Well, this morning I am going to begin a promised series that I shared at the beginning of the year that I'm going to be teaching on raising dangerous children. on raising dangerous children and I'm going to flesh out what I mean by that because I know that's contrary to how we think about raising children and what we should desire for our children and the idea of our children being safe is kind of typically what everybody wants. and I want to spend the next several weeks of sermons on the importance of raising children that will be dangerous for the sake of Christ and his kingdom. This morning's message, I'm going to read a text from Psalm 127, and I want to ask you to stand for the reading of God's word, and then this will be an introductory message. and not in the practical aspect of things as much, but it's something that I hope will be a blessing and an encouragement. It has been a lot of years, though things about the family ooze out and maybe messages here or there come out, it's been years. since I have taught extensively on the subject, so much so that a lot of the teenagers that were there then, or young people, are now married with kids, and it seems to be an appropriate time to bring a series of messages on this subject. And so I'll preach the next three weeks before Easter, and then Easter Sunday we'll be taking a break from the series and I'll preach a message on the resurrection of Christ. We have invitations, we want to encourage you. I think those will be ready by next week, and if they're not already, but we'll have them for you to invite people to Easter Sunday, and a great day to invite people to your home, and make it an investing time as you invite people into your life, and to share the love of Christ with them. And then there'll be a couple weeks of break that I shared last Sunday night with you about, and then I'll be back into this series. And so it's something that I pray will be helpful, and that we'll, as we progress, see how it is applicable, not just to parents, but to everyone who gathers this morning. Psalm 127, a song of degrees for Solomon. Except the Lord build the house. They labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city. The watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he giveth his beloved sleep. Lo, children are in heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, So are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. May God bless the reading of his holy word. Father, I pray that you'd bless this morning, even with the disruptions of getting into this place for me this morning, that you would guide my lips and my thoughts and that you would take over this time, that your word would impact men and women in a powerful way and that we would be, as a church, a people willing to follow the path that God has laid forth in his word, that we would be indeed for the biblical family, a city set on a hill, a place of refuge, and a place that can shine the glorious light of the gospel. not only here, near to us, but indeed far as we spread the message of the gospel to the nations, to the islands, to the peoples of the world. And I pray that we would recognize that the weaponry we are given for that is the gospel, and it's the gospel that we are given taken by people. Those people are going to come from our midst. They're going to come from our own children. They're going to be launched near and far, all for the fulfillment of the commission that you have given to us to reach the nations. And I pray that we would always keep that in mind as we raise our children. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Parenting is not a spectator sport. It will take all that you have. In fact, it will require nothing less than your life. This morning, we begin a journey into the pages of God's word to learn about the significance of the Christian family in God's plan to reach the nations in this sermon series I've titled Raising Dangerous Children. And I wanna just say at the onset here, whether you have children or not, this series of sermons will help you grow in your understanding of the word of God and the work of God for the kingdom of God to advance. This is a great commission message. In fact, I wanna share with you the Great Commission, and I want to flesh it out just a little bit this morning. It says, in Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew's account of it, and Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power, all authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. When he prayed in the Lord's prayer, he said, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And Jesus has been given all authority, all power on heaven and in earth. And he says, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. And amen. The Great Commission recorded in Matthew 28, 18 through 20, is a full-orbed commission from the Lord. It's not a truncated message. It is not a message just about the gospel. Now I just finished a series called The Gospel Life, how the gospel of grace affects all of life. And so in this way, I'm using it differently to say it's not just about the message of salvation, it's about the message of salvation and sanctification and hope and all of life, like we just looked at in our series on the gospel life that we're called to live. The message of the Great Commission, though, needs to be understood in its full context, that it begins with the proclamation, the bold