Fathers, the word of exhortation is directed at you this morning. You have gathered your families, and you have brought them here to worship in the presence of the Lord.
The exhortation here is that it is not enough to do this physically. The apostle Paul told the Thessalonians that he had behaved toward them as a father does with his children, and we can take from this a summary of what Paul believed a father’s duties to be.
“As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children.” (1 Thess. 2:11). A few moments before, he places this fatherly care in an interesting context. “But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children” (2:7).
In this context of cherishing, you fathers are to assemble your children before the Lord, from the moment they arrive in your home, by exhorting, comforting, and charging. There is much here, but the exhortation delivered this morning is directed where many fathers stumble. They do not cherish and they do not comfort.
If you bring your children here in your own way—with anger, exasperation, frustration, harshness, irritability, annoyance, perfectionism, and so on—you are doing your level best to teach your children to hate God, hate His church, hate His Word, hate His sacraments, hate His wisdom, and hate your teaching. In the kindness of God, they might not learn these lessons, but it was not for any lack of trying on your part.
Christian fathers, are your children growing up in a home filled to overflowing with covenantal kindness? If they are not, the lessons they learn when you bring them here will not be what you say you want.