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Ephesians 6:1-4 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

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Amen. Good morning. And I haven't said it to you already. Happy Father's Day.
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I don't exercise very much authority in the life of our church.
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We are an elder led congregational church. We think this is a good and biblical polity.
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But from time to time, I have a little bit of power that I like to exercise to call an audible on a Sunday morning.
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And I have put in your bulletin a text to address the very end of John chapter 10.
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But instead, we're going to look at some verses in Ephesians chapter six on this Father's Day.
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So we're going to read six, one through four. I'm going to spare you the details of why.
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And we're going to get right into it together.
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But first, before delivering any exhortation from this text,
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Dads, I want you to know that you are seen.
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I see the hard work that you are doing.
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And I am generally, and I mean that with charity, I'm generally very proud of you.
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Being a father is not easy.
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And I notice your efforts and the fruits of your labor.
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You're doing a good work.
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Do not grow weary of doing good.
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We, of course, all have improving to do in our parenting if we're in that stage.
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So I also do not want you to stop growing in your fathering.
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But please take today's brief exhortation as an encouragement to do well and not in any form as condemnation.
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Second, the Greek word rendered in verse four, fathers, can also mean parents.
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I appreciate the translation of the word into our English word fathers as dads are to be the heads of our households
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and not to be giving leadership and the raising of children with mothers as helpers in this most precious, important of responsibilities.
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So I'm okay with the fact that they've used fathers in this place.
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But the point is, moms, don't let the teaching of this text be lost on you this morning.
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Further, if you are not a dad and not a mom, so you're not a parent or perhaps your children are already out of your home,
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I hope this morning that you will be encouraged, perhaps helped in being grateful for your earthly father.
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And I hope we will all remember the loving care of our heavenly father.
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So Ephesians 6, 1 through 4, we're going to give particular attention to verse 4 and the first half of verse 4 most especially.
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But I want to set the stage just to begin as we'll begin reading in verse 1.
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Let me pray that God will bless our time in his word.
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Father, we do ask humbly as we take up your word together this morning that you would help us to rightly understand it.
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We are grateful for fathers.
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We all have them in varying measure.
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We have been benefited by them.
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We praise you this morning especially for you, our heavenly father.
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If we've been justified and therefore adopted in Christ, you care for us with perfection.
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Never fail to care for us as a father loves a son.
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Help us to hear the exhortation of this text, to give it good and right application in our lives for the glory of Christ.
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And in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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Ephesians 6 beginning in verse 1.
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Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
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Honor your father and mother.
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This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
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Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
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So, children, let me first have your attention.
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The apostle Paul is speaking to you in verses 1 through 3.
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And he tells you that it is good for you to obey your parents.
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Your parents are not perfect.
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But they were given to you as a gift from God to help you follow him so that your life will go well.
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Ultimately, they want to see you repent and believe in the gospel.
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They want your spiritual well-being.
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But even before that and after that, they want you to live well in the world that God has made.
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So, you ought to listen to the godly discipline of your parents.
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And you need to extend forgiveness to your parents when they mess it up.
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Because they have and they inevitably will not do this perfectly.
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But they've been given to you by God to help you to follow him.
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But, as I said, our attention is going to be on verse 4.
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And particularly the first part of verse 4.
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So, let's turn our attention there.
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Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.
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Fathers, and by extension mothers, we are exhorted to not anger our children.
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But is this possible?
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We have experienced anger from our children when our discipline is careful and gentle and fair.
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When we've done everything as we should do it, sometimes our children do not respond the way we might hope they would.
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Thank you, Dad, for loving me so much and correcting my error.
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Rarely the response that you receive.
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Are we being told here to tiptoe around our children's feelings in such a way that we ensure they will never get angry?
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After all, anger is a condition of the fallen heart.
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So, is it even possible to not anger a child?
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Votie Bauckham, you may remember.
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I hope you know who I'm referring to.
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A late, great Votie once said in a conference that I attended, do you know why babies are so small?
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Because if they weren't, they would kill you the first time you didn't give them something they want.
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Experience the rage, the fury of an infant as soon as they are hungry or tired.
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Even when you've done everything you need to do for that child, sometimes they are just furious about life in a fallen world.
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Surely Paul doesn't want us to center all of our child training on our children's feelings in such a way that they always get their way.
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May it never be.
