If everyone can turn to Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six. And we're going to read verse four. It says here, and ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Amen. Today, we will continue our Bible study on the family, as I mentioned. And having considered wives and husbands, I have decided that instead of going to the children first, we'll get the parents before the children. And so we're going to go a little against the order here. In Ephesians 6, it has the children listed first in verses one and two, or at three, but I wanna go with the verse four, the parents. This portion of instruction will give overarching biblical principles about being parents. It's not my intention to get into too many details or specifics, as I desire just to give a general biblical set of principles that you can then take and apply specifically to your family's situation. And I will be taking the principles from the word of God. And it is my hope to leave out all the crazy stuff. that Protestantism and even in Reformed circles, you've seen like, there's been crazy things within these circles that become fads, posing as historic practices that end up being destructive. You know, there's many little things that, you know, every 20 years comes into the life of the church in the United States that You know, certain men or organizations say, oh, this is how it's always been. And next thing you know, after 20 years of that being the way to raise your children, there's a wake of destruction. We have, for example, the Quiver Fool movement. That's an example. There is an insidious undertow in the Queer Fool movement that has been destructive. Or the Gothard principles of family. Bill Gothard, who has influenced the famous Duggar family. Bill Gothard's principles of family, very diabolical and destructive. And many families have been hurt by his set of principles. As a father of six children myself, as you know, the oldest is 28 and the youngest is 16, I have some experience from putting into practice what God teaches. But I also have a lot of failures as a father, which I have learned what not to do. And I'll eventually leave these things in the study. Now, in this verse, in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4, it is addressing the fathers specifically. And I don't want to lose sight of this. It's specifically addressing the fathers, but that doesn't mean the mothers are not included, okay? The mothers are included, but the fathers are the heads of the house. So he speaks about the fathers. But as I want this, I want all of you to understand that this is speaking of the responsibilities of parents. And so, you all know my favorite exercise when we start out a little portion is participation. So, congregation, tell me, children, you too, What is a parent? What is a father? What is a mother? Some participation here. Guardians. Guardians. OK. Guardians. OK. Good. What else? Teachers. Teachers. What else? Authorities. Authorities. Okay? Nurturers, yes. Good. What else are parents, fathers and mothers? Mentors, good. What else? Malcolm, you wanna say something? Grandparents. Grandparents. Yeah, many of us, or many of you are lucky enough to have grandparents to know. Good. Providers. Providers. Good. Good. Anything else you think of? Caretakers. Caretakers. That would be guardians. Progenitors. Progenitors. Police officers? Nobody. Tough job. Well, kind of. You know, responsible for discipline. Influencers. Influencers. OK. All right. That's a very your generation term right there. All right. Good. All right. Now, as you look at this list that you guys have given to us, could you just, in your head, you don't have to say it out loud, but could you back every one of these terms up with something, a verse in the Bible? What do you think? Which one of those do you think you cannot find in the word of God? I think they're all in there, right? Maybe not the exact word, but the definition of the word, right? Good, good. So this is a very good list to work off of. And as we go through this study for today, just look at the list and see, hey, how does whatever is up here work or interact with what I'm going to talk about today? All right, so let's see. how this list relates to our verse. Ephesians 6 verse 4 says, Provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So nurturing, which of these words, besides nurtures, would also be part of nurturing? Mentoring, providing. Okay, anything else? How about admonition, bringing up an admonition of the Lord? What of these terms would fall under that? Teachers. Teachers. Authorities. Authorities, good. And mentor. And mentor, good, good. Influencing, because you are to be a model to your children, right, on how to live for the Lord. Good. So we can see even in Ephesians 6.4, just about all these terms can be extracted from this one verse. Good. Now, as I get into this, I do want to recognize that we do live in a fallen world. I'm just looking at the text message that Castro sent. Sorry, got distracted. They're out, so. Hi, Castro. We do live in a fallen and wicked world. And it may be that some of you have never known or had a loving father or a loving mother. And so when you hear from God's word or from others about a loving father or