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A father’s relationship with his children is the most
important relationship in life. It is no exaggeration to say
that everything else hinges on this relationship: not only the
welfare of the children themselves, but the general well-being
of the family, the health of the church, the welfare of civil
society, the strength of the economy, the moral climate of the
civilization, the prosperity of the Kingdom of God in history,
the future of the world. Everything depends upon what is
happening between fathers and their children in their homes.
Such is the central place of the family in God’s plan, and
such is the pivotal role of fathers in that foundational
institution.
We know this is so simply by applying
common sense to the matter. The home is the original society
in which each person is placed by God at birth. It is, for
better or worse, the place where people are shaped: their
intellect, their values, their character, their aspirations.
All that a person later becomes depends upon the factors that
forged him in his youth, and the home is the primary shaper of
young human beings.
Over the family stands the parents.
And of the parents, it is the father who has the calling, the
temperament, and the position to be the primary molder of the
family. He may abdicate his role or do a poor job, but that,
too, shapes the family. There is no escaping his influence—for
better or worse. The central role of fathers in the
foundational institution of the family is simply an
inescapable fact of life.
Good Fathers in God’s
Plan
However, we also have God’s word on it. One of the
most surprising findings when one studies Scripture concerning
fathers, their roles, and their influence, is the prominent
place given to them in connection with the progress of the
God’s saving plan in Christ, the Kingdom of God. The crucial
part played by fathers is highlighted at the very close of the
Old Testament and the very opening of the New.
The
prophet Malachi, the last mouthpiece of God to speak in the
Old Testament era, ended his oracle with a forward look toward
the "Day of the Lord." After calling for the people of God to
"remember the law" of God given through Moses (Mal. 4:4) and
thus continue the life of holiness that marks them as His
people, the Lord then speaks of his plan to send "the prophet
Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes"
(v. 5). This is followed by the very last words God’s people
would hear from Him for over four centuries: "He will turn the
hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the
children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the
land with a curse" (v. 6).
Preparatory to sending his
Messiah, God would send one who would be empowered with same
measure of the Spirit as the greatest prophet Israel had ever
known. And what would be the definition of his mission? How
did God characterize this, the highest calling of any prophet,
the assignment preparatory for Messiah’s appearance? He will
turn the hearts of fathers and children toward each
other.
About 430 years later the Lord breaks His
silence to announce the arrival of the prophet He had
promised. The angel Gabriel appeared to the priest Zechariah
to tell him of the coming birth of his son, John, who would be
"the Elijah who was to come" (Matt. 11:14). Here is how the
angel described his mission: "Many of the people of Israel
will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on
before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the
hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to
the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared
for the Lord" (Lk. 1:16,17).
This inaugural revelation
of the New Testament age repeats the definition of the
prophet’s assignment as a turning of fathers’ hearts toward
their children. Like Malachi’s message, this one also stresses
the need for holiness among God’s people: the disobedient will
need to repent and turn to the wisdom of the righteous. And
both these conditions, holiness of life and fathers being good
fathers, are presented as vital elements of preparing God’s
people for the Messiah. These conditions describe the kind of
people who are ready, "prepared for the Lord" to be used in
Messiah’s work on earth. Malachi had said the same thing in a
negative way when he warned of God’s visiting the land with a
curse. God’s people will either be fit and ready to serve His
purposes—or they will come under His
discipline.
Holiness of life we can understand. God
cannot use corrupt instruments to perform His work. But what
is so important about fathers and children? How does this
condition rank as so vital to the success of God’s plan in
Christ? What is so critical about fathers turning their hearts
to their children?
The short answer would seem to be
that the family is central to God’s plan to advance the gospel
and kingdom of Jesus, and the turning of hearts is simply a
way of describing a healthy family which is useful for God’s
purposes. We will proceed in a bit to explore exactly what it
means for fathers to turn their hearts to their children, but
let’s first be sure we understand that families are the
foundation of God’s redemptive plan for this
world.
