"Parenting" Ephesians 6:1-4
- Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on June 11, 2023.
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Audio Transcript
Audrey, we thank you for getting that information and sharing it. It’s good to know what our missionaries are doing that we support in different areas. And this is certainly a different ministry that we don’t think about our missionaries normally doing, but having a global outreach to all these different languages with a Bible translation. Let’s take our Bibles now and turn to Ephesians chapter six. To today we’re going to be looking at parenting in verses one through four.
Ephesians 6, verses one through four. I’ll begin reading in verse one. Children, obey your parents in the Lord because this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with a promise so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land. Fathers, don’t stir up your anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
May we pray? Heavenly Father, as we look at your word. Once again, we thank you for providing us with all that we need to know to come to a right relationship with you through faith in Jesus Christ, his death, burial and resurrection, and also by proclaiming that he is our Lord and Savior publicly. And Father, we thank you that not only do you lead us to true faith in you with the right relationship that lasts for eternity, but you give us instruction on how we are to live. Let us accept that, Father.
Let us understand it and have a desire to follow it in the power of your spirit. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Four main words we’re going to be looking at today. They are obey, honor, right, and reward.
We go back to the first verse where it says, children, obey your parents in the Lord. Now in the first part of the book of Ephesians, Paul taught doctrine about what God had been doing for the world that we might have salvation. And then he taught what the church and its members are supposed to be like. And then he moves on to individuals and relationships to teach how they are to be lived out and how they are to function in light of everything that he had taught them earlier. Then Paul taught on marriage, it’s supposed to come before children.
A biblically functioning marriage is a necessity to raising children who will develop a relationship with Christ. If the marriage relationship is not based on God’s word, then the likelihood of spiritually minded children becomes more hit and miss. The best thing that parents can do to lead their children to a real relationship with Jesus is to have a vibrant relationship with the Lord and have a vibrant biblical relationship with each other. Can we go to the next slide up There, please. Thank you.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Now, we could say that the text today is speaking to children, but really it’s talking to parents because it’s up to the parents to teach, to rebuke, to encourage, to train, and to discipline their children to behave as God commands them to. Your children are not going to learn these things just from hearing this message today any more than you telling them one time that they need to brush their teeth every day for the rest of their life. It’s going to be sufficient. How many times did you have to tell them to brush their teeth?
Or you’re still telling them to brush their teeth? You know, if my mom were alive, she’d probably still be telling me to brush my teeth. Mary tells our kids to brush their teeth. I’m going a little bit farther, but you get the point. These things are important.
We have to go over and over them. Therefore, it’s not sufficient just for kids to sit and to hear this one time. And the text here tells us that the parents are responsible for to do this. It requires constant work on the parents part. And I can tell you that if you don’t lead your kids down a path of obedience to you and to God, then somebody is going to lead them down another path to obedience to another person, another teaching, another religion, or something else.
Once again, your child hearing this message today is not going to teach them how to live anymore than telling them only one time in their life to do something else that is of importance to them. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. You know, parents need to know what God expects from their children. And they need to make those things that God expects to be the first priority in their children’s life. There are lots of great things that we want our children to do.
We want them to excel in playing the piano if they have a talent for that. We want them to excel in sports if they’re gifted there. We want them to excel in school and we teach them all these things. But the scripture here does not say nor anywhere else. Teach your kids how to play soccer as utmost importance or encourage them to be excellent students.
The primary thing is that children learn to obey their parents in the Lord. What does this word obey mean? It means to listen, to answer and to obey. The original Greek has two meanings. The first meaning is to listen attentively in order to answer that.
You’re teaching your children that when you speak to them that they’re listening because they want to hear, they want to understand, and then they’re going to respond to you. And the second definition means to yield without necessarily being willing to do so. So this is what God’s word means when it says to obey your parents. You listen to them, you answer them, and you also obey them. But I want to point out there’s an ultimate goal here, and the ultimate goal is not for your children to obey you.
The ultimate goal that we all have in rearing our children is that they will be obedient to God. That is supposed to be your ultimate desire because you’re not always around your children now, and one day you won’t be present in this world anymore. You want it to be instilled in them that the most important thing you could do is whether mom and dad are around or not, is that you’re going to be obedient to what you know God wants them to do. And so doing this, you can’t just expect external obedience from your kids. What you’re really doing and really praying about is that internally that they’ll have a desire to be obedient.
So they don’t just do it as a matter of show, but they understand this is what God wants and it’s in their heart. Because ultimately all obedience is to be according to the text in the Lord. Therefore teach your children that obedience to you is being obedient to the Lord. We find this in many proverbs in the Old Testament. Here, example of 2 Proverbs 1:8 says, Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching.