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So, what does he mean?
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So then, what's he talking about here?
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Now, two details are going to help us to understand this meaning.
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Number one, the word provoke in the Greek is in the present tense, which means that it speaks to a state of being.
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Paul is saying, do not make your children provoked with anger.
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They are angry.
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So, it would seem that this is a deep-rooted type of anger.
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There's a bitterness that's set in in the child that's provoked.
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An anger that is set against the father and the father's leadership.
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It started to turn away from the father's leadership in the home.
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Secondly, the parallel passage to this one uses the same word provoke, but with a different qualifier.
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This is Colossians 3 in verse 21.
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Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
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It puts a bit of a different flavor on this exhortation.
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So, when we take these two details together, I think it becomes obvious that Paul is not exhorting fathers to avoid our children ever becoming angry with us,
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for it's inevitable that they will.
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But rather, to parent them in a way that they do not turn against our good parenting in an angry kind of discouragement.
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That kind of throw your hands in the air.
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I can't possibly ever please my parents.
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I might as well just cast them off.
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Now, the last half of the verse gives us the adverse of this, the opposite of this.
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It begins, but bring them up.
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Instead of this provoking them to anger, bring them up, which helps us to understand more of what the initial part of the verse means.
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In the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
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When we see the word discipline, most people, I think, we automatically think of kind of punitive action discipline.
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We think immediately of the spanking, perhaps.
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But that is not what Paul has in mind.
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The word discipline means to train.
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So when a top athlete is referred to as disciplined, we don't think of them as receiving daily spankings.
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This is not where our minds go at all.
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But of carefully training their bodies for whatever task they have set themselves to.
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Right?
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They have worked and worked and worked to be the best at whatever the exercise may be.
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Our children need the same.
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And they need it in two ways, two types of discipline.
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They need instructive discipline.
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They need to be told and shown how they are to act.
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And this should be the lion's share of the work that's going on in your home.
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Modeled for them in the way that you live your life.
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Telling them why you live the way you live.
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Playing games to show them the way they ought to act.
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Anytime our two oldest weren't sharing well, we sat down on the floor and we played the sharing game.
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To be an example of that.
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It kind of became a bit of a punishment for them.
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But we go through the process of asking, making responses.
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Sharing toys.
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Asking for forgiveness.
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What does it really look like to ask for forgiveness?
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Most adults don't know really how to ask for and grant forgiveness.
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Instructive discipline.
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Major part of what we're doing in our homes.
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Do not assume that your children will arrive at the right conclusions.
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They will not.
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They will arrive at very poor conclusions.
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If you don't train them how they are to go.
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They also need corrective discipline.
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Being told and shown how they are not to act.
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Beloved parents, we will not do this well.
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If we do not know how our children are to act and how they are not to act.
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Some of us may not have been trained well.
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May not have grown up in homes that were godly.
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And we were assisted in seeing how it is we are to live.
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But we have a book.
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It's an inspired book.
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It's authored by God himself to show us how it is that we are to live in this world.
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So we should be in the word.
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And we should be understanding what characterizes the person oriented to God who's going to thrive in the world in which he's made.
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How to act and how not to act.
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There is some latitude in this, of course.
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Different people have different rules for things.
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Maybe your children are allowed to climb up on the back of your couch and jump off.
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I have no problem with that.
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But maybe not at my house.
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There should be some standards for the way we interact in society.
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Certainly God's word sets for us the ultimate, the black and white, off the pages standards for what we're looking for from our children.
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Instructive discipline and corrective discipline.
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Then why does he go on to use the word instruction?
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Doesn't it feel like the word discipline is the negative part, the corrective part, and instructive is the positive part?
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In fact, I use the word instructive in talking about the positive part of discipline.
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But in the Greek, the word instruction means warning.
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It means warning.
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Our children need to know what the eternal consequence is for their not obeying God.
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They need to understand that the temporal, instructive discipline and corrective discipline of their parents is not ultimately aimed at their external behavior.
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We're not trying to train moralists.
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But that it is ultimately aimed at their hearts.
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Trying to show them there's a standard to which they are to live, that they will struggle to live too.
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And there's a gospel that comes in, a good news that comes in and brings to them a freedom from condemnation.
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We want our children to fear and love God.
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This is the great end of all godly parenting.
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And we're modeling for them something of God's authority in the home.