Families as Foundations
The home has
always been the foundation and center of true faith in the
world. God’s original fellowship with man was with a family
unit in the Garden. God entered into covenants with men and
their families (Noah and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). The Old
Testament church, Israel, was one huge family. Families were
prominent in the New Testament as whole families came to
Christ and were baptized and as the church met in the homes of
Christian families.
Throughout the ages the family has
been the nursery of faith for each new generation, the primary
place in which Christian discipleship has occurred. The future
is shaped, generation by generation, in homes. Other
institutions come and go, but the family remains a constant
part of life in this world and of God’s plan for the ages.
Even the New Testament church itself is modeled on the family
and copies its patterns of life among its members.
The
home is the primary arena for living out the Christian life.
In it the experience of sin, hurt, reconciliation, and healing
occur over and over. In it the ignorant are instructed, the
rebellious disciplined, the repentant restored, the hungry
fed, the naked clothed, the sick cared for. In it is exhibited
the relationship of Christ and His bride, the church, in the
relationship of husband and wife. The home is the place where
proper roles and relationships are learned and practiced. The
Christian home is a sanctuary, an oasis of holiness, sanity,
and beauty in the midst of an evil, insane, and ugly
world.
“Domesticated” Men
For God’s plan for
families, and thus for His world, to proceed, He must get hold
of fathers. Marriage and family commitments are the chief way
men learn to redirect their natural energies to truly
productive purposes. Someone has suggested that most men would
be barbarians but for the domesticating influence of women and
children. This may be essentially correct. Family duties
mitigate against the natural tendency of men to pursue selfish
ambitions and pleasures and to focus on merely temporal
concerns. For the Christian man especially, the duties of
family call him to higher, even eternal, concerns.
Here
is a Bible quiz. Fill in the blanks. "Like a bird that wanders
from her nest, so is a _____ who wanders from _____ home"
(Prov. 27:8). If you guessed "woman" and "her" you are
incorrect (though the thought is a true one). What the verse
actually says is that a "man" who wanders from "his" home is
like a bird who wanders from her nest. The nest of family is
to be attended by both "the man of the house" and his wife. We
have addressed before in these pages how a man is called to be
home-centered, though in a much different way than his
wife.
The benefits of a man being home-centered goes
beyond the welfare of the rest of his family. The rigors of
family life also develop the man himself by providing a
training ground, preparing him for his larger dominion tasks
in this world. A man must prove his skills as a family
shepherd before he is considered ready to become a shepherd of
God’s sheep, an elder in the church (1 Tim. 3:5). Certainly
the same prerequisite would apply to a role of leadership in
civil government and other larger domains of
responsibility.
So families are at the center of God’s
plan, and fathers are crucial to the welfare of families.
That, we recall, is why He is so interested in fathers turning
their hearts to their children. Now we must proceed to discuss
what is meant by the phrase "turn the heart." What does it
mean for fathers to turn their hearts to their children? And
how do we go about doing whatever it is God desires as
expressed in these words?
What Is the
‘Heart’?
Obviously our answer must begin with an
understanding of "heart". In modern usage "heart" tends to
connote primarily matters of the emotions or affections, and
while that is a part of the biblical definition, it is not at
all the whole picture.
The word "heart" in both
Testaments generally refers to the whole of man’s soul and all
of its faculties as they are focused together upon something,
whether good or evil. It is this usage which is in view in
Proverbs 4:23 when it says, "Watch over your heart with all
diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." The heart is
here viewed as the source from which the whole of a man’s life
flows. Similarly, Jesus says, "The good man brings good things
out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man
brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For
out of the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks" (Lk. 6:45;
cf. Matt. 15:18; Rom. 10:10). This truth is why God repeatedly
admonished His people to give Him their whole hearts (Deut.
6:5; Ps. 119:2; Jer. 29:13; Matt. 22:37). The heart is the
person at his core, the seat of all his
faculties.
Sometimes the word "heart" refers to a
particular faculty considered as distinct: the mind, the
affections, or the will. Most commonly it encompasses all of
these. Jerry Bridges writes, "The mind as it reasons,
discerns, and judges; the emotions as they like or dislike;
the conscience as it determines and warns; and the will as it
chooses or refuses—are all together called the
heart".