a caring mother, it becomes painful because you didn't have that same experience. Your experience of that you have from your parents may have been more of pain and suffering. And so I recognize that reality and I do not want to minimize or take away from it. But I want you to know that your heavenly father, who knows all and sees all, knows for a fact what you went through. And he knows your pain and your suffering. And I want you to know that your heavenly father does love you and has saved you if you believe in him. His only begotten son he sent to shed his precious blood and to save you. And so God wants to be the father to you that you may never have had. And so when we talk about parents and how it's described in the word of God, I don't want you to that your experience you have with your parents to be transferred to what, who God is in himself as a father to us, or how the scripture describes what a parent should be like. Because while our earthly parents may have failed us, and may have even done great physical and mental harm, our God will not do that. He will not do that to you. He loves you and wants you to know his love and care for you in Christ. So if that has been your experience, I want you to rest in God. And if you are a parent today and have gone through a horrible experience in your youth, do not fear being like those parents which hurt you. You are in Christ, so you are a new creation. Allow his word to guide you. Allow his word to be the standard that teaches you how to be a godly parent to your beloved children, and seek the model from the word of God for you to become, to be the better parent according to God's word, and not according to the model you may have seen from your earthly parents. To the single people, or for those who are married and do not yet have children, I want you to know that there is much for you to learn from this study as well. For in this study, if you pay close attention, not only will you learn of what the Bible teaches of being a parent, you will also learn how to be less selfish and less given to your own vanities. You will learn how to walk more closely with God as one who gives up of himself for others. Because for those who are parents, you know That is one of the first lessons of being a parent. You give up on yourself for another. And one of the first things you give up is what? Sleep. As basic as that may sound, until you've been there, you won't know really how hard that is. As I said earlier, Paul is speaking first and foremost to the fathers and tells them what they're to be like and how. to be like it. But Paul outlines here are the duties of fathers towards their children. And it doesn't mean that mothers have none. Of course they do. But the father being the head of the house, and fathers, listen up, the fathers being the head of the house, they are the ones responsible to see what God has called them to be and to do actually happens. Because on the day of judgment, they will give an account on how well they discharged their duties as fathers and as husbands. Because they're the head. And those who are the head have a greater responsibility and therefore a greater judgment. But on the other hand, also a greater reward. We need to be more sober about this as men. But we have a greater responsibility. And we will have to give more of an account on the day of judgment. So keep that in mind. Taking your duty as father and as husband very seriously. Now, this lecture is going to be short. I'm going to keep these short, because especially when we have fellowship meal, we've got to keep it shorter so we can get there on time. But I want you guys still to interact with me, all right? This is not just a lecture. I want interaction. So if I say anything that provokes a thought or a comment, raise your hand and let's interact, okay? Or if I need to clarify anything, same thing, please interact. Verse four, notice the duties that are mentioned. The duties mentioned are words of prohibition and precept. Look at verse four now. Tell me, what is the prohibition given here to fathers? What is the prohibition given to fathers? Don't provoke your children to rile. Good. Don't provoke your children to rile. What does that mean? What does that look like? What does it look like? What does that mean to provoke children to rock? I think one example would be not setting clear expectations of rules in the household and what's expected of kids. because they need structure, and if we're not consistent with structure for them, then they end up getting in trouble, you know, because they don't know what's expected of them, and they don't know how to act, and then when they get in trouble for something that they don't know what the rules are, you know, incredibly frustrating because they need structure, they need a system. So that's one aspect of that, I think, is providing structure to help so that they know how to act. Okay, all right. Any other thoughts? Being harsh, being over rigorous, right? Being unnecessarily provocative. provoking our children, right? Just egging them on or even insulting them. These things provoke our children to wrath. What other prohibitions that necessarily follow from this one that are not specifically mentioned in this verse? What other prohibitions do fathers have towards their children that flow from this verse? What other things that we as parents should not do? You know, in the scriptures, the law of Proverbs, it talks about, you know, beating your children with a rod, you know, spanking them. And instead of, like, spanking them, perhaps if you sit down and try to lecture a Bible, rather than spanking them, perhaps that could grow into an attitude to frustrate your child. It's actually better just to beat them with a rod, as the Bible says, than to lecture them, right? Right. Or spank them, right? Yeah. It's actually frustrating, you know? Yeah. Well, like, why did you do that? They just give them beating. They learn their lesson that way. A beating and love. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK. What else? Well, look at the, what would be the opposites of these words? Right? Those would be prohibited. Right? The opposites. Neglection. Antony. Antony. Yeah. I said neglection. Yeah. Neglecting them. Negligence. Right? Negligence. It happens. You hear all the time in the news, right? Neglecting a child, negligence, not feeding them, starving them, carelessness, lack of attention, being remiss in your duties, right? Dereliction of your duty, right? Good. Now, what does Paul teach regarding how we are to conduct ourselves towards our children? How are we to conduct, from verse four, how are we to conduct ourselves towards our children? What does it say there? Nurture, instruction, right? Admonition meaning instruction, right? So we are to nurture them, we are to instruct them, We are to nourish them as well, right? We nourish them with the very basic things of life, right? Food, clothing, a roof over their heads. We also are to provide them the necessities of life, things that conduce to godly development of both the body and the mind. Right? We have to care for the bodies of our children. Let's not be gnostic about our children, right? We need to take care of the physical bodies as well. All right? How do we nurture our children? How do we nurture them? Love? Perfect. What else? Food, okay. Good. You got to feed them, right? You want that bench pressing at 30 pounds when you're 16 years old. I see you jumping. Hold up. OK. OK. Good. Good. Good discipline. guidance, counsel, instruction, teaching. That's what catechism means. It's a Latin word for instruction. That's all that means. Catechizing our children means instructing them. And so there's many more fundamental principles and actions that must take place for the rest to be done right. So there's even more fundamental things than what you have mentioned. And Matt mentioned the first one. The first, most important thing of all is love, right? We have to love our children. Love is the foundational act for all things, demonstrating that to our, demonstrating love to our children is most central. If they learn that from you, then Lord willing, they will grow up to be loving as well. It is a fountainhead for everything else which flows if we want to be godly parents. is right next to praying for our children, right? We are to pray for them, we are to be faithful in our prayer for them, and even pray for future children that you don't have. Maybe not yet, expecting children. Pray for your future children that you desire. We are to be an example for them. We are to be an example by our own walk to our children. You know, they see you every single day. They see you, they know you better than anyone else, and they know you better than you think. All right? They may not say it. They may not say it, but they know your feathers. They know your words. They are quick, even at a young age, to see it, to see a contradiction between your words and your watch. Okay? And they will quickly see your hypocrisy before anyone else. You may be good at hiding it from everyone else outside your house, but inside your house, they see it. They know exactly what kind of person you are. So we are to be careful on how we are influencers towards our children, how we model godliness in the walk with Christ. Because we as parents can be more of a harm, more of a crippling harm for the spiritual development of our children by the way we speak and act outside of the home that is very opposite inside the home. And we can blame the public school, we can blame private school, we can blame Las Vegas, perverse society. But in the end, we all look to ourselves. Because if we didn't provide that godly example, forget everything else outside. It starts with you. It starts with you. It's easy to blame the school system or the environment outside of the home. But many times, children Walk away from the faith because of the example of your own parents. So be circumspect about that. So let's consider then the love we are to have which is foundational to our being parents. And I'll just touch on that and then we'll pick it up next week some more. If you have children, I would tell you that this principle is more applicable than you may even realize. Love, love. I mean, we may think about it and say, well, of course I love my children. Of course I would do anything for our children, but it has to be said, because even in Titus chapter two, the apostles speak on the duties of older women