Parenthood

1:06And so many of our problems in the American church and in the American Christian home come back to the fact that we really don't view the church practically as our spiritual family. The result is that parents are unnecessarily stressed out as they try to raise their children. Kids are missing. Out on being discipled by the church, and singles and couples without children are not being given the opportunity to pour into kids to benefit them from their spiritual gifts and their wisdom, their experiences. And so, my hope today is to give us all a vision or a renewed vision for the church as a spiritual family as we think about this subject of Christian parenthood.

2:01Now, a lot of this message focuses on children and their parents, but we should all hear this sermon through the lens of how the church fulfills its calling by making disciples of the young men and women among us. So, let's take a look at the text here. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1: Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Now, the first thing to note here is that Paul speaks directly to children. He doesn't say, Parents, tell your children this. He speaks directly to the children, and that shows us that he expected them to be present when the church gathered to worship. And, kids, Paul clearly expects you to be paying attention in worship.

2:51So, I want to begin with a challenge to you, kids, right out of the gate. If you're in here and you are old enough to understand what I'm saying, Saying that I want to encourage you to pay attention and participate. The older that you get, you need to be engaged in the worship service. Paul didn't have low expectations for you, and neither do I. So sit up in your seat. This is not nap time. This is not big church for your mom and dad. This is just church. This is it.

3:29And so it's for you. I encourage you to open up your Bible, get out your notebook, grab the kids' worship guides when you come in. Take notes, pay attention. Expect God to speak to you because this is church and God is speaking to you as well. And so hopefully I've got your attention now. What does God command, kids? Look at the verse again. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Now, obedience includes submitting to your parents' authority, and that means that you recognize that they are in charge, and then doing what they tell you to do. I want you to see here that Paul says, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

4:17Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Now, when he says in the Lord, what that tells you is that you need to do what your mom and dad tell you to do unless they're telling you to do something sinful. In that case, you need to have the courage to do what Peter and John did when the authorities told them not to speak anymore in the name of Jesus. You need to have the courage to tell your mom and dad, I'm sorry, I can't listen to you there. I have to obey God because my first responsibility is to obey him.

4:54Why should you obey your parents? Paul states very simply, kids, for this is right. To my knowledge, there has never been a culture in the history of the world that thought it was right for children to disobey their parents. Naturally, parents are wiser than you. They have more knowledge than you. They're more experienced than you. And on top of all that, they really want you to succeed. So it just makes sense that children should obey their parents. And pretty much every person in every culture throughout the history of the world agrees with that.

5:33But it's important to note that obeying your parents isn't right just because everybody agrees that it's right. There's lots of things that people agree on in this world that are not right. Look at verses 2 and 3, kids, and all of you, because this is just church. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with the promise, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land. Now, Paul notes that the fifth commandment, in the Ten Commandments, the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother, is the first one with a promise. Honor your parents so that you can enjoy God's blessing. And what that looked like in the old covenant was long life in the promised land.

6:20Because, see, as children obeyed their parents, they obeyed God because he's the one who commanded them to obey their parents. And when that happened, the nation as a whole would enjoy God's blessing because kids are obeying God by obeying their parents. If children disobeyed their parents, then they were disobeying God. And God does not bless disobedience, he disciplines it. And that's exactly what happened to Israel. One of the things that happened as the nation fell apart into more and more sin was that children were not obeying their parents.

6:56And so today, kids, in the new covenant, you're still commanded to obey and honor your parents because in doing so, you are obeying and honoring God. Think about in the New Testament that principle is in the first letter of John, if you can't love your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you haven't seen? If you can't learn to obey and submit to your parents, if you can't learn to honor them, it's going to be hard for you to learn to honor and obey God.

