By Al Johnson
It is the sacred responsibility of fathers to prepare their sons for the purposes of God.
Before John the Baptist began his ministry, he was a little boy growing up in the home of a godly father. Today we know John the Baptist as the great prophet who came in the spirit and power of Elijah. We know him as the voice crying in the wilderness, the man clothed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild honey, calling sinners to repentance and preparing the way for Jesus Christ. We know him as the man who would eventually stand before Herod and boldly confront his sin, a confrontation that would ultimately cost him his life. Jesus himself would declare that among those born of women, none had arisen greater than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). But before John was any of those things, he was the son of Zechariah. I wonder how often we consider the significance of that reality.
Luke concludes the account of John’s birth and his father’s prophecy with a statement that can easily be overlooked: “And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel” (Luke 1:80). We should not imagine that eight days after John’s birth, Zechariah packed up his newborn son, took him on a camping trip into the wilderness, and left him there to fend for himself. There is an entire childhood contained in that single verse. Years of growth, development, instruction, and preparation that Luke does not describe in detail. We are not told about John’s earliest conversations with his father, the lessons he learned around the family table, or the countless ordinary moments that shaped his understanding of God and his Word. Yet we know something about the kind of home into which John was born, and I believe there is something important here for Christian fathers to consider.
John was not born into an ordinary situation. His parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were described as righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord (Luke 1:6). His father was a priest, a man whose life was devoted to the service and worship of God. And unlike most fathers, Zechariah had been given a remarkable glimpse into the purposes of God for his son’s life.
Before John was even conceived, the angel Gabriel announced that he would be great before the Lord, filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb, and that he would turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He would go before the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elijah, turning the hearts of fathers to their children and preparing a people for the Lord (Luke 1:13–17).
Think about what that meant for Zechariah.
Responsibility of a Father
He knew his son had been set apart by God for a particular purpose. He knew John would be a prophet. He knew his son would prepare the way for the long-awaited Messiah. And following John’s birth, when Zechariah’s mouth was opened and he was filled with the Holy Spirit, he prophesied over his own child, declaring, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways” (Luke 1:76).
Zechariah had been entrusted with raising the boy who would one day prepare God’s people for the coming of Jesus Christ. While Scripture does not tell us the details of John’s upbringing, I cannot imagine that Zechariah would have regarded his responsibility lightly. He had heard the angel’s announcement, witnessed the miraculous circumstances surrounding his son’s birth, and spoken prophetically concerning the ministry his son would one day fulfill. He knew that John belonged to the Lord and that his life was intended for the purposes of God. Yet knowing the extraordinary calling upon his son’s life did not remove Zechariah’s responsibility to fulfill the ordinary duties of fatherhood.
It was Zechariah who was called to teach his son the Scriptures, to instruct him in the fear of the Lord, to model obedience and faithfulness, and to raise him according to the commandments of God. Zechariah would have known the command given in Deuteronomy 6:6–7, that the words of the Lord were to be upon his heart and that he was to teach them diligently to his children, speaking of them when sitting in his house, walking by the way, lying down, and rising. The Holy Spirit had set John apart for his calling before he was born, and God would prepare him for the work he had appointed. Yet this did not make the ordinary responsibilities of his father insignificant. Zechariah was still called to raise his son in the fear of the Lord.
The formation of a prophet did not begin with a public ministry. It began long before John ever appeared before Israel, and his father had been entrusted with a sacred responsibility in those formative years. Fathers, I believe we need to recover something of the weight of this responsibility.
We live in a generation that has increasingly surrendered the formation of children to everyone and everything except their fathers. We expect schools to educate them, churches to disciple them, coaches to develop their character, and the culture to tell them who they are. Meanwhile, many fathers have reduced their responsibility to providing a paycheck, maintaining a household, and seeking to make sure their children stay out of serious trouble.
But God has called fathers to something far greater.
Who Is Discipling Your Children?
