We're reading Colossians chapter three, verses 20 through 21. Again, this is God's holy word. Take heed how you hear it. Children, obey your parents in all things. This is well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Thus far the reading of God's holy word. Amen. I want you to imagine the following situation. Teenage girl comes home late on Saturday night. Her friends drop her off in front of the house. She walks up to the front door, and she quietly opens the front door, trying not to wake up her parents. She comes in through the foyer into the living room, and there are her parents, worried, waiting on her, partly upset, partly discouraged, and they say, sweetie, come sit down. And she looks at them and she says, I'm not going to talk to you. My friends, they go out late on Saturday night. I'm the only one that's not allowed to come in late and go out and have a good time, and I don't want to listen to it. She runs off, as it were, down the hall into her bedroom and slams the door. And her daddy and her mommy look at each other and they just kind of frown and just kind of, what are we going to do? Now, this situation is more or less brought up by Ted Tripp. Ted Tripp is a preacher, counselor, author. Of course, you can identify with this type of situation as well in some way. And in light of this situation, this scenario, at the beginning of his book, Ted Tripp on Parenting, he writes these words. By age 10 or 12, scores of children have already left home. I refer to numbers of children who by age 10 or 12 have effectively left mom or dad as an authority or reference point for their lives. Our culture has lost its way with respect to parenting. We are a rudderless ship without a compass. We lack both a sense of direction and the capacity to direct ourselves. Now, I trust that you can identify with this basic problem. It's common in our culture, okay, speaking not so much about the church right now, but just in our culture, for parents not to get along with their kids, for kids in high school, certainly in college, to rebel and to go against their authority, and it leaks into the church as well. I know of a particular congregation, even, and denomination that has more or less, as a culture within their congregation, they expect their children to rebel. It's just common. After all, I'm a teenager. This is when I can have fun. And we have this issue that's perhaps, I don't want to over-exaggerate it, but in my opinion, perhaps it's a little bit more emphasized and more of a problem in our day and in a world of personal freedom. Personal freedom is an idol in our culture. It leaks over into our parenting. And Ted Tripp asked the question, how has this happened? And I want to speak to that. I think Paul is speaking to that generally in this passage of Scripture. There's a certain sense in which, well this has happened because of sin. And parents are sinners. And children are sinners. And this is why there's some, in some measure, rebellion. But I believe that Paul, in just two verses, I mean, what does Paul have to say to parents and children? Just two verses. We need to understand this and think about it. And I think it's helpful. I think it can shed light on this issue. And I want to speak to you here. If you have young kids, we have several families like myself with young kids. I do believe Paul is speaking mainly to children who are in the home still and younger. But I also want to speak to you if you don't even have kids. There's application here for you if you don't have children. Or perhaps your children have grown. They're out of the home. There's still usefulness here. And I want to speak to you, especially if maybe you read these verses and you're thinking to yourself, Sam, I have provoked my children. What do I do now? I want to speak to you as well. The lesson I want you to see this morning is that a Christ-honoring parent-child relationship involves obedient children and endearing parents. It's the lesson, endearing, doing all that you can to to make someone affectionate towards you. That's putting this positively. A Christ-honoring parent-child relationship involves obedient children and endearing parents. And I want to cover this lesson to you under two points. First, verse 20, obedient children. And then verse 21, endearing parents with a focus on the fathers. So verse 20. Again, it says, Obey your parents and all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Paul brings up in his epistle here, he is addressing in this section of the epistle specific commands. He's gone from general Christ-centered living to more specific Christ-centered living. And he addressed the children specifically. Now this has reference to adults as well. I do believe that Paul is focusing on those who are still in the home, very much dependent upon their children. But the fifth commandment requires us to honor our parents, whether we're adults or not. When there's a marriage, okay, Genesis 2, 24, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. Okay, there's a new, a new household has established. And so there's, the relationship might have changed if you've been married, but, and you've gone on, but you still are to honor your parents and there's, there's material here to reflect upon. But I want you to think about, under this first heading, two main things. I want you to think first who is being addressed and what is being addressed. So children, okay. But think about this for a moment. Paul, when he addresses the church, he addresses children. I want you to think about that for a minute. It does affect our parenting. It has direct impact on what we're looking at this morning in regards to obedience. How do we look at our children? We want to have the mind of Christ. We want to have the mind of the apostles. We want to understand something