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The Paternal Mission

Brian Messerli
06/15/25 - Praise and Preaching Service

Genesis 3:15-16a [The Mother’s Day sermon was called the Maternal Mission, and today’s lesson is called the Paternal Mission.  Both are rooted in Genesis 3] - Based on these two verses, we said that the maternal mission is to crush Satan’s head by bringing life to the world through suffering in sacrificial love for your children.  It will cause her great pain to reverse the curse of death in the world through bearing and raising children.  And if we continue reading, we see the paternal mission.

Genesis 3:16b-19 - The paternal mission is to crush Satan’s head by being willing to die to protect life in the world through servant leadership for your children.  Adam is given the role as ruler of his household, and Eve won’t like it.  She’ll want to take the lead from him, but leadership is not her mission; it’s his.  Yet notice, Adam’s rulership is not like a king or boss giving orders to his family.  His rulership is described in v. 18-19 as going out to labor and toil by the sweat of his brow to provide for Eve and their children, even to the point of death!  So he’s a leader yes, but one who puts backbreaking effort into protecting the life Eve brought into the world.  He is a servant leader.

Now, there’s some overlap between these missions.  It’s not like fathers don’t suffer in sacrificial love for their children or that they play no role in bringing life into the world, and it’s not like mothers aren’t willing to die to protect their children and that they don’t play any role in leading them.  But this is about their primary mission, so even though a mother might be willing to die to protect her children, the point is she shouldn’t have to because that’s the Father’s mission.  And even though the father plays a role in bringing life into the world, he doesn’t suffer to do so like Mom does.  The mother’s suffering comes from the creation and nurturing of life.  The father’s suffering comes in the protection of life.

And this morning, I want us to look at the way God protects the lives of His children in…

Deuteronomy 1:29-33 [Here Moses speaks to the generation of Israelites on the brink of entering the Promised Land, and he’s reminding them how scared their parents were 40 years before when they refused to trust God.  Listen to the way Moses tried to comfort them and give them confidence that they absolutely CAN defeat the Canaanites and enter the Promised Land.  I think this is one of the most powerful encapsulations of the fatherhood of God in all of Scripture.] - This passage shows us exactly what the paternal mission looks like on a practical level.  It means 4 things…

1. Presence

• Moses reminded the Israelites that God their Father has been with them this whole journey out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and to the Promised Land!  It was God’s presence in the pillar of cloud and fire that was leading the way for them and showing them which way to go!
• What’s more, God told the Israelites to build Him a tabernacle so His presence could dwell with them and travel with them everywhere they went!  You might say God went camping with His kids!
  • Exodus 29:45 - Now of course, mothers should be present for their kids too, but I think presence is harder for fathers and history has shown men are very tempted to leave all the child-rearing responsibilities to Mom.  Many fathers want the fun of making kids without the responsibilities of being present for them.
    • Which is why today, nearly 25% of children in this country live without a biological father in the home.  We’re facing a major crisis from a lack of father-presence.  Since fathers are meant to be protectors, a lack of his presence creates anxiety and stress in the home, a lack of discipline, a lack of identity, confidence, competence in children, and research shows homes without the presence of a father are far more likely to face poverty, for their kids to drop out of school, to end up with behavioral problems, mental health problems, higher likelihood of committing crimes, and higher rates of teen pregnancy.
      • And it’s not to say the mothers of those kids are terrible, it’s to say that kids need their father’s presence too!
      • Another reason it’s tempting for fathers not be present is because they’re too busy toiling away at work!  They get so wrapped up in the sweat, thorns and thistles of trying to make more money to protect their families that they don’t spend much time with their families.  But look in…
• Deuteronomy 6:7 - This verse, though not directed ONLY to fathers, assumes his presence!  God knows the only way you’ll be able to successfully lead your kids to learn about Him is to sit with them in the house, to have conversations with them, to go out for walks with them, to be with them at bedtime, and with them in the morning!
  • Now, certainly there are going to be times, fathers, when your work takes you away from your kids more than you want it to, but it’s important to ask yourself if you’re doing that to protect your family from starvation, or if you’re doing it to protect your family from not having all the nicest stuff.  Sometimes fathers aren’t present, not because they HAVE to work so much, but because they think the best way to show their kids love is to give them the best of everything!
    • But the truth is, your kids need your presence more than your presents!  Being present with them is so stabilizing and helps them feel safe and secure.  It’s why Moses told the Israelites not to be afraid, because their Father is with them!  So make time for family meals, set aside one day a week that’s just a family day and/or a family night where you all do things together.  Plan family vacations at least once a year.  It doesn’t have to be fancy, it can be a cheap camping trip where you’re roughing it together like God and the Israelites, and actually the hardship will bring you closer.  And remember to set aside one on one time with each of your kids as well, so that you can get to know them as unique individuals.
      • Your presence not only helps your kids, it helps you know how to serve them as their leader.  You’re learning their strengths and weaknesses, their needs, their interests, their fears, dreams, and goals.  It’s impossible to influence them and show them the way to go in life without your presence.
        • Because without presence, there’s no relationship, and without relationship, your leadership will feel like dictatorship.
          • Mark 10:42-43 - Some kids feel like the only time their father is present in their lives is to come lay down the law if they’re disobeying Mom.  In those cases, it doesn’t feel like servant leadership, it feels like a judge dropping the hammer on them.  That’s because your kids take orders from you, but they don’t feel like you know them or that they know you.  I read a helpful book called “The Shepherd Leader at Home.” by Timothy Witner.   He takes all the verses about shepherds in the Bible and applies them to fathers, which I think is a perfectly fair comparison and very helpful!  For instance…
          • John 10:13-14 - Fathers, the only way to know your children and for your children to know you is to spend time with them.  Even if it means laying down your life and your schedule and your preferences to make yourself available to them.  Your kids need that from you far more than you know.

