Dad Duties Series

Text: 1 Thessalonians 2:10-12, Title: Dad Duties, Date/Place: NRBC, 6/20/10, AM

A. Opening illustration: “The American male, at one time the ever present guide of close knit colonial family, left his family for the factory and the materialistic lure of the Industrial Revolution brought. The most numerous and most active members of the church, the men, who commonly debated theology in the colonial marketplace, were in time found arguing business practices in the tavern. The fathers who labored hard to instill the value of cooperation in their offspring, in time gave their children an example of unlimited individual competition. Men who once taught their children respect and obedience toward godly authority came to act as though independence was a national virtue. Men who once had an active hand in the education of their sons and daughters have relegated this responsibility to a public school system dominated by female teachers and female learning patterns. Once the leaders of social progress, American men came to look on social reform and mercy movements as women’s work.”

B. Background to passage: I haven’t preached a Father’s Day message since 2007, even though I cover family issues regularly. There are not many passages that cover all the issues that I would like to address, so I picked one, and we will do bible drill this morning. I am going to go at this from a topical approach. Recommend books: Foundations for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood by Piper/Grudem, also might go to cbmw.org, also God, Marriage, and Family by Kostenberger, and Family-Driven Faith and What He Must Be by Voddie Baucham.

C. Main thought: Biblical fathers are entrusted with a great deal of responsibility.

A. Duties to Wife

1. These duties are specific to wives, but really apply to family as a whole. This text gives the main truth that weaves its way through the entirety of this message: as a father, your number one job is to love Christ, and live like it! And your number two job, Christ commands us in Ephesians, is to love our wives as Christ does the church. “I thought this was about Father’s Day, not Husband’s day.” Fathers are also supposed to provide for their families. This doesn’t mean that wives cannot work, just simply that ultimately it is the husbands responsibility to insure that the family has its basic needs met. Husbands are also expected to protect the family, and specifically women.

2. Matt 22:37, Eph 5:25-28, 1 Tim 5:8, Pro 13:22, 1 Cor 4:14

3. Illustration: “I don’t have to have a deep meaningful conversation, just something…” Part 1, p. 379-380, RBM&W, definition: the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s various relationships, “women and children first…” and getting up to check on a noise at night, read the biblical support for men protecting women from What He Must Be, p. 142

4. You are the leader of your home. Shepherd your family to pursue and worship Christ together. Do not saddle your wife with that responsibility. Many failures in the home are due to the failure of men to lead their families in righteousness. This doesn’t mean forcefully, but gently and wisely. Your wife and children need to see a living, breathing example of devotion and blamelessness before God. The people in your home, older and younger, will become like you. They will follow your example. The best thing that you can do for your family, is like wholly for Christ. Even if you fail at most of these other things. And the best thing that you can do, dads, for your children is to love their mother. Lay your life down before her, serve her, disciple her, and do this before your sons and daughters, so that your sons know how they are to treat a woman, and your daughters how they should expect to be treated. Men who are incapable of work are not included in this warning, but those who are lazy or unwilling. Fathers, you be willing to take a bullet for your wives, or take out the trash, or vacuum the floors, or go check outside when a noise is there, or protect them from unwanted advances, or from attacks from their families.

B. Duties to Children

1. Fathers have an incomprehensible responsibility to rear children because of the influence their presence and ministry have upon the life of a child. We really could spend the whole time here, and probably could spend weeks here, and probably should; for our fathers have failed to pass on a biblical understanding of fatherhood, or we have failed to listen. The statistics are overwhelming. However, time is short, so let’s look quickly at a few. Some of these things are required and carried out by both parents, but the father bears the weight of the responsibility. Biblically, fathers should 1) teach their children truth – Pro 4:1-2, 2) form and maintain a close relationship with children/young adults – Josh 4:21, 3) with God as his example, he is to love the children, 4) delight in them – Pro 23:24, 5) comfort them and 6) encourage them – 1 Thess 2, 7) to warn and discipline them – Eph 6:4. All of this requires time! Specifically, to sons, fathers are to give them an example, train them, and charge them of their duties as a Christian man. Specifically to daughters, fathers are to guard their hearts, and help them choose a proper mate.