And then Proverbs 6:20, My son, keep your father’s commands and don’t reject your mother’s teaching. Colossians 3:20 expresses it just a little differently. It says, children obey your parents and everything, for this pleases the Lord. To what extent are children supposed to obey their parents? The words there in everything, they’re supposed to be obedient because you’re wanting to teach them to also be obedient to the Lord in everything.
We’re not supposed to obey the Lord when it’s convenient to us. We’re not supposed to be obedient to the Lord when we feel like it’s to our benefit. We’re to be obedient to him in everything in the same way that should be taught to our children. And what is the reason for this? Because it pleases the Lord.
And when God is pleased with the way we live our lives, there is great blessing for us. You are teaching your child that ultimately their obedience to you is something that pleases the Lord. And why do you want to do this? Well, you want your children to be blessed by the Lord by pleasing him. Let’s go back to Ephesians, chapter six.
Now we’re in verse two. It says, honor your father and mother. The first word was to obey your parents. Now it’s to honor your father and mother, both of them. What’s the difference here between honor and obey?
Well, this goes Back to Exodus 20:12, where in the Ten Commandments children are told to obey the Lord. And the word here means to respect your parents, to show them outwardly through your speech and your mannerisms and your action that you respect them. It also means to pay attention to them when they’re speaking to you. And thirdly, to obey them. So the two words are kind of intertwined together.
This idea of respecting listening, paying attention to being obedient to them in every way.
And why is this? Children, obey your parents and the Lord because this is right. You need to teach your children that obedience and honor need no other reason than the fact that God says that it is the right thing to do. In other words, your children don’t always have to understand the reason for why you’re asking them to do things. We see that in little kids.
If they try to stick a pen or a paper clip into an outlet, how do you explain to a 1 1/2 year old what’s going to happen to them if they do that? They don’t need to know. And it’s the same way throughout life. Now, if they do understand, if they’re mature enough to know why it is that you’re telling them to do these things, that’s excellent, but it’s not a requirement. Children don’t need a reason to obey you May you children don’t have to understand, but it does help if they do.
Why are we wanting our children to do this? Well, God tells us that not only is it the right thing to do, but there is great reward in it. We can move one more slide there, please. Children, obey your parents and the Lord because this is right. Honor your father and mother because it’s the first commandment with a promise so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land.
If you want things to go well with your kids and you want them to have a long life in the land, teaching them to be obedient is moving in that direction. Parents need to teach their children that God is going to reward them for their obedience and their honor. Let me read from Proverbs 1:8:9. Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction. And don’t reject your mother’s teaching, for they will be a garland of favor on your head and pendants around your neck.
Things of great value come to children that obey their parents. I want to say that the reward, I think, has two different types of reward. There’s a personal reward, but there’s also a national reward. Reward. The personal reward.
Let’s think about this. Obedience really goes against our sinful nature that we have in us. And not only does it go against our sinful nature in us, but it goes against our culture, because our world is teaching us today. You don’t need to be obedient to anybody. Just decide for yourself what’s right to do.
And this all goes back to Satan’s rebellion in heaven. Satan rebelled against the authority of God because he didn’t want to do what God wanted him to do. He wanted instead to place himself above God. And you know, children will naturally follow Satan’s desires for them. They want to control their parents, and they become very adept at learning how to get what they want.
Pitting mom against dad, exhibiting certain behaviors that their parents give in and give them what they want. But, you know, our culture has even gone beyond that because not only are children wanting to be in control, but we have a society now that says that parents are supposed to let the children work with them in parenting. So there’s this parent child relationship that God says we’re supposed to have, but our modern society says, no, you’re supposed to be friends with your kid. Let them decide how they need to be parented. Do this together.
Parents need to realize that they are instructed to parent their child until it comes to the point in their life that they can be friends with one another. Therefore, your goal as a parent is to be the parent until your child is an adult. And at that point, hopefully you’ve raised a child that will be one of the best friends that you will ever have. But not only is there a personal reward for obedience in children, but there’s a natural national reward, because a culture with obedient children will be rewarded. It’s no wonder that Satan wants to destroy God’s principles of submission and obedience, because he knows inevitably that will destroy a Society.
Ephesians 6:4. Who is Paul talking to here? He’s been talking about obeying your parents, obeying your mother and your father. But we find here in verse four that he specifically addresses the father. And it goes back to the same way in marriage that the father is to be the leader in the home. The Father is responsible for the spiritual leadership of his home.
It goes back to the Garden of Eden. It was Eve that ate from the fruit first. But God held Adam responsible. He didn’t say, Eve, what have you done? He asked Adam, because Adam was responsible.
And then we’ve seen earlier in the previous weeks, it’s up to the husband to be the leader in the home, to make sure that things are proper. And here we find again that God holds the husband responsible for spiritual leadership in the home. There are many women, they take this rollover and they raise their children to love the Lord. But when you get to heaven, someday God is going to ask each father, were you the leader in your home? Did you rear your kids to love the Lord?