7:25So what does that mean practically, kids? Obeying. Your parents means doing what they tell you to do when they tell you to do it. Or as we have always said in our house, we obey all the way right away. All the way because partial obedience is disobedience. If I tell my son, please mow the grass today, and he mows half the grass, was that obedient or disobedient? Disobedient. I asked him to mow all of the grass and he only obeyed partially. He mowed half of it. That's partial obedience. That's a disobedience.

8:08We say right away because delayed obedience is disobedience. If I tell my son, please mow the grass today and he mows it on Wednesday, was he obedient or disobedient? Disobedient. Because delayed obedience is also disobedience. So parents, think about this from the big picture. The reason this is so important to instill in your children is because you're training them to respond all the way, right away, to God. We don't want our kids to read God's word and think, it's okay if I do most of what God says.

8:47We don't want them to read God's Word and say, it's okay if I don't do what God tells me to do now. I can do it later on when I get older, when I get married, when I have my own family. No, we want kids to learn to obey all the way right away when it comes to the Lord. And so, obviously, parents, it's important for us to model that, isn't it? We have to learn and model obedience to the Lord that is all the way and right away.

9:18And so, kids, you're commanded to obey your parents, but as you see here in verse 2, you're also commanded to honor your father and mother, to honor your father and mother. Honor is different. Honor is an attitude of the heart. The word honor means you respect someone, you hold them in high regard. So, we say obey all the way right away with a happy heart because honor is an attitude of the heart. You can obey your parents all the way right away with a really bad attitude.

9:57I would know I'm a firstborn. Firstborns are masters at obeying all the way right away with a bad attitude. And so, we have to remember that God is not only concerned with what we say and what we do, he's also concerned about our hearts. He wants us to say and do the right things from the right heart. And so, for those of you who are older, if you're 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, if you're a preteen, for those of you who are teenagers, do you notice that Paul doesn't say, Obey and honor your parents as long as you agree with them.

10:35I think that's an important thing to point out. He just says, obey and honor. And so, for those of you who are older children, preteens, teenagers, you need to understand, listen to me, what I'm about to say here. Your parents have made poor decisions. It's true. Your parents are not always going to do the right thing in the right way. Your parents struggle with their own sins and shortcomings. The reality is, all of us had parents who were imperfect too. And frankly, some of our parents were just not very good parents. That's just true.

11:19Parents deal with hard things like money, jobs, relationships, health problems, all of those kinds of things. And so, preteens and teenagers, I just want to ask you to be humble and charitable with your mom and dad. Because being a parent is really hard. That doesn't mean it's okay when we sin against you. It doesn't mean it's okay when we make the wrong choice, we make a bad choice in your life, or when we fail to do what is right.

11:50But humility recognizes that parenting is tough. It's very hard, and that your parents are almost certainly doing the best that they can. God's grace. So when you disagree or when you're upset with your parents and you're tempted to think bad thoughts about them or you're tempted to pick up your phone and text your friends, you won't believe what my mom just said, when you're tempted to do those things, instead of doing any of that, let me encourage you to pray for your parents and then to go to them and tell them what you're feeling and why you're upset. Because I'm going to tell you, I think what's going to happen is I think your parents are going to listen to you. I think they're going to be willing to apologize and ask forgiveness where that's necessary. Because they love God. They love you. They want what's best. Remember, God is faithful and he keeps every one of his promises. So as you obey and honor your parents, he promises to bless you. He may not bless you in the ways that you were hoping. He may not bless you in the time that you were hoping or in the way, the exact way that you were hoping, but he does promise to bless you. So I want you to think of obeying and honoring your parents as one of the primary ways that you obey and honor God. And you can look forward to the blessing that comes from that.

13:17All right, kids, you're off the hook for a moment. Now it's time to lay into mom and dad. But I don't want you to stop paying attention because you need to know these things. You need to know what God says through you. Paul, to your parents, so that as a family, you can seek to obey God's word together. And because chances are, you may become a mom or a dad one day, too. Let's take a look here. Verse 4.