We may conclude, then, that for a father to
have his heart turned to his children he must be wholly
oriented toward them, focusing his mind, will, and affections
upon them. Such a man will use his mind to study God’s
perspective on his children, to learn of God’s purpose for
them, the means of their training, their needs. He will seek
to understand his particular children so that he can apply
God’s wisdom to their personal needs and circumstances. He
will take responsibility before God by exercising his will to
act on what he comes to understand concerning his children. He
will set his affections upon them, cherishing them, expressing
his love for them. In short, his children will be a top
priority in his life; he will be absorbed in his God-given
duties toward them.
So now we must ask, How
specifically does a man make his children a top priority? In
what particular ways is he to be absorbed in them? What
exactly does it mean to turn his heart toward his
children?
The Elements of ‘Turning’
In Ephesians
6:4 we find the Bible’s most pointed and specific command
addressed to fathers concerning their duty to the children God
has given them: "And, fathers, do not provoke your children to
anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of
the Lord." Two primary duties are presented in this verse.
Taken in reverse order they are: godly training and a loving
relationship. Let’s look at these in turn.
Godly
Training
"The discipline and instruction of the Lord"
encompasses a lot. We will not cover all the details of the
Bible’s teaching on child training, but let’s summarize. To
properly train a child a father must first deal with sin in
his child in a biblical manner. He must discipline rebellion
with the rod. "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but
the rod of discipline will drive it far from him" (Prov.
22:15). "Folly" here is not just silliness (though that should
be forbidden), it is willful disobedience. If a father does
not use the rod for both active and passive rebellion (both
overt acts of defiance and subtle evidences of a rebellious
attitude), no other training will have much
effect.
Training also includes positive direction and
instruction. The scope of the curriculum here is great,
covering character development, equipping in life skills,
vocational training, preparation for future roles as
father/husband and wife/mother and as churchmen and
citizens.
Psalm 78:1-8 describes the process of fathers
passing on a godly heritage through the generations. The two
main components of that heritage, the content of a father’s
teaching of his children, are these: the works of God and the
Word of God. God’s mighty works include creation and
redemption and His whole plan for history as it unfolds in
fulfillment of His purpose. To study the works of God is thus
to explore science, history, literature, art, music, language,
etc.—all that He has made and all that He has done through
history and culture. The Bible itself, of course, must also be
at the center of a father’s teaching plan. It’s content, its
doctrine, its application to every area of life—the Bible must
be the foundation of all other learning.
The method the
Bible prescribes for this discipline and instruction to take
place is what we call discipleship. It is the pattern provided
by Jesus as he apprenticed his disciples for over three years
by simply being with them all the time so that he could be not
only their teacher, but also a model of what he taught. This
pattern is also suggested in the language of Deuteronomy 6
which says, "And these words which I am commanding you today
shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to
your sons 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 up" (vv. 6,7).
How does the truth of God make
its way from the heart of a father to the heart of his
children? Through an intimate discipleship relationship, a
relationship that continues at all times (from rising to lying
down) and in all places (at home and along the way). This, by
the way, could be called "home education". Those of us who
have chosen homeschooling for our children have (perhaps
inadvertently) hit on something very close to what the Bible
presents as the way to provide godly training for the next
generation.
Having mentioned the discipleship process
which is essential to godly training we have already touched
on the second duty of fathers, the second way in which they
are to make their children a top priority, the second means by
which they should turn their hearts to their children. Fathers
must create a loving relationship with their
children.
A Loving Relationship
Whenever the
Bible gives us a negative command we should sit up and take
special notice. "Thou shalt not"—so begin most of the Ten
Commandments. It is sin to fail to obey the positive command
to "love your neighbor," but it is worse to disobey the
command "thou shalt not murder"!
Ephesians 6:4 presents
a negative command for fathers: "Fathers, do not provoke your
children to anger." To disobey this command brings devastating
results. The parallel text in Colossians 3:21 does not include
the positive words about providing training at all. It says
simply, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children, that they
may not lose heart."
