Good morning. If you have your Bible, please turn to Ephesians chapter 6. We're going to continue our sermon series from Ephesians and we're in a mini series right now entitled The Little Church. The Little Church was Martin Luther's term for the family. One of the reasons why he called it the Little Church was because what happens in the Little Church is of concern to the Big Church. The Little Church is full of grace and and full of Jesus. The big churches, the congregations will be full of grace and full of Jesus. And so, the little church is our mini-series right now. We're looking at marriage and family. We've looked at, we've addressed husbands from the scriptures and wives and we addressed children last week and today we'll address parents. So, we're going to look at Ephesians. I'd like to read another scripture as well. If you have your your finger where Ephesians 6 is. I'd like to very quickly also read Deuteronomy chapter 4. Deuteronomy chapter 4 before I read Ephesians. And it's Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 9 and 10. And I realize in talking about parenting in many ways it would be wise for me to sit at many of your feet, to sit at your feet. and learn from you parents. I've learned a great deal from you. I'm going to do my best to bring to you today the truths of God's Word about parenting, especially as it bears on us now, and especially in this time period in which we live. As I was doing my research, I was just reminded of how many misunderstandings there are about parenting, not only in the church, but in the world. And so I think it's good for us to consider this very relevant And if you're not a parent today, this is not going to be irrelevant for you because I plan to tell the story of God's redemption in Jesus Christ and it'll be very applicable to you because God is your father and you are his son or child in Jesus Christ. So listen attentively whether you're parents or not. Deuteronomy 4, verses 9 and 10. Moses writes through the Holy Spirit, only take care and keep your soul diligently lest you forget the things your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children. How on the day that you stood before the Lord, your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, gather the people to me so that I may let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth and that they may teach their children. God wanted his people to understand that their duties as parents was to teach as parents the importance of the gospel and the law. Now turning to Ephesians 6, verses 1-4. Ephesians 6, 1-4. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Thus ends the reading of God's Word. Let's pray. Our Father, our God, we thank you for your Word and we thank you for Jesus Christ, who is the King of His Church. We pray that now, as He is the resurrected, ascended, exalted King at your right hand, that He would speak to us and that He would direct our paths and teach us and give us wisdom and grant grace to us so that we might be better parents, so that we might understand ourselves better as your children. O Lord, I pray that you would open our ears to hear, our hearts to receive, and our minds to understand. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So today from the passage I'm addressing the parents as I addressed last week the children in the sermon entitled Listen, Learn, and Love Life. In this passage of Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 4, Paul gives a warning. That is, he gives an exhortation, he gives an admonishment to the parents. Now, he addresses fathers, and it's very important in verse 4 that he addresses fathers as the head of the home, as we've looked at in a previous sermon. But here, he addressed particularly fathers, but the implication is for both parents, those who are in the role as those who discipline and instruct. But he's primarily addressing the fathers, and in that verse he says, fathers, or parents, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Now, in the larger context of this passage, verses 1 through 9, Paul is concerned about exhorting the people, doing exegesis and practical application on the fifth commandment. Paul is showing the Ephesians in us today what it means to honor your father and your mother, what it means, what it looks like practically in the congregation. And so verses 1 through 9, these verses are concerned with the duties and responsibilities that inferiors have to their superiors, inferiors being the children, and then the slaves that he'll address in verse 5, or what we might call employees. He also talks about the duties that superiors have, that is, those who are parents, those who are masters or employers, or those who are in roles of superior position. He talks in verse 9 that those in superior positions are accountable to God, ultimately. So it's very important to hear that and understand first is that the parents are going to be accountable to God to how they parented, and that's why we should take this very seriously and understand the gospel as best as we can. So what Paul's doing here is he's teaching how to honor your father and your mother. And so I'll look primarily at verse 4 today, what it means, how a parent can drive a child to anger or discouragement as Colossians uses the word, how the child can be