13:46Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Now, you see here in verse 4, this verse is addressed to fathers. And that makes sense based on what we have learned the past two weeks. Because men are called to have the primary responsibility to lead, provide, and protect their families. They are called to be spiritual leaders in the home. But think about all the times in the scripture that you see the word brothers.

14:23Well, that's not just referring to the men in the church. That could also be translated brothers and sisters. It's referring to everyone. And so while this verse is particularly speaking to dads, we can also take this as speaking to parents in general because we understand that mothers also have a responsibility to help discipline and instruct their children. So this is for all of us. So with that said, let's look at the negative command first. What does he command us not to do?

14:52Do not provoke your children to anger. Take a look on the screen at Colossians 3.21. Paul says this a little bit. Differently in this other letter. He says, Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. So, I want to think for a minute about this concept. How do fathers, how do parents discourage their children? How do we provoke them to anger? There's probably about a million ways, but I want to highlight what I think are four of the biggest ways that parents discourage and anger their kids.

15:30The first is a lack of engagement, a lack of engagement. I think our generation overreacted to our parents' generation. A lot of us grew up with parents, dads especially, who were not around very much. They worked a lot, they traveled a lot, they were out there making a lot of money so that we could have the things that they didn't have growing up. Other dads had a bunch of hobbies and interests that they pursued that pulled them out of the house at night and on the weekend. And so, what I think happened to our generation is that when we became parents, a lot of us said, it's not going to be like that. I'm going to be around. I'm going to be present.

16:21But it's just not possible to be fully engaged with your kids every waking hour of the day. So, what's happened is instead of being physically absent, our generation of parents is physically present, but we are emotionally and mentally and spiritually absent from our kids' lives. Parents, it is discouraging to your kids when you're there, but when you're not really there. Our house backs up to a great city park, and so I get to see families out there all the time. And I can tell you, it is not at all uncommon for me to see parents take their children to the park and for both mom and dad to be on their cell phone the entire time.

17:13Not engaged at all with their kids. And here's what I'm going to put out there for you. You need time away from your kids. You need uninterrupted time to read the word, to pray, to invest in your marriage, even to pursue a hobby from time to time. You need that time away from your children. And so let me just encourage you to build that into your life, however that can look in this season, so that when you are with your children, you are fully present, fully engaged. No phone, no laptop, no distraction, because I think a lack of engagement is one of the things that makes kids discouraged and angry when you're there, but you're not really there.

18:02Second thing that I think discourages and makes kids angry is unreasonable expectations. Unreasonable expectations. Many Christian parents that I know want to raise their kids biblically, and that means training them to do the things that we're talking about this morning in Ephesians 6: to obey, to honor. But unfortunately, I think many of us had or have unreasonable expectations when it comes to our children and what they're capable of understanding and doing at certain times in their lives.

18:40So, some of my greatest regrets as a parent is that at times I did a poor job differentiating between childish immaturity and willful disobedience. So, sometimes I disciplined my kids not because they sinfully disobeyed me, but because I was giving commands and holding them to standards that were simply impossible for them to meet at that age or that stage of development. Now, I grew as a parent as we had more kids and as they got older, but I will tell you this: there have been times where Easton has done something, our youngest, and I have corrected him. And I look over at Taylor, our oldest, and she's like, you know, she's gone like full Kermit the Frog. She's like, I would have gotten spanked for that.

19:36Because why? Because I had unreasonable expectations when our older kids were younger. And so, parents, I just want to encourage you this morning: it is important to teach our kids, as we talked about, to obey all the way right away. But don't make mountains out of molehills. Don't discipline your kids for childish immaturity. Discipline them for willful disobedience. Unreasonable expectations are discouraging. Third, inconsistency is discouraging to kids. If unreasonable expectations are bad, expectations that change all the time are even worse. At least if your expectations are sky high all the time, your kids know it.

