Series: Get Right Bible Study Series · Companion: Full Study
A summary handout for Q1.06 Shorties (F3 QSource).
Big Idea A father’s love, presence, and steadfastness matter enormously — but he is not his children’s savior or their rock. God the Father is the source of a father’s love, the Lord is the true Rock beneath any child, and the greatest thing a father hands down is faith itself.
Memory Verse “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” — Ephesians 6:4 (ESV)
What QSource says: Q1.06 Shorties moves one ring out on the Concentrica to a man’s children. It calls fatherhood “the sacrificial relationship” — a man gives everything he has for his children and can never fully quit them. It says a father’s IMPACT, for good or bad, “cannot be underestimated” and is “infinite” across generations, and it pictures the father as a compass point founded “in deep and solid rock” whose steadfast commitment gives his children freedom to grow.
How we’re using it: QSource raises the topic; God’s Word is the authority we sit under. Nothing is written down — each man speaks his commitment out loud, and we open next time by saying how last week went. The goal is to draw near to God, obey Him, and give Him the glory (James 1:22).
1. A Father’s Sacrificial Love
What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:11–13, ESV)
As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:13–14, ESV)
Bottom line: You are the picture, not the original. Point your kids past you to the Father who gives what you can’t.
Discuss:
- Where are you sacrificing for your children in a way that quietly makes it about you rather than them?
- How does seeing God as the perfect Father reframe the ways you fall short as a dad?
2. The IMPACT of a Father: Bring Them Up in the Lord
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4, ESV)
Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. (Colossians 3:21, ESV)
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6, ESV)
Bottom line: The goal isn’t a well-adjusted kid. It’s a kid brought up in the Lord. You shape. God forms.
Discuss:
- Where might your discipline be exasperating your children rather than nurturing them?
- Are you raising your children mainly to succeed, or to know and love the Lord?
3. An Infinite Legacy: Tell the Next Generation
We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. (Psalm 78:4, ESV)
that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. (Psalm 78:6–7, ESV)
You 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. (Deuteronomy 6:7, ESV)
Bottom line: Your success won’t outlive you. The deeds of the Lord will. Tell your kids what God has done.
Discuss:
- What of “the deeds of the LORD” are you actively passing on to your children — and what would it look like to do that this week?
- Is faith something your children mainly see on Sundays, or something you talk about “when you sit and when you walk”?
4. Founded on the Rock: The True Rock Is the Lord
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24–27, ESV)
The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (Psalm 18:2, ESV)
For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:11, ESV)
Bottom line: You are not the Rock. Christ is. Build on Him where your kids can watch.
Discuss:
- Are your children being founded on you or on the Rock — and how does your own visible faith point them past you to Christ?
- What in your life shows your children that you are standing on the Rock, not just telling them to?
Living It Out
Be Doers, Not Hearers “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” — James 1:22 (ESV)
Pick your Brick — one concrete, observable action from today, specific enough that a brother can ask “did you do it?” and get a yes or no.
Say it aloud: “Because God is the perfect Father who gave His Son for me, this week I will ___. [Name], will you check me?”
Report back next time: “Last week I committed to ___. Did I do it: yes or no.”
Leave a Reply