If you will, turn with me to Ephesians chapter 6. We'll continue our study on biblical child training. Ephesians chapter 6. together reading verse four, and you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. So in our time together this evening, we're going to transition or we're going to move into this area of dealing with the sin of anger that might exist within some of our children. How do we deal with it when it's there? How do we start preventing it from taking root within our children and start overwhelming them? Because from sin, from anger, we see a whole range of sins that can be manifested. Now, when dealing with the sin of anger, you first have to ascertain whether or not the sin of anger is being manifested within your home. You're going to have to step back for a moment. You as parents are going to have to start thinking and take an inventory of your home. Think about your children. Think about yourself. Think about your spouses. You're going to have to step back for a moment and consider and ascertain whether or not you're seeing the signs of anger within your home. Particularly in this study, we're going to be thinking about within our children, but I would just say this is not a bad idea to deal with it with yourself. as well. But what are the warning signs of anger? Well, some of them are obvious, right? I mean, you think an outburst, temper tantrums, this would be an obvious display of anger. But think about things, characteristics such as a child who is argumentative, a child who is quarrelsome, likes to debate. An argue for the sake of argument, right? We're not talking about wrestling over matters with the intent to grow or to help encourage someone else to grow, but what we're talking about is that quarrelsome spirit being strifeful, encouraging strife within the home. How about disrespect? If you're seeing disrespect with your children, not just to you but to other siblings within the home. Disrespect is an indicator that there's anger going on within the heart of that child. Certainly fighting and violence if you have an older child, things like cruelty. Typically what you see is the bigger or stronger will use force to get their way. If they don't get their way with a younger child, they don't know how to reason and behave in biblical manners so all they know how to do is to use their strength, their size that they enforce on someone else to get their way. And as you're going through these, you're gonna have to ask yourself, if you see this within your home, well, where are these tendencies being learned? How does this creep in within your home? Are they seeing this because, are they behaving, excuse me, in these ways because that's how you act as parents in front of them? What about animosity, strife, antagonism? In other words, do you see one child provoking others? In other words, when we live in the home with one another, We begin to get close. We know the buttons to push. We know how to provoke one another. So the question is, do we purposely push those buttons? Do you see within your children this issue of strife, antagonism? Does your child, no matter where they go, just always have trouble getting along? Well, what's underlying a lot of that is this sin of anger. Acts of vengeance. When one child wrongs another, the one that has been wronged, does he know the biblical principles of forgiveness or does he immediately go into vengeance mode? How about malice or bitterness? These would all be signs that there's a problem with anger within the heart of that child. Discouragement. If you have a child that's always discouraged, Maybe because of the way you train them, you never encourage them. You never communicate to them in ways where they meet expectations, where they are a blessing, how they bring you pleasure. Maybe all you do is focus on the negatives, which they need to be dealt with if they're sin. Remember, when we're talking about this, sin needs to be dealt with. But what I'm talking about is you're constantly tearing the child down. The child as far as he's concerned can never do right in your eyes ever. So when you see that situation, there's so many breakdowns, there's a lot of breakdowns going on between the child and the parent in that relationship there. Is the child apathetic? Is the child just simply indifferent? You know, all these have a common denominator, and the common denominator is anger. If you're witnessing these behaviors, then the underlying issue of all that is anger. And the Bible has a lot to say about the sin of anger. Turn with me over to Proverbs 29. In Proverbs 29, look at verse 22, an angry man stirs up strife and a furious man abounds in transgression. So this goes back to one of the characteristics that we see within an angry child. Everywhere he goes is there always strife. Contention around him. And once again, don't divorce this from your own life. If where you go is there always strife, contentions around you because of the way you treat other people. Well, there's probably this issue, this sin of anger going on within your life. Turn over to Proverbs 22. Proverbs 22, look at verse 24. It says, make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and you set a snare for your soul. And so we need to understand that this issue of anger is sinful. And the scriptures teach us that when an individual continually gives himself or herself over to a particular sin, he becomes bound to that sin. And so this is what we're talking about. We're talking about someone who is not sometimes every now and then, you know, hey, they've lost their temper. We're talking about the kind of anger that just characterizes a child. Let me give you some things to think about by way of questions. So here's a question. What happens to a person who continually yields his members, the members of his body, to any sin? It doesn't matter what it is. But anger is a good way to look at it. We'll turn over to Romans 6. Paul says in Romans 6, he tells us, he gives us this