towards younger women and older men and their duties toward younger men. He says, one of the duties that the older Christians are to instruct the younger Christians is to love their children. He spells it out, because he has to. Because even though it may be self-evident, and you may say that that goes without saying, given the sinful nature of man, it has to be said. It has to be said, it has to be taught. Recently, I'm giving an example. When I went to the prison system to share the gospel to the people there, unbeknownst to me, I had no idea until after I left that one of the people we sat with, and he sat right next to me to my left, was a man who, previous to being incarcerated, was if I would believe in Christian, King James, speaking in tongues, and hey, I'm on fire for the Lord. You know why he was in jail? Because he was so on fire of the Lord that he tried to cast out the demons from his children and abused them so hard that he almost killed them. He starved them. But he thought he was loving them. This is why it's important to understand what it is to love our children. We must learn to love them. Our children will act up. Our children are going to act up. The response is not to starve them as a form of discipline. That is never to be done, right? You never starve your children as a form of discipline. That is actually wickedness. You're not to beat them to a pulp, or you're leaving bruises and things like that. That is wickedness. God speaks of the love that Abraham had for his only son, Isaac. God said this, take now thy son, thy only son Isaac, whom thou lovest. So God highlights the love that Abraham had towards Isaac. He loved him. Then we have the example, and this example could go one way or the other, depending on which angle you look at it, and both angles are going to be correct, and both angles we can learn a lot from, but the split love of parents, as we see, with Isaac and Rebekah. In Genesis 25-28, we read this. Isaac loved Esau because he didn't eat of his venison, but Rebekah loved Jacob. So, a lot of lessons to learn from these two parents, right? We see the love that both of them have for one of their children. Now, it's commendable that they love their children, However, parents, and if you have more than one child, you've probably heard this question asked, right? And what question is that? Which one's your favorite? Yeah, exactly, right. Exactly, right? Parents, learn from Isaac and Rebecca here. Don't do that. Don't do that, right? Don't have the split love. because it will have consequences that can be very dire, as you see played out in the lives of Esau and Jacob. Guard your hearts here. Guard your hearts. Now, you need to understand, when you split your love like this, or you pick one child to be your favorite, you're gonna harm that child and the rest. Now, Usually, usually, it's the case that sons will give a pass when the father shows more love to the daughter. Usually, not all the time. Because it's the nature, it's the nature of things that deference is given to the women. Because even as the boys grow older, And those of you who have mixed gender children, you're going to see this. They become very protective of their sisters. Very protective, right? That's what a good brother is supposed to do, is be protective of their sisters. And so it is natural that they won't get as upset when the daughters are demonstrating a little bit more love than the sons. But don't do that. Don't make it too obvious if you do things like that. And it is generally the case that the mothers tend to love their sons, not love more, but give more attention, more deference to the sons. And then the fathers tend to give more deference to the daughters. And that's just, Especially Latino, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But don't pit love of one child against another. Don't ever do that. The love, then, you're to show to your children is one of self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice. Parents, you know this. Self-sacrifice. There's a lot of care. There's a lot of pain. putting yourself out to your own hurt for their good. Parents who are selfish or vain will be very poor parents. And they'll demonstrate a great lack of love towards their children. And we see this in society. We see this a lot in society. They're very selfish. They want themselves first. The child is looking at this as a hindrance. Man, I can't go out to parties anymore because I got this kid. Right? I can't go into movies anymore because I got this kid. And how many times have we watched on the news, child left alone in the house? Young child, we're not talking about teenagers, right? Young child left alone in the house because the mother went off to party. And the child gets hurt, killed, or is found wandering the streets. See, if you're going to be a parent, and you're selfish, you need to put that to death. Stop being dope. Can't be selfish and expect to be a parent. It's not gonna work. Then we have to learn sometimes, we have to learn to deny ourselves. And sometimes that may even mean rejecting a promotion at work that will pull you away from the house even more. Which will consume more of your time where you're dedicating it more to your job than your children. So