driven to exasperation, as some other translations have it, and how they are called to discipline and instruct. So, what does a Christian home look like? What does it look like? It is an idyllic place of peace and quiet. There's tranquility and joy all the time, right? No? Oh, well, okay, all right, no, no, that's not, the Christian home's definitely not this place. Jay Adams has a wonderful way of making you feel comfortable sometimes. He says that it's important to remember that the first and most important fact about the Christian home is that sinners live there. Sinners live there in the Christian home. The parents fail, sometimes they fail miserably, They fail one another, they fail their children, and they fail God. And the children fail too. So for sinners, what's the hope? We need to understand and keep the hope first before us. The hope is what Paul's been talking about all through Ephesians, particularly starting in chapter 1 through 3. That God, from the foundation of the world, before the foundation of the world, He elected a people, He redeemed them in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came in the fullness of time to die, to lay down His life as a sacrifice for sinners, that the Holy Spirit might come, that the people of God might be regenerate. So, what do we hope for as sinners in the home? The first thing we hope for is the gospel. We must understand the gospel. We must understand God himself. And so, what would God want us to know first as parents? He'd want us to know first as parents that the good news of the gospel gives us courage and confidence in our parenting. That although there were sinners saved by grace, God is faithful to us and will give us courage and confidence to parent as he has called us to do. God wants us to know that in our parenting we can draw near to God. that we're not to just get a mere list of seven steps to better parenting and leave God out of the picture, but that in our parenting itself, as our hearts are exposed, as we realize how we fall short, as we realize our temper tantrums sometimes as parents, when we realize that even in our discipline, we're not always disciplined for the glory of God, but for ourselves, that we'll be drawn out in our helplessness, that we'll be drawn out and drawn near to God and ask for wisdom and ask for grace and ask for help. And God promises to draw near to you when you draw near to Him as parents. See, God never wants us to get just a bunch of facts and take a bunch of rules in so that we can leave Him behind. He wants to give us Himself. He wants to say, I've called you to this task to show you you couldn't do it. So I've called you so you could see your insufficiency, so you'd find your sufficiency in Jesus. so that you'd find your hope in me. Jesus says, ask, it'll be given. You need help? Seek, you'll find. Not! If you know how to give good gifts to your children, although you're evil, how much more does your Heavenly Father know how to give good gifts to those who ask Him? Ask Him for help in parenting. Draw Him near. Draw near to Him. He will draw near to you. In this context, in Ephesians, we find in the larger book of Ephesians that Paul is saying that parenting is part of building up the church. You remember in chapter 4, we were learning about the importance of understanding our union with Jesus, and that our union with Jesus tells us that we're all unified, that we're maturing in Him, and that we can find true spirituality in Jesus Christ. And so our parenting helps build the church. That's why, as I said last week, Paul does not dismiss the children to children's church. He continues, as he's addressing husbands and wives, he continues to address then the children. And so in an ultimate way, as we're drawing near to God to ask for his help, we are raising his heavenly children. We have to remember that, that ultimately we're raising his heavenly children. We're stewards of his gospel grace. Well, is the Bible a handbook on parenting? You know, some people would argue that the Bible is a handbook on parenting, but that's not the purpose of the Bible. The Bible's not given to us merely to be a handbook on parenting or anything. The Bible is primarily the story of God's redemption of His people. That's why Ephesians 1 starts with the Father, with the Son, and with the Spirit bringing in a people bringing in children by His grace and through faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible is the story of God's redemption in Jesus. And I would encourage you, that is, when you go through the Scriptures with your concordance, memorize Scriptures on parenting is good and it is helpful. But more importantly, more importantly than just skimming your concordance for Scripture on parenting, more importantly, get Jesus and understand yourself in the bigger picture of redemption. God is a father. God has children. And you're one of them. If you're going to understand God as if you're going to see yourself as a parent, understand God as a parent. Look at chapter five, verse one, the beginning of this, I keep bringing you back to this because it's important. Look at chapter five, verse one of Ephesians. What does he say here? Very important that Paul says In Ephesians 5 verse 1, because of God's grace to you, therefore, be imitators of God. Parenting, in