20:26They at least understand what's going on. But if you allow your kids to behave poorly until they're in front of your friends or until you're at church or until you're in a bad mood, that discourages and angers kids. Every human being wants to know the answers to two simple questions in the game of life: What are the rules, and how do I win? What are the Rules and how do I win? That's what your kids want to know. So, how frustrating is it if you have a supervisor at work whose expectations vary widely depending on the day, depending on her mood, depending on whether or not her boss is in the office that day? And you're an adult.

21:18We know how frustrating it is for inconsistent expectations to be placed on us in the workplace or the classroom or anywhere else. And it's the same for our kids. We can imagine how they feel when we have inconsistent expectations. And then, fourth and finally, and this is the big one: hypocrisy. Nothing is more discouraging, nothing is more anger-inducing in children than for a child to live with parents who say one thing and do something else. When you portray one image outside of the home, but inside the house, you're completely different.

22:03I want you to look at Paul's rebuke of the Jews in Romans chapter 2. You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in The law dishonor God by breaking the law? For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, because of your hypocrisy.

22:45I worked in youth ministry for seven years as an intern and then as a pastor. And I will tell you this: I don't know hardly any teenagers who rejected Christianity because someone came up to them with a proof that the Bible isn't actually true or that Jesus didn't actually rise from the dead. But I worked with lots of teenagers who rejected Christianity because they could not bear the hypocrisy of their parents, who portrayed one image outside of the home and a completely different image in the house.

23:30And so I want to challenge you, parents, if we're wanting our children to grow up to know and love the Lord, then it's critical that we also know and love the Lord and that we set an example of walking by faith, walking in obedience, and when we fail, and we will often, we repent and we model what it looks like to turn away from our sin, to confess our failures and faults, and to seek God's grace. To honor him.

24:04So, parents, when we recognize those things, let's set that example. Let's rest in the gospel, believing that Christ died for all of our sins and failures as parents, all the ways that we have provoked our kids to anger and discouragement, and believe that his grace can empower us to live differently. That will help us deal with our kids based on the grace that we have received, understanding that they too are sinners in need of a Savior, and that if we have been forgiven much, we can also forgive much.

24:40So, we should not provoke our children to anger. What should we do? Take a look again at verse 4: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. I want you to notice that little phrase, bring them up. That reminds us that the work of parenting is made up of dozens of little decisions that you make each and every day. Bringing up a child is dozens and dozens of little decisions that you make every single day, particularly when kids are little. And so, Paul reminds us here to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. So, let's start with discipline.

25:25The reason that this command is first, he doesn't say instruction and discipline, he says discipline. And instruction. The reason that this command to discipline is first is because your young children can understand discipline before they can understand instruction. Your young children can't understand when you preach a sermon about Ephesians 6:1 through 4, but they can understand discipline. And that's why Paul puts that first. And so we need a biblical vision of discipline in our homes. And I think, among other places, one of the greatest places we can go in Scripture is Hebrews chapter 12. Take a look at this vision of discipline that the writer presents. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

26:25Discipline is not fun. It's not fun for parents. It's not fun for kids. It's painful, not pleasant. But this is the vision. Later on, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Parents, this means that you have to love your kids enough to do what is best for them, even when it's painful and hard and inconvenient. Kids, this means you need to accept. Discipline as evidence that your parents love you enough to do what's best for you, even though you don't like it. If your parents didn't love you, they would just leave you alone to your own devices.

27:14But they do love you, and so they discipline you. Now, discipline can take many forms, but one form that cannot be neglected with young children is what the Bible calls the rod and what modern people call spanking. Take a look at the scripture, and if you kind of come at this subject with some reservations about spanking, I just want you to let the word of God speak to you, your heart and your mind this morning. Proverbs 13, whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

27:51Proverbs 22, 15, folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Proverbs 23, 13 and 14, a great verse for modern parents. Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. So we have to recognize that God has commanded us to discipline our children, and whatever else that discipline includes in your home, whatever else it includes. It must include spanking.

