Episode 4.1 — The Discipline of Fatherhood

Welcome to The Student Podcast. This is where two guys get together and we discuss and learn how to be students of Jesus Christ. So good to have you today. Did you ever find a Bible at the conference you went to? You know, I, uh, no, no, no, I was so bummed. You know, we went to the Thomas Nelson Publishers was there and we were, I was like, oh, this, they had the premier Bible there. And so like, that's the selection I was looking at. And I was, I was so excited to thumb through it and they were like, oh, all they had was New American Standard and they don't have any New King James. And I was like, well, that's a bummer. But the nice thing was I was talking to them and come to find out that at the end of this year, that they are publishing an interleaved version of the New King James.
So on the left-hand page will be the text of scripture, and on the right-hand page will be blank. And so every page of the Bible has a full open page next to it for notes. And so it looks really promising. So I'm just kind of like, I'll just stick with my journal Bible for now. Yeah, that sounds super helpful for like being able to like write notes and journal your way through. Yeah, we were watching Tim Challies, he has a show on American Gospel Television called Epic. Okay.
Where he's just kind of going all over the globe and looking at church history artifacts and trying to kind of tell the story behind the artifact. And one of them he was at I forget whose house it was, but anyways, this lady had an interleaved Bible. And Jonathan Edwards personally made himself one. He kind of tore apart his Bible and set it back in so he could have notes in his personal Bible. Well, anyways, that's what this person had as well.
And so because of how I take notes in my Bible, I was like, that is ingenious. and so uh yeah i mean uh i think so i'm gonna wait because it's it's i think i'm not sure if it's going to be under their premiere collection or not but it's like a hundred bucks so it's oh that's not too bad honestly is it like i don't know for like bibles yeah is it what is it leather like is it nice yeah it looks really nice okay i can tell it's bonded leather okay it seems like it's it's going to be for quality for a soft like genuine leather bible like if you like they're pricey yeah like yeah 200 bucks sometimes like depending on what it is and how many notes are in it yeah well that was um I don't know, I guess I just haven't, I'm not a Bible buyer. I buy a Bible and I typically wear it out. So I don't buy a Bible very often. My NIV, let's see, I've been using this one since...
Is that the one you had as a new believer? Yeah, so this is the one my parents gave me when I first became a Christian in 2007. So, I mean, it's got some miles on it. Literally, this is the one I... Actually, there's a story to tell you about this one.
We were doing what's called ammo offload. And so, when I was in the Navy, we would, as a firefighter, damage controlman, we would have to sit there in our repair locker, which is kind of like a mini fire station. And you had to have your firefighters ensemble, like your literally feet are in the boots. You didn't have to have it fully donned, but you had to, essentially we would just sit there.
Right. Just in case if something happened with one of the missiles or one of the bombs, you know, literally within 10 seconds we could be out on the hangar bay to fight that fire. Well, I had done this plenty of times. You know, you go on six-hour shifts, so you're just sitting in there just for six hours. Really? Straight? Yeah, just straight and four to six. I think it was six.
We were doing that day. And I don't know, people do all sorts of stuff when you've got six hours of nothing to do on your hands. People would sit there and they'd listen to music, or they might have something like a Game Boy. I don't know what we had back then, but people would be doing whatever. And I remember it was like I came to my senses for a moment and I realized how ridiculous I must have looked to everybody in the repair locker.
Yeah. Because I just want to read my Bible. Yeah. I didn't think it was weird. I did. I literally just picked up my Bible and I was like, I got six hours. Yeah. And I could just sit here and read. Right. And read and read and read. And it was just like this moment of like stepping into my old self that I realized like, I don't know what my buddies are like, because I literally haven't talked to them at all. I've just been enjoying sitting here reading my Bible. It's like, God, you've made me a weirdo. the best ways yeah exactly i mean i say that just like in their eyes yeah because i if i had seen that in my you know pre-converted days i would have been like i don't know what's wrong with that dude yeah like he's just been sitting there reading forever yeah yeah so um it's those types of things that the lord was doing in my heart to make me realize you know i i he started changing my loves yeah and that was awesome That was difficult. Yeah. There's something to be said for taking an actual physical Bible in a public place, though. I don't know what was going on.
If you had Bible apps and stuff. But today, it's so easy to just flip open a Bible app. And sometimes, on campus, when we were reading the Bible, I forget my Bible. But when we have our Bibles out, and most people try to make a decent effort to do that, people are looking and notice.
And it's a testimony in and of itself. I think there's a national effort. There's like a bring your Bible to school day every year. I remember that at Mizzou. I know that for Olivia, she was doing her Bible on her phone for a long time. And then just kind of came this realization that, and she's faithful. She's a type, she's got so much self-control.
If I'm sitting there with my phone open, The bible app and the facebook app are really close to each other. Yeah But no, she was like doing her devotions because that's olivia, yeah, um But she started recognizing like when the kids would wake up in the morning, they'd see her sitting there on her phone She's like, they don't know what I'm doing. They don't know if I'm not paying attention to them because I'm watching a video on Facebook or if I'm sending text messages to friends. They have no clue. She actually purposely has a testimony to our children so they could see, oh, mom is reading her Bible. She's not just ignoring us.
So she actually pulled out her physical Bible and now, you know, it's her journal Bible and two study Bibles and her prayer journal and her devotional book. And she's got like this whole library she pulls out. Got the equipment. Exactly, exactly. So now it's like, I think Olivia needs her own study. Yeah. So, yeah. That's awesome. Well, how about we pray? Sound good? That sounds good.
Father, we thank you so much for this beautiful spring day. Lord, we thank you that when the sun shines upon us that we know that it is a sign of your mercy and of your grace. that your covenant love endures forever. Lord, we pray that you would be with us during this conversation. Thank you so much for Simon, and thank you for Arkent Hughes writing this book, and most of all, thank you that you are a loving father, that you show compassion to us and you care for us as children. Lord, we pray that we would follow after you. that we would be tender to the working of your Holy Spirit through your word. We pray that we would have words to speak to one another to build each other up, imparting grace to each other. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Well today we are, what chapter is this? It's the Discipline of Fatherhood, Chapter 4 of Arkett and Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man. Yeah. And so when we come to this chapter, this is an interesting one, right? Yeah. Because for you, discipline of a father is theory still. Right. But yet, you grew up in a Christian home with a godly father. For me, this is a difficult chapter. And I'm going to be kind of transparent here, you know.
My biological father and my mother divorced when I was like four years old. And so I have a good relationship with my dad. I would see him, at first it was on the weekends, and then every other weekend. He moved to Northern California, we were in Southern California, so I would see him every couple months. And then eventually he moved to the north suburbs of Chicago, and so I would see him every six months, once a year.
It became pretty difficult to spend quality time with my father. But my mom remarried my stepfather when I was five, four and a half, five, something like that. I don't know the exact time. I'm horrible with knowing how old I was when things happened in my life. And so Tom raised me basically my whole life. Yeah, those first four years, my father was there, and then there's a year or so where my mother was divorced by herself.
