What Is a Father’s Role in Caring for an Infant?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.000 | Hello and thank you for listening to Ask Pastor John with longtime author and pastor John

00:00:08.120 | Piper.

00:00:09.120 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:00:10.760 | John Piper is a pastor, he is a theologian, a preacher, an author, and he is a husband

00:00:16.560 | and a dad and a grandfather.

00:00:18.800 | And today's question is one about being a husband and a dad, specifically a dad to little

00:00:24.280 | ones.

00:00:25.280 | The question comes from a perplexed young wife and mom named Mary.

00:00:28.440 | "Dear Pastor John, my husband and I recently had our first child, a beautiful baby girl.

00:00:33.480 | She is now seven weeks old.

00:00:35.680 | My husband, however, doesn't seem to want to help very much with her.

00:00:39.480 | He never changes diapers and I have to urge him even to hold her.

00:00:43.200 | He claims that since he works outside of the home, he shouldn't have to take care of her.

00:00:48.240 | What are your thoughts on this?

00:00:49.280 | What role should a Christian husband take in caring for little kids and their needs

00:00:53.820 | at home?"

00:00:55.000 | I think I can paint a faithful, biblical picture of the kinds of things a godly Christian husband

00:01:07.000 | should be inclined to do if he is submitted to Scripture and led by the Holy Spirit and

00:01:14.140 | trusting the promises of God.

00:01:16.780 | But I don't mean to imply by this picture that I'm going to paint that every marriage

00:01:23.360 | will have the same proportion of activities spread out among a wife and a husband, but

00:01:30.960 | rather that these are the kinds of things a man will lean into if he loves Scripture,

00:01:38.360 | lives by the Spirit, draws strength from the promises of God.

00:01:41.280 | And the reason I make that qualification is because if you have a woman who has six kids,

00:01:47.120 | a husband who has an eight-hour job, leaves at 8.30, comes home at 5.30, and is sitting

00:01:53.280 | most of the day and she's managing six kids, that's going to look different when he comes

00:01:58.580 | home maybe than if they have one kid and she stays at home and he works 12 hours of labor,

00:02:08.040 | say in construction all day, and he comes home at 8.

00:02:12.760 | It's just going to look different.

00:02:14.780 | But in either of those cases, what I'm about to paint I think is true.

00:02:19.680 | First, a godly husband will feel a very special responsibility under God to love his wife

00:02:26.820 | and children by leading and providing and protecting his wife and his children.

00:02:33.200 | And the reason I say that is because I see all three of those things describing the kind

00:02:38.360 | of love that a husband is supposed to have in Ephesians 5, 25 to 33.

00:02:44.640 | Number two, the nature of that love for his wife and children includes a self-denying

00:02:52.180 | sacrificial inclination to honor and nurture the relationships in his family.

00:03:01.200 | Paul says in Ephesians 5, 29, "No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes

00:03:10.100 | it just as Christ does the church."

00:03:12.160 | And that applies primarily to the wife, but his children are by implication also his own

00:03:18.880 | flesh, profoundly his own flesh.

00:03:22.200 | So there is built in to Christ-like manhood in marriage a God-given inclination to use

00:03:32.220 | strength for the sake of honoring and nurturing wife and children.

00:03:39.400 | Third, since Peter calls the wife the weaker vessel and infers from it not disrespect but

00:03:48.960 | greater honor from the husband, 1 Peter 3, 7, it follows that a Christian husband will

00:03:56.080 | seek to express or expand his strength to support his wife in her burdens rather than

00:04:06.440 | calling attention to his own weakness and weariness.

00:04:10.440 | In other words, the strength of a man in his God-given manhood should incline him to go

00:04:18.720 | the extra mile in showing his strength in helping his wife with the children, including

00:04:28.320 | changing diapers with his big, strong arms.

00:04:34.500 | So she will want to go the extra mile as a unique helper fit for him.

00:04:42.040 | This is a beautiful competition in the marriage where both are seeking to outdo one another

00:04:51.480 | in showing honor and serving.

00:04:55.680 | Fourth, Paul says in Ephesians 6, 4, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but

00:05:05.020 | bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."

00:05:10.260 | The application is that fathers have a unique role in displaying the character of the Lord,

00:05:19.140 | Jesus, and the nature of God the Father to the children.

00:05:24.140 | To be sure, mothers are crucial, essential in showing Christ and Christlikeness to the

00:05:34.220 | children.

00:05:35.220 | But the fatherhood of God and the lordship of Jesus is not revealed to us for nothing.

00:05:45.160 | Fathers have a unique role in showing their children what God the Father is like, and

00:05:53.220 | what we know is that God the Father helps the very hairs of our head.

00:06:00.340 | As he numbers them, he gets down nitty gritty, takes one hair at a time, one, two, three,

00:06:05.980 | 3,002, 3,003, and he counts the hairs on our head, Matthew 10, 30.

00:06:10.260 | That's a picture of attentiveness and closeness and hands-on care.

00:06:14.940 | That's the picture in Matthew 10, 30 of our father.

00:06:19.340 | He knows our frame.

00:06:20.340 | He remembers that we are dust, Psalm 103, 13.

00:06:24.740 | He carries us when we're wearis, Isaiah 46, 4, when we're weak, the beginning of life

00:06:31.460 | and the end of life.

00:06:32.460 | He's a carrier of his children.

00:06:35.360 | He sings over us and rejoices to do us good, Zephaniah 3, 17.

00:06:40.240 | He takes us into his own joy rather than into his gloominess, Matthew 25, 21.