parenting, we're called to be imitators of God. God is the creator of the family, and he's ultimately the role model for the family. He's to teach us his great story. You can have a lot of Bible verses. You can even focus on the family. But the family's focus should be on God. And if the family's focus on God, you'll learn how to parent. You'll learn how to parent by God's grace. And your children will learn how to understand God's grace. Listen to some of the the echoes of history from God's parenting that I'd like you to remember. Remember, that when Moses goes to Pharaoh, what's the message? Israel is my son. Let him go. That's the imagery. Let my son go or I'll kill your son. Actually, that's what he said. Let my son go so that he may serve me. God's whole story is a story of bringing sons, bringing children to himself and parenting them. And so there's something to follow that I'll point out. Later in redemptive history, in the time of Hosea, in Hosea chapter 11, the people of Israel have rebelled and they are children under God's discipline. And. Hosea speaks God's words, he says, when Israel was a child, I loved him. Out of Egypt, I called my son. He says they were called and the more that I called them as their father, the more they went away, the more they went away to to those worthless idols. Yet it was I who taught them to walk. I took them up in my arms and loved them. They didn't know that I was the one who healed them. I led them with cords of mercy and kindness and love. I became one who eased their burdens and the yoke of slavery. And I bent down and fed them. That's a father. That's a father. That's a parent. That's what God's revealing about himself. That's what we learn from him as imitators of God. So what do we learn? I want to point you to three things. What do we learn from the bigger, the larger redemptive story of God's fatherhood? We learn three things. Commitment. Love. I'm going to say it in the wrong order, I know I will. So commitment, law and love. Commitment, law and love. How does God show commitment? He provides. He provides. He protects. He promises. Blessings for obedience. That's what we saw. Remember in Ephesians 6 too, that we're to honor our father and our mother. Paul says this is the first commandment with a promise. That's God's commitment to his son, to his children, to his people. The second is law. He offers us teaching. The law tells us how God disciplines and instructs us. That's what Paul's saying in verse four. Fathers discipline and instruct your children. And then finally, love is grace. Love is the acceptance of God is the affirmation. It's the mercy. It's how God tenderly, even when he had prodigal sons, what did God do with his prodigal sons who were being disciplined under law? What did he do? He said, come to me. I'll show mercy on you. Repent of your sins. I am a loving God. I'm slow to anger. Merciful. I'm compassionate to those who fear me. I will bless them. So, God was committed to Israel, his son. He promised blessings for obedience. God taught Israel, his son, the law. He disciplined. He instructed. He nurtured Israel in the law. God taught Israel, his son, love. And so, commitment, law and love, all three need to be together as we model God, as imitators of God, and as God is our role model for parenting, commitment, law, and love. So the question is not merely to go through the concordance and find, okay, parents and children, okay, that's good, that's good, I'm going to memorize those. Nothing wrong with memorizing scripture, you need to do it. But what God wants us to see is that there's a bigger redemptive story you're a part of, and your family is part of that story. These promises, this gospel is to you and to your children. That's not only been in Peter's day, that was promised to Abraham and it was promised to Moses and the children as I read it from Deuteronomy 4 a few minutes ago. So God is our father. We are his children. We are heirs of his love. We are recipients of his grace. We are those who he's redeemed by his blood. And so by understanding commitment, law and love, we can commit ourselves by God's grace to our children. What is the goal for our children? What is our goal? What is our goal? Now, sometimes we dream our dreams through our children, don't we? Sometimes we raise our children vicariously through our dreams. I didn't get that dream. I'm going to try to get it through my child. We need to be very careful of that, don't we? What's the ultimate goal for our children? What is the ultimate goal? that our children be wise, that they be godly, that they be like Christ. The ultimate goal for our children is that they would be wise, that they know how to fit into God's world, that they be godly, that they be Christ-like, and that they be heirs to these blessings that Paul reminds us of where he says in verse 2 of Ephesians 6, this is the first commandment with a promise. As I spoke of last week in the last sermon about loving life. It doesn't mean that the blessings do not include sometimes affliction and suffering and difficulty. It means that you'll have the confidence and the courage that Jesus alone can give you. It means that you will live as those satisfied fully by the love of the Lord Jesus Christ and His grace. So, our golden child rearing is wisdom. It's