rightly. How do we look at our children? Are our children members of the congregation? Okay, are the promises for our children, are our children in covenant with God? Are they members of the congregation? Well, they are. Notice that he's addressing the congregation, specific people in the congregation, wives, husbands, fathers, bondservants, masters, and he addresses the children as well. This is very important. Colossians chapter one, verses two says, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colossae. to the saints, to the holy ones. Who are holy? The children are holy. Of course, that's a direct reference to 1 Corinthians 7, 14. The child of one believing parent is holy. How are they holy? Well, they're members of the church. They're in covenant with God. Christ gets to this idea in Matthew 19, 14, when he says, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them. For of such is the kingdom of heaven. We baptize our children in this congregation, in this denomination. Now this verse has nothing to do directly with baptism. But the issue of baptism has everything to do with indirect issues. If there's a verse in the Bible that said baptized the children of believers, then there would be very little debate about the question. If there was a verse that said, only baptized believers, then there would be very little debate about the issue. The issue is about secondary issues. The issue of baptism is about secondary issues. How do we look at our children? Are our children in covenant with God? Are they holy? I believe this passage of Scripture deals with that directly, not just indirectly. Think about the purpose here. Children obey your parents in all things. For this is well pleasing to the Lord. The purpose, kids. Kids, you are in relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, whether or not you personally trust in Him. The reason why, it's from a covenantal perspective. Your parents, at least one parent you have, is a believer. And Paul is calling upon you kids to obey your parents because it pleases Jesus. Kids, when you obey your parents, You're pleasing Jesus. Jesus is a real man, just like I'm a real man speaking to you. And He's in heaven. He's also, of course, God. He's more than just a man. He's the God-man. And when you obey your parents, you're pleasing to Him. And Paul wants you to think about that. Now, think about this also, again, going back to what I've been saying about who is in view here. These are holy children. These aren't pagan children. They're holy. The Greek gets at this. Only one translation translates it this way. I find it interesting. One translation says, Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord. This is your acceptable duty in the Lord. You're in covenant with Christ. And this is your acceptable duty. Paul gets at it in Ephesians 6. He gets at the same idea in Ephesians 6. He says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. One of the things that I want you kids to think about is that you are in a relationship with the Lord Jesus whether you realize it or not, covenantally. It affects the way we parent as well. I have many friends. who are Baptists that do not believe that the children are in covenant with God. And I'm glad that they're inconsistent because they are really good parents. And they treat their children as if they are in covenant with God. They teach them how to pray. They teach them the law of God. Yet theologically, they are Philistines and they're Jebusites. But that's not how we look at our children. We look at them, we teach them the scriptures, we teach them how to pray, because they are in covenant with God. We don't presume, parents, we don't presume that our children are saved. We don't presume that they're regenerated. We call upon them to believe the Lord Jesus Christ, but we don't assume that they're not either. They very well may be regenerate. And from the earliest age, you can call upon them to obey Christ. When you're disciplining your kids, parents, call upon them to have faith in Christ. They're not only obeying you because you're their parent. They can please the Lord Jesus from the very beginning. Christ-centered parenting. And I want to cover this because this is important. This issue does affect our parenting. I'm thankful that Many of my Baptist friends are not consistent with this. Not always constantly and only calling upon their kids to believe before they teach them the law. Before they teach them how to pray. But be consistent, that's what they would do. But we adopt a biblical perspective. Our kids are holy. They're not pagan children. They're children among the saints. Now what are you children to do? The text says, children obey your parents. and all things." What does it mean to obey? Now notice that he says parents, not just the father. He's going to mention the fathers only in verse 21. But just like that verse doesn't only pertain to fathers, verse 20, we have two people in view. We know from scripture that children are to obey, not just the mothers. If there's any question, it may not be a problem we have. both parents. Proverbs 23, 22. Listen to your father who beget you and do not despise your mother when she is old. What are we to do as children? We are to obey our parents. This is not an absolute obedience. The only person, the only being that we have absolute obedience to is God. This verse says obey your parents in all things. Acts 5.29, we have that example there. Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. And so that's on the table for sure. But children, there is something to be said. Your parents can, they can abuse this as well, but your parents can say to you, when you say, why should I do this? They can say to you justly, because I said so. For things in different, things in general, you are to obey your parents. Certainly things in which God has commanded you to do as well. One commentator writes, in things in different we must especially confide in the judgment of a superior since he tells us in the place of God. He tells us in the place of God what is expedient and what is proper. Kids, children, God has given you your parents. He's given you your parents. to help you, to teach you. It's very wise of you to listen. So what does it mean to obey? Well, the first thing it means, even though it's not absolute, it means to listen when they speak. Children, do you listen to your parents when they speak to you? I'm not getting to what you do. That's part of it. I'll get to that in a second. But do you listen? Now, when you watch a movie, or maybe you have an iPhone, and you have a problem paying attention to them, But when your parents speak to you, do you stop what you're doing? And do you listen to them? I find it interesting that both in the Greek and the Hebrew, the word to obey is connected etymologically to the word hear. In fact, in Hebrew it's the same. To listen to someone is to obey them. It's certainly the beginning part of it. Do you listen? Do you do what they require? This is maybe the most basic understanding of obedience. To do what they require. But I want you to think about this kids. About how you do what they require. God wants you to obey immediately. I know this from personal experience. Is that you hear your mom or your daddy say, clean up your room. And you're, I don't know, playing a game or hanging out with friends. You say to yourself, I'll do it and I'll finish my game. You don't ask your parents if you can finish your game. You just do it anyways. You want to do it immediately. Instant obedience is what God requires of you. You want to do it cheerfully. You can go about obeying your parents with your body and not obeying your parents inside your heart. You know what complaining is, children? You know what complaining is? I don't want to clean up my room. I don't want to have to clean the kitchen up. But you're doing it. I want you to obey cheerfully. Do all things without complaining. Philippians 2.14. Obedience means to fix what they correct. It means to stay away from what they forbid. It means to learn what they teach. Children, your parents teach you. They help you understand life. They teach you how to act properly in public, or maybe how to show respect, or how to clean your room, or when you get older, some of you older kids, quote unquote, how to pursue a career choice, and how to get on life. And are you learning? Are you listening in that sense? Are you obeying in that sense to your parents? Are you learning from them? Obedience to parents also involves the idea of softening under discipline. To soften under discipline. You could be disciplined. You could say in your heart, I may be sitting down, but I'm standing up in my heart. You know, just sitting in your room after discipline and being angry with your parents. Now I'm assuming, in this case, that your parents are they apply perfect discipline which isn't always the case. Are you softening under discipline? Proverbs 15 verse 5, a fool, we read this in the worship, a fool despises his father's instruction but he who receives correction is prudent. He who receives correction is prudent. Now this is what obedience is and children you can take courage Because even though this is difficult to obey, it's difficult to obey imperfect parents, kids. Your parents are called to endear themselves to you. And that's a very difficult task as well. And parents, I want to speak to you, secondly, about being endearing parents. Verse 21. Verse 21 says, Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Let's think about this for a moment. I want to talk about three main things in this verse. Who is involved? Why the command is the way it is? And what exactly is commanded here? Now, who? Paul mentions fathers. Now mothers are not excluded from this as we look at scripture. In my experience, which is very fallible, it is harder for mothers to do this type of thing. Titus 2 verse 4 says for mothers to love their children. They are to endear themselves to their kids. Not just teach them, not just be there for them, but to love them. But I believe Paul addresses the fathers here for a reason. What's interesting, fathers, is that Paul says this twice. In Ephesians chapter 6, he says the same thing. As well as some other things in Ephesians 6. Do not provoke your children. I believe that's for a reason. The first reason That's probably a secondary reason. It seems to be the case that men, fathers, are more prone to do this type of thing. Maybe it's because they're not normally around them as much. Maybe it's because they don't read their kids as well as the mothers do. They're not always around them. The main reason why I believe Paul addresses the fathers here specifically, and why I'm going to speak mainly to the fathers here, is because the fathers are the leaders of their home. They're the ones that have the authority in the home. They're the ones that administer discipline, not only, but perhaps mainly, making the decision to do something like that. And so, Paul addresses the fathers and he says, do not provoke your children. He says, lest they become discouraged. And this is, in a sense, a reason. But I find it helpful, by way of motivation, to mention this first. We want to, as fathers, make sure that we do not provoke our children. It's very important. Paul says, lest they become discouraged. What's it like for a child to be discouraged? Well, it's a really sad thing. It's pitiful. It's destructive. Have you ever seen a child, maybe they're in high school, maybe they're in college, and they're just sad people. They're just depressed. Now there may be many reasons for that, speaking