proclamation, of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations, that Christ was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, that he died and was buried and that he rose again according to the scriptures on the third day, and that message is only understood when we understand, really, the whole story of what we would call and we understand the whole scope of scripture from God being creator to sin coming into the world and the promise of the seed of a woman that would conquer saint and sin and death in Genesis chapter 315 and the fulfillment of that when Christ conquered saint and sin and death on the cross being buried and the third day rising again, sealing that work of the conqueror of the nations. That is the message of the gospel that we bring to the nations. And in that great commission, we're called to baptize those who believe in the name of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then that identifies them as a people set apart to the Lord. both the baptism of the Spirit in their heart being baptized into the body of Christ and the water baptism that symbolizes that death to sin and the new life resurrecting that we have a promise of bodily one day in the future. This marks the people of God as the covenant people, the people of the new covenant of Christ as we are baptized into his name. And then we're called in the Great Commission to do something else. This is where, and if you've been in our church for very long, you've heard me say something along these lines many times, that the focus of missions is not just to go around the world spreading the message of the gospel of Jesus, it's to establish local churches, it's to build up the saints to teach them all things whatsoever God has commanded because God not only cares about you, finding a relationship with him that gets you to heaven, if I can use those terms, it's about you, about people understanding all that God has for them that pertains to life and godliness in this present world. That our life should be radically transformed here. And if you just hear a message that is come to know Jesus by embracing the gospel, and you're left and that's all you have. You might have some vague assurance of a relationship with God, but you don't know what it means to live for him. And that our heart for global missions is really about the mission being, the Great Commission being free. fully realized and that that would include the establishment of local churches, which is God's plan for really not only evangelizing the nations, but it's God's plan for discipling the nations in all things that God has commanded us. Now I'm making a point of this in the beginning because there are some good people, good men, good ministers of the gospel who will at times look at a series of sermons on something like parenting and kind of downplay it as something that's not important enough for the sermons preached on the Lord's Day. They need to be just focused on the gospel. They need to be focused on other things. They can't be practical, and they can't be the kind of how-to kind of sermons. Otherwise, they don't really meet the biblical qualifications. And I want to push back against that, and I know it seems kind of funny to make a defense at the beginning of a new sermon series, but I want to tell you, I believe with all of my heart that parenting is a great commission issue. Kingdom work, the gospel going to the uttermost parts of the earth needs to be more than one generational. Getting people saved is a wonderful thing, but if we do not disciple them to disciple their own families so that we have generation upon generation upon generation that are continuing the work and that the work of the gospel begins to multiply In an exponential way, we are missing the significant importance that God has called us to. We have a truncated view of the Great Commission. Let's just get people saved. That's wonderful, but it's a both and, and that's what the Great Commission reveals. Let me read it again. Go ye therefore, and this is what God's given, Jesus has been given power for, and he's given that power to us in his church. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, proclaiming the gospel, making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, And then what? Teaching them to observe. To observe doesn't mean just to look at, to observe means to follow after, to walk in obedience to, to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. and lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the world, and amen. That means that the work of parenting is not second to the work of proclaiming the gospel, it is a part of the same great commission, and both are necessitated for us, necessary for us as believers to seek to fulfill. and teaching all things that pertain to life and godliness. How to be a faithful husband is a gospel issue. How to be a godly, faithful wife is a gospel issue. How to be biblical parents in the midst of a culture that's gone mad when it comes to understanding about the family is a gospel issue. And it's my heart that as a church, we would stand out as a place. where the family is not exalted, the family is not worshiped, but the family is understood in light of its relationship to the gospel of Christ and his work in our church and his work in our families and how that gospel is going to continue, not just here when we meet on Sundays, but as we gather in our homes, in our neighborhood fellowships, as we gather each day as a