But the difficulty for me in reading this chapter, and this is being transparent with you, is that man's in prison. And this is a difficulty when I come to this passage, you know, because the Lord's been working on my heart a lot. convicting me so much of sinful patterns in my life that I was raised with, that I inherited, and that I'm guilty of just because my own heart is sinful. And so in many ways, as we talk about this, you're influenced by your father, and I'm influenced by both my father and my stepfather. But in a lot of ways, I'm struggling I'm really struggling in my own life how to learn how to be a godly father. And so as we go through this chapter, I want to be transparent with you that I don't, one of the things we talked about before when we started this is we want to keep the ninth commandment. So in our private conversations, you know, you and I can talk about things, but I'm going to be pretty transparent about what's going on in my heart, but by no means are we trying to just talk bad about our fathers. but I'm coming from a very broken model in this. I mean, the discipline of marriage, I come from a broken model, but this one has really hit me hard.
And so, I just wanted to front that. I think actually what I'd like to do with this chapter is split it into two weeks. Pete Okay. Because I think there's a lot of theological depth that I wish Arkent Hughes went in that I'd just like to explore with you and think about.
And maybe if you could give me tips and pointers from either the examples in your life that you have seen of godliness. And praise God. He's surrounded me with godly examples now in the church. But I'm going to be mining you a little bit, so feel free to experience in wisdom, you know, oh, here's what I've seen, here's this godly model that I've been taught.
So, long preface, just to say my heart is really broken over this chapter. but also deeply appreciative of God in light of it. So he starts this chapter with his own experience. And what part of this first section kind of stood out to you? I don't know.
I thought it was just like thrilling how Just to see the, or should I say, he seems like a kid at Christmas. When his first kid is born, he talks about how they were out all day and they got burnt to a crisp in the California sun. And he's like, yeah, that all faded into the background when you talk about Oh, i'm i'm losing it here. But anyway, he talks about like how that like was, you know didn't even matter at the point he just Couldn't believe he was holding his like newborn daughter in his arms and then like getting to see his grand grandson I think it was be born um and see the thrill of his dad and his mom and just like that that thrill and just how precious I remember when my I remember when the last three of my siblings were born, but I really remember when my last sibling was born and holding her. And we just all sat around just crying, just so happy.
And there's something, I don't know, miraculous about new life that is just really precious, and especially seeing the heart of a father. we all instinctively know that a mother should be connected to her child because she birthed that child, she's feeding that child, there's a hormonal connection there, there's a real actual human bond there. But to see a father's just tenderness just break out in that moment, I think is a really precious thing. My heart was warm just reading through it here.
But Yeah. I haven't experienced that myself yet. But how was that experience for you? Were you able to watch your children be born or like experience that first? Yeah. I actually caught Daniel. Did you? Yeah. OK. Yeah. And R. Kent Hughes must have a much better memory than I do. Yeah. I remember the emotions more than I do the room. Yeah. I just remember being. I'm a crier. I'm just weeping with joy.
I was so worried with Nathan. We had to go to the hospital. We were supposed to be with the Midwife Center, and we ended up getting transferred to the hospital. Olivia had to get induced, and so it was this long, drawn-out thing. It was this mixture for me, because here I got to hold Nathan for the first time.
He's so small, and he's so beautiful. I just remember, like, God's giving me a boy. But then I was so scared too because Olivia's birth was pretty traumatic and so they had to take her, I don't want to say immediately, but within a couple minutes they had to take her to the OR. So I just remember holding that little kid, Nathan, in my arms.
And just with him holding, we were just praying for his mom. Just pleading with God to care for her life and thanking God for the life of Nathan in my arms. And thank God she was okay. The great doctors at UPMC Mercy in Pittsburgh, they took wonderful care of Olivia.
It's never gotten any more like routine you know yeah each child is is different with their different birth stories and um it's really cool man yeah but that that memory kind of fades you know unless we're talking about like right now yeah in the humdrum of life it's two o'clock in the morning and it's the fourth diaper to change you know and you're just cut you're just so tired yeah and then there's a different type of emotional exhaustion that comes like now that they're older and um we're going to kind of get into some of those stories you know it's easy for that uh that connection that emotional and spiritual connection to your children to kind of It's kind of like when you're first married. Well, you're still in the honeymoon stage, but it's similar. You still feel like you're newly married, but after a decade of marriage, and I see this as we talk to older people. If you're not active in maintaining that right heart towards your spouse, it's easy to just become comfortable and to forget why you fell in love with them. And so with children, I think that can happen too.
And so I loved the quote that he said, I also felt grace, the under hindered flow of God's goodness to me and my family. I thought that was a beautiful statement. You know, like that's, I think that's what was washing over me was just the grace of God. And for us, we were pleading for his mercy as well in that moment.
What do you, what did you think about, he quotes Lance Morrow and it talks about this idea that I'll just let you tell me. What is he getting at in that section? Yeah, he's talking about this innate longing children have for their fathers. He talks about as something that was almost physical, something passionate, something infantile and profound. but mysterious.
And I mean, I guess now that he says that, I can think that, but that didn't necessarily jump out at me as like, oh yeah, I've seen that, you know, I don't know, all the time. And maybe, like, I think I've definitely seen it in a young child where it's like, daddy, daddy, you know, I'm hurt, you know, or they're scared. And I think that changes as you get older.
And I guess the time when I would have remembered it is I wanted my dad's approval. I wanted to make my dad happy. I wanted him to be proud of me. So I guess he talks about it in very passionate, emotional terms, like it's something that is very near and dear to his heart. I guess I didn't connect with his statement quite as much in the way that he describes it. But I'm not sure how it fell on you. Yeah, and I kind of felt the same way, you know, um struggled with the quote a little bit I got what he was saying that like our children desire a father and I see that in my own children know that They want my attention.
They want me. They want my approval. They want me to hear them out Even though it might take them 10 years to get to their point with a story, right? right, but um But they, you know, I struggle with this with Daniel, right? Daniel's our cuddler. Every night at family worship, even at dinner, he sits right next to me at dinner and at family worship. And his seat, his chair always gets closer and closer and closer and closer to mine. And I have to tell him this at dinner all the time.
Hey, buddy, that's your chair. This is my chair. Stay seated on your chair. You don't need to be on my lap during dinner, you know? He's only six. Olivia pointed out to me, Brian, that's normal for a little boy to want to sit close to his dad. I was like, well, that's fine. He can sit close.
He just doesn't need to be on my lap. But I did mean that. I took that to heart. Again, struggling with my own family background, I wasn't welcomed with my stepfather just to go sit on his lap. And so now during family worship, He'll put his head on my lap, and he'll sit on my lap, and he'll drape his arms around me.
I'm just kind of like, he's not always going to want to do that. He has this longing to just hang out with his dad, just be near me. And it's kind of like, I need to foster that in an appropriate way, obviously. Maybe I shouldn't say obviously. Yeah. Enjoy it while it's there. Yeah. To cultivate that relationship between he and I. But I think he's getting at something that Galatians chapter 4 is getting at.
But when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts. The spirit who cries out, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And since you are a son, God has also made you an heir.
And I remember when I was first a Christian, and I read those words, Simon. It was like the Holy Spirit washing over my soul. I had a father. I had a father who wanted to spend time with me, a father who loved me, a father who cared for me. Coming from this broken background, you know, it was just like... I had a heavenly father who loved me so much that he would die for me. Instead of treating me like an add-on to his life, or just someone he was responsible for but didn't really want in his life. But he made me a fool of him. And so I think that's why RK Hughes is good now.
I've recognized that until now as I've been working in my heart, not just me working in my heart, the Holy Spirit working in my heart, as I've been thinking a lot about fatherhood and how I'm trying to intentionally parent my children, and just seeing Deborah's desire to spend time with just me.