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It will not be perfect, but we also want our children to fear and love us.
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This is why we must discipline and instruct our children by God's word.
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And why we must discipline and instruct our children according to God's ways.
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So when you think, okay, how am I to parent?
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Parents, do not go to the internet and look for all of the tips on how you are to parent.
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Packed into the last part of verse 4, we're to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
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Of course, this means the scripture.
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Of course, this means the moral realities laid out for the ethics of the Bible.
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But it also means to do it in a way that's consistent with the way that God parents us.
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Patient.
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Loving kind.
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Consistent.
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Always seeking our highest good.
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Never failing at any point to do these things to apply the truth for our great good.
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We're to bring up our kids in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
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So there's the positive side of that.
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But as I said, we're going to focus on the first part of the verse.
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Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.
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Let's make sure that we don't build in them a rebellious bitterness toward us.
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Now, may our children develop that apart from us?
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I think so.
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I think it's altogether possible that our children may reject the ways of the Lord, may become embittered towards us, and perhaps we had nothing to do with it.
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But if one of my boys were able to do this, I would really want to stop and go, am I at all culpable here?
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What might I need to repent of?
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Ask their forgiveness for?
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How might I need to improve in the way that I parent?
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Even in that rebellious moment, I want to think carefully and I want to think really clearly about this.
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And I'm sure that you also do as well.
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Now, at this point, I want to commend to you a book.
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There's more that could be said about this that we could possibly cover in the allotted time for this morning.
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But I really want you to pick up a book if you feel like your children are provoked or just you're finding there's a heart of anger within them.
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And you don't know how to wrap your mind around it and you don't know how to address it.
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And perhaps for some of you, your kids are so young, this may not be a reality, but log this away and think of it in the future if you find this to be the case.
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And it's a book written by a man named Lou Priolo, and it's called The Heart of Anger.
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It's got one of the worst covers of any book I've ever seen.
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It's terrible.
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You'll see if you ever look it up.
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But the contents of it are rich and really helpful, and he's unpacking ways that we could perhaps provoke our children to anger.
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He has 25 of them.
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If you ask me nicely, I'll be happy to post this later on.
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I want to go through them, though, and I'm going to go through them all, but I'm going to go through them quickly.
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I'm going to make some comments about a couple of them, but I think it's worth mentioning.
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Perhaps you could take a pen in hand and jot down some of these.
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Be thoughtful about these.
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Preventative work.
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We want to don't even find our kids in a situation where they may be provoked.
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What might we be doing to be the healthiest possible parents we can be for the good of our kids to the glory of God?
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So here we go.
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25 ways to provoke your children to anger with some occasional comments from me.
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Number one, lack of marital harmony.
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If your house is in turmoil, your kids will not feel it as a place of peace and will not be able to hear your instruction.
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You will not be applying God's truth to your own life.
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Lack of marital harmony.
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Number two, establishing and maintaining a child-centered home.
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We've talked a bit about this already.
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It's not good for your kids for them to think that the world revolves around them.
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From time to time, I will joke, not with any of your children, but sometimes a kid just needs to get pushed down.
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And I'll be happy to do that.
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If you ever want me to come over and just knock your kid down, tell them that the world's not about them.
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Number three, modeling sinful anger.
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Blowing up in your own home.
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I'm going to teach your kids that this is an acceptable way to act.
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It's appropriate.
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We cannot expect our children to not have hearts of anger if we have hearts of anger.
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James chapter 4, verse 1 and part of 2.
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What causes quarrels?
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What causes fights among you?
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Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
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You desire and do not have, so you murder.
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You hate people in your home when you explode angrily.
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Praise God for repentance in our home.
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We can ask for forgiveness when we're angry.
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Number four, and related, many of these are habitually disciplining.
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In anger.
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You're disqualified from disciplining if you're angry.
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But sometimes it happens.
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The discipline is important, but it should not come.
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It should not be arising from anger at your children.
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Number five, scolding.
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The children don't need to be dressed up and down.
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They need to be told that they're wrong, disciplined appropriately, corrected, restored.
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Moving on.
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Number six, being inconsistent with discipline.
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This one hits me probably the closest.
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Our children will never learn to obey if the expectations that we set for them are not clear.
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If the consequences are not clear.
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And if that corrective discipline is not consistent.
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Don't ever, don't ever count to three.