God has made children so that they
are naturally inclined to respond to their fathers’
initiatives. Malachi mentioned fathers’ hearts being turned to
the children and the response of children who would turn their
hearts to their fathers. This is the natural order. If fathers
treat their children right they will win their hearts; if not,
the children may "lose heart" and their hearts may be lost to
their fathers.
So how do fathers win the hearts of
their children and avoid "exasperating" them? They do so by
maintaining a loving relationship with them. Without this
heart relationship, all the efforts at providing godly
training can come to naught.
A loving relationship
exhibits justice. There is no quicker way for a father to
exasperate his children than to be inconsistent in his
standards, unjust in his discipline, or to show favoritism.
The God-fearing man of Psalm 112 is one "who conducts his
affairs with justice" (v. 5). That is certainly also a
description of a father. Jacob was unjust toward his sons,
showing favoritism toward Joseph. This embittered the other
sons, alienating their affections from their father, and led
to their mistreatment of Joseph (Gen. 37:3,4ff.).
A
loving relationship is also characterized by sacrifice and
service. Jesus showed "the full extent of his love" for his
disciples by washing their feet (John 13:1ff.). A father must
wash the feet of his children. He must set aside his will in
order to do what is best for them. He must sacrifice his
desires, his comfort, his self-pleasing agenda in order to
meet their needs. Such sacrifice may display itself in
everything from taking the time to teach them himself, to
giving up his plans for an evening in order to have family
time, to yielding his desire for a new computer for his home
office in favor of his children’s desire for a new camper for
family trips. Children will become exasperated by a
self-centered father who fails to yield his time and resources
to serve his family.
A loving relationship is further
characterized by demonstrations of compassion and tenderness.
"Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord
has compassion on those who fear Him" (Ps. 103:13). Our
heavenly Father has modeled the gentleness that is a manly
virtue.
It is tempting for men who may not have a
natural inclination to demonstrate tenderness to define their
fatherly roles purely in terms of training, decision-making
and such. But we must not miss the essential quality of
demonstrated love and affection which are so necessary to
reach the heart of a child. Observe what Paul wrote to those
who were his children in the faith: "But we proved to be
gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her
own children. Having thus a fond affection for you we were
well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but
also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us" (1
Thess. 2:7,8).
Men have a lot to learn from women. We
need to learn how to show tenderness and affection to our
children. We need to impart not only training; we need to give
a hefty measure of ourselves as well. Gentle touches and
embraces, intense listening, consistent eye-contact—these are
not feminine traits only. They are profoundly masculine. And
we need to heap a generous dose of them upon our children.
There is nothing more winsome than genuine compassion tenderly
expressed. It is a key to winning the hearts of children.
Imagine what it did for their relationship when the prodigal’s
father "filled with compassion for him … ran to his son, threw
his arms around him and kissed him" (Lk. 15:20).
A
loving relationship, finally, is characterized by heartfelt
encouragement. In the same passage from 1 Thessalonians we
quoted above, Paul continues farther on, "… just as you know
how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one
of you as a father would his own children, so that you may
walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own
kingdom and glory" (2:11,12). The heart bond between men and
their children is strengthened by the manly exercise of
exhortation.
Hear the cry of the father in Proverbs:
"Give me your heart, my son" (23:26). A godly father does not
merely present truth and duty to his children; he appeals to
them earnestly to believe and obey! He urges them. He
encourages them. He entreats them. He lets his children see
his own passion for the Lord and he invites them to share in
that passion.
Jesus said in John 10:14, "I am the good
shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me." An effective
leader has a transparent relationship with his followers in
which his life is open to them and theirs to him. Family
shepherds need to be open about their faith and their fears;
they need to confess their sins. Their fear of God, their love
for God, their trust in God must all be on display. They need
to live the total Christian life in full view of their
families.
All this assumes, of course, that the father
himself has turned his own heart to the Lord so that he has a
life that is a model for his family. The command of
Deuteronomy 6 began: "And these words which I am commanding
you today shall be on your heart…" (v.6). It is impossible to
pass on to children a heart for the Lord and His Word if the
father himself is not truly walking with God.