She just wants me to see what she's drawing. She just wants to talk to me about what's going on in her day. She just wants that time. Mm-hmm because she just wants dad. Mm-hmm And i'm trying to learn that like this is a beautiful thing that like my children want me yeah, um So, um I think that's what he's getting at.
That's a long way of saying, you know, I think that's good That's a super powerful experience Like yeah hearing that of like god showing himself to you in that way. I mean, I think I don't know. I know in my season of life back in undergrad, I went through a profound season of loneliness.
And I think God meets us in some ways where we're at and displays his sufficiency for us in those needs. You know, for you, as I need a father, you know, and experiencing God as a father. I know for me in that season of loneliness, experiencing God as a companion and a friend and the Holy Spirit who's there and like not just a all-knowing, all-glorious entity out there who's mighty on my behalf, but someone who I know and can talk to and pour my heart out to and just be still before and grown. I think God does meet us where we're at and there's, whatever season of life we're in and whatever our heart is going through. And I think in different seasons, you see the sufficiency of our God in different ways. And that's really cool to see, to hear about how he did that.
Yeah, he talks about, on my page 47, I have no clue what that is in your newfangled book. I'm on page 60. So I'm ahead of the game. No, you're too slow, man. He's added more words to it. No, this is, I don't know, a couple paragraphs above fatherhoods do not. He says, in the beginning of one paragraph, he says, the terrible fact is we can either grace our children or damn them with unrequited wounds, which never seem to heal. Yeah, I underlined that.
You think that's an overstatement or you think he's serious? you know I think he he balances this later and he talks about how um maybe that was actually I think I'm conflating things because I'm reading Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones right now and he was wherever I heard this from it was basically talking about how you can it might have been in here how you can as a father like put weigh all of the salvation outcome of your children on yourself and then And I don't remember if it was here or somewhere else, but I think in some way, like I get what he's saying, but I think you have to balance it with that other truth, that you are not solely responsible for your children's damnation or salvation. But I think taking that in balance, I think the statement is extremely true, that as a father, you have a responsibility extreme and grave responsibility towards your children.
So, I mean, you're a shepherd of their souls, right? You're a shepherd of their souls. And I mean, this is why we baptize our infants. And this is why the church surrounds these kids. This is why the parents aren't supposed to drop the ball and the church is supposed to keep them accountable on that, right? Because this is a grave thing and God has chosen to grow his church through families, through a father telling his son, making that word immersed in the home, when they go in, when they go out. And if a father drops that ball, it's not saying that ties God's hands all of a sudden, right? So we don't wanna swing to that side again. It's not salvation by works, right?
Are you really raising them in the covenant of exactly exactly are you? Daily living and preaching the gospel to them so that by the end by the time you shoot them out as errors in this world They are I mean everyone's without excuse but they have if they aren't Trusting in Christ. They have trampled the blood of Christ underfoot like we read in Hebrews yeah, and yet to say that the negative way is the way that I've experienced in my family. I think Jesus' words are profoundly true.
He talks about, you know, it'd be better for a millstone to be tied around your neck than for you to make one of these little ones stumble. I don't think Jesus holds punches here. the after effects of my stepfather's sexually abusing my sister, and the ramification that's had on not even just my sister's faith, her life, but other siblings' lives. I have siblings who are, you know, why would God let this happen to our family if He was really loving and just?
If my dad could do that, I don't want a father. And so, I mean, thinking about the damage of my own soul, things I'm having to unlearn, things I have to put off and things I have to put on. And I'm not trying to blame everything on my dad. Like I said, I have enough sin of my own that would take me a lifetime to be sanctified from. Too bad I don't have the children of my whole lifetime. I get them for about 18 years. We ought to take it that seriously, I think.
Not to bring psychologists into this, but I think God gives fathers, and he uses that image for himself for a reason. Because the father is supposed to be that I mean there's a huge push in broad evangelical world to stop referring to God as the father because and this is a liberal wings, but But because so many Girls and boys one either don't have a father. Mm-hmm come from broken homes or their fathers have been abusive in some way or another And so I think Archon Hughes is right here in the way that it's not just my job, or it's not just my blessing to get to raise up my children in the nourishment of the Lord, but it's also the harsh reality that I could damage my children's souls. in how I represent God as a father. My children are either going to have to look past me or see the Father through me.
I think there's an element, too, of stewardship with this. You know, Psalm 127 says children are God's heritage. And in a large sense, God entrusts children to fathers. I mean, yes, they are your children biologically, but they're not yours. They're, you know, they're these little ones that Jesus loves and cares for and cares about. And I think there's a lot of analogies and they're probably not one-to-one in God's giving you that gift to steward and to shepherd.
And he does not have, he doesn't mince words when it comes to poor stewardship in the New Testament. He talks about the miser who just, digs in the dirt, right? And wouldn't do anything with the money that was entrusted to him. And, you know, we just got done with a series of eldership and Paul, you know, commissioning the elder Ephesus, shepherd the flock of God whom he purchased with his own blood. Right?
There's some analogy there of shepherding souls, of stewarding what God has given you, And again, I don't, this isn't really in scripture for fathers, but I think there's a sense in which you have to give an account for the souls that have been trusted to you.
What did you, how did you shepherd them? How did you display the father, the heavenly father to these children? Do they know, you know, I think we can ask a similar question like we did in marriage. Do they know God as father better because you were their father? Or were you a stumbling block to that?
I don't know if I've told you this story before, but we were at I don't know if I should use names or not, because it was a private conversation. We were at a pastor's house one time, and as we were there, the wife was making breakfast, and I had woken up and done my devotions, and she offered me a cup of coffee. So we were just talking as we were both drinking coffee, and she said something that I've I've never heard someone say it in my entire life. I asked her about how her father was doing, and her father was a seminary professor, and he's older in age and has some health problems, and so I asked her how he was doing, and she was talking to me about her dad, and she just started kind of reminiscing about her dad, and she was like, you know, if I ever wanted to know what my Heavenly Father was like, I knew what it was like because my dad was always so loving and he was always so patient with us.
And I thought, I've never heard a daughter say that in my entire life. Wow. What a testimony to this man's godliness. Praise God. That she's middle-aged. She's a grandma. And she can still say that about her dad. Wow. If my heavenly father is even better than that, I can't wait to be with him.
Getting back to your idea, I love the vows that we have for covenant baptism. The first vow of covenant baptism gets to your point. Do you believe this child is a possession of God entrusted to your care? Like the foundational promise that we make when baptizing our children is this is ultimately not my child. This is God's child that he's entrusted to me.
And so, you know, then it goes on to religious things beyond that, you know, providing for them for their temporal well-being. teaching them to love God and His Word, the Bible, and to provide them with a God-centered education, to promise to teach them of their sinful nature, or of the plan of salvation which centers in Jesus and His personal need of a relationship with Christ. We make these promises, there's more promises, but like foundational promises, you know, are you actually going to raise up Deuteronomy 6 kids.
Mm-hmm. Like are you actually gonna take the Shema seriously? No hero 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 strength But the verse goes on from there. Mm-hmm And you shall teach these laws diligently to your children when you rise up."