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I've never heard any of you count to three.
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Praise the Lord.
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Don't count to three.
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What you're teaching your kids is that you're not serious until you count to three.
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Tell them when I say come here that they're to come to you for their temporal and eternal good.
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So just as a minor thought experiment, I wonder how many of you prepared your children for today.
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Perhaps before you left the house or on the car ride on the way here.
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A little chat before everybody jumped out, tried to grab everything together.
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What were the expectations coming in to this building together?
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Did you talk to them?
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Did you make it really clear what you expect from them?
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Are those expectations reasonable?
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What you expect and your children's understanding of it is important.
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Say, this is what I expect of you.
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Do you understand?
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Yes, sir.
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Okay.
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Do you understand what the consequence will be if you don't meet the expectation?
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Yes, sir.
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All right.
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Now whose fault is it if you're being spanked because you didn't meet the expectation?
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You may be surprised what your children can accomplish when you set clear expectations with clear consequences
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and when you consistently follow through.
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Again and again, for Sam and I, when ours were young, we had to say to each other, boy, we're dropping out of the inconsistency.
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Because it's hard work.
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It is hard work.
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To ask one of my boys to come to me just because I wanted to give him a hug.
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And they don't do it and I go, oh, I just created a whole discipline issue in the house.
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I could have just said nothing and gone on with the evening.
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But here we go.
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It's easy just to not do it.
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But, ah, maybe they didn't hear me.
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They heard me and I've got to follow through with them.
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There's been a trend.
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I think it'll probably be a trend that loops round and round and round called parenting with grace.
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It tends to have some tinge of the gospel to try to say to our children, well, God forgives our sin in Christ.
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And so I'm going to overlook this particular infraction to try to teach you something about the gospel.
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But that's not how the gospel works at all.
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Not even sort of.
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If I was to be consistent in that line of reasoning, if I wanted to teach my son something of the gospel,
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when one of them disobeyed, I would have grabbed another and punished him instead.
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See, this is the gospel.
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God doesn't punish your sin.
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He punished your sin in somebody else.
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In Christ.
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God, because he's holy and he's just, he must maintain that.
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God is always who God is at all times.
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So every sin will be punished.
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Will be.
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Every single one.
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Those things we know.
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Those things we don't know.
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All of the weird inclinations of our heart.
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All of it will be punished.
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The only way for us to have forgiveness.
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The only way for us to not be eternally punished was for our sin to be punished in Christ.
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He takes the punishment away for us.
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You're not teaching our kids anything about the gospel.
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If you just go, uh, not this time.
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You're teaching them that disobedience can be taken lightly when you feel like it.
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It's not a picture, not a picture of grace.
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Rather, if I'm to parent with grace, I'm going, I'm going to be clear and I'm going to be consistent with my children.
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The grace is that they get to remain my children when they act like they're not my children.
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And they disobey the good commands of their father who's looking out for them, who loves them dearly, who's providing everything that they need.
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Trying to train them that they might follow the Lord and live well in the society in which the Lord's put them.
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And they disobey me.
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They're saying, you, you aren't doing all of those things.
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You're a bad parent.
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I don't want to be your child.
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That's what these little rebellious things are doing when they're not listening to us.
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Parenting with grace means I keep them in my house.
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And I say, even though you're being rebellious, I love you so much that I'm going to keep pressing.
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I'm going to keep working with you.
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I'm going to keep trying to show you the way that you should go.
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And I'm going to correct your errors.
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And the alternative would be to put a free kid sign around their neck and set them out on the curb.
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This one apparently is not mine.
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I will put them out on the curb.
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So should you parent with grace?
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Should you display the gospel in your parents?
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Of course, of course you should.
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But that movement and the way it's framed is not a biblical way to parent your children.
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You want to do it in a way that's consistent with the way the Lord deals with us.
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There are temporal and there are eternal consequences for our sin.
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Always, we experience this as well.
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If you're in Christ, the eternal consequences have been paid for by him.
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But there are still temporal consequences because God loves us.
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Hebrews 12.
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Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord.
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He's treating you as sons.
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He's bringing to you the correction that you need because he loves you.
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Right.
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So Romans 8.
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There's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Right.
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Eternal consequences.
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Hebrews 12.
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Seven.
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It is for discipline that you have to endure.
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God is treating you as sons.