Fathers
must be known by their little flock, but they also must know
the condition of their flocks. Perhaps the most important
characteristic of a loving father is that he makes it a point
to understand what God is doing in the life of each of his
children so that he can encourage that work of God. "A plan in
the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of
understanding draws it out" (Prov. 20:5). The godly, loving
father is attentive to his children, to their heart condition,
their character, their walk with God. It takes a lot of
understanding to discover what is in the heart of a child, but
fathers must make it their business to know. Only then can
they give the encouragement that will be most helpful to the
child.
Good Fruit The parent-child bond is one of the
strongest relationships God has created, and He created it to
assure the success of His great plan in history, namely, to
create a people for Himself in Christ.
God said to
Abraham, "I will… be your God and the God of your descendants
after you" (Gen. 17:7). But how did God plan to pass the
heritage of the true faith from generation to generation so
that this promise could be fulfilled? The answer is in what
the Lord Himself said about Abraham in the next chapter of
Genesis: "For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his
children and his household after him to keep the way of the
LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will
bring about for Abraham what he has promised him" (18:19). As
Abraham fulfilled the assignment for which God chose him, as
he turned his heart to his children in godly training and in a
loving relationship, they would follow in his faith and the
Lord would fulfill His promise to be the God of each
succeeding generation.
You see, the concept that
Malachi and Gabriel presented—the heart bond between fathers
and their children—has been God’s plan from the start. It has
always been God’s "secret weapon" for changing the world. And
whenever men have faithfully employed it, they have seen good
fruit.
It is just as the Lord promised in Proverbs
22:6: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is
old he will not turn from it." Why? Because once a father’s
heart is turned to his child and that child’s heart is turned
to his father, there is no breaking the bond that is created!
For that child to turn from his father and the faith of his
father would be to destroy his own heart.
aith of Our
Fathers, Living Still
One of the saddest facts of
history is that godly men lose their children to the devil.
The book of Judges records one such time. The generation of
Joshua had witnessed God’s miraculous hand in the defeat of
their enemies as God gave them the Promised Land. But then we
read this sad record: "After that whole generation had been
gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who
knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then
Israel did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals.
They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought
them out of Egypt" (Jdg. 2:10-12). One generation has an
experiential encounter with the living God and walks with Him;
the next generation hears the stories but has no direct
experience of God, so they lose their faith. Is there no
remedy for this course of affairs?
According to
Scripture there is, and it is nothing other than the heart
bond between fathers and their children which we have been
considering. This is what preserves a living faith in the
living God. Each generation may not have the opportunity to
witness the crossing of the Red Sea or the Jordan River on dry
ground, but each generation has the opportunity to experience
the living God in a way that will preserve their faith. As
fathers open their hearts, love and train their children, walk
with God openly before their families, urge their children to
follow the Lord with them—then the children come to experience
the God of their fathers, not as memory and story only, but as
living reality in their own lives. The parent-child heart
channel becomes the means for each generation to have an
encounter with God that assures their continuance in the
faith.
As children come to walk with God as they walk
with their parents, they will create their own history of
divine encounters. Sin confessed, God’s discipline received,
forgiveness experienced, prayers answered, guidance gained
from Scripture—all these create a personal history of God’s
dealing with the child that assure the genuineness, depth, and
perseverance of his faith. The faith of the fathers becomes
the faith of the next generation… and so
on.
Generations of World Changers
When God has
the hearts of fathers and children bound together He has the
prerequisite He needs to spread the gospel and kingdom of
Jesus through the generations. Such a family is "ready…
prepared for the Lord" (Lk. 1:17). From this kind of family
will come all that God needs to carry out His world-changing
plan in Christ. Not only will the family itself multiply the
number of godly people in the earth as time goes on, but each
new generation of saints will provide leaders for the church,
state, and every sphere of life in this world. "Blessed is the
man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his
commands. His children will be mighty in the land; each
generation of the upright will be blessed" (Ps.