And like you were saying, when you rise up, when you're on your way driving down the road, are you talking about the things of God? When you're sitting down at dinner, do you bring up the things of God? Do you pray with your children? Do you pray for them and with them? Do you teach them how to pray? Do you catechize them? This is a huge blessing that He's given us, that the Lord Himself has given us. and our children.
And so I think at first blush, as many of Hughes' one-line quotes can be, you might take it as like, oh, there's no way, that's too strong. But the more you think about it, you go, I think he's right. There is, in one sense, eternity at stake here. And we live in a culture where We don't need to make we don't need to make being a father any less relevant. No No, no, we don't need to become legalists on the other side. Yeah either But just staring at it soberly. Mm-hmm. No, hold on. Oh Yeah, this is no by no means a problem that Only affects the black community.
I mean, this is pervasive in every culture, but I remember seeing a Some sort of a he's either a tv stint or a or a documentary done by a black people With a crowd of black people and talking about fatherlessness And how in a given room, you know multiple men had fathered multiple children through different women and just the long-term ramifications that had individually on that child, collectively as a family, but then broader through culture and society, just you think it's, you know, if you shirk this responsibility and you think, okay, and you selfishly think that it's all about you and okay, whatever, this is attack on, right? there is a ripple effect that ends up not being a blessing to society in the long run. And I would zoom it out of just the African American community, you know, and this is especially in two ways, I'm going to say, even in Caucasian communities, one with rampant divorce, There's, I was just in a Greek class the other day, and we were talking, we were trying to talk about our families, and it was like, there were very few people who had one father and one mother. There's step-siblings and there's half-siblings all over the place, and so I don't think it's just an African-American thing.
None of us were African-American, all of us were Caucasians in this class. Although, I take that back, there was one dude from Jamaica in the class. We all have greek names in the class. I don't know his actual name. I can't remember his greek name right now. He's funny to hear him with his jamaican accent. It's modern greek. All of us are bad at it. He's really dry. It's really fun.
So that's one, the actual physical divorcing and walking away. But the other is, and I think Kent gets here, I don't know why I would call him Kent, R. Kent Hughes, Hughes, let's call him Hughes. When he gets here, is even though you might have a father who is a physical presence, but he's emotionally absent.
And this is where he picks up on the Ephesians chapter six, verse four. He really narrows it down to this verse. I mean, obviously we can go outside of that. And that's one of the things I'd like to do tonight as we explore this idea. But let's go ahead and Ephesians six, four, what is that passage? Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. All right, so in the whole family code that he gives in Ephesians, this is the one line, two parts. And so a don't section and a do section. So I think tonight we'll do the don't section. Next time we meet we'll do the do section. So the don'ts, you know, don't provoke your children to anger.
What does he say is the idea there? He quotes the New English Bible which translated, you fathers again must not goad your children to resentment. And he talks about how you can kind of push the buttons to make your children get exasperated. I think it's kind of the idea he's getting at here. To seed with resentment and irritation. Yeah, and then he gives some examples of that. I don't think his list is meant to be exhaustive, because the heart is deceitfully wicked above all else. I'm sure we can add 15 other examples to this, but I think it's pretty good to start with what he has here.
And so the first way that a father could exasperate his children is what? He talks about criticism. All right. Yeah. So does that mean you can't ever tell your child? Like, is this just all positive thinking, you know? You never criticize your child? You never tell them when they're doing something wrong?
No. No. Because that would be forgetting the rest of the verse. Good point. Good point. Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Well, we're going to get there next week, right? Okay, sorry. Compare scripture with scripture. No, just kidding. But I think you could throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yeah. I've seen parents that do it.
I was reading a book by Paul David Tripp, something about grace-based parenting. It's got to be on the shelf behind you somewhere. But I read through that book and I was like, okay, I gotta be more graceful with the children. And then it ended up that I was so afraid to criticize, correct, and discipline that it was bad. And Olivia was like, you gotta stop. I need you to be dad. And I would find myself frustrated and stuff like that, because I latched on the first part of this verse without the second part of the verse. So fearful of my own proclivities.
But when he's talking about this, what is he really getting at? He gives the idea of a horse. And what's the picture that he gives there? Yeah, he talks about like a horse who's had its spirit broken. He says you can see a broken spirit in the way a horse moves and you can see it in the eyes and posture of a disenheartened child. So I think he's talking about criticism that brings a child to discouragement. And he gives the example of Winston Churchill, who just continuously belittled his, Winston, Winston Churchill's father, I should say, who continuously belittled Winston and how you can make your child lose heart and become discouraged and be like, okay, can I do anything right?
You know? Yeah, essentially setting a bar so high that you're never going to make it. And the father doesn't do anything to actually encourage them in getting them over that bar. Or having a bar that's not in line with scripture, which would be legalism.
He talks about the father running up and down the field making fun of his son. Chicken, woman, just belittling his son. Thankfully I don't see this too much when I coach the kids at wrestling, but every once in a while you'll get to a dad where you're like, I get excited on the side of the mat.
I'm not going to act like I don't. But there's a way in which you go from trying to encourage and coach a kid to nothing but you're doing everything wrong. I've seen it in the kid's eyes where they're just like, I don't want to wrestle anymore. I don't want to do this.
Deflation. Yeah, well they really do, and you'll see it on the mat. So when kids are wrestling, or when anybody's wrestling, you're literally able to see the physical posture of a person who doesn't want to do it anymore. They're done. Muscles go slack, and they're like a wet sack of potatoes out there. And you'll see it. There's no more fight left in them, because their spirit's been broken.
And I've seen fathers have the power to do that with being overly critical. Which makes the second part of this verse impossible. I know we're going to get there next week, but if you do take all the wind out of your kid, how do you expect them to be instructable and want to do anything?
We'll get to that later. No, you're spot on. He talks about a couple of different ways that you can be overly critical. And I think the word there, I think, I wish he had said, you know, over-criticism or something like that. I think there's a certain amount of instruction. Maybe that doesn't come to us. Non-constructive criticism. Yeah, yeah.
But in that, after he talks about the horse, he mentions a couple types of criticism. Did you take note of those? Yeah, the one I underlined was, he says some parents never praise their children, and he gives an example on principle, but I think some just don't just because they forget to, or they haven't made it intention to, to praise their children and say something positive when they do well. They only focus on the negative. Have you seen this in your life where a father, either in the church or elsewhere, where you saw a healthy relationship where the father was an encourager of his children?
Yeah. Well, I just want to encourage you, because I saw you do it the other day. And I was like, wow, that was really, I don't know. I think it would have been easy to become exasperated. I think it was Daniel or something, and he really wanted to do something, and it wasn't something he was supposed to do. was going to like melt down but he didn't and you just thanked him like thank you Dan for not like melting down or like you know having a good attitude. I was like oh like that would be very easy to just jump to like nah like don't do that you know um and to jump on the negative but to be like okay he's like cultivating self-control and like It's still in the works, but you know, we got somewhere and I think the works of dad. Yeah Yeah, so I think that was encouraging to see to see that and I don't say that just to to Coddle up to you or anything and then a few minutes make sure that you tell me a place that I'm falling So yeah, you know pull the deflate button. Yeah But yeah, I I think praising the kid and this isn't I false flattery. I think that there's a danger here, right? You don't want to just be such a flatterer that, you know, as if your kid never does anything wrong. But when they do do something praiseworthy, say it. Encourage them.