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For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
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Right.
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So being inconsistent can provoke anger in your kids.
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Your kids can be confused about what it is that you want from them.
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Right.
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Eight.
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Never feel like I can make you happy.
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Right.
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I don't understand the rules because you're inconsistent.
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Seven.
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Having double standards.
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Right.
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Expecting one thing of one child and not from another.
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And that's a complicated thing to work out because all of our kids are unique and they're
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in different developmental stages.
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It's a labor.
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Right.
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Get with your spouse.
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Talk about what's going on.
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Are we applying the rules of our home consistently amongst our kids at their stage of development?
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Number eight.
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Being legalistic.
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Here, loo means the children earning your favor in your home by very careful, tight obedience.
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Right.
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They're not in your good favor unless they're performing well.
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Right.
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This is legalism.
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It's adding things to the gospel.
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Our acceptance before God is based on our performance.
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Doing that very thing with your kids can provoke them to anger.
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Oh.
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My boys are mine.
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That's why they're accepted.
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Right.
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That's why they belong.
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Because they're mine.
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Right.
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I get the great honor of being their father.
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Now, I want them.
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I want to see them perform in certain ways.
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But for them.
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Not for me.
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Right.
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For their good.
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Not for mine.
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Number nine.
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Not admitting you're wrong and not asking for forgiveness.
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Parents, if we ever get anything right, it is by grace alone.
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So we have all the reason in the world to be humble in our parenting and no reason to be proud.
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If we ever do any of this right, it's because God's been kind to us.
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He's given us the grace to know his word, to read good books, to be part of a church that cares about good parenting.
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We will make mistakes.
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And the parent who is striving to not provoke their child to anger will be willing to admit their wrongs and ask their child for forgiveness.
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It upholds the beauty of the gospel when we're forgiven in Christ.
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We don't walk around acting like we're perfect, like we've got it all figured out.
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Your kids see through that.
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They know.
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But oh, to apologize.
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And to say, I needed to correct the thing you did, the attitude, the disobedience, but I did it poorly.
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I should not have done it this way.
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You can ask my children.
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I have issued countless apologies to them.
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Like a couple of them stick out in my mind, but I have apologized and apologized for not parenting well.
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Sometimes that correction, the inconsistency correction, took us sitting down with our children and saying,
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Hey, we have not loved you well because we've been inconsistent.
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We're going to tighten everything up here, but we want you to know first that it's our fault.
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It's our fault.
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We haven't been consistent with you, and we're going to work at being consistent because we love you.
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So I can tell you, there's almost nothing more humbling than to ask for the forgiveness of a two-year-old and have them say,
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It's okay, Daddy.
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And then to go, Actually, that's not how we grant forgiveness.
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You have to actually say, It's okay, Dad.
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I forgive you.
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Right?
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Here comes the tragedy.
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As tears roll down your face.
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Dads, it is good for your soul and it is good for your family to ask for forgiveness when you have been wrong.
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None of you have done it perfectly.
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There's not a single one of you that's done it perfectly.
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I hope you've already repented and asked for forgiveness.
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Perhaps there's a space in which you need to do that.
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Matthew chapter 7, the Sermon on the Mount.
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You may be familiar with the text.
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I'm going to replace the word brother with the word child to see how it hits.
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Beginning in verse 3.
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Why do you see the speck that is in your child's eye?
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Let me take the speck out of your eye when there is the log in your own eye.
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You hypocrite.
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First take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your child's eye.
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Must it be done?
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Yes.
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But there's a way that we ought to go about doing it.
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So we should admit when we're wrong.
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And we should ask for forgiveness.
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Number 10.
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Constantly finding fault.
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Right?
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Always wrong.
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Nothing's going well.
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Much of this is motivated by the way that you're being perceived by others.
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Constantly coming down on them.
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Our children do so much well.
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There's so much to be praised.
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And you should mount up the praise on your kids and then find those little places where they need to be corrected.
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Number 11.
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Parents reversing God-given roles.
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Men.
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You should be the primary disciplinarians in your home.
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Ladies.
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You are with your children more.
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Especially young children.
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Throughout the day.
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But your children should understand that the moms are carrying out the decision that mom and dad have come to.
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And dad is ultimately in charge of discipline in the home.
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I've got some theories.
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But there's certainly the discipline of a dad just hits different.