00:06:46.660 | Welcome into the joy of your master.

00:06:49.700 | So these are all things that a father in his role, according to Ephesians 6, 4, will want

00:06:56.980 | to both teach and model for his children.

00:07:02.020 | Fifth, not only will a godly father want to show God the Father to his children in all

00:07:09.420 | these ways, but he will want to model for them the heart of Jesus.

00:07:15.700 | When the disciples saw people bringing children to Jesus, they tried to stop them because

00:07:22.580 | they thought, "Oh, these children are not important," and Jesus rebuked them.

00:07:27.420 | And we read this in verse 15 in Luke 18, "Now they were bringing infants to him that he

00:07:35.820 | might touch them."

00:07:37.660 | Every father should perk up.

00:07:39.540 | And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them.

00:07:43.780 | You can think of all kinds of reasons why you might rebuke them.

00:07:46.380 | Don't you know Jesus is tired?

00:07:48.580 | Don't you know that's woman's work?

00:07:50.340 | Don't you know whatever?

00:07:51.340 | You know, there are a lot of reasons that a man might think of to say, "Children, you're

00:07:55.500 | just not important enough for me to get my hands on them."

00:07:58.820 | But Jesus called them to him, saying, "Let the children come to me and do not hinder

00:08:05.660 | them for to such belong the children of God."

00:08:09.660 | These children are like the kind of people that God inclines toward.

00:08:14.100 | Jesus inclined toward children, not away.

00:08:18.680 | In fact, he said, I think this is one of the most astonishing things he ever said, I used

00:08:23.260 | to quote it for our nursery workers at church in Bethlehem, "Whoever receives one such child

00:08:30.020 | in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me."

00:08:38.580 | I mean, that's just staggering.

00:08:40.740 | It says if you receive a child in the name of Jesus, you don't just receive the child,

00:08:47.420 | and you don't just receive Jesus, you receive God Almighty, the creator of the universe.

00:08:52.180 | That's just staggering.

00:08:53.180 | I doubt that any of us can quite fathom what receiving the creator of the universe in receiving

00:08:59.780 | a child involves, but that's what it says.

00:09:02.800 | And a husband that wants to be like Jesus and receive Jesus and receive God the Father

00:09:10.060 | will be very attentive to caring for, receiving, playing with, nurturing his children.

00:09:17.160 | And finally, a Christian father will want to have the heart of the apostles toward his

00:09:24.400 | children and show them how to relate to others from the earliest months of their lives.

00:09:31.780 | And here's what Paul said his heart was toward the Thessalonians.

00:09:37.860 | This is 1 Thessalonians 2.6.

00:09:39.740 | "We did not seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have

00:09:47.780 | made demands as apostles, we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of

00:09:55.540 | her own children, so being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with

00:10:03.940 | you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very precious

00:10:14.860 | to us."

00:10:15.860 | Now, if Paul spoke this way as a father in the faith toward his converts, how much more

00:10:27.380 | would a Christian father want to treat his children this way and want his children to

00:10:34.180 | learn by the Father's example, even as infants—they pick up so much from the very beginning—even

00:10:42.140 | as infants how a godly man loves.

00:10:47.020 | So to this man who says, "Since he works outside the home, he shouldn't have to take

00:10:53.660 | care of his child," this man's mind and heart need a biblical Holy Spirit makeover,

00:11:04.300 | so that he shifts from the mindset of "have to" to "get to."

00:11:11.940 | There are few higher callings than to be a god displaying, Christ displaying, apostolic

00:11:21.260 | love displaying, love, love, love displaying, manhood displaying, father to his own children.

00:11:30.700 | It's a "get to," not a "have to."

00:11:33.700 | Amen.

00:11:34.700 | Yeah, that's a very good correlation here with the priority of Jesus to little children.

00:11:38.700 | Thank you for that.

00:11:39.960 | May we husbands pour our lives out to serve our kids and to serve our wives in joyful

00:11:44.980 | sacrifice.

00:11:45.980 | Thanks for listening.

00:11:46.980 | To listen to our past episodes or to send us a question of your own, go to our online

00:11:50.260 | home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn, and there you can find one of my all-time favorite

00:11:56.060 | episodes to dads.

00:11:57.380 | It's episode number 255, "Dad's Role in Homemaking."

00:12:01.260 | Check it out, episode number 255, "Dad's Role in Homemaking," one of my favorite episodes

00:12:06.580 | ever.

00:12:07.580 | And Wednesday we return with a question about Romans 9, 22-23.

00:12:12.260 | It's a key text.

00:12:13.260 | It's one we've talked about a lot on this podcast, and there's still yet a lot of questions

00:12:17.020 | to be answered from Romans 9, verses 22-23.

00:12:20.900 | So much of our theology hangs on how we understand these verses.

00:12:24.460 | How and why is God preparing vessels of destruction and vessels of mercy for salvation?

00:12:31.060 | It's a weighty text, it's sobering, but it's gloriously God-centered.

00:12:35.540 | And we're gonna press into that next time.

00:12:37.180 | I'm your host Tony Renke.

00:12:38.180 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.

00:12:40.580 | See you then.

00:12:40.860 | [END]

00:12:41.260 | 1.

00:12:42.260 | Romans 9:23-24

00:12:43.260 | 1.

00:12:44.260 | Romans 9:23-24

00:12:45.260 | 2.

00:12:46.260 | Romans 9:23-24

00:12:47.260 | 3.

00:12:48.260 | Romans 9:23-24

00:12:49.260 | 4.

What Is a Father’s Role in Caring for an Infant?

Chapters