What does Hebrews chapter 10, 24 and 25, 23 through 25, when it talks about us getting together, what's one of the reasons why we're supposed to get together? Why shouldn't we forsake the assembling of ourselves together? Encourage each other Right like yeah My I was talking to someone the other day, and I was trying to encourage them you need to see yourself I Was talking to the Indian pastors hmm? And I was trying to tell them you need to see yourselves as the CEO of the congregation And I'm not saying a chief executive officer you need to be the chief encouragement officer hmm in your congregation you read the prayers of Paul and And they are so grace-filled.
So, you know, greet this person, oh Lord, this person did these wonderful things. You read through the ends of the epistles and, I mean, Paul is mentioning people by name, thanking them for things they've done. He's not afraid to call out people for their sins, but he really is encouraging, encouraging, encouraging, always encouraging in Christ. And so, you know, I've been really hit hard at Gratia Church. I mean, at Gratia Church, I'm re-preaching through the book of Ephesians.
And I can never re-preach a sermon twice the same way, because I preach from an outline, so it's never the same sermon. But I was preaching through Ephesians chapter four, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but only what is good for necessary edification that it might impart grace to the hearers. And just realizing how often my words can be toxic, corrosive, destructive, tearing people down. Your words can be so powerful and you can never take them back. I can't unsay things once they leave my mouth. Just taking the book of James seriously.
What I say to my children, am I imparting grace to them? Am I, when I speak to my children, am I speaking to them, am I speaking to them in such a way that they are loving Jesus Christ more? Or am I taking these little hearts that the Lord's told me, hey, you get to shepherd these little guys. You get to shepherd these girls. Am I imparting grace to them, building them up into the men and women of God that I desire them to become?
Or do I belittle? Do I just say whatever comes to my mouth and just vomit like it can't be? And children make all sorts of mistakes. I'm not saying we shouldn't correct them, but how we correct them. This is a huge thing right now in our household is teaching our children how you say something is almost as important as what you say. So how I correct the children can either be seen as overly critical or dad loves me and he's trying to build me up. Man, I'm struggling with this so much. I was not raised in a household of lavish approbation. I was raised in a house where... Well, that was pretty good. I don't know, I think there's a way in which you can essentially just become a cheerleader for your kids when they really aren't. They could have done better.
But there's a guy at Eastville, James Diamond. I look up to James a lot. He's this deacon at the church. Just seeing his relationship, especially with his son Ben. all the different interactions I saw between James and his son Ben. He was just encouraging. Encouraging him, encouraging him, encouraging him. And I know that Ben had sins. I know that he struggled with stuff. But seeing how his father just would encourage him. Like he taught him. But it was always, you know, even when it would be, you know, you said with this, I'm going to impart grace to you. Okay, here's what went wrong. Here's what we could do. You got this, Benny. I was like, man. That's so cool. Yeah.
Well, and like, I think we're, I just, where I want to go with this is, is thinking of God and his correction of us. And I feel like we're going to end up blurring the lines a little bit. It just makes me think of, you were talking about how kids mess up all the time. And it just, my gut was, well, that's me. You know, like we see it, you know, and you see a kid who just can't get the thing right or, you know, whatever you told him to do it 10 times and it's still not done.
Right. Yeah. And it's easy to see it palpably on that level, but it's like, okay, let's zoom out a little bit. Like, that's me in the hands of a Heavenly Father. And what is His disposition then towards me? Right? And like, they might deserve your exasperation in your opinion. I deserve His damnation, right? And it made me think of Hebrews 12 where he says, like, God deals with you as sons. in whom he loves, he chastens and he scourges every son whom he receives, right? And we love it the whole time he's doing it, right? You know what he says? No, he says, no chastening for the present. Where is it here? I had this memorized at one point.
No chastening seems to be joyful for the present but painful nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. And I think that's that's how we as fathers can display God the Father to our children in this criticism constructively. Is it to yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness? Is it to impart grace to them?
Because that's what my father does to me. There's nothing, I remember Joel Beeky preached a sermon on Malachi about, I think it was Malachi or maybe it was Micah, talking about God sits as a refiner of his people. He's like, have you ever met a jeweler that takes his silver and puts it in acid and makes it worse? He's like, no, every jeweler is going to put his silver into the fire, his gold into the fire to make it better. And like, everything God does for you is to make you better and to make you more beautiful and to see his own reflection in you, right?
How are my words, how are my interactions with my kids yielding fruit? How are they imparting grace? How are they making them better? And like, not just in like a, like a be a better person sense, but how are they shaping them into children that love the Lord?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you stole it from me. I have, I have Hebrews chapter 12 right there on the next page, but that's okay. You just jumped ahead. No, that's good. Um, uh, I think, I think another, um, One of the things that was noted here also, he says, Why are fathers critical? Perhaps that is the way their fathers treated them. Perhaps they are simply critical people who mask it well in public but cannot restrain themselves in the heat of domestic relationships. To such fathers, God's word comes like an arrowhead from the bullseye.
Do not exasperate your children with criticism. There's a book I'm working through right now in my own life. My wife, she's so romantic. For Valentine's Day, she bought me Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp. Isn't that romantic? That's great. You got a good wife. Yes, I do.
But Let's see, in one of these, let me find the page here, he asks a question where essentially he says, oh here we go, Paul Tripp says, Is it safe to assume that your pastor is loving his wife, children, and extended family well? Is it safe to assume that he is using his time and money well? Is it safe to assume that he is honoring God with what he does in his most private moments? Is it safe to assume that he is as committed to the opportunities and responsibilities of his calling as he should be? Is it safe to assume that he works to make sure, this is the one that caught me, Is it safe to assume that he works to make sure that there is a living agreement between his public proclamations and his private life? Does every member of the body of Christ need the ministry of the body of Christ, including the pastor?
But that second to last question, I was reading this one Sabbath afternoon, and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. We had this phrase growing up. I was just talking to my sister about this last night. We had this phrase growing up where we were told that we needed to put on our public face, which is literally the definition of hypocrisy.
You act one way in private, but then in public you put on a different face. You have two masks. And I just asked Olivia, I said, I read this question to her, you know, is it safe to assume that he works to make sure that there is a living agreement between his public proclamations and his private life?
And I was like, is there anywhere in my life that you see that doesn't line up with how I act outside the home, in the church and with others? And she said, you're a lot more patient with people at church than you are with me and the kids. I kind of let that seep in and chewed on it for a little while. Nathan walked into the room and I asked Nathan, I said, hey Bubba, is there anything in my life that you see that you wish I acted in the church the way I should act at home? He said, well just that you treat other people at church nicer than you treat me. I was just like, man.
And I think that's what he's getting at with what R.K. Hughes is getting at here when he says, Perhaps they are simply critical people who mask it well in public but cannot restrain themselves in the heat of domestic relationships Gary Chapman in his book on anger talks about this, you know people talk about oh, I can't control my anger. He says oh sure you can mm-hmm How many people can be screaming and yelling at their family? But then the second the phone rings pick up their phone and oh, hi Schneider residence. How can I help you? Like hmm No, all of a sudden you're able to pick up the phone and stop screaming. Or you don't scream at people at work, but the second you come home, you feel like you're able to scream at people.
And so just that reality that the criticism, even though other people might not see it, and I try to be transparent with people in the congregation. Paul Tripp's books really help me think through that. But how I treat my children in the home needs to match the same way I treat my children when other people are around who aren't my family. And I think the heat of domestic pressure is the key phrase there.