So Paul gives these two statements here. He says, don’t stir up, but instead you’re supposed to bring them up. Don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. The Father, as the spiritual leader of the home, is also the disciplinary leader in the home. But if fathers don’t do this properly, they could stir up their children.
They could stir up actually anger in them if they’re not following the Lord’s commandments and how to do this. Fathers and mothers are both partners in this. But that God once again is going to hold the father as ultimately responsible. You know, it doesn’t say anything here about training and education. It doesn’t say to train them in recreation or sports or painting or art.
The primary thing that a dad is responsible is for the training instruction of your child in the Lord. Now, if you want to spend eternity with your children, spending time on teaching them how to play soccer is not going to achieve your desire. And if you’re wanting to spend an eternity with your child in heaven, coaching them to be a better pianist or to do well in school is not going to achieve your results. What does it mean to don’t stir up? Colossians 3, 21 says it this way.
Fathers do not exasperate your children so they won’t become discouraged. You need to have a right relationship with the Lord. You need to discipline and train your kids. But you’re not supposed to exasperate them. You’re not supposed to discourage them by the way that you’re teaching them in the home.
What are some examples of how you can stir up your kids or exasperate them? First way is being hypocritical. In other words, this is a dad who goes to church. But then when they’re home for the other six days of the week, they don’t live anything like that. Love the Lord.
If you’re hypocritical like that, your children are not going to take seriously. They’re going to be exasperated. Why are you even taking us to church if you don’t believe what they’re teaching there? The next way you can exasperate your kids is not doing as you say, for example, teaching your kids about God, but you don’t have a personal relationship with him yourself. It also involves telling your children not to engage in a certain behavior, but then you turn around and do it.
So the child says, well, dad says don’t do this, but he does it himself, so why should I be obedient to him? A third way is not letting your yes be yes and not letting your no be no. In other words, you’re constantly waffling on your decisions. Especially it comes into play when you tell child number one, no, you can’t do something. But then three years later, you tell child number two, yes, you can, because now your children are remembering you haven’t been consistent in how you’re dealing with them.
Number four, if you make promises that you can’t keep or if you make promises that you don’t plan to keep, don’t tell your kids, yeah, we’ll do that later, and don’t come around to it. That’s going to exasperate them. And fifth reason would be constantly changing your expectations or rules in your home. Kids like to know what it is they need to do to succeed, and they want to stick with that plan. Don’t stir them up, but instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
You know, going to church is not enough to combat the 35 to 40 hours that your kids spend in school and out of your house each week. You need to take time to read the Bible with them, to pray together, read Bible storybooks, listen to Christian music, and bring your kids to church. Have them involved in awana and Sunday school and youth groups and service projects. You can memorize scripture together, and you can have your kids spend time every day reading a devotional book. Or you might want to pick up one of these little catechism books as you leave.
There are 52 questions and answers. There’s one a week, and it will teach your children some doctrine. But you have to intentionally work on training and instructing your children in the Lord. They don’t just absorb it by coming to Church on Sunday mornings. What is the attitude of a parent supposed to be like?
The attitude of a parent should be that children are a gift from God. Children are something special that God has given to us. They’re difficult, they take a lot of time, they’re very expensive, but still they’re extremely valuable. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. A biblical attitude to our children is to see them as a special gift from God and to treat them such.
Another word here is action. And the action is that the best training starts when children are young. Start a youth out on his way, and even when he grows old, he will not depart from it. There are a lot of parents that say, I don’t want to push religion on my kids. I will let them decide that when they become an adult.
We’re going to look at some statistics in a minute. If that is your attitude towards raising your kids, let them decide later. Their chances of coming to the Lord are very slim because the best training starts at a very early age. We have an example of this in 2 Timothy 3, 14, 15, where Timothy let’s see how soon his mother and grandmother started to teach him. Paul says to Timothy, you know those who taught you, his mother and his grandmother.
We don’t know where his father was, if he had died or something had happened. But here the significant women in his life stepped in and it says, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. They started teaching him when he was an infant. And we know today that a baby, even in the womb, starts to learn things. A baby, before it is born, knows its mother’s voice.
And if he knows the mother’s voice, that means that he’s hearing her, what she’s saying throughout the day, if she’s reading scripture out loud or if she’s reading things that are inappropriate, if she’s speaking with kind words or she’s speaking with negative words. Babies start to learn in the womb and in the same way, infants, you need to begin instructing them in the scripture and teaching them. Teaching needs to start at a young age, especially spiritual training, because there are going to be those that come in later days that try to deceive your children. So you need to not only bring them to the Lord, but give them instruction. Here’s a graph that comes from ministrytochildren.com who is the most important person in bringing children to faith, or even to anyone?
