FATHER’S DAY

.6-15-25

Father’s Day

Psalm 127:3–5 (ESV)
³Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. ⁴Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. ⁵Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Encouraging Statistics

1. Attachment: Fathers and infants can be as attached as mothers and infants. When both parents are involved, infants form attachments to both from birth.
2. Health Outcomes: Father involvement is linked to positive child health outcomes in babies, like improved weight gain in preterm infants and higher breastfeeding rates.
3. Authoritative Parenting: Father involvement using authoritative parenting (loving with clear boundaries and expectations) leads to better emotional, academic, social, and behavioral outcomes for children.
4. Future Success: Children close to their father are twice as likely to enter college or find stable employment after high school, 75% less likely to have a teen birth, 80% less likely to go to jail, and half as likely to experience multiple depression symptoms.
5. Critical Role: Fathers are crucial in child development. Father’s absence hinders development from infancy to adulthood, with psychological harm persisting throughout life.
6. Quality Over Quantity: The quality of the father-child relationship matters more than the hours spent together. Non-resident fathers can positively affect children’s social and emotional well-being, academic achievement, and behavioral adjustment.
7. Sociability and Self-Control: High levels of father involvement correlate with higher levels of sociability, confidence, and self-control in children. They are less likely to act out in school or engage in risky behaviors in adolescence.
8. Academic Achievement: Children with actively involved fathers are 43% more likely to earn A’s and 33% less likely to repeat a grade than those without engaged dads.
9. Behavioral and Economic Benefits: Father engagement reduces behavioral problems in boys and decreases delinquency and economic disadvantage in low-income families.
10. Psychological Benefits: Father engagement reduces psychological problems and depression rates in young women.

• What does the Bible say a father is supposed to do?

Paul’s Advice to Fathers

Ephesians 6:4 (ESV)
⁴Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Colossians 3:21 (ESV)
²¹Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

• Provoke : irritate, , make angry

“Research based on observations of mothers’ and fathers’  and behaviors in parenting has  that both mothers and fathers influence multiple aspects of child development, but they do so . These studies show that fathers tend to be particularly attuned to developing children’s physical, emotional, and intellectual independence—in everything from children making their own lunches and tying their own shoes to doing household chores and making decisions for themselves after they have left home. Fathers are also more likely than mothers to encourage children to take risks, while also ensuring safety and security, thus helping children develop confidence, navigate new transitions, and bravely confront unfamiliar situations.”

Jason S Carroll, Institute of Family Studies

• What are you hoping for, for your children?

Solomon’s Advice as a father

Proverbs 3:1–12 (ESV)
¹My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, ²for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. ³Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. ⁴So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. ⁵Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. ⁶In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. ⁷Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. ⁸It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. ⁹Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; ¹⁰then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. ¹¹My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, ¹²for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

• What is it that we are trying to teach?
  • How to have and a long life
    • Implementing wisdom
  • How to find favor and
    • Having steadfast love and faithfulness
  • How to walk along straight paths
    • Trusting in and acknowledging Him
  • How to have provision
    • Honoring God with your
• Does the Bible give a strategy?
  • Engaged

Deuteronomy 6:6–9 (ESV)
⁶And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷You shall teach them diligently to your children, 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. ⁸You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Hebrews 12:7–8 (ESV)
⁷It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

1 Thessalonians 2:11–12 (ESV)
¹¹For you know how, like a father with his children, ¹²we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

Psalm 103:11–13 (ESV)
¹¹For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; ¹²as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. ¹³As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

• • Be the

1 Corinthians 4:14–16 (ESV)
¹⁴I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. ¹⁶I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

Closing Thoughts

Ephesians 5:1–2 (ESV)

¹Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.

²And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God…

Ephesians 5:15–17 (ESV)

…¹⁵Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,

¹⁶making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

¹⁷Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.