Train Them Up | June 21, 2026
This past Sunday was Father's Day, and Pastor Justin did not let us off easy. In a message titled "Train Them Up," he opened three passages of Scripture and showed us that fatherhood is not a biological function. It is a divine calling. And God has not left fathers without instruction for how to answer it.
He started by acknowledging honestly that Father's Day is not the same experience for everyone. Some of us came in celebrating. Some of us came in carrying grief, complicated memories, or quiet regret. And some of the dads in the room came in knowing they have not always gotten this right. The message made room for all of it. And it anchored everything in one verse before moving forward: "As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him" (Psalm 103:13, ESV). Earthly fatherhood is meant to be a mirror. A living picture of the Father who made us.
From there, Pastor Justin walked us through three texts. The first was Ephesians 6:4: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." The point: fathers are called to engage in encouragement. Provoking your children does not always look loud. It can be constant criticism, an impossibly high bar, or simply being in the room while being emotionally somewhere else entirely. Paul gives us two Greek words for the alternative: paideia, the ongoing process of character formation woven into daily life, and nouthesia, the kind of relational, reasoned conversation that speaks to both the head and the heart. And none of it is secular parenting dressed up in Christian language. All of it points toward the Lord.
The second text was Proverbs 22:6: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." Pastor Justin was careful here. Proverbs is not a book of unconditional guarantees. It is a book of wisdom. There are faithful parents whose children walked away. And this verse is not an indictment of them. The Hebrew word for "train up" is hanak, the same root as Hanukkah: to dedicate, to consecrate, to give back to the one who gave it. When you train a child in the way of God, you are not just managing behavior. You are dedicating a life. And the "way" you are training them toward is ultimately a person: Jesus himself, who said "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6, ESV).
The third text was Colossians 3:21: "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." Paul uses a different Greek word here than he used in Ephesians. This is the slow kind: chronic criticism, impossible expectations, cold correction without warmth. The result is not anger. It is a child who simply stops trying. And the sobering reminder Pastor Justin left us with is this: the way a father treats his children shapes the lens through which they first understand their heavenly Father. If dad was harsh and impossible to please, they will assume God is too. If dad was warm, present, and quick to forgive, they have a head start.
If you missed Sunday, this one is worth going back for, especially if you are a father, a son or daughter of a complicated father, or someone still carrying wounds from a father who was not what he should have been. Pastor Justin spoke to all three. We would love to have you with us next Sunday.