generally, but one of the reasons for that may be because in the growing up they never really loved emotionally, affectionately, truly. Maybe their father specifically provoked them, and they're sad. The Proverbs speaks to this. Proverbs 15, 13. A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. There is an image described there. When fathers provoke their children, it dries up their bones. They have a broken spirit. They are sad. A couple of other things happen to them. They have low self-confidence. Maybe it doesn't show itself. It certainly can show itself when they're younger, but when they grow up, they don't really try hard. Maybe they can't get a job. Maybe they have a hard time getting a degree or finishing school. They're always told by their overcritical fathers, perhaps, all their faults. They have a low self-confidence. This is what it means to discourage children. It's a sad thing. We don't want to do this. Even to the point where they commit what is called contumacy. Contumacy is a fancy word that I want you to understand. It means to just not respond. Here is the thing, if you are a child in a house with a father who is overly critical and is provoking them. No matter what you do, you are always going to get a harsh word and get punished. What is the point? It can even lead to something like this. This is what Paul is getting at. He says, a discouraged or disheartened child. And I want you to think about that now, first, because we don't want to do this. We don't want to do this. And especially you fathers, I want you to think about, in detail, what it means to not provoke your children. This is important. Paul says it twice. What does it mean to provoke your children? And the positive, what I want you to see, is to endear yourself. Couple of things. It could be little things, perhaps not so really little, but perhaps we look at them as little things. Like inconsistency in parenting. Fathers and mothers need to be on the same page. If the mother's doing one thing and the father's doing another thing, that can provoke them. You can also be partial. to your children. Be very aware that you don't have favorites. That's a terrible thing to have favorite children. The patriarchs did that. The patriarchs did that. Joseph. Isaac loved Joseph. Jacob loved Joseph more than the others. It's a sad thing. That's part of being inconsistent. Maybe you're not informing them when they're being punished, why they're being punished. That's part of that miscommunication and favoritism. Not providing for their needs. 1 Timothy 5.8 says, But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. As fathers we need to make sure that they have what they need. They have clothes, they have food, and there is some education that is provided to them. Otherwise they will be provoked. Excessive discipline. is another, perhaps it's in my mind, in my opinion, the main way that fathers can provoke their children is excessive discipline. Now this does not rule out discipline itself. In Paul's day, We need to think about culture. We need to think about context. In Paul's day, in Roman law, parents could kill their children. They could sell them into slavery. That was the law. In our day, it's not the same. In our day, it's very much different. Discipline is not popular. Spanking, I believe, is still legal in this state. In other states, the Bible teaches what would be called spanking. Disciplining with the rod. And that's not an unloving thing. That in itself provokes... The scriptures speak contrary to that. Proverbs 13.24 says, He who spares his rod is the one who hates his son. But he who loves him disciplines him diligently. Discipline there means the rod. It means corporal punishment. But excessive discipline definitely provokes children. I want to spend time on that. I want you to think about two things, two main ideas. Making distinctions as parents between childish behavior and rebellion. Okay, childish behavior and rebellion. Your kid marks up, your two-year-old kid, this never happened by the way, your two-year-old kid marks up the sofa with the permanent marker. I guess in some sense that could be something worthy of some form of discipline, but kids just being a kid. Just because it's inconvenient for you doesn't mean there needs to be discipline there. Hey, they spilled a cup. It's all over your food. That's just a child being a child. And the spank in those situations would be, perhaps an older child forgets a chore. They generally forgot the chore. They're still learning how to live. Make those distinctions. Make a distinction between what I would call resistance and rebellion. Or perhaps rebellion and high-handed rebellion. Your child may disobey you and need to be disciplined. But it's another thing for them to disobey you and to lie about it and to cover it up. That's different. That's the one that's more serious. And that's the time, not when you're angry do you give a hard discipline, but based on what they've done. We've read in Proverbs 15 about harsh discipline. There's degrees of discipline in the Old Testament law and we can see equity there for us as parenting. You know, being slow to obey is one thing, looking at you and saying no, not going to do that, that's another thing. So making distinctions and not being excessive in discipline, this is a big part of provoking your children. Now one of the things that I've thought about in my own life, this sermon very much challenged me, is what I'm going to call grouchiness or irritableness. Okay, some of you are smiling. I come home, maybe you've done this father, you come home, and all day you've been nice to people who aren't really that easy to be nice to, because it's your job. You've got to make a sale, you're a pastor. You're going to be nice, but as soon as the children do one little thing, because