family, bringing in neighbors and friends. friends and people that we might be able to influence for the sake of the gospel to realize that that family unit is something vitally important for all of us to understand and to be willing to be different. to be willing to be, as in my last sermon on sanctification, being sanctified in this present world, to be willing to be a peculiar people, even in regards to how we bring up our families, I think is vital. In fact, I can think of no more pressing issue impacting the church and its global kingdom impact in the world today than the family. Christian families are in a bad way. We're not immune to it in our church. There are a lot of influences, there are a lot of things that even 10 years ago, One of the last times that I preached a lengthy series of sermons on such a topic. There are new things that we have to battle and compete with in the raising of our children, because influences are so easy to come in this technological age, and I'm not blaming everything on technology, but to understand, it's a harder thing to guard the hearts and minds of our children today. Therefore, as I've stated already, this sermon series on parenting is a great commission issue. It's not just a practical how-to teaching on parenting. In fact, this morning is going to be dealing more with the why, the philosophy of, and likely the next sermon as well. But we will talk about many practical truths because God's word deals with many practical truths about parenting. How many of you believe that it is right to teach every word of God? That all scripture is given by inspiration and is profitable? We should. The Bible deals with a lot of practical issues about how to parent our children. From everything of how we love and nurture them to how we discipline and correct them. And yes, those things are very, very important. And those are also areas in which we have been influenced significantly by the culture, and many Christians will answer, well, yeah, I know what that says, but this is what I've been taught to do, and this is how I've learned, and this is why I think it works better. And we have to go back to the scriptures and say, can anything improve upon God's plan for the institution that he has designed, created, instituted, and given to us? regarding our roles as parents and even the responsibility of children. Now I want to warn you. I'm gonna give fair warning in advance that my intention is not to be culturally acceptable in this series. But like always, to be faithful to the word of God. I think every Christian should be able to say yes and amen. to that, okay? Now here's where I wanna say something else. I give the warning because I think that the subject of the family, of marriage, of children, and all that goes with it is probably the area in which Christians have adopted the convictions and perspectives of the culture more than the word than any other area of your life. So though you might say yes and amen, on the front end, there are going to be things, I promise you, that at first initial contact, you're not going to like. But I want you to know my heart, my heartfelt request is that before you get upset and stop listening at different points along the way, would you pause? even as we begin, would you pause and ask the Lord to give you His eyes and actually look at what the scripture says in every place that we go, in every context, and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you. I'm not saying that we won't have any disagreements, but let's make sure that our disagreements are being argued, and I mean that in a good way, argued from a biblical point of view and not just a, well, this is just the way I believe. Let's look at what the scripture actually says, and I can handle that. And I wanna say, if you don't like something, I'm desirous of walking with you and working through the scriptures to give you my best biblical answer and understanding of the text. From the beginning, know that. Lastly, by way of introductory remarks, I was asked in August of 2018, while on a delightful 15 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean, while headed to New Zealand, to teach on the subject of parenting. I was asked by a fellow passenger, a professor, a woman professor, on our flight, in kind of a disdainful way, what are your qualifications to teach on parenting? She asked whether I had a doctorate in philosophy or a psychology or psychiatry, to which I replied that I'm a minister of the gospel, which gives me the authority to teach on the subject because it is in the word of God. And then I said in a jovial way, I'm also a father of 14 children, which means I know a lot of things that parents shouldn't do because I've done them. That disarmed her and she was more attentive to hear what I was going to have to say. So with that said, here we go. And it's hard to believe that 10 years later, we're on this kind of subject again. Our focus this morning is going to be on Psalm 127. This will be primarily an exposition of Psalm 127. And this might take two Sundays to get through as we look at this, and the last two verses will be the launching pad for the kind of practical aspects of raising our children. Parents, I wanna begin by saying God has not called us to raise children that are safe. He has in fact called us to raise children that are dangerous. Children that will be in the words of the psalmist in verse number four, arrows in the hand of a mighty