Because it's constant. Raising children is unending constant. I mean, until they move out of the house. There's not an escape route. Well, there is. There's a couple escape routes, but they're all sinful. Sadly, people take them, either leave the marriage emotionally abandoned or just don't care. But yeah, that one hit me pretty hard as I've been working through this in my own life with putting to death sinful anger and learning how to be patient with the children. We'll get to that. Actually, man, we haven't moved very far. This might need to be three sections. We're going at the good old student podcast pace. The next one, let's talk about holding a bar of soap. Yeah, what's he getting at with that one?
Yeah, so he's talking about excessive strictness and he says they need to remember that rearing children is like holding a wet bar of soap too firm a grasp and it shoots from your hand too loose a grip and it slides away and I underline this statement a gentle but firm hold keeps you in control and in parentheses I put huh similar with shepherding in church and in marriage where like No one feels loved at church if the elders are holding an iron grip over everything that happens. No one feels loved if the elders are laissez-faire and don't do anything. My wife doesn't feel loved if I don't care what on earth she does. She doesn't feel loved when I'm gripping every aspect of her life. There's a balance here in shepherding that that I connected with those other realms of life, and it seems especially applicable to fatherhood. Yeah. Yeah. So, one of them he talks about is legalism, right? And so, just that harsh dictator-type radical. And he actually brings up that it might have good intentions. What are some of the good intentions?
Why a father might find himself becoming overly strict. Yeah, well, trying to protect their kids from the culture that's worldly. So that they don't stray from the straight and narrow. Yeah, I think, again, there's a continuum with this, right, because there's such an aversion to legalism that people just can end up throwing their children to the wolves of the world, you know, and just be, well, I don't want to be a legalist, you know. Right. But then there's the other extreme of the pendulum, and that's what we find in a lot of fundamentalist-type circles, you know, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. And I mean strict such strict control that the children feel like they're being suffocated Because there's no freedom to make any choice And if they do make a wrong choice, how does the father react right? often with the criticism and the, yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, this is, this is a, this is a tough one. Yeah.
And he's, I have the last two sentences underlined here, kind of leaning in from an older pastor as a younger pastor, what does he point out? Are you talking about not a few? Preachers not a few preachers kids have been catapulted into rebellion because their father squeezed their lives to fit their parishioners expectations What a massive sin against one's children Yeah, and how he said he said other And this one kind of convicted me some men are overly strict because they are concerned about the opinions of others and I could see that tendency in myself of I don't know.
I know my parents were always so proud when, your kids are well-behaved. You have a good family, right? And I think I should make them proud in some way, but I think I can, like, oh, yeah. That's how I want people to look at my family. Yes, I think there's some honor and some place for that. But the question is, are you parenting to get that compliment? Or are you parenting to bear that fruit and to impart grace? And I think I can see how it like not being a father myself, how I could tend towards that very, very easily.
Yeah, to kind of go along with this criticism and over strictness, I was just reminded of one of the times that I saw, I'm so thankful, right, that when I got back from deployment as a new Christian, I joined this PCA church. It was a very strong confessional PCA church, but it was a multi-generational church. I remember sitting in the church, and I was amazed. There was multiple families in the congregation that were grandparents, children, grandchildren. Yeah. And I had never seen that in my entire life. Really? I was like, this is so cool. Yeah.
And one of those instances was actually the pastor's family. And there was this Memorial Day camp, you know, so we all went out to that Memorial Day, Labor Day, I don't remember which one it was, but they rented this campground for the congregation, you know, we went and, and I remember the, the pastor, this old older man, you know, he's, he's in his 60s by this point. And, uh, At one point he knelt down and he was talking to his grandson. His grandson's a baptized member of the congregation. But this old man kneels down to his grandson and he says, I'm so sorry. I disciplined you too harshly the other day. The grandson was doing something wrong, but the grandfather, when he saw his grandson he needed to tell him this. And I remember being shocked. Mm-hmm. I had never seen that in my entire life growing up in the Christian Church an old man Mm-hmm apologizing to a child. Mm-hmm. I reacted to harshly. Will you forgive me?
Mm-hmm and humbling himself I was thinking this is something different. Like that's a different model that I want to get my hands around. And so just that spirit of not over strictness or over criticalness, but even when we fail, if we sinned publicly in that you know, in that overcorrection to them being able to willingly doesn't care who's around.
I need to reconcile quickly with this grandson of mine. And he wasn't doing a fanfare, you know, like this, this was, I just happened to be around, it's a camp setting, you know, and they just happened to be 20 yards away from me. And I see this and I'm close enough that I can hear it. And I was just like, But that was the type of shepherd I wanted to follow. I was like, this is the type of guy I want to learn from. So yeah, not doing it for the outside. Concerned about what the others think. That's big. Well, let's go on. to the end of that section. There's two more sections of this I wanted to talk about.
Rather we ought to begin our fatherhood by holding the tiny helpless bar snugly but as it grows gradually and wisely loosen our grip. As conscientious fathers we have to say no to many things. Thus we should try to say yes to as much as possible and save our no's for the really important situations. Do you think that's a valid thing for him to say? Hold your no's for really important stuff?
Yeah, I don't know. I I kind of underline the next sentence or two He writes he says we must be biblical in regard to our nose and as our children grow be prepared to discuss the rules biblically and principally We must learn to trust God with our children realizing they must learn to make decisions for themselves and in the sidebar I wrote like discernment, I feel like that takes discernment because I first read this and I was like, no, no, no, no, that's not the way he meant that. But I was like, oh, we need to realize that our children have to make decisions for themselves. You know, I've seen parents do that. It's just very like, okay, you decide what's right and wrong, you know?
And that's not what he's meaning here. Because right earlier he says we must be biblical in regard to our nose. and discuss them biblically and in principle. And I think that's the main thing. How do we avoid this legalism? Because earlier you said we can read the Bible through a controlling grid and it can become a license to own and dominate.
And I've seen that happen where it's like, okay, yes, the Bible said that, but it didn't say that. Like, you know, like in the way- Yeah, it did it too far. Yeah. And you're applying it in an unbiblical way. And so, I don't know. I think like, Any one of his sentences, I think if you take it out of context, could be construed incorrectly. But I think, to me, my takeaway was like, yes, I agree with you.
And I think it takes incredible discernment. And that discernment must be rooted in the word. What does the Bible say yes to and what does the Bible say nay to? What are life or death matters? Yeah, two things I was thinking about with this, two different sermons, right, or glimpses from sermons. One is by John Piper, a statement that he made in a sermon. He said, two things your children must learn from their infancy when you're raising them, Jesus and no. I'm like, that's true. Your children need to learn. No, don't do that. No, don't do that.
The second sermon was actually one that I was listening to. I have this friend, his name is Ricky Jenkins. We went to Ted's together, and he was doing his PhD while I was doing my master's. And Ricky's this pastor of this mega church out in Southern California. But he's this big black guy from Mississippi. He's got a totally different preaching style than me, and he's a friend. And so I like listening to his sermons every once in a while. Anyways, Ricky was talking about in his sermon a couple weeks ago for Mother's Day, he was preaching on the different stages we have as parents.
You have the first stage of parenting where you're essentially your caterer. You cater to everything that child needs. That child goes poop, guess what? Now is when you need to change their diaper. That child is hungry, guess what? You don't get a choice. You're going to feed that child now. It doesn't matter.