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And I don't mean hit.
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Because it's hard.
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Lands different.
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Than the discipline of a mom.
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And sometimes it is that.
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Sometimes dad just knows how to meter out that spanking a little better than mom does.
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There's a tone of voice.
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Don't flip these roles.
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Men.
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Do not let your wife be the primary disciplinarian in your home.
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It's not fun.
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I know when you get home you're tired.
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Engage.
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Be full on.
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Lead the charge.
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Dads are the greatest agent of change in our society.
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Children.
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Families.
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All of the institutions that are made up by them.
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I'm speaking temporarily.
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Dads are at the center of that.
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Take up that charge.
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By grace.
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Lead in your home.
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Don't let the roles reverse.
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Number 12.
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Not listening to your child's opinion.
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Or taking his or her side of the story seriously.
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Obviously if you've witnessed something happen.
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It's one thing.
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But sometimes you're trying to deal with things that you didn't see happen.
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Perhaps you heard it happen in another room.
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It's important to hear your children.
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Try to understand what truly took place.
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Number 13.
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Comparing them to others.
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Always saying why can't you be like.
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Right.
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Their children aren't behaved like you.
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Number 14.
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Not making time.
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Just to talk.
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Just to spend time with your children.
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Getting to know them.
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Understand them.
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Right.
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Everything you're doing is this constant transaction between.
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That's all aimed at obedience.
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Get to know your kids.
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And take time to appreciate them.
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Number 15.
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Not praising or encouraging your child.
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Our children need to know that we delight in them.
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Parents if you find yourself in a stage of life where you're having a difficulty delighting in your kids.
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Pray that God would help you to do so.
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To genuinely love your kids.
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And love being around your kids.
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Not because of anything particular they have done.
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But just because they are.
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Just because they are.
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Fathers we have so much opportunity to build relational equity with our children.
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By constantly telling them.
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That we love them.
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That we're proud of them.
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That they make us happy.
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Pointing out the things they're doing so well.
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It deposits into them.
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Man.
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This guy is for me.
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He thinks I'm great.
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It makes the correction sting a little less.
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Pun intended.
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If you've built into them a lot of praise.
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Our children should have no doubt.
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Zero doubt.
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That they bring us joy.
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So that when we have to exercise corrective discipline.
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They have no doubt.
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That we're doing so.
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For their good.
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Your children shouldn't feel like they're an annoyance to you.
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They should feel like.
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They bring you a lot of pleasure in life.
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So that that corrective discipline.
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Lands the way it should.
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I used a phrase with my boys when they were young.
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When I was correcting them.
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That they could quote for you.
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Because I have said it so many times.
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Insert.
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Kate.
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Judah.
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Silas.
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You are my son.
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And I love you.
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And because I love you.
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I want you to obey.
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This is the way the father deals with us.
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You belong to me.
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And I have your greatest good in mind.
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He's an encourager to us.
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He deals with us in this way.
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Zephaniah 3.17.
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The Lord your God is in your midst.
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A mighty one who will save.
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He will rejoice over you with gladness.
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He will quiet you by his love.
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He will exult over you with loud singing.
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Praise your kids.
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Encourage your kids.
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Make their little victories big in your home.
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Number 16.
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Failing to keep your promises.
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Don't write checks that can't be deposited.
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If you say to your children you're going to do something.
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Do it.
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And when you don't.
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And it will happen.
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Make sure that you apologize.
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17.
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Chastening them in front of others.
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Try to make the correction private.
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When it's appropriate to do that.
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Obviously sometimes it can't be.
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But you ought to be pulling your kids aside.
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As much as possible.
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18.
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Not allowing them enough freedom.
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Right?
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As your children are getting older.
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They need to be able to stretch their wings.
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At some point they have to fly.
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And we don't want to cripple them.
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And keep them from being able to do that.
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A lot of wisdom required.
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In walking out those years.
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I think that's where we find ourselves right now.
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I'll let you know how it goes.
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Number 19.
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Adversely.
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Allowing them too much freedom.
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Right?
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Setting them free into the world.
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And not being careful and caring.
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And giving them warnings.
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Things that they are not aware are going to hurt them.
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Trying to get out ahead of them.
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And help them to understand that.
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20.
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Mocking your child.
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Making fun of them.
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21.
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I hope this goes without saying.
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But abusing them physically.