28:33God has commanded us to discipline our kids in a particular way when they're young for their earthly and eternal good, both. You are doing your children no favors by not spanking them for willful disobedience. They cannot understand a long speech at one year old. They can understand a spanking that's hard enough to sting and not hard enough to hurt. They can understand that. God says spanking drives folly from the hearts of children, and if we love them, we will be diligent to use this tool. If we use it, we will not kill them. Rather, it points them to eternal life. The text says that it will save their souls from Sheol.

29:21Discipline and especially spanking teaches kids what they need to be taught: that authority is good, that rules exist to keep us safe and happy and healthy in God's world, and that disobedience has consequences. So, young parents, in particular, let me encourage you to do the hard work now so that you can enjoy the peaceful fruit of righteousness later on. I know so many parents who have not done the hard work when their kids are one and two and three.

30:01And then later on, they don't get to enjoy the peaceful fruit of righteousness because they put off that hard work that they could have done when their kids were younger. When our kids were little, we had parents tell us, even Christian parents, just wait till they're teenagers. I went full Joel Osteen on that. I was like, I don't receive that for my life. And I'll tell you this: I love hanging out with my kids. I love hanging out with my teenagers.

30:34And I think that's partially due to the fact that we did our best to fight and win the battles when they were little so that we could enjoy the peaceful fruit of righteousness later on. It's like anything else in life. You invest early and you reap the rewards later. And so let me encourage you, parents, to discipline your children in the Lord. Second command that we have here is to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

31:06So this is the spiritual training that our kids need. And I want to remind you guys of Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 7. We covered this a few weeks ago. Take a look. You shall teach them, that is the commandments of God. 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 are So remember what we talked about in our spiritual multiplication sermon last month? How do we make disciples? We've made it too complicated. We teach and we talk. We teach and we talk. We plan formal times where we can teach our children the Word of God, reading and discussing scripture with them, helping them to learn doctrine, helping them to memorize God's Word.

31:58So parents, if you don't have any formal plan to teach your kids about God and His Word, let me encourage you to make one today. Make a plan today. It doesn't have to be complicated. And in fact, it should not be complicated. During the school year, we do a devotional at breakfast every morning because that's what works. Everybody is awake and everybody is at the breakfast table at the same time. And so we get our food, we sit down, we read the word, we discuss it, and then we pray. That's it. The whole thing is about 10 minutes. When we can, when our schedules allow, we read a good Christian book together in the evenings. But that's just as schedules allow.

32:46Kendra and I also do personal studies with the kids about every other week. So every other week, we'll meet with one of our kids and walk through the word or go through a good book with them. It's not complicated. And then during the winter season, the Advent season, or during the summertime when our kids are out of school, we do our devotional time in the evening because that's what works. None of them are up at the same time, none of them are up in the morning.

33:17And so we do it in the evening because that's what works. We get out the Bible, we read, we pray together, we sing a hymn or two. That's it. It's simple. So here's the thing: it doesn't really matter what you do or when you do it. Keep it simple. Keep it short. Keep it consistent. Read, sing, and pray. Keep those things in mind for your times of teaching. But then, of course, you're going to have all those informal times that just happen in everyday life. And parents, let me encourage you to pray for those times and to be on the lookout for them. You're tired a lot of the time. And so it's easy to miss these opportunities that we have to talk to kids about God and His Word, but they're going to arise naturally as stuff comes up with them and their teachers, them and their friends, them and their neighbors. There's going to be all of these opportunities that we have to bring God's word and the gospel to bear on their lives. But like we talked about before, you have to be engaged in order to see them.

34:21And one thing that we can't forget, parents, is that you are not supposed to be doing this alone. You're a part of the spiritual family, the church. And if you look around the room this morning, you see college students and adults in the church who are your brothers and sisters. And what that means is that all of these people in the room are your kids' spiritual aunts and uncles. And we have the coolest aunts and uncles here.