That child wants something, you better be there to do it because that's your God-given responsibility right now. But then the next stage is the whistleblower stage. You're the referee. There's a good chunk of their young life until about the age 10 or somewhere around there where you gotta tell them, no, you're out of bounds. Nope, hold on here. Nope, nope, nope.
And you're trying to show them this is the box that the Lord is glorified in. And so they need to know those boundaries. But then there's a stage past that when they're getting into their adolescence and young adulthood where you're becoming a coach. You've given them the rule book. You've given them the playbook. They know what's acceptable and what's not acceptable.
And you have to learn how to move into that coaching phase where you're then at that time, you know, discussing, like he says, you know, as they develop. We must learn to, oh no, where was that? second paragraph of the bond is what I've got. Yeah, be prepared to discuss the rules biblically and principally. I can't do that so much with Daniel. Right. Well, I can to a certain extent, but especially with Ellie. Right. I just need to tell Ellie, no, you can't throw your doll at your sister's head. Right. Yeah. No, you're not loving your sister. You can't do that. No. Yeah. No, you can't do certain things that's evil and wrong and explain it to her in certain ways. but there moves a point where it goes more into conversational mode and more coaching mode.
And then he says, you know, the last phase of parenting is consultant mode. You don't have control over your kids anymore once they move out and they're adults. They're able to come and ask you. You're able to give opinions and advice when they want it. But if you try to control them then, they're going to resent you even more, because they're not under your control anymore.
And so now, guess what? They have to make their own grown-up decisions. So it's just this very helpful. Yeah, that's a really helpful framework to think about that in. Because it doesn't go so well when you're a ref at age 16. Now, sometimes you have to be. Yeah, sometimes you have to be. Sometimes you have to hold up the yellow card and say, boy, you don't talk to your mother like that.
Yeah, this is true. Yeah. But I think, yeah, I don't know. I've never heard that before. That's helpful, I think, to think of that framework. Yeah, it stuck with me. Yeah. Ricky Jenkins, black dude from the South, he's funny, man. Yeah, yeah. Just his colloquialisms are really funny. He's the one I get the phrase from. We got a lot of fish to fry and not a lot of time to cook them. Let's go. Okay, well the next one he talks about, Arken Hughes here, is irritability. I'm going to just go ahead and jump into What I think is kind of getting at the heart of this.
He talks about the little boy Jimmy and he just wants his dad's attention. He's talking to his parents and tugging on his dad's leg. Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. And finally the dad gets so mad he just picks up the boy and smacks him. You're being rude. The boy wants his dad.
And this is tough. I know in my life this is really hard, but one of the things that the Lord has been teaching me is 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13 says, love is patient. Makrothumia, it's long suffering. It has much slowness to anger. Like, that is what God says is the definition of love. And it goes on, so that's the positive, right? Love suffers long. Love is not easily, or is not provoked to anger, or some will call it that. I think, I forget which translation it is, but one translation goes so far as to say, and I think it's actually a good translation, is love is not irritable. It's not touchy. And nerves can get worn thin.
Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. And we're laughing about it, but that's what kids do. And he said, only the Lord knows how many children lose heart because their fathers have hard days. And this is why I can't do this just in one, like I was like, there's no way we're getting through this in one week. But just thinking about my own life and like how desperately I wanted to just talk to my dad.
And he woke up 4, 4.30 in the morning and was gone for work and he'd come home at like 7, 7.30 at night. Just dogged tired. And we were a TV type family, so often we'd have dinner together and just go watch TV. But he was just so tired that he didn't have time to talk to me. I'm just thinking like, I gotta make time for my kids just to talk with me. And sometimes they want to talk about, you know, Nathan's all into Pokemon sometimes. And I don't know what half these Pokemon cards are, you know, and he wants to talk to me about this.
And I know he's playing the game wrong, but I know it's just, okay. But this is what he's into right now. And if I don't pay attention to what he is important on his heart right now, and if I get irritated with what he loves right now, what's going to happen when it's a girl? Or he's thinking about going to a college that I know that if he goes there, it's likely going to shipwreck his faith. What happens when he's thinking about enlisting in the military? And he's like, well, I'm not going to talk to my dad because just... What happens when there's things that are deep down in his heart? If I'm so irritable now that I'm not willing to stop and pay attention to them.
I'm saying this, man, because I'm really struggling and trying to learn how to do this. Like, not be irritable with my children. Yeah. I think, yeah. Again, like, I think it's helpful to think of, like, how does God dealt with me? Like, God, I've sinned. God, I've sinned. And it's the same sin again, right?
You know, or just daddy and, you know, again, there's a He has an ever-listening ear and unlimited time that we might not necessarily have, humanly speaking. But again, he... Yeah, but you think about it, he's run the entire universe. Yeah. And he invites us to call him Father. He invites us to pray to him, right? He gives forgiveness 70 times 7, you know, every time I come to him. And God, I messed up again. And he's there to listen and to forgive. And man, I don't know if I'm that way even towards my own wife. And this is a chapter on parenting. I was just thinking yesterday I had to apologize to Daniel for this.
I've been trying, Charles Hodge, in his office at his house, he had what was like rheumatoid arthritis and really struggled with a lot of debilitating pain. And so most of the time, even when he was preaching at Princeton, he wasn't able to even walk from his house right on campus to the main building. And so he would teach students in his office. But he had them lower his doorknob in his office so that way his children would always be able to open his door and come into his office and talk to him.
And I'm like, man, that's so cool. Yeah. And so, I've tried to do that with Charles Hodgman. I've had a better way of retaining information and concentration than I do. Because I've been trying to leave my door open when I'm studying in here. Like, okay, if the kids want to come in, come in and talk with me. Just let me finish this paragraph, because I've got to finish this train of thought. But as soon as I, okay, I'll talk with you.
But I was translating this week's passage on Joshua chapter 15 and the Hebrew is just ugly. It has all these cities and towns and you don't know which are names and which aren't names and you're just like, I don't know that word. Think about it for a few seconds. And then you go and you look it up in a lexicon. Well, of course, it's a city only mentioned one time in the entire Old Testament. I've never heard that one before. Yeah, and we don't even know where it's at anymore.
So anyways, I was just like wrestling, struggling with this, and Nathan came in here. I was trying to talk to him. I was like, hey, bud, I've got to translate. Let me be able to think now. So he says, okay, dad. He leaves. And then he comes back in like two minutes later and he wants to talk to me about you know He'd taken a video of something with this little camera and I was like, hey, but I'll look at that at lunchtime I really need to focus, you know, and he goes out and it's like two minutes later.
I I've got my headphones on, it's playing some music, so I'm able to try to concentrate and block out the noise from outside the door. You know, they're homeschooled, so they make all sorts of noise out there. And then I feel someone going into the printer underneath my feet. And I was like, what are you doing? Like, I just need some quiet.
And I yelled at Daniel. Because I asked Nathan, just go out the door and please lock the door on your way out. Please, I need to concentrate. And then he didn't do that. And so Daniel was just like, I asked mom if I could get a piece of paper. And I was just, because my printer's right underneath my desk, you know. And so poor kid, he was just trying to get a piece of paper. And I yelled at him. Man, I was... This is what I'm saying, this irritability under the pressures of domestic life is real. And I'm going to put it out there.
