Fathers Series

Fathers –

Don’t Provoke our kids to Anger

Ways we do that

Abuse our Authority over our kids

Over Protect Our kids

Over Indulge our kids

Over Criticize our Kids

What should we do?

Do Raise our kids

Do Discipline our kids – Educate, Discipline

Do Instruct our kids (admonition), Instruction, warning,

Slide 1

Happy Father’s Day Dads.

Good to be a Man

Even though

No records set at the phone company for long distance calls to Dad’s,

Mother’s day is much more widely celebrated than Father’s day,

it is still good sometimes to be a man.

As I was preparing for this message I read a list of reasons why it is good to be a man.

I want to share a few of those with you.

It is good to be a man because…

You can still be friends with someone who forgot to invite you to something.

You can drop by a friend’s house without bringing “a little gift.”

Your guy friends will never trap you with

“So…Do you notice anything different?”

You can watch a game with a friend for hours without talking and not think that he must be mad at you.

You can go to the bathroom in public without a support group.

And today it is good to be a man because we have a gift for every man here, whether you are a Father or not. It is a book called “Man in the Mirror.”

You can pick one up on your way out this morning.

Intro

But anyway dads, even though

It is sometimes good to be a man,

it is very often hard to be a dad.

So, in keeping with our series, we are going to be looking at playing our part as a dad and what the Bible says about how we can be a good dad.

Turn with me to Ephesians 6:4 (p. 829)

Slide 2

We have been looking at What Paul had to say about how we can play our part in the various roles that God has designed for each one of us.

We have seen how you can play your part as a

Mother

Wife

Husband

Child

And today Paul talks to Dads.

Ephesians 6:4

4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

(from New International Version)

We are going to look at this verse closely today Dads so we can better play our part.

We can see first here that Paul tells us Dads to

Don’t Provoke Our Kids to Anger

Slide 3

Ephesians 6:4a

4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children (NIV)

4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger (NASU)

Now I don’t believe that any dad here comes home at night planning to anger their children, despite what their kids may think.

But there are some ways that we need to recognize as dads that

we do just that.

Slide 4

We will sometimes provoke our kids to anger when we

Abuse Our Authority over our kids

Slide 5

Dads, we live in tough times.

Work is hard.

Marriage is hard work.

We have many expectations laid on our shoulders.

To top all of that off, God has put these little people into our lives whose maturity levels are not quite what ours are.

And then we have to deal with the kids too (LOL)

With all of that laid on us, it is easy to take out frustration on those who are less likely to have any recourse to harm us. That is often our kids.

We need to recognize that we can easily provoke our kids to anger when we Abuse our Authority

Maybe we had a day when nothing was good enough for anyone at work.

Your sales manager was breathing down your neck for more sales but you can’t take it out on him.

The shop where you work is going to be going through a round of layoffs and your job may be on the chopping block, so you can’t upset anyone there or it very well may be your job next.

Your company is going to start making you pay for all of your insurance.

You got a speeding ticket on the way home, but you can’t yell at the cop or he might give you another ticket.

And then you come home and your kid wants something from you. And you have given all that you can, and you blow up on him for no reason.

They see you using your authority in a way that abuses them and it angers them, but they feel they have no outlet to express it.

You have just provoked your child to anger, embittered them against you, for what seems to them no reason.