Christ-likeness. What are our means? Verse 4. I'll look at the second part of verse 4 first and then the first part to talk about how I think, I believe, that the first part is because of an imbalance of misunderstanding, of an imbalance in the understanding of commitment law and law. You lean too much in one direction and you'll produce certain types of children. Now, let me talk to you about the discipline and instruction. Discipline just simply means training through correction. It's focused on the heart and the will. Discipline is about the heart and the will and I spoke a little bit about discipline last week. I won't go into it fully again. I would have you meditate on Hebrews chapter 12, verses 5-11, and how discipline is assumed by the earthly father. That scripture is used as an analogy of how we're disciplined by God our Father, and it's assumed that earthly fathers also disciplined and were respected for it. So discipline is focused on the heart and the will. It's training through correction. Instruction is training through truth. Instruction is training through truth. It's focused on the mind, the intellect. This word instruction comes from the Greek word noutheo and you've heard of perhaps nouthetic counseling. This is a type of training through truth or counseling. It's training through the truth of the scriptures. It's nouthetic. It's to be a counselor. to your children. And so the implications here are, one, discipline and instruction should be with love and truth. Love and truth as we're following God. And discipline and instruction should be with love and truth. I say it two times. Discipline and instruction should be with love and truth. See, it's easy to fall into one or the other saying I'll discipline according to truth but without love. It's what we learned earlier in chapter four about the fact that where we were to speak the truth in love to one another as a congregation. Well, you can speak truth and that's one thing, but you can speak truth in love and that's another thing. That's a grace driven, grace fueled, grace motivated thing. But in our discipline, in our instruction, we're to be very careful by God's grace. Look at the beginning of verse 4. Fathers or parents, fathers particularly again because he's head of the household, do not provoke your children to anger. Or as Colossians 3 said, fathers don't provoke your children unless they become discouraged. And this anger, this discouragement, this exasperation is part of what's developed as character in them. It's not just that they will be that way once in a while. It's something that's what they've become. So how do we provoke or exasperate our children to anger? Very simply, not training in wisdom, first of all. Not training them in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. We provoke our children to anger by not bringing them up in the disciplined instruction of the Lord. Oftentimes, we just assume that they know how to live. Oftentimes, we can be lazy in instructing them or in instructing them with truth and love, or we instruct them with love without truth. And I'll talk about that in a moment. Proverbs 13 says, whoever spares the rod hates his son. He who loves him is diligent to discipline him. So because our children are created to be disciplined and nurtured in the Lord, even though they're sinners, even though they're tainted by sin, because they've been created to be disciplined and nurtured in the Lord, they get angry. They become angry. They become discouraged if they have to, one, learn how to live in this world by themselves, or if they become, two, not able to live in this world because they haven't been given gospel love. They can become angry or exasperated because they've had to learn it by themselves or because they were taught it, but not with love. And so, remember, commitment, law and love is how God as a role model relates to us, and these must be balanced. Let me go into talking to you a bit about how they can become imbalanced. Some in the world and the church would say, on the one hand, those whom we might call liberal-minded, those who are liberals, they would say that the discipline and instruction of the child that's what's most important about parenting is affirmation. Affirmation and acceptance. Let them learn mistakes for themselves. But that can lead children to exasperation and anger because they haven't been trained, they haven't been taught how to handle life according to God's Word, and they're living in God's world. So being overly affirming or accepting, they haven't been taught that they won't get all that they want. They will not get all that they want in this world. And so the liberal, non-traditional way of parenting might be called a way of love without truth. Now, using commitment law and love for a moment, think about it. There's an over-emphasis here on love and commitment. But there's no law. There's no boundaries. There's no, this is how you should live. There's just love and commitment. And concerning the raising of their children, they would say, be permissive. Show them how they need to have their esteem built. Well, listen, you know this. The Bible teaches this, that the problem of children is not that they have too little self-esteem. They have too much. We all do. The problem of the sinful heart is