Our responsibility is to raise sons and daughters who know and love God, love his Word, fear his name, and understand that their lives belong to him. We are called to form their character, instruct their consciences, cultivate their affections, discipline their desires, and prepare them to live faithfully in whatever circumstances God appoints for them. This is the very essence of discipleship, and Scripture gives us a remarkable principle concerning the power of this kind of intentional formation. Jesus said, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). Think about the implications of that statement for fatherhood. Our children are being discipled every single day. Their character is being shaped, their convictions are being formed, their desires are being cultivated, and their understanding of the world is being established. The question is not whether our children will be discipled, but who will disciple them. Who will teach them what it means to be a man or a woman? Who will shape their understanding of marriage, sexuality, responsibility, courage, sacrifice, and faithfulness? Who will establish the convictions by which they will live? Fathers, if we do not intentionally disciple our children, we should not be surprised when the world does. The culture is not sitting idly by waiting for us to decide whether we want to take our responsibility seriously. It is actively working to shape our children into its own image, teaching them what to love, what to celebrate, what to pursue, and what to believe. And the longer we neglect our responsibility, the more influence we surrender to those who have no intention of raising our children to follow Jesus Christ.
This is why fatherhood must be approached with intentionality. Godly men and women do not emerge from childhood by accident. Their formation requires years of instruction, correction, encouragement, discipline, and example. We must be willing to walk alongside our children, teaching them the Bible and preparing them for the life of obedience to which God has called them. And we must remember that discipleship involves far more than what we say.
Our children are watching how we live. They are learning what it means to follow Jesus by observing how we follow him. They see how we treat their mother, how we respond to adversity, how we handle our responsibilities, how we repent when we sin, and whether the convictions we profess on Sunday govern the way we live throughout the week. Jesus said that when a disciple is fully trained, he will be like his teacher. Fathers, that ought to sober us. If our sons grow up to become men like us, and our daughters learn what godliness looks like by watching us, what kind of disciples are we forming? We cannot expect to cultivate in our children a devotion to Christ that we are unwilling to demonstrate ourselves. The responsibility of raising godly children begins with our own faithfulness to Jesus.
Preparing Them for the Purposes of God
Fathers, we do not know what God will do with our children. We do not know whether our sons will preach before thousands or serve faithfully in obscurity. We do not know whether they will lead nations, build businesses, raise families, plant churches, or spend their lives in places the world will never notice. We do not know what hardships they will endure, what temptations they will face, or what sacrifices obedience to Jesus Christ may require of them. Zechariah was given a glimpse of what his son would become. Most of us will never receive anything like that. Yet the absence of that knowledge does not diminish the significance of our responsibility.
But we do know what God has commanded us to do.
Paul writes, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).
That command belongs to every Christian father. We are to raise our children under the authority of God’s Word, teaching them to know the Lord and preparing them for a lifetime of obedience to him. We are raising children who will one day stand before God. And if the Lord should entrust our sons and daughters with extraordinary responsibilities, may they have been prepared through years of ordinary faithfulness in our homes.
I think about John growing up under the care of Zechariah, and I am reminded that the public faithfulness of one generation is often cultivated through the private faithfulness of the generation before it. The courage that will one day be required in public must be nurtured long before the moment arrives. Convictions must be formed, the Scriptures must be taught, obedience must be practiced, and the fear of the Lord must become more than something a child hears about on Sunday.
Fathers, we cannot manufacture the calling of God upon our children’s lives. We cannot give them spiritual life, determine their future, or guarantee their faithfulness. Those things belong to the Lord. We can, however, be faithful with what he has entrusted to us. We can open the Bible in our homes. We can pray with our children and for our children. We can demonstrate repentance when we sin, courage when obedience is costly, and steadfast devotion to Christ when the world would have us compromise. We can raise them to understand that their lives are not their own, that Jesus Christ is King, and that whatever God calls them to do, they must be ready to obey with joy and gladness.
One day, John would emerge from the wilderness and begin the ministry for which God had set him apart. He would stand before Israel and declare that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. He would call men to repentance, and eventually point to Jesus and announce, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
Before the world ever heard the voice of John the Baptist, there was a father named Zechariah who had been entrusted with raising him. Fathers, we may never raise a prophet like John the Baptist, but we have been entrusted with sons and daughters who belong to the Lord, and we have been commanded to raise them in his ways. We do not get to determine what God will call our children to do, but we are responsible for how faithfully we prepare them to follow the Lord as he leads. The question is whether we are taking that responsibility seriously today, while they are still in our homes and entrusted to our care.