2.  Provision

• Deuteronomy 1:33 - God was seeking out places for Israel to encamp along the journey.  He’s actively involved, He’s not a passive father; He takes the initiative to find His children safe places to live…
  • Deuteronomy 2:7 - Notice there’s a direct connection here between God’s presence and God’s provision.  Because God was with them those 40 years, He has KNOWN their wanderings.  He knew what they needed and the struggles they faced, which helped Him provide for their needs so they lacked nothing.  Now, that doesn’t mean He gave them everything they wanted.  But it does mean He gave them everything they needed.  In fact, God allowed them to go through rough times in the wilderness on purpose to build their character, to test them to see if they’d be content with what they had and to trust the Father to take care of them.
  • Deuteronomy 8:3-5 - A temptation for a lot of Dads is to get their kids absolutely everything they want.  It comes from a good place, like maybe you grew up poor and you don’t want your kids to ever struggle like you did.  But isn’t it true some of your struggles were good for your character development?  It’s good not to OVER-provide for your kids as a way to teach them contentment and self-control and to not be consumed by materialism.
    • In fact, God says in v. 3 one of the reasons He withheld provisions from the Israelites sometimes was to teach them to value spiritual things over material things.
      • That’s why one of the first things God did for Israel in the wilderness was to provide them with His Law to teach them how to live righteously!
      • Deuteronomy 4:7-8 - Moses is saying, “No nation has a God who is as present in their lives as ours is.  Our Father is NEAR to us and He’s always there when we need His provision.”  And God not only provided for them physically, but spiritually by giving them this righteous law that teaches them how to flourish as human beings in this world.
        • Psalm 23:1-3 - This is how you want your children to feel about you as their father.  To want for nothing means you have given them everything they need, and that they’re content with your material provisions.  But even more important is to provide for them spiritually by guiding them in the paths of righteousness.
• So Dads, part of the paternal mission is to be a hard worker to meet the material needs of your family so that they don’t want or lack for anything they need.  It may mean taking jobs you don’t want or that you feel are beneath you, at least temporarily, to put food on the table.  The paternal mission means the shedding of blood, sweat, and tears in the service of meeting your family’s needs.  It doesn’t mean working 80 hours a week so you can’t be present for your family, but it does mean doing whatever it takes to provide food, shelter, and clothing for them.  They don’t need to be rich, they just need to be safe.
  • They also need spiritual provision, so you want to instill in them a reverence and love for God and His Word.  And of course that starts with you.  One writer said, “Train up a child in the way that he should go — but make sure you go that way first.” - Charles Spurgeon.  Being a leader isn’t about driving them with an iron fist to love and obey God; it’s about showing them what that looks like and inspiring them to follow your example.  It means when you’re present at the dinner table or before bed or when you’re driving, you’re bringing God into your conversations with your kids.  It means letting them see you read the Bible and pray as part of your daily devotion, it means making worship attendance non-negotiable, it means being an active participant in the church, not just a spectator who comes and goes.  It means having short daily devotions with your kids where you’re reading God’s word together and discussing how you can all bring Him more glory in your lives.
    • Fathers, you want your families to feel safe physically, but also to feel safe spiritually.  You want your kids to feel the safety of knowing their Dad is right with the Lord, and that you’re leading them to be right with the Lord too!  That’s eternal provision.