that we've got too much esteem. We think too highly of ourselves. And so the new liberal ways of raising children, the imbalance would be, you know, you're special. I'm OK. You're OK. And nothing more than that. The conservatives, on the other hand, the traditional culture would say that control and behaviorism with a mixture of shame and guilt are the way to get the children to behave. Traditional culture, conservatives would say on one hand, controlling behaviorism with a mixture of shame and guilt. This can lead to anger and rebellion because they've been overly controlled. They've been manipulated. And although their behaviors have been addressed, their hearts have not. Their hearts have not had the gospel. You know, this is the old 20th century way of doing it. This is truth without love. This could be summarized as truth without love. This is the old 20th century. If you've read some children's books from the 40s and the 50s and the 60s, they're look at the bad rabbit. Shame on him. He'll be a bad, he'll be a bad public spectacle. Oh, he's dangerous. Shame on you. You've heard it. Shame, shame, shame. That's not biblical either. That's an imbalance. God doesn't merely say shame, shame, shame. This is an overemphasis on law. Minus love and commitment. And so there's some truth in both of these. The liberal side wants affirmation. They're concerned about the child being accepted. That's very important. On the other hand, the conservatives of the traditional culture want control. They want their children to be controlled and behave well. It's not a bad idea. It's important. But the biblical balance is discipline and instruction in the Lord. And this means because God is our father, there'll be both love and there'll be truth. There'll be love and there'll be truth. There'll be commitment. There'll be protection, provision. There will be law. There will be Discipline. There will be consequences for sin. There'll be love. There'll be acceptance. There'll be affirmation. Think for a moment about the imbalance in commitment. If you're too giving, if you give all the time, what are you going to create but spoiled children? Too much protection. Too much stuff. You were trying to provide, but you wanted to provide more. It was really for yourself. imbalance in the law, it leads to too controlling. And this leads to angry and rebellious children. And an imbalance in love is too permissive. It leads to out of control children. Too much acceptance in love. Now, these are just general truths, but they're truths. We have to ask for wisdom how to apply that to our specific situation. The truth is that God has been perfectly balanced by His grace in showing us commitment, in showing us law, in showing us love. You see, if you think about how we parent a lot of times, if we haven't thought about it, if we think, if we had experience of our parents being too giving, if we were spoiled, we'll react the other way. We'll tend to react the other way. And if we've been too control, or if our parents were too giving, and they spoil us, we will tend toward the other direction of trying to control them too much. We need to be aware of this. On the other hand, if the parents were too controlling, we'll be angry and we will feel like we've been left out of all the fun. That'll be our memory. And so we'll be overly permissive. What do you do? What do you do? What do I do? You look to God for grace. and for mercy in Jesus Christ. He's called you to parenting to draw you near to Himself. He's shown you mistakes you've made that I've made in order to make Christ more sufficient in our estimation so that Christ is always all-sufficient and glorious and beautiful. And He's the exalted King who wants to rule over our hearts and our lives and our parenting and our homes. But we don't always understand that. sometimes we're okay just going to a parenting seminar, taking away a few little nuggets, and then going on our business sort of separated from God. We're doing it for God, we think, but not on a day-by-day, I need you for this, I need you for this, I'm weak and I need your strength. You see, in God we see the perfect role model. He is perfectly committed to us in Jesus. He's provided everything we always will need. Everything we'll need. He doesn't give us all that we want. He gives us everything we need. He provides. He protects. He's our shield. He's our helper. He promises good things for us. He gives us the hope of heaven in Jesus. He's never imbalanced. He also has law. He comes in and says, this is how I want you to live. This is wrong. This is a sin. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. Not only is it offensive to me, God will tell us, it will hurt you. And God is the lover. He's the gracious and merciful God. He's the one who loves us and accepts us. And so as his children, as God's children, we want to discipline and instruct our children in light of his parenting. The ultimate goal of the of the parenting, the reason we want to show commitment and law and love in a balanced way is so that by the Holy Spirit, there might be a changed heart in the young person. that that person might come to understand love and grace, that that young person, the child, might come to praise the Lord for both His truth and His love, both His commitment, His law and His love. And so, parents, I encourage you, when you go to discipline and instruct your child, especially when you're feeling impatient, remind yourself of God's parenting you. How he's been patient with you throughout your Christian life. How he was patient in redemptive history with Israel, his son. He continued to allure his son to him. He continued to promise forgiveness. He, yes, there were consequences for his son Israel's sin, for his church's sin. There was consequences. There are consequences. But he law, he used love to bring them to himself. He taught them the gospel that they might be trained and they might be taught. And so remember, Let us all as a congregation remember God's modeling of things. So that we won't exasperate anger. Or cause discouragement to be what characterizes our children, because we've been imbalanced in one of those areas. And even those three things are not given as your secret key to parenting. The reason to meditate on those three things is to bring you more completely into the gospel story. So that you can see your parenting as part of the story of God's redemption. And so that that story will inform your story. Now, if you're parents who have a child who's disobedient and who's walked away, it's so easy to condemn yourself. So many things that we all could do better and don't do. God's merciful. He says, if you confess your sins, I'll forgive you. I'll cleanse you from all unrighteousness. There's so many ways that that we sometimes wish I wish I'd have been a father when I was 80, you know, or or when I was in my 50s, I'd have known a lot more. God uses our weaknesses, too. This doesn't mean that we don't try to understand and know better how to do it. It just means that we should never we should know that in Christ there is no condemnation. And God himself has had prodigal sons. Some of you have been prodigal sons. Some of you have not appreciated God's commitment to you at times. The importance of His law and the importance of His love. You've taken His love for granted. I have too. You see, and yet He didn't give up on us. He didn't give up on us. He continued to draw us to Himself in Jesus Christ. That's the model. Don't give up. Seek Him. Draw near to Him. Ask for wisdom. Ask for help. But when you think of parenting, think of him speaking to you, saying to you, father's parent, I am your father. Do what you see me doing. Be an imitator of me when you're when you're parenting. Remember that God says to you, I train you through correction. I train you through truth. I train you with a proper balance of love and truth. I don't assume as your heavenly father that you know how to live in this world. As your Heavenly Father, I address what you need most, not what you want. And as your Heavenly Father, He says, I grant you the only affirmation that you'll ever need. If you can just realize that you've got it, that in Jesus Christ, you're my beloved. I love you. I care for you. You have my affirmation. You don't have to seek it anywhere else. God says to us, I change your heart. I will change your children's heart. Parents, listen, I have to say this to myself. I have to say it to you. Listen, as parents, you cannot control the results of your children's heart. Only God can. He tells you how to get the gospel to him. He doesn't tell you that you will be the transforming power, the spirit will. What does that mean? It means you need hope in God. You draw near to God. You need the spirit of God. You need the wisdom of God. You need Christ. You need the gospel of God. Sometimes our parenting reveals things that we need to know more about the gospel of parents. Seriously. Parental failures tend to be caused by parental insecurities. Parental failures tend to be caused by parental insecurities. Places where we don't understand the gospel as parents. For instance, if you're overly angry at your children, it may be that you care more for your reputation at that moment than you do about disciplining for the glory of God. How dare you embarrass me? The child's going to get it, Dad. The child's going to know that. If you're overly angry, you're not going to embarrass me, boy. That should be an opportunity for you to take your heart before Jesus and say, Jesus, I don't understand my role. Help me, oh God. See, we have need of Jesus, don't we? We have a need of Jesus, don't we? Right here, right now, don't we? Don't we? Yes. Yes. We have a need of Jesus right now, don't we? Yes, I do. Yes. Do you? Yes, you do. You may not be overly angry, you might be overly permissive. Instead of disciplining for the glory of God, you may just think that I just want my child to be my friend. I need her acceptance. But you need it too much. That's where you need to learn that Jesus is all you need, that you have been accepted in the beloved Perhaps if you are too stern, you get easily aggravated. You're easily irritable. It might just be that you need to remember that God is sovereign. And that he sometimes calls us to peace and comfort and ease. And sometimes he calls us to have to deal with things we don't want to deal with. And messes we don't have to clean, we don't want to clean up. And instructions that we're kind of too tired to talk about. Mother! But the assurance of God's love to us in Christ can make us better parents. Why? Because if we