you're learning to be more selfish, less selfish, and more giving to your children. You have to be careful of these things because they come up. They come up. Love is what nourishes your children. Like water to a fruit tree, you must water your children with love to see good fruit in them. You must fertilize their growth with godly built construction and prune them with good wholesome discipline. Such foundational nurture will set them up to have a life more full of joy and set the stage, so to speak, to be more receptive to the gospel. Now, this is not a foolproof formula. You know, as Americans, we want that pill, right? That one pill that will solve all things. We want that one diet, right? I don't have to worry about that. But we want that one diet. We want that one powder that will instantly give us the muscles that we're looking for, right? We want that one thing. And in the church, we want that one program that will guarantee our children will become Christians when they grow up. Don't put them in public school. Put them in private school. Don't put them in private school. Put them in homeschool. Don't do this. Follow this program. Follow this other program. None of that's going to guarantee anything. I'll tell you that right now. I have seen covenant children go through the public schools, graduate, and become Christians. I have seen covenant children. be homeschooled all their life, graduate, and turn their back on Christ. How do you explain that? There's no foolproof, okay? What we must do as parents, we are to train them up. As verse four says, we are to train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We have to love them. But in the end, just like Jacob and Esau, Isaac and Ishmael, or look at David's children. Look at many of the children throughout church history of famous theologians you may have heard of. Where are their children? Why haven't you heard of their children? Francis Turgeon's child, son, grew up to be a flaming liberal. wrote a systematic theology contradicting his father. So what I want to caution you is that there is no formula. Americans, we love formulas. The scripture tells us we are to love them, we're not to provoke them to wrath, we're to raise them in the virtue and admonition of the Lord. We must do these things and constantly pray that God's covenant promises will come to fruition in the lives of our children. And then we'll continue to talk about these things. I don't want to, I don't want to like, you know, depress you and have you like, oh no, you know, there's no hope. There is hope, right? Our children, many children come to faith in Christ. Again, when I say, look at the children of the famous theologians, you will find out that many of them, a majority of them, came to faith in Christ. Some of them didn't. Okay? There is no guarantee, in other words. Let's not fall into the same, you know, I say this a lot, let's never fall into the same mentality of the Jews who said, we are all children of Abraham. Of course God loves me, right? That's what they thought. They were saved because they were, by fiat, by de facto, children of Abraham. Of course they're gonna be saved. We are not to think of our children that way. We, yeah, they're baptized in the church, but we are to raise them in the things of God, okay? And think of Monica. Who knows, who's Monica? Not my daughter. Who's Monica in church history? Augustine's mom. What did Monica always do? Prayed for Augustine. And what was Augustine's lifestyle when he was young? Rebellious. Rebellious, debauchery, sleeping around with many different women, having the child out of wedlock, right? Did she ever give up praying for him? Never. And then what happened? He heard, what did he hear children saying one day? Those famous two words in church history. What did he hear? What did St. Augustine hear children saying one day? Tolelegia, right? Pick up and read. And he picked up the Bible and read. And the spirit converted him. So even if your child at this moment will see a little If your child, when he grows up, or she grows up, and wanders from the faith, don't give up. Don't give up praying. Continue to pray for them. No matter what lifestyle they end up falling into, if they do, be like Monica. Pray, pray, pray. You may never see it, But the Lord is faithful, and he may call them to faith and repentance. We're never to give up our children. Look at Jacob and Joseph. So never give up. Always pray for them. Love them while you're young, and continue to love them when they're old. When they're older, they get a little bit more pushy. You know, challenging you all the time, but we're never to give up on them. Always to love them, always to nurture them, always to teach them. We'll get more into this in the weeks to come about our children. And we'll talk about discipline as well. And we'll talk about, because I know that's a big one. And we'll continue to go from what the word of God teaches here. I'm not using a system or anything like that. I'm not following some kind of fad. That's the thing today. I don't know what it is anyways, but there's so many out there. But I'm just going to, let's just take from the scriptures and discuss these things and go from there. Any final thoughts, questions?