They based their research on asking Adults who were involved in ministry at church. These aren’t just professing believers, but people that were actually involved in ministry in the church or other organizations as adults. And 50.5% of them said that their parents were the ones that helped them to come to Christ. 28.4% said that it was their children ministry or leaders and their children’s program. That’s why it’s important that we have Sunday school.
That’s why it’s important that we have awana and other things for children. 24% that other family members brought them to the Lord. 22.6% said that their head pastor was the one who helped come them to Christ. And then when it comes down to youth ministries and leaders, there that 16.3% and there were only 4.8% that came to know the Lord through websites or Christian movies. I told Hunter not to be sad about this day because he likes to be the winner, so.
But I think his number is going to be higher than that in eternity. All right, we praise the Lord for Hunter. What is your aspiration supposed to be? As for children, let’s look at mark 10, 13, 15. Your aspiration is that your children come to know the Lord and they have a relationship with him.
And the encouragement here is that children are able to make a decision to follow Jesus. People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw it, he was indignant and he said to them, let the little children come to me. Don’t stop them. Because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
If children want to come to the Lord, Jesus said, let them come to me. Don’t stop them. So if you have parents that are saying, well, we’re not going to force this on them as children. Children do come to the Lord and they don’t have to know everything because it tells us here. Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
Children can have enough knowledge through instruction that they can place their faith in Jesus Christ and follow him for the rest of their life. Thinking again about the aspiration that children are able to make a decision to follow Jesus. I’ve got a pie diagram up here for you. Let’s look at the colors there. In ages 4 to 14, this survey was based on people that were asked, did you come to a point in your life that you gave it over to Jesus Christ and have you been born again?
It wasn’t asking people, people if they’re involved in ministry. It was just. Were they making a profession of faith as adults? Ages 4 to 14, 85% of the people made their decision. Ages 15 to 30, it was 10%.
And the percentages go down. I want to encourage you. Anybody can come to faith at any time that there’s always hope that someone can come there. But we need to emphasize and what I’m trying to point out, it’s so important that we train the children in spiritual instruction and to follow Jesus Christ. Here’s another graph.
This is going back to ministry to children. And they once again were basing on are you involved in ministry? And out of the adults there, it gives the different percentages there, but I put it in brackets over there on your left. Ages 0 to 19, 84% of people came to know the Lord and continued to be involved in ministry as adults. I’m trying to point out to you, children can make a decision.
It’s important that we lead them to making these decisions and we don’t put it off at a later age. Why is this so important? Let’s go back to two Timothy. We’re in chapter three. It was so important that Timothy learn about the Lord because Paul said, evil people and imposters will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believe. You know those who taught you and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Jesus. This spiritual training was going to be of utmost importance because Paul said that evil people are going to come. They’re going to be trying to lead your children astray from the Lord.
Imposters are going to come along and pretending that they’re the right spiritual leader, trying to lead your children away. And it says, it’s going to become worse and worse as we move forward to the time that Jesus Christ returns. So our aspiration has to be that spiritual training and has to be the most important thing in our home. And it’s up to us as dads to make sure that happens. If you just pull out this little insert from your bulletin, I just wanted to read a couple things from this.
The title says research shows that spiritual maturity process should start at a young age. I’m going to go down to the second paragraph there, kind of the last two sentences. It says, simply getting people to go to church regularly is not the key to becoming a mature Christian. Spiritual transformation requires a more extensive investment in one’s ability to interpret all life’s situations in spiritual terms. Just coming to church on Sunday morning is not enough to help you to grow spiritually, and it’s not enough for your children either.
Read what I underlined there. A person’s lifelong behaviors and views are generally developed when they are young, particularly before they reach the teenage years. First, a person’s moral foundations are generally in place by the time they reach age nine. Isn’t that just. That’s just amazing that by the time your kids are nine years of age, they’re going to have their basic moral foundations.
So if you don’t teach them any morality until they’re 10, what’s going to happen? They’ve already developed it. You’re already past that point. Second thing I underline. A majority of Americans make a lasting determination about the personal significance of Christ’s death and resurrection by age 12.
And then the third thing Barna learned in his research, that in most cases, people’s spiritual beliefs are irrevocably formed when they are preteens. And then he summarizes, he says, in essence, what you believe by the time you are 13 is what you will die believing. And then most people’s minds are made up and they believe they know what they need to know spiritually. By age 13, people can get saved. After that, people can change.
But we’re trying to point out how important spiritual instruction in the home is, and that falls back on the mom and the dad. But the mom should be. I mean, the dad should be the leader in those things. May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your instruction.
Help us to want to spend more time with kids and instructing them in the things of the Lord. Help us to be a church that encourages and supports that through ministry and prayer, verbal encouragement to parents. Father, in whatever way that we can. We pray for the parents in our church that they will spend adequate amounts of time with their children, instructing them how to follow after you, that they might carry that to their death. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.