3.  Protection

• Deuteronomy 1:30 - God is a Father who fights on behalf on His children!  And when His children are weak and can’t stand on their own, in v. 31 He carries us to safety.
  • Deuteronomy 4:24 - Kids typically find their Fathers to be scarier than their mothers.  That’s because they’re the fighters and protectors of the family, and that requires a kind of dangerous strength that if not kept under control can burn a whole forest down in the fight for his family.
    • Deuteronomy 5:25 - The Israelites have a healthy fear of God’s strength because they know if they disobey Him, His fire will turn towards them.  But God wants them to fear Him, yet not be afraid of Him.  He’s on their side, He’s their protector, so He doesn’t want His children to live in terror and run away from Him, but He does want them to have a healthy and reverent fear to realize if they disobey Him, there’s going to be consequences.
• Why?  Because part of a Father protecting His children is to protect them from themselves through discipline!  It’s why when Mom says to her kids, “Wait until Dad gets home,” it’s terrifying because we know the discipline is coming, BUT Dad does that because He loves us and He’s trying to protect us from far worse consequences down the road if our behavior doesn’t change.
  • Ephesians 6:4 - It’s not that Moms can never discipline their kids, they certainly can.  But God made it the primary mission of fathers to protect their kids from danger, and discipline is protection.  As a simple example, I was over at the Park’s a couple months ago and I remember Ryan had to discipline Asher because Asher kept playing with an electrical outlet.  Now to Asher I’m sure it was a scary experience, but Ryan was showing him it’s much better to be disciplined by Dad than by electricity.  Dad’s discipline is for his good to keep him safe, the outlet’s discipline is not.
    • So the way you protect your kids is to make reasonable rules, to be clear about the consequences for violating those rules, and to be consistent in the enforcement of those rules.  I was listening to some parenting advice from the clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson and I thought this was so helpful.  He was talking about how important it is to be consistent with your follow through on discipline, because sometimes parents cave because they don’t want to do it.  And he said the reason slot machines at a casino are SO addictive is because they offer random rewards.  The machines are completely unpredictable, so it convinces people, “If I just pull it one more time, I might win!”  He said that’s the same thing that happens to children with parents who are unpredictable in their discipline.  If you only enforce the rules some of the time, it makes your kids think, “Hey maybe tonight is one of those nights I can get away with stuff!” And it’ll encourage them to keep playing the slot machine of disobedience.  Instead, they have to know with 100% certainty and predictability that if I break a rule, I’m going to face the consequences.  And he described the kind of disciplined home you want to create this way:  “Discipline in your home should be like islands of predictability amidst an ocean of play.”  So it’s not like it’s all discipline all the time; no your kids should feel free to play and have fun and be themselves, but there need to be predictable times when they have to be disciplined for crossing the line.
      • And notice, Ephesians 6:4 also warns against provoking your children to anger.  It doesn’t mean to never make your kids mad, because of course they’re going to be mad at you for telling them no or disciplining them.  But Paul’s saying don’t turn them into angry people, and I wrote an article about how to avoid this in the bulletin, but one of the best ways to avoid this is to let them know they’re forgiven after the discipline.
      • Deuteronomy 4:29-31 [After God disciplines His children, listen to what He says…] - Your kids need to know their Father is always eager to welcome them back when they realize they’ve done wrong.  That’s true protective discipline.  Without knowing they’re safe with you after the discipline, your discipline won’t feel like protection, it’ll only feel like punishment.
• Discipline protects them from themselves, but another part of the paternal mission is to protect them from the evil influence of outside threats.  God not only disciplined Israel, He fought to protect them from the evil around them.  This means fathers that you’ll need to get to know your kids’ friends, having their friends over to your house on play days so you can know what they’re like and how they’re influencing your child, it means knowing what they’re being taught in school, controlling access to screen time, how much TV and what kind, being careful not to introduce them to social media too early because it’s been proven to destroy kids psychologically, it means setting clear boundaries and expectations about dating and where they can go and how late they can stay.  While you don’t need to be a helicopter parent micromanaging every aspect of their lives, there’s nothing worse in a Father than passivity.  A father who has no idea where their kids are or what they’re doing and feels like he has no control over their behavior is poison to a family because there’s no protection and no one feels safe.  Your wife will resent you for it, and even though it may seem to your kids like it’s awesome because they have all this freedom to do whatever they want, they secretly resent you for it too.  So when you tell your teenage daughter, “No, I’m sorry you’re NOT going to be alone with a boy in your room,” she may be really mad and accuse you of not trusting her, but deep down she appreciates it, and even if she doesn’t know it now, later on she’ll be so grateful that her father wasn’t some passive weak wallflower, but was actively engaged in her life to protect her from Satan, the roaring lion who roams around seeking families to devour.