man. Arrows for God, spiritual weaponry. And arrows are not meant for protection of running away from problems or running away from the difficulties of the world, but arrows are meant as an offensive weapon. Arrows are meant to kill things. Right, that's what they're used for in warfare or in hunting. They're meant to kill things. Now, if, just so no one takes the metaphor in the wrong way, I believe that the work of, the gospel work of Christian families is not to kill things, but to give them life, but the weaponry that we're using is an offensive weaponry. The imagery is that we are in a warfare, that we're fighting for the sake of Christ and his kingdom, and it's going to require us to raise up children that are going to be arrows for the Lord that are going to be one day launched out. I think that's something that parents need to hear. I have been around conservative, I could say it this way, conservative Christian circles pretty much my whole adult life. Some very conservative circles and people that really are passionate about raising up godly children, but for too many of them, I think they run around with their quivers full and no one's shooting out arrows. No one's launching them into the world, into the places of danger for fear that they may be harmed. But fathers and mothers, as parents, we have been given a vital role in this forward advancement of the kingdom to raise up arrows. In fact, Originally when I preached this similar series, and it's going to be reworked and a lot of refreshment and a lot of new experience that I've had as a parent and as a pastor, but I taught on the work of the Fletcher. And I'm gonna refer to that term as we go about this series. And next week I'll even have some illustrations here with me to kind of give a perspective of arrows and bows and quivers. But a Fletcher is one who is a maker of arrows, a fashioner of arrows and bows. So when we talk about the work of the Fletcher, we're talking about the work of a parent. Children don't come out ready to be launched. Children come out fully formed, they come out as image bearers of God, but God has given a plan for human children to be different than that of most of the animal kingdom. Similar gestation periods to many other species, but mankind takes about 18 years to come to full maturity before they are ready to be launched out. Whereas many in the animal kingdom are gone from their, I don't wanna call them fathers and mothers, but gone from whatever they're called, My brain is dead. And they leave very quickly from the care of their parents. But children aren't that way. Children necessitate the tender, loving care, constant presence. 24 hour, seven day a week attention for many of the first years of their life. That is God's plan to build a strong bond and a nurturing relationship between children and their parents. This work requires dedication. It requires discipline, consistency. It requires perspiration. Sweat takes work being a parent. It requires patience. It requires humility as you seek to nurture and train up the next generation of children, knowing that you sometimes will have to come to them apologizing for the ways you did things wrong. Asking their forgiveness as something that we, I have had to do even recently. because it is part of demonstrating to them a gospel life lived with a need for repentance before both God and man as you seek to bring them up. We want to raise our children that they might be like an arrow, that they might be strong, they might be balanced, they might be at the tip razor sharp in their effectiveness. and that one day they could be sent out into the world to make an impact for the sake of the kingdom. To be dangerous weapons in God's arsenal, not mine, not yours, but God's arsenal. Parenting, though not glamorous, it doesn't look like Parenting Magazine. Hashtag parenting. where everything's perfectly clean and children are all clothed in most beautiful clothing with not a stain on them is just not reality, is it, parents? It's not glamorous, but it is a most noble calling and one that is impossible to do without the help and provision of the Lord. And I wanna say something, this is true for those who acknowledge God in their lives and for those who do not. For those who breathe his air, enjoy his sunset, taste his sweetness in all kinds of blessings in their life and do not acknowledge that he exists, even they as parents, the best of parents in the world are dependent upon the common grace of God and his goodness in their lives. But for this sermon series, we're gonna be coming from an explicitly Christian perspective, drawing from God's word, the Bible, for our instruction for life. in this most important subject of the family, particularly in regards to parenting. So from our text this morning, it's a simple outline. I want to reveal to you how we are to trust the Lord to build our house first. Then we are to rest in the Lord as we build our house. And then we are to receive from the Lord the heritage that he gives us, and lastly, we are to raise up children for the Lord. So as we begin from Psalm 127, this first step, this first truth is really the most essential. That is to trust the Lord. The scripture says in Psalm 127, except, and we would say the word unless, unless the Lord builds the house, the house not being a physical structure, it's not talking about the building that you live in, the house being the family. that is being raised within its walls. And unless