If you know of a book to help with how to put off irritability, I think part of this is putting on the fruits of the Spirit and meditating on God's patience with me. I just think about love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, and how these are the fruits that the Holy Spirit is working in me, but now I need to be purposeful about cultivating those fruits. How do I cultivate those fruits? By abiding in Christ. And so this is where I'm saying, when rubber hits the road, This is when I can't take back my tone or the words.
Even though nothing I said to Daniel was sinful in and of itself, the tone and how I said it was not building him up. And I can't take that experience back. That's a memory that, if the Lord wills, he'll have his entire life. That's how Dad was. He was an angry jerk. I just wanted to get a piece of paper. Sorry, man, this is more personal than you might want to... You're like, man, I don't want to talk to Pastor anymore, just get that guy out there. No, it's helpful to hear, especially as someone who doesn't have this experience, just to hear the honest day in day out.
I mean, because like, God tests the fruits of the Spirit. Like, okay, you're a Christian? You have my Spirit in you? He tests it in the furnace of the home, right? Like, of that dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, right? You think you're patient, right? Like, here, let me try you, right? Like, I think it's God's way of of refining. God uses marriage for that. He says, I want a beautiful bride, right? To sanctify her. And this is supposed to be a picture of that.
And fatherhood, I think, is like that. And so I think it can be discouraging in the day in, day out where you just see yourself failing all the time. Be like, yeah, I know your spirit's in me, but I don't see these, I'm failing in this fruit and this fruit and this fruit and this fruit.
But this is God's design to be sanctifying you, to be sanctifying me. And He uses the furnace of the home a lot of times to do it. And so, yes, it can be discouraging, but it's His plan, right? To sanctify us and to make us more into the image of Him as a godly husband and as a godly father, to be able to display Him to our families. And so, Like I'm sure a lot of times a lot of days it feels like you're just a punch bag It's like getting beat down again and again and again. It's like, you know, but like This is god's way to display himself to our families. And yes, we fail and yes, we mess up and yes, it feels like just failure after failure after failure and but God's got a plan with it. Um, and he gives grace for it. Amen, you know, which is If we didn't have that, how could we even do this, right?
Yeah, and I mean, this is where the home can also be that greenhouse of faith, you know, because even in apologizing to Daniel, you know, like, I pray that they know a God, a Father, that never has to apologize to them, but has always loved them perfectly. And I think about my failings, and then I think about, like, God has never failed me. ever. He's always disciplined me in love. He's never just off a whim and controlled by his emotions.
People want to act like, you know, there's this, I mean, there's a whole Baptist group that broke off of a 1689 group because of the impassibility of God that's in the confession. And I just think, I don't want a God ruled by passions. I want a God that these are his actual attributes. He's not a fickle God, you know, feeling one way one minute and feeling another way another minute. This is a God who loves with a perfect love, who hates sin with a perfect hate, who is, in his anger, is always righteous in his anger.
But yet his anger towards his children is always tempered, it's hard to say these things without anthropomorphizing the Lord, but is always matching with his grace, always matching with his goodness, always matching with him being love. Like, I need that God. the Lord do not change therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed right yeah what would we do if he did change oh we'd be in deep deep problems yeah um well i think the the next two not to fly through them but i did just see your wives pull up from oh did they oh yep um inconsistency. I think he brings it up in two different ways.
Rules that are constantly changing. In our house we actually had to lay down a code of conduct. Like legit on our fridge there's a code of conduct. Maybe you've seen it. And so there's We try to make it where there's, you know, hey, here's what you've done. Here's the verse that the Lord teaches us from that. Here's the consequence for that. And so the discipline is meted out. We pray.
And that's not the only time I pray with or for my kids, but then we embrace. Try to make sure that they know like these aren't just mommy and daddy flying off the seat of our pants, right? but You must honor your mom. Mm-hmm. No, you're not allowed to hit your siblings. Mm-hmm Do not murder, you know, so I'm getting into that And then consistency with keeping promises.
That one's hard. It's hard, but it's one of the most beautiful things about God, isn't it? Yeah. I think about, again in Hebrews, why does God swear upon his own name? He could swear by no greater. Yeah. He makes a promise and he says, I swear on my own. If I don't do this, I myself, God, will die. Yeah. Well, that's impossible. Duh. God does not fail his promises. I've got to keep my promises to my kids. Now, what I need to teach my kids is that when I say, maybe, maybe it's not a promise. Daniel went to go frog hunting so bad.
I'm like, can we go this night? I'm like, maybe. I don't know. That's not a yes. That's not a no. We will see. It depends on circumstances, all right? Maybe. because if i don't really spell out what maybe means he wants to take it as that's a gospel promise i'm like no dude it's a maybe yeah deborah maybe we'll do that we'll see yeah but when there is a promise when when we say we're not going to do something or we are going to do something kids need that stability that we're not like shifting shadows.
We're just blown here and there by every daily activity or emotion that we have. No, if I say I'm going to take my kids to go do something, if I tell my kids, A, I'm going to be home by five o'clock tonight so we can have dinner, be truthful. Easier said than done.
What's the last winning point? Yeah, he's got favoritism. So he talks about treating all your children alike, or no, he says, No, don't do that! I say this despite being the last one who would suggest you to treat all your children alike. And he talks about how some kids need more discipline, some need more encouragement, some need more independence, some need more structure, and recognizing that each child is uniquely created by God, but that doesn't mean one should be favored over the other.
Yeah. So saying this as the one who is accused of being the favorite child. It makes two of us. Well, I think I was the least favorite child. And it's amazing what happened when the Lord redeemed me. Yeah. It became the opposite, you know, it was like, I was like, Oh, Brian, don't ever be like Brian. Yeah. And then the Lord redeemed me. And I mean, he did a radical transformation. I went from the stupid drunkard to like, being really serious about my faith really quick. And the Lord did a lot of changes. And then it was like, Oh yeah, be like Brandon. So attention given. Praise God. In a sense. For the transformation. Praise God for the transformation.
But the favoritism part was unhealthy. Because it could cause resentment. And that's real. Well, our wives are here. Maybe we should just end with this note, because I think we've said this a lot, but praise God. He reveals Himself to us as our Father. Amen to that. And even in the midst of fatherhood, in all of our failures and feebleness, he's always faithful.
Yeah. I love that verse. I don't remember. It's one of the tees. Like, we are unfaithful, but God remains faithful. Like, he cannot deny himself. Like, I love that. Praise God for that. Praise God you have a faithful Father. Yeah. Well, I'm going to pray, and then let's make sure we are respectful to our wives. Yes.
Father, thank you. that you have poured out your spirit in our hearts to cry out, Abba, Father. Thank you that you love us with a perfect love. Thank you that you discipline us as your children. And that even though we might not like it, Father, we know it's for our good.
Lord, I pray for my brother Simon tonight. They don't have children yet, but Father, I pray that if you bless Simon and Natalie with children, that you would richly bless them as a father. Lord I pray for myself that you would teach me to be more like you as a loving Heavenly Father, willing and able to hear. Lord I pray that you would teach me to love.
Father we pray for those who are listening to this or watching it that you would raise up a new generation of Christian fathers who would follow after you. and in our failures, Lord, and they will be vast and many, that we will always have confidence that you are the perfect model, that you are always faithful. In Jesus's name, amen. Amen.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Student Podcast. Feel free to go over to the website, sharonharpc.org backslash student and find more information and other shows. Also, don't forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We appreciate it. Have a great day.