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Physical correction should be appropriate.
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22.
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Ridiculing them or name calling.
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23.
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Unrealistic or unclear expectations.
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I mentioned the unclear part previously.
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But what about unrealistic expectations?
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Some of us set expectations for our children.
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Based on how we want others to perceive us.
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Rather than on what should actually be expected of them.
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Right?
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Remember all of your kids are unique.
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Right?
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Knit together in the womb.
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Image bearers.
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Right?
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We want to press them on.
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We want to press them forward.
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But we want to make sure we're not doing this in a way that becomes frustrating.
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To them.
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That said.
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Some of us set our expectations too low.
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And I think that's kind of the societal norm.
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Visit a playground.
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My word.
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Children.
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These days.
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I want to take over the whole playground and start correcting kids.
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Surely though we don't want our children to become frustrated.
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Because they are simply incapable of rising to our expectations.
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We're asking too much of them.
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So briefly two quick practices that helped Sam and I when our boys were little.
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We played a lot of games.
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Which is just a thing to do that's fun.
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It's just fun to do that.
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But push them in games.
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It's a game.
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If they can't achieve the thing that they've been instructed to do.
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That's okay.
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Because it's a game.
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It's in that realm.
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They know that.
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They're not being disobedient.
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If you tell them to go hide.
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And they don't know what that means.
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Or they go hide.
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And they stand behind the door and giggle the entire time.
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Right?
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This is not good hide and seek play.
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You're breaking the rules of hide and seek.
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You're supposed to be quiet when you play hide and seek.
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Obviously.
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Right?
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It's okay that they don't do that.
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You find them and it's fun.
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And you realize.
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Yeah.
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Telling them to go and be quiet.
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A little out of the realm.
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At the moment.
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Right?
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Give them steps.
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See if they can accomplish things.
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And it'd be okay if they don't.
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Right?
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How many things can they do.
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Hold in their minds.
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And go get done.
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Say to get ready for bed.
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Right?
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Try to do it.
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Let's try to see.
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Three things.
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Let's try to remember.
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And see how far their little minds get.
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And be right there to remind them.
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Help them.
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Along the way.
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Secondly.
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We talked a lot to others.
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Where are your kids at?
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What do you expect of them?
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What's reasonable for us to expect?
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How do you think we're doing?
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Could we push our kids more?
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Should we be pulling back?
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Have lots of conversations with people who are walking life out with you.
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God is so very kind to us in this way.
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Teaching us how to walk.
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How to obey.
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Expecting us to be obedient to the things that we know to be true.
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He doesn't give us some unrealistic expectations that we're unsure of and we don't know.
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And then he's displeased with us.
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Just a small example.
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Mark chapter 9 verse 21 and following.
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And Jesus asked his father.
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This was a boy that had been crippled.
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How long has this been happening to him?
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I'm sorry.
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He was having seizures.
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And he said from childhood and has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him.
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But if you could do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
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And Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes.
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Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, the boy.
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Imperfect but sufficient faith.
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Number 24.
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Practicing favoritism.
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Your children.
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I mean, you probably have a favorite.
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But your children should have no idea who it is.
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Maybe they should all think it's them.
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I don't know.
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25.
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And lastly.
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Child training with worldly methodologies inconsistent with God's word.
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Looking out there.
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The Instagram Bible.
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What are people saying out there?
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What seems to be happening in their house that's going well, that's not consistent with God's word.
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Our children need to be brought up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
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Parents, especially fathers.
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This means that we will need to be keenly aware of what the training and warning of the Lord is for us and for our children.
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We are to get to the careful work of raising our children to fear and to love God.
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Now, once again, let me commend you broadly and generally.
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I think there's a lot of good work going on in the life of our church.
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I am primarily encouraged by our church.
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But I want to keep talking about this.
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I think we need to.
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I perhaps bring up some points that might spark a little thing in you.
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A conviction that you need to work through.
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Let's keep at this.
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Let's not assume that we have arrived.
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We have some long roads ahead of us.
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Loving on all of these littles.
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We'll close with a quote and then a prayer.
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John Bunyan once said,
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He that is the master of a family, he has as under that relation a work to do for God.
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The right governing of his own family.
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And this work is twofold.
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First, he means most important.
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First, touching the spiritual state of it.
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Second, touching the outward state of it.
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Let's pray.