are assured of God's love in Jesus Christ, we can know that God loves us, that he's accepted us in the Beloved, that he's all we'll ever need. that if we focus and meditate on the gospel, he'll saturate our hearts with compassion and love. And when we foul up in front of our children, we'll be so saturated with grace that we will do the craziest thing. We'll ask forgiveness of them. We'll humble ourselves before them. That's so crazy. And then by God's grace, through our weakness, they'll see the gospel. I can't do parenting, son. That's sometimes the right answer, the thing to say. Not always. Sometimes it is. I blew it. But thanks be to God for Jesus Christ, our Lord. He's my savior. He's yours, too. By God's grace. So what does the gospel say? It says you're loved. It says you can love your children by grace in the same way. It says that if you do this by God's grace, if you model God, your children will not be too bold in your presence, nor will they be too fearful. You know, that's the way we come upon Jesus Christ, isn't it? We should anyway. When we understand Jesus' friendship and His Lordship and as our Savior, He's our God also, we're not too bold and we're not too fearful. And too fearful, well, it shows an inability to really sit there and listen. And so, if we teach our children the importance of grace, as we are drinking deeply of God's grace, then by God's grace they will know this same grace and the love of Jesus Christ. And our children will not be embittered. They will not be dismayed. They'll not be discouraged. In the passage from Hebrews 12, where it talks about instruction and disciplining, you know, it talks about that the training and discipline is for the fruits of righteousness. What's interesting is the passage goes on to say, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. And that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble. And by it, many are defiled. There's a way that we can parent in such a way that brings up in the training and the discipline and admonition of the Lord, as Paul says for us to do in verse four, there's a way that we can embitter our children. May we seek grace for God to help us. May we take this very seriously. May we see in God a role model for us. May we know that He's loving and He's compassionate. And even in our failures, He will bring about good. That doesn't mean we continue in our failures because of Romans 8.28. It means that we try to learn the best we can as we imitate God. Parents, as I close, focus on the cross. The cross of Jesus Christ is our hope for parents. The cross is where God gave his own beloved child so that we might not only become his son, his children, but at the cross, he gave his only son so that we might be good parents, that we might be able to show grace, that we'd understand its self-sacrificial and costly nature. At the cross, we see God's love and sacrifice. At the cross, we see God crushing and disciplining his own son. so that He might redeem us. Tell this story to yourself daily. Tell this truth to yourself and tell this truth and this story to your children. Reenact the story of the cross, of you dying with Jesus daily, being raised to new life in Him so that you can parent by God's grace and discipline and instruct in the ways of the Lord. The promises of God, the gospel are for you and for your children. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your grace and your mercy. Lord, so much wisdom we need. We confess, O Lord, that you would help us, that you would grant us the grace that we need. Father, we humbly ask you to teach us and instruct us. Lord, as you discipline and instruct us, as you've committed yourself to us, as you provide and protect As you love us and show affirmation and acceptance, help us to balance these things, Father. Give us the grace that we can do all of these. Help us to not lean toward one in a way that imbalances us or that takes us away from the biblical truth that is revealed. Lord, help us to be imitators of you. Forgive us for our sins. Grant the power of your spirit to be obedient by your grace. And Father, We pray that You'd send forth Your Spirit to change our children's hearts, that You'd change our children's hearts, that You'd make them see the grace of the Gospel and Jesus Christ, the cross, that You would help us with our own hearts when we see that we're overly angry or agitated, when we see that we're overly controlling. Help us to learn some about ourselves and then discipline and instruct in the Lord. We pray, O Father, that you would grant us help. And Lord, those who are prodigals today, who are part of even our congregation, those children, we pray for a special measure of comfort for the parents, that they would trust in you and hope in you and know that you are in the business of bringing prodigals home. We pray that you'd comfort their hearts and we pray for those prodigals, those who've gone away. We pray that you'd draw them near to yourself. We pray that you would draw them near, that they'd come to their senses and come home to a loving family. We pray for the prodigals who are here, who have not strayed, but their hearts are far from you. We pray, Lord, that you would draw them near you and that they would grow in grace as well. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.