34:51I'm so thankful that me and Kendra are not the only ones who are teaching and training our kids and talking to them about God. Easton is in Tribe 56, and so that means he's got Uncle Jay and Aunt Darla and the rest of their team helping to teach him about God and his word. Our kids are in youth, and so they've got Uncle Josiah and Aunt Sammy and the rest of their army of volunteers who are helping to teach them about God and his word. And so, parents, please take advantage of all that we offer here in the church. The people, first and foremost, but the programs too.

35:37There's no reason that our kids should not be in our next-gen classes on Sunday morning. Why would we want our kids to miss out on that? Parents of youth, there's no reason for your kids to miss youth events. We have an app, Church Center, that tells you everything you need to know. We've got things posted. If you don't know, you can always just reach out to the leaders and ask. But these are amazing opportunities among our spiritual family to get the help that we need to raise our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

36:10So, Church, God has given us this amazing privilege of discipling the next generation. We want to help them know the God who created them. We want to help them understand what is wrong with them and what is wrong with this world. We want to help them know the solution that God sent His Son into the world to deal with sin and its consequences through His sinless life, His death, and resurrection. Not so that adults who try hard enough to be good could be accepted, but so that anyone who has faith like a child would be received.

36:55I know I've got some parents in here thinking, I have not been doing this stuff. It's too late, we'll never catch up, I can't start now. But by God's grace, you can humble yourself before God, confess your failures, and receive His forgiveness. Pray the prayer that every parent has to pray: God, I don't know what I'm doing. Please help me. Help me to do what you've commanded, help me to discipline and instruct my kids. Grant them repentance and faith. Change their hearts. Do what I can't do. Help them to value you more than anything else. Humble yourself before your brothers and sisters in Christ and go to them and say, I need your help. We've been helped by so many in the church, by Jim and Trudy, by other families who have come over who have been there and done that and raised kids and have helped us. To understand how to be most faithful in our home, humble yourself and say, I need help. Would you help me? I've never done family worship. I've never led a devotional. I don't know what to do.

38:07Singles, married couples with no children. What role is God calling you to play? Is he calling you to come alongside a specific family in the church and serve them in a particular way and to help them in this season? Once a week, going over to their house and helping with their young kids so that they can have a time of family worship together with your help? Is he calling you to serve in one of the next-gen ministries, in our preschool or K-4, Tribe 56, or youth? Is he calling you to get involved in an ongoing way so that you can help us instruct our kids in the Lord?

38:42Remember, the goal is not to raise well-adjusted kids who become decent citizens of the United States. We want that too. We're not trying for criminals, right? But that's not the main goal. The main goal is to raise our kids to know and love the Lord and work. Walk with Him. And to do that, we need God's abundant grace, the power of the Holy Spirit, and one another. Let's pray. Father, I want to begin by praying for all the moms and dads who many of them are probably thinking I'm just not doing well enough.

39:48I've been inconsistent. I've been disengaged. I haven't done a good job leading my family spiritually. I just pray that you would meet them with your abundant grace this morning. That they would rest in the finished work of Christ on their behalf, knowing that they are not accepted by you because of their efforts or their lack of efforts, that they. Can't ultimately thwart your purposes by missing a night or a week or a season of devotionals or family worship or anything else.

40:49May they remember that by your grace, many of us did not grow up in homes where we were disciplined and instructed in the Lord, and yet you have been faithful. But, God, having said all that, we do pray for your help because we want to be faithful to you. We want to be faithful to our children. We want to be faithful to kids who are not our children because we're their spiritual aunts and uncles. And so, God, would you increase our love for one another and the ownership that we feel for one another so that we could be a spiritual family seeing great fruit because you are working among us and through us together.

41:38That this generation of children in our church and in many other churches in our community and across the world would grow up to know and love you and make a kingdom impact because of the little choices we made every day to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.