you're grouchy and irritable, the lid comes off. Okay? Maybe what I'm getting at is a harsh word, maybe it's the critical spirit, but specifically be aware of You're parenting your children. This is so important. This is far more important than making a sale or presenting yourself as a perfect pastor that doesn't get angry. Be aware. You come home. You pull into the driveway. Ask God to give you, put a note maybe on your dashboard. To give you self-control. Not to be irritable. Not to be overly critical. I can think of a situation. If your daughter You know, your daughter, perhaps this is a little different, but just kind of along the same line of words, how you speak and being critical. Let's say you have a daughter, and she's learning cursive. And she writes her name, hey daddy, look at my, I'm learning cursive, and she writes in cursive. And you look at it, and you can see there's some problems, and it's kind of crooked, and there's one letter that's wrong. Don't be overly critical. Oh sweetie, that's really good. You're doing much better. Or you could say, well you missed this and you missed that and you need to do this. Beware of grouchiness. Hypocrisy. I'm going to, I want to speak on hypocrisy for a moment. I want to encourage you, I'm going to encourage you, but this is very important. I want you to think about how you can provoke your children. hypocrisy, especially with older, older children. I've been speaking to you as if you all have, you know, five and eight year olds, you may have a teenager. And this is probably more important as they get older. Now, I can kind of hide my faults from my kids because Seaburn's eight. He's starting to see it for sure. But I mean, it's harder to hide this when you get older. Their kids get older. It's important not to be hypocritical, not to do what I say, not what I do. What you need to do in this case is to go to your children, I cannot commend this enough, to go to your children and confess your own sins to your children, maybe during family worship. You won't lose your credibility. You won't lose your credibility as a father, as a mother, to confess your sins, to name your sins, to own them as sins, to ask them to forgive you, and to repent. You won't lose your credibility. You'll soften their hearts, And finally, before I encourage you with a few words, I want you to think about this as well. One of the ways that you can provoke your children is to be distant with them. Ted Tripp mentions this in his book. I believe it's Ted Tripp specifically. He says that, you know, it's that father who comes home, spends 37 seconds with his kids, then watches the TV or reads the newspaper. I'm not against the TV, I'm not against the newspaper, I'm just trying to paint a picture here. And do you talk to your children? Do you talk to them? Do you spend time with them? Are you affectionate with them? Leaving room with personality differences, okay? Are you affectionate with them? Do you tell your children, fathers, that you love them? That you love them? John Newton, famous hymn writer, preacher, He said, I know that my father loved me. I know that my father loved me, but he did not seem to wish me to see it. Beware that you're overly distant with your children. A Christ-honoring parent-child relationship involves obedient children and endearing parents. As I was preaching, or as I was preparing for this message, I started to think about my own sins. And the reason why I'm saying this now is, you may be here this morning, and you may be a parent that doesn't have young kids, and you may be someone who says, Sam, you're talking about me. In the main, a big part of my parenting, I had a lot of weaknesses. I want to encourage you for a moment. Directly, I want to encourage you for a moment. You have grace, you have mercy in Christ Jesus. And God forgives parents who provoke their children. You go to the Lord Jesus, you ask Him to forgive you, and He'll cleanse you from all your sins. Now, don't get caught up with, well, can I recover what's been lost? I want you to, in some sense, think about that, because God is a God of grace abundantly, and He can restore relationships, not just restore people to Himself. But don't get caught up in whether or not He will. Just go to your children, who maybe are older, Go to your children that are maybe older and tell them, even if they're not Christians, tell them, forgive me for my failures. I want to have a better relationship with you. I want to have a better relationship with you. Forgive me and see what the Lord will do. See what the Lord will do. Confessing your sins, especially to your children, softens, softens people. And God is gracious, he's gracious to children who disobey their parents, kids, if you've been disobedient, confess your sin, ask God to forgive you, he'll forgive you because of Jesus. But God is gracious and he is merciful and he restores people to himself and he restores others as well. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you again in prayer, praying that you would help us as a congregation to have healthy families, not just marriages, but also healthy relationships between parent and child. We pray that you would help our kids to be obedient, that they would know the Lord Jesus that they would have his spirit in them, enabling them to overlook the sins of their parents and to try more and more to obey the Lord Jesus for it pleases him. Father, we ask that you would enable the parents here, even the great grandparents and grandparents, to be endearing parents, to make every effort that their child would love them. Father, we ask that you would build up our congregation, that you would build up our families, that we would be those who generationally praise you, that the next generation would rise up to praise you. We ask all this in Jesus' name, amen.