the Lord builds the family, unless the Lord builds the house, they who are laboring in this work, moms and dads, are laboring in vain. They're laboring in an empty way that build it. Just like in the scriptures, unless the Lord keeps the city, the watchman who stands in the watchtower is watching but in vain. In other words, we're called as his people, as in everything that we do, to trust him. First step in biblical parenting, the first step in raising dangerous children is to trust in the Lord to build your house. And you might say, yes, and what does that mean? The scripture reveals a few things in this passage of scripture that I want to flesh out this morning, but there will be many other things that require trust that are revealed in scripture that in the day and age which we live, that you'll see the connection to, are we gonna trust the Lord, for instance, as something looking forward? The word of God has something to say about how we might educate our children, a way in which we would do that. Not just a particular model, but the kinds of thing we want to educate it in. Are we gonna trust the Lord? Disciplining our children. Oh no, you can't discipline your children anymore. It's against the law. Are we going to trust, by the way, it's not. Let's give you a head start, it's not. I can give you the RCW. But are we gonna follow God's plan? Are we gonna say, no, we really think that this method that we learned on Dr. Phil is really the best method that we could apply. There's a lot of aspects as we look at parenting that we have to say, are we going to trust God, trust His word, trust His way as we bring up our family? There's gonna be some testing. And anytime we are called to trust the Lord, we are going to be tested. We must learn to trust the Lord in every area of our life, but in particular, with regards to our subject matter, we must learn to trust the Lord in the building up of our house. We don't want to labor in vain. We don't want what we're doing to be what we want to do. We want what we're doing to be what God wants us to do in bringing up our children. Trusting God is what the Christian life is all about. Is it not? How did you come to faith in God? That God's word worked in you by his spirit and you trusted his word and the work of his spirit in you, drawing you to himself and you responded saying, I trust in you. I believe in you. I'm gonna follow you. I'm going to be your disciple. There is a turning from your ways, a repentance from the ways that you were living, and there is a turning to trust in the ways of the Lord. And that means that when you've embraced Christ, you've embraced all that he has for you in your life, and you're called. And in fact, the scripture requires you to search out the scriptures, find the commands of the Lord that he has given to us, rightly discern them, obviously, in their context, and then seek to obey all that God has revealed. all that God has commanded you. This is true both in the Old Covenant of the Old Testament, it is true in the New Covenant in the New Testament that is revealed by Jesus Christ, who himself said, if you love me, what? Keep my commandments. Trust me. And trust is fleshed out, trust is lived out, not by just a philosophical statement, trust is lived out by walking in obedience to God in everything that he reveals to us. We cannot go to the scriptures like we were going to the Old Country Buffet, or, Old Country Buffet is a very old reference. That's, by the way, not in my notes. Like we were going to some kind of a buffet where we could just pick what we want, where we're going to Panda Express to say, I want the fiery chicken today, I don't want the orange chicken. We don't get to go to the scriptures and say, I like that part, I wanna trust that part. But I don't like that part, it makes me uncomfortable, I don't trust that part. We don't have that right. We don't have that privilege. I know this is very simple. But I want you to grasp some simple truths before we go into the particulars. When it comes to the work of parenting, My prayer is that fathers and mothers would go to the word of God to find out our respective roles and that God has called us in the raising of our family. And when you begin to search the scriptures, begin with the heart of David. The psalm says, open thou mine eyes that I may, what? Do you know? Behold. See wondrous things out of thy law. Here's a reality. God used his word in my life, growing up with my parents divorced, growing up in different homes, growing up without, I love my father, I love my mother, I don't say this to be disrespectful, but when you, from the time you're five, come home every day and dad's not there in the evening to greet you, dad's not there to talk with you, it changes things for you. And I know some people are growing up in homes similar to that, but one of the reasons why I gained, I believe, a heart and a passion to search the scriptures about the role of fathers and mothers is because I wanted to do things differently in my generation. Though I would do it flawed, just like they did. And though I would need to extend grace and forgiveness and be thankful for all the parentage that I had and the fact that both of my parents still love the Lord and walked with Him, I still was missing something. And very early on, that gave me a passion to understand from the scriptures what it is that God talks about parenting. You know, when God opens your eyes to a truth, you begin