112:1,2).
A. E. Winship in 1900 made a study of the
descendants of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards. It turns out
Jonathan was not only effective as a preacher during the Great
Awakening, he was also effective in populating with world with
godly offspring. This one marriage produced, over the
following 150 years: 13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100
lawyers, 30 judges, 66 physicians, 3 U. S. Senators, 3 mayors
of large cities, 3 state governors, and a Vice President of
the United States. Edwards’ descendants authored 135 books and
edited 18 journals and periodicals. Scores entered the
ministry and at least 100 served as missionaries overseas.
Other descendants were leaders in industry and commerce
(banking, insurance, mining, oil, etc.). And this is just the
public fruit. More important is the unrecorded heritage of
quiet faith and holy life that proliferated in hundreds of
family units, and spread then to others under their influence.
For all his other reasons for fame, Jonathan Edwards’ greatest
work was his work as a father.
Do you see the potential
for godly influence when just one man turns his heart to his
children?! We must elevate our vision beyond just "surviving"
the process of child raising. Our goal must be loftier than to
have children who merely profess Christian faith in their
adulthood. We must pass on this multi-generational vision of
what God can do when fathers do their job in the
home.
God’s plan is so simple, and yet so
comprehensive! He puts the tools for shaping the world and
advancing the kingdom of God into the hands of every man. The
truly great men are the fathers. History books record those
who gained notoriety through position, power, or wealth, but
the true shapers of history are men in their humble houses, in
their shops, in their fields, with their children by their
sides. Each man is privileged by God to be the molder of the
future in the form of the children God has given
him.
Fathers, stop looking for greatness in your work,
in what your hands and mind produce, in some passing status or
prestige, in the wealth you can accumulate. Your true
greatness is in the hearts of the children God has given you.
There lies your potential for true greatness. There lies your
greatest opportunity to bring glory to God.
So we end
up where we began. A father’s relationship with his children
is the most important relationship in life. The question is,
What are you going to do about it?
Action
Steps
We will end with a list of practical actions you
can take to turn your heart to your children:
1.
Confess your failures to your family. As you see ways you have
failed to be a good father, confess them to your wife and
children. Call your mistakes what they are: sin; and ask for
forgiveness. Humble yourself, and God will do great things out
of your brokenness. (Basic humility training.)
2. Ask
for correction. Ask your wife and children to tell you your
"blind spots", those areas where you need improvement as a
father that you may not see. (Advanced humility
training.)
3. Homeschool your children. How can you
have the heart relationship God intends you to have with them
if they are turning their hearts to their peers all day long
in a classroom? How can you teach them the Word and works of
God if you are not their teacher? How can your hearts be
turned to each other if you are not together.
4. Have
daily family worship. This provides a good opportunity to
teach the children, to share your faith, to see their needs,
to read their hearts, to pray for them, to let them see your
passion for God.
5. Pray and work toward having a home
business. This is not easy, but it is a worthy goal for any
man. It makes the process of fathering so much easier when
your work is home-centered, when you are more accessible to
your family.
6. Chastise with the rod for rebellion.
This includes every occurrence of disobedience, and every
manifestation of passive rebellion (sighing, rolling the eyes,
slow obedience, talking back, etc.).
7. Listen to your
children. When they talk to you, stop and look at them. Ask
questions. Show interest. Take the initiative to find out what
is going on in their minds and hearts.
8. Show
affection. The cliché about "hugging your kids today" is
rooted in the truth that physical affection is a very powerful
way to communicate love and facilitate openness. It opens the
heart channels between people. Real men are not afraid to
touch and to hug.
9. Verbalize blessing. This can be as
simple as expressing genuine affirmation for a display of
godly character. Or it can be more "formal", as when you lay
your hands on a child and pray for him and speak your desire
for God to bless him.
10. Pray for wisdom. The Lord
knows you heart. If your desire is to turn your heart to your
children, He will show you how to do that; this list is a just
a start. Just get ready first to repent, then to experience a
fresh surge of joy in your walk with God.
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