4.  Preparation

• Deuteronomy 1:33 - This is one of the keys of fatherhood; to know that your kids are on a journey.  They aren’t meant to stay in place forever.
  • Deuteronomy 1:6 - This is one of the differences between Moms and Dads.  Moms tend to want their kids to stay where they are, to be little and stay in her arms forever.  And that’s not a weakness, that’s how God designed her.  It’s what makes Mom feel so safe for the child.  But Dads see where their child should go, their potential for what they could become, and he challenges them to leave the comfort zone of Mom and to venture out to find a life of blessing.  When Dad’s challenges get too scary, they can run back to Mom for safety and comfort.  But deep down the child knows they aren’t meant to stay forever either, and they need Dad not only to push them along on their journey toward a blessed adulthood, they need Dad to prepare them to flourish when they get there.
    • A great metaphor for all of this is when a father teaches his child to ride a bike.  The goal is for the child to be able to ride a bike on his own without his father’s assistance, but in order to do that, he has to prepare them by giving them instructions about how a bike works, guiding their feet to go around in a circle to move the wheels, putting training wheels on, and then when the training wheels come off, he holds the seat with his hand.  Now this process is scary for your child, and maybe the first time Dad lets go the child falls, scrapes his or her knee, then runs back to Mom for comfort and safety.  But then Dad encourages the child to try again because it’s going to be so rewarding to finally be free to ride on his own, so he climbs back on and tries again, and when he finally gets it, the child celebrates because they’ve accomplished something great and you’ve helped prepare them for a new level of flourishing independence.
• The paternal mission is to do the same thing for them, but in life more generally!  You’re trying to prepare them to leave the home and live successfully without your constant assistance.  Now, it’s not that your child won’t need you at all.  You’ll still have a relationship, they’ll still come to you for help and advice, and in cases of emergency you’ll always be there for them.  But the goal is for you to so prepare them for the world that they don’t need you to tell them everything or do everything for them or solve all their problems anymore; instead, they can use the wisdom and skills you’ve given them to go live a flourishing life with their Heavenly Father.  Really, the goal is to hold on to the bike seat of their lives until you can pass them off to another Father, to their ultimate Father in Heaven.
  • Deuteronomy 6:23 [I love this verse so much] - God had a goal for His people; He brought them out to bring them in.  He brought them out of Egypt where they were floundering, with the goal of bringing them into the Promised Land where they’d be flourishing.  This is what fathers are called to do; to move your kids along the journey from floundering to flourishing, but you have to prepare them for that.  One way is through instruction in God’s Word.
    • Deuteronomy 6:24 - God’s word was meant to prepare them to flourish in Canaan, so that they would survive and live a good, long life in the land.  God’s teachings are not arbitrary; everything He tells us to avoid is because it prevents human flourishing, and everything He tells us to pursue is for our good and will help us navigate life so much more smoothly.  So teaching your kids God’s Word is the best form of preparation for this life and the next.
    • Another way to prepare them is to challenge your kids to take risks to gain competence.  Now, Mom’s gonna be nervous about this, but good leaders influence their kids to accomplish things and it’s hard to accomplish anything without some level of risk.  The more your kids accomplish things, the more confidence they’ll have because they’ll have more competence.  Now of course, the risks need to be reasonable, you’re not asking your kids to climb Mt. Everest or jump off the roof of your house.  No, but you may pick them up and put them on your shoulders as a toddler, you may let them play a sport, you may make them place their own order a restaurant, you may go on a hike down a new trail with them, you may put them on your lap in a 4 wheeler or tractor, all of which is a little scary, but they know you’re right there with them to help them face the fear.  That’s what God does for us all the time.  He asks us to do scary things because He knows it builds our character, but He also says, “Do not fear, for I am with you.”
      • You can also prepare your kids by helping them set short and long term goals for their lives and make plans to accomplish those goals.  God’s goal for His children was that they’d live with Him in the Promised Land, that they’d live righteously, and that they’d flourish in peace with him forever.

And that’s still God’s vision for us today.  The problem is our sin prevents that from happening.  Our sin keeps us from reaching the final goal of the journey we’re on.

Which is why our Father in Heaven sent Jesus in order to fulfill the paternal mission to crush Satan’s head by being willing to die to protect life in the world through servant leadership for His children.

When Jesus came, He represented God’s presence among us.  Jesus said if you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.  Jesus represented God’s provision for us, nourishing us with God’s teachings and providing us with a safe place to live in God’s home forever.  Jesus was God’s protection, disciplining us by disciplining Jesus in our place to awaken us to the horrors of our sin and save us from ourselves, while also crushing Satan’s head and dealing with the external threats.  And finally, Jesus was God’s preparation for His children, as Jesus not only went to prepare a place for us, but to prepare us for that place so we can flourish for all eternity with our Father.

But in order to make all that possible, God had to become our servant and to be willing to die to protect and save our lives.  He became a servant leader who put our needs above His own, and the question this morning for fathers is, will you be a servant leader like God for your family?  And the question for all of us is, will we trust our Father in Heaven enough to follow His lead?  If you’ll put your trust in Him, you’ll be perfectly taken care of both in this life and the next because He is the perfect Father, and He’s calling you home to Him where you belong.