to see it everywhere. Not because you're making it up everywhere, right? Because it is everywhere. And in the scriptures, we have to understand God has revealed himself to mankind as a father. The whole understanding of scriptures comes in a familial kind of relationship. Even in relationships in the New Testament church, we're called brothers and sisters. Again, familial kind of family relationship understanding, and that we have a father, and that is God, and we have one another. We're brothers and sisters. We're to treat the older like fathers, and older men like fathers, and the older women like mothers. There's this familial kind of relationship, and once God opens your eyes to it, you see this is the thread of which God has worked all throughout Human history. He worked through families in the Old Testament. We've been learning about those in the book of Genesis. That doesn't mean it was all pretty. Right? Peter can give a testimony to this as he's been preparing the notes and studies, studying the book of Genesis and helping all of us to learn and to grow. The families of the Bible are messed up. They're just like your family. They're just like my family, messed up. But hopefully, families recognize that we're messed up because of sin. and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, and we've been transformed by the power of the gospel as Christian families, and we say, I know we're gonna fail, we're gonna stumble, we're gonna have problems, but I wanna do my best with all that in me is, Lord, help me to be the best father I can be. Help me to be the best mother I can be. Help me to be the best child I can be in my family. We know we're gonna have problems. There is nothing that I'm going to paint in this sermon series of a perfect family where you just have it all tight, neat, nicked, everything dialed in just perfect because I've not lived that life. That doesn't mean, however, that God doesn't have a desired walk for the families. He wants us to live for him. He wants us to follow him. He wants us to trust him. And he wants us to take a stand for the biblical family. At a juxtaposition to this, when you think about the day in which we live, and I'm not saying this from a political standpoint, I'm talking about just in the whole culture, what is being attacked most in the culture? It's a destruction of the family. It's a deconstruction of the family. All the way down to the point of a deconstruction even of gender identity. Beloved, believe me when I say that is not disconnected from the fact that God desires for families to be distinct, separated, and particular in His design. It should not be a surprise that Satan, the arch enemy of God, wants to destroy that which God has instituted. That began in the garden when Satan came and put a tension in between Adam and Eve with the temptation to obey God, to trust God, or to want to appease a spouse. And that kind of struggle has gone on ever since. And only when the Lord returns will it all be made right. But until then, are we supposed to throw up our hands and say, well, we can't do anything about it? Or are we supposed to say, no, God has called me to walk in obedience to his word, to say, I want to follow what he says. Trust the Lord. Accept the Lord, build the house. They, The husbands, the wives, the fathers, the mothers, they labor in vain that build it, even the children. We need to realize we must trust the Lord. And in this, fathers and mothers must grab a hold of their role and responsibility that they are called to and fulfill it. I love Joshua, and this is a well-known passage of scripture, in Joshua chapter 24 and verse 15, when he is making a statement of his stand, and he says to the people, and if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve. Whether the gods which your father served were on the other side of the flood, the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell, you have a choice. You can serve the gods of the world. You can follow the plan of the world. You can follow the culture and be swallowed up by it. He says, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I believe that's a statement of faith. That's a statement of trust. It doesn't mean everything in Joshua's house is going to go perfectly. It doesn't mean that they will no longer battle with sin. It's a statement though that says, with all that in me is, I'm going to trust God with my family. I'm not gonna go back to the way it was before. Like the children of Israel when they were led out of bondage, they wanted to go back to the taskmasters. But Moses, we gotta go forward. And Joshua, taking that mantle, said, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We need fathers and mothers in 2019 to look the culture in the face and say, you can serve whoever you wanna serve. But as for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. We're gonna stand against the wind. We're going to stand with God, even if that means we stand alone. Knowing that and having that heart and saying, I'm trusting the Lord, I know that it's him and him alone that is going to build my family, it puts you in a perspective, a mindset to say, I am now, I'm gonna do my best to follow God's word in everything. I want to trust him. like I do with everything else in my life. We can go to the New Testament, we can go to the book of Ephesians, and I don't have time to read all these passages, but I will just reference them. You say, we can look to the