. When there's issues, when there's problems, they need to have a desire, the tenacity to take care of it.

And not just, well, I'll just take a nap. I'll just play video games. I'll just forget about my worries and my troubles and just try to just think about something else. We train our kids to not be lazy. And to, when there's an issue, we face it head on and we take care of it. Because what's behind that?

Whenever our kid feels the shame of being at odds with God, we want them to be very sensitive to that. And to say, what must I do to be saved? We don't want them to get in the habit of saying, there's an issue here, it's stressing me out, I don't like it, and I'm just going to rely upon trying to just think of something else and just appease the flesh.

We need to teach our kids not to be lazy, with the heart of it to be, to face their problems head on, to face a God who does not, is not happy with their disobedience, to say, what must I do to make this right, in which we point them to Jesus. And the last thing, the last general principle we see in the first five chapters of Proverbs, and we see this in 1, 20-23, but also at the end in chapter 8, verses 1-11, we see wisdom crying out. Let me read this.

We see wisdom crying out, and the principle we learn from it is that wisdom is not quiet. That God cries out to our children the truth, and they need to have ears to hear and listen. Wisdom, we see in Proverbs, we'll look at 8, 1 through 11. Does not wisdom call, Solomon says, Proverbs 8, 1 through 11. Does not understanding raise her voice on the heights beside the way at the crossroads?

She takes her stand besides the gate in front of town at the entrance of the port portal She cries aloud to you O men I call and my cries to the children of man O simple ones learn prudence O fools learn sense Here for I will speak noble things and from my lips will come what is right For my mouth will utter truth Wickedness is an abomination to my lips All the words of my mouth are righteous There is nothing twisted or crooked in them They are all straight to him who understands and right to those who find knowledge. Take my instruction instead of silver and knowledge rather than nice choice gold for wisdom is better than jewels and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. You see, wisdom cries out.

Listen. It's loud. It's there for you to hear. Again, it reminds us of Jesus crying out, Come to me all who labor and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. He cries out. But then there's also something else crying out as well.

Not only does wisdom cry out, but folly cries out as well. Look at chapter 9, verses 13 through 18. The woman folly is loud as well. She is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house. She takes a seat on the highest places of the town, calling to those who pass by who are going straight on their way.

Whoever is simple, let him turn in here. And to him who lacks sense, she says, stolen water is sweet, bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol. You see, the general principle we get from this is the devil and his worldly system have a constant cry of folly Let's pray. Be louder and more persuasive than folly's call.

Be the cry of wisdom from the hill. Fathers, let them see the Bible in hymnals open as you read and sing the word together. Let the wisdom cry out from the scriptures and cry out from the hymns and from worship. Let them learn how to pray to our Father in Christ by the Spirit by your example in family worship Use tools of crying out of wisdom of truth like catechisms to train up your child soundly from A to Z in the scriptures Let wisdom be the constant song of your household So that when your child hears the melody of folly, it is an offensive and strange and intrusive thing to their very souls.

So what is your main objective for fatherhood? What is your main objective for being a parent? May it be that your home is a place where wisdom cries out a sweet cry constantly. By the time your child leaves the home, let it be that they know exactly who saved them from their sins. Let it be that they can articulate the gospel very well, God's plan to save sinners through his Son and by the Spirit.

But let it be that they know their own sins well and have been trained to see the condition of their own heart before God And how to rely upon a loving God to overcome the different manifestations of those sins in their hearts. Let it be that when they leave your home, they know God and they know their own condition well. And when they are asked, what means did God use to bring them to these truths in their hearts?

Let them without hesitation say, my dad was faithful to tirelessly teach me the law of the Lord. 4 Revealing the love of God in Christ by his own love for me as he trained me up. Let them say that the call of wisdom began loud and beautifully in my home growing up, and it continues to call to me every day of my life the call of Christ for me to come and find my rest in him.

It is a high calling indeed. It is a difficult thing. It's so easy to get stuck in the minutia as parents, to not see the overall picture, how important it is for us to remember Christ's call. To even our own souls, come to me and get rest. I will help you. I will lead you.

Some of fathers and parents in here, I'm sure, are doing these things, and they're organized, and they're teaching their children, but yet they feel the weight of their own failures to do it well. Be comforted in the fact that Christ offers you the same comfort he offers our children. And there's some, I'm sure, parents in here that, if they were to think what my objective for raising children It might not go much more than well make money make sure they eat and are healthy Beloved there so much more to that Train your child up well And if you feel like you have not even begun to do the work, rely upon Christ yourself.

He will guide you. He has people around you. Help to show you how to do that very thing. Let us pray to our God for help and thanksgiving. God in heaven, thank you so much for fatherhood. We thank you so much, Lord, for parents.

We thank you, God, for the high calling that it is. It's so easy for us, Lord, to, again, like I said, to get lost in the minutia of things and to forget this bigger purpose that you have for us. I pray, God, that you would help us as parents, as fathers, to train up our child rigorously, to do it in an intentional way, I pray that that would be revealed in the love that you have for sinners in Christ.

That we would train them to walk righteously by the power of Christ. That would be revealed in our affection for them. I pray that we would reveal the beauties of following Christ and obeying Him. To see the reward that we have even in this life. I pray, Lord, that we would be satisfied only with the Word of God being on our children's hearts. Let us ask the question, oh, what must I do to be doing this well?

I pray, Lord, that where we have failed and we are continuing to fail, help us ourselves to rely upon Christ. May our kids see us failing and relying upon Christ for help to change our hearts and to walk obediently. And so may all this be coming together that Christ would be glorified and people would know the Lord by the example of their parents. Thank you, God, for being so kind to us.

Thank you for Christ who enables this work. May we rely upon him with gratitude. In Jesus' name, amen.