book of Ephesians in chapter number five, in verses 21, or verse 22 through 33, and we can learn about the roles and relationships of husbands and wives, and those roles and how counter-culturally they are to the world that we live in. First of all, there are husbands and wives. Right, I just filled out yet another marriage license in this state and it says person one, person two. Spouse one, spouse two. God's word still gives clear delineation. Husbands and wives. Wives. are called to joyfully submit themselves unto their own husbands as unto the Lord. This is not a marriage message, so don't get mad here, okay? We're gonna pass on by this right now. But I know immediately some would say, not in my lifetime. But this is what God's word says. Now what that means doesn't mean what some people teaches that it means. But it does mean to come under in submission to the headship of your husband. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject to Christ so that the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands then are called to love their wives. How is that? Oh, that's easy, love your wife. What do they mean by that? It's not the kind of love that the world is spouting. It's a kind of love that sacrifices everything. Even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. The call of a Christian husband is to die on behalf of his wife. Not just being willing to run in front of the train and push her out of the way and take it for her. Hopefully that would be true as well, but the kind of dying that's more difficult, which is dying daily to yourself, your own desires, your own flesh, and serving your wife, washing her with the water of the word. Where do we learn that from? Where do we get those guidelines from? Where do we get those commands from? From the scriptures. Just a few verses down, as were pertains to parenting. Here, children, listen up. This message is for you. I'm gonna talk a lot about what your moms and dads are called to do as Christian parents. But anytime your parents are called to do something, you as children are also called to respond. And there's a right heart, a right attitude in which you're called to respond, and you can have a wrong heart or a wrong attitude in which you respond. And there's penalties for a wrong response, not just with your parents, that's the easy part, but you're accountable to God. That's the hard part. Says children, obey your parents, Ephesians chapter six. Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. But what about, what about in this case, what about in that case? I've said for years, if your parents ask you to do something illegal, immoral, or unethical, something that God says not to do that's very wrong, you're not called to do it. But that's not usually a kid's problem. They don't wanna do what their parents call them to do because they have their parents' sin nature passed down to them. My, how much of me I see in my children at times. Not the best of me, sometimes that. That's how all of us are as children. We, as God's children, we struggle sometimes to obey with that immediate obedience, that delightful, joyful heart attitude that God wants. And we push and kick and try to resist until God brings us along, sometimes with chastening. Children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. Honor thy father and mother which is the first commandment with promise. That's hearkening back to the Ten Commandments. That it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture. It's a caring, nurturing, like a gardener tending a plant. A nurture, an admonition, the strong encouragement of the Lord. This is an admonition for both children and parents. But even as we begin this journey, as we think about verse number three, that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth. If your parents are teaching you right and they're instructing you and they're calling you to walk in obedience, even the simple of obedience to cleaning the room or taking out the trash, those things have implications long term about how you have success in this life and you just don't know it right now. You're learning things along the way that your parents are trying to teach you that will be a benefit to you in the future. And we're gonna talk a lot more about that. I won't belabor the point this morning. But just to say one more thing. You young people, youth, teenagers, young adults, almost there, whatever you prefer to be called, Be careful not to become entitled with all of the blessings and the benefits that you have that your parents provide for you from day to day. It's a lot harder than you think. to just put food on the table, to make sure you have a warm place to sleep, to make sure that you're loved and cared for. And if the families that I know in this church, and if I knew different, be seeking to respond to it, I know the families to be seeking to raise up children in a way that's pleasing. doing their best even if there may be room that we can all improve. That there's love there and not abuse. That's something that you should cherish and you should desire to respond with a heart of obedience as under the Lord. That's your calling. That you may live long on the earth. That you may be blessed abundantly. Psalm 127 again begins with this. Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Unless or except the Lord keep the city, the watchman who's standing on guard is staying awake but in vain. The first thing that we need to grab a hold of if we're going to be faithful parents is to remember to trust God. To not pursue a vain way of living, Ecclesiastes, the preacher, talks about the vanity of life. It begins with the admonition, vanity of vanity, saith the preacher, all is vanity. It's empty, apart from walking in obedience to God. And I pray that we wouldn't pursue a life of vanity, but that we would pursue a life trusting the Lord. I'm gonna end this morning, not nearly as far as I thought we would be, but I wanna end with this passage of scripture in Proverbs chapter three, verses five and eight. This passage of scripture, as I've shared with you before, It's really been a life verse for my wife and I, and it was first tested, as I'll share later, in relation to our family. Proverbs 3 begins with these words. My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. And I believe this, that trusting God is really an issue of the heart. And I think that parenting is mostly issues of the heart. For length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee, bind them upon thy neck, write them upon the table of thine heart. Oh, may we be filled with mercy and truth in all that we do. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. Put it in modern terms, don't lean on your own plans. Don't think your way is better than God's way. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all of thy ways, acknowledge him. and he shall direct thy paths. In all of your ways, when you get up in the morning, say, Lord, I wanna trust you in everything that you've given to me. I wanna trust you with the resources that you've given to me. I wanna trust you with the health you've given to me. The ability to work that you've given to me. The wife or the husband that you've given to me. the wife or the husband I hope you will give to me, the children that you've given to me, the grandchildren that you've given to me. God, in every area, I want to trust you. There's not an area that is outside of the purview of God, and there's not an area on the planet that God does not say, that's mine. So we can trust him. not leaning on understanding, but in all of our ways, acknowledging him. And by the way, this acknowledgement does not just mean a mental acknowledgement. Yes, God's in charge of it all. Acknowledging in light of what we're talking about means doing what God says, like following his plan. Acknowledging is not like, yeah, okay, God, you're in charge of everything, now let me do my own thing. No, it's saying, God, I wanna trust you, and I wanna acknowledge that trust by my acts of obedience to your word. That's what he's calling us to, even when it's hard. And knowing when we do that, you will direct our paths. My wife and I could both stand and testify over many areas of our life, over many years of our life, things that we have trusted in the Lord, and not in a perfect way, I'm not setting this up as a pinnacle of perfection in any way, but just to say this, that we were trusting the Lord, we were seeking to acknowledge him in all of our ways, and he directed our paths very differently than we thought he would. But they were his paths. Some have been hard. Others have been a joy, a delight, but in all of them we have known that God is with us. It says, be not wise in thine own eyes. Don't think you know better than God in anything. God's given you children. I think about some of the young parents in this room, the little babies that we've gotten to visit recently. holding that little bundle. And you know what every first-time parent does? Every second-time parent, third-time parent, 14th-time parent, they marvel at the trust that's been given to them to have this child. And all of a sudden, all of their perfect plans and dreams and know-hows gets thrown out the window, and early on, desperation sets in, and you realize, okay, God let me have a part of this, but he's in control of this. So I need to go to his word. I pray that's where you'll go. I need to go to godly husbands, godly fathers, godly wives, godly mothers. I need to seek counsel. Because this is such a trust. And humanly speaking, though we trust in the Lord, I don't want to mess my part up. It's too important. And the time that it takes for them to get from that to 24 is just a breath. And you don't want to live with regret. of all that you should have done and didn't. You want to live every day trusting God, asking him to direct your paths, acknowledging him in all that you do, walking in obedience, and allowing the Lord to lead you in his ways. Not being wise in your own eyes, not being filled with yourself, but fearing the Lord. And in that, departing from evil, I pray we would be blessed. Let us be a people. Say, Lord, I want to trust you with everything. And I want to trust you in raising my family. that they might be one day dangerous arrows for God, launched out for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the furtherance of his kingdom. And in the weeks to come, I pray that you would pray and ask God to give you a soft heart and an open mind to what the scripture reveals. And that you would even now say, Lord, just like I trust you with my life, with my salvation, I wanna trust you with my family. I wanna trust you with raising my kids. And there's things I struggle with that I don't know how. And I wanna learn. And I believe this, he will show you. And maybe in these next few weeks, God will reveal some things that will help along the way.