answer. So what happens to a person when he continually yields his members of his body to any particular sin? Well in Romans 6.16 we read this, Do you not know to whom you present yourselves slaves to? Obey. You are that one slave to whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. So a child becomes a slave to a sin that he chooses to be mastered by. And so you have to ask yourself, is my child being mastered by this sin of anger? Turn over to Proverbs 26. Let's think about another question. What does God call an individual who continually gives himself over to folly? Proverbs 26 verse 11 says, As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. So when a person continually, habitually goes back to the same sinful practices, well then this person, biblically speaking, is a fool. Now what happens when a person binds himself over to any sin? What he's doing is he's training his heart to that sin. And this is going to bleed over into other areas. This will bleed over into the work, within the family, church. The life becomes characterized by that sin. That sin begins to dominate him. And if you don't deal with the warning signs that we've outlined above, then your child will never become what the Bible refers to, or he will become what the Bible refers to, as an angry man. Let me be clear here. Don't underestimate the power of anger to destroy your child's life. Anger in children is what leads to rebellion. And sinful anger is an expression of rebellion against God. It is rebellion against God's authority. It's this rebellion against God's authority that leads to the rebellion of all authority. So parents of young children, when should you start? immediately. Get on top of this now. Parents of older children that are demonstrating anger start to address this immediately. Children who rebel become adults who rebel. This leads to wives who rebel against their authority. This leads to husbands who are unable to love their wives as Christ loved the church. It leads to husbands who are unable to submit to any kind of authority, whether it be civil or whether it be in the church. So if you want to teach your child early that all sin, even the sin of anger, is wicked and needs to be dealt with, this ought to be your goal. Turn to Proverbs 22. Look at verse 3. A prudent man foresees evil and he hides himself. But notice here, the simple pass on and are punished. So you want to start early with your child. You want to start early teaching your children that a prudent man hides himself from evil, all evil. And so what we want to encourage you is don't teach your child to avoid anger because it embarrasses you. Rather, teach them to avoid anger and to control that urge because it's sinful and all sin will destroy them. Notice in Proverbs 22, it's a prudent man. I'm thinking of a wise man. A prudent man, a wise man is one who avoids evil, all kinds of evil. Only a fool walks headlong into evil. Now, while we're thinking about this, what are the characteristics of a fool? Well, take out your pen and paper and start writing these verses down. Let's just look at it. Proverbs has a lot to say about the fool. Notice what it says in Proverbs 1, verse 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but a fool despises wisdom and instruction. So what's the characteristic of a fool according to this verse? One who despises wisdom and will not listen to instruction. What is the character of your child? Does he desire wisdom? Does he desire instruction to learn, to grow, to be pointed back to God? Look at verse 22. How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge." Does your child hate knowledge? Do they hate instruction? Then, biblically speaking, the Bible says they are a fool. Once again, this has nothing to do, being a fool has nothing to do with intellect, intelligence, or anything like that. It has to do with your heart. A fool refuses to submit to the authority of God. A fool thinks he can live independently from God's precepts. If your child, and particularly your parents who have children who profess to be believers, you need to ask yourself, does my child, is my child content to live separate and independent from the wisdom of God? If that's the case, then you're dealing with a fool. And you need to go back to the Scriptures and learn how to address your children with the Scriptures. Go to Proverbs chapter 10. Proverbs 10, look at verse 1. The Proverbs of Solomon, a wise son makes glad a father, but a foolish son is the grief of his mother. So we see here a foolish child is one that grieves his mother. So mothers, as you think through your children, are you constantly seeing the ramifications or the characteristics of a child who is behaving foolishly over and over and over again? And they despise your instruction. They refuse to submit and listen to your instruction. Well, then you're dealing with a fool. Proverbs 10, look at verse 23. To do evil is like sport to a fool, but a man of understanding has wisdom." So in this proverb, we see that a fool enjoys devising mischief. So do you have a child that is just constantly finding ways to create strife and mischief within the home? Then you're dealing with a fool. Proverbs 12, look at verse 15. The way of the fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise. So here we see a foolish person is one who is always right in his own eyes. Look at verse 16, a fool's wrath is known at once but a prudent man covers shame. And so we see that a foolish person, and it's interesting, the Bible makes a good correlation, a nice correlation between the foolish and those who are quick to anger. Go to chapter 13, look at verse 19. A desire accomplished is sweet to the soul, but is an abomination to fools who depart from evil." And so, a foolish person is one who hates to depart from evil. They love their sin. Proverbs 14, 8. The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way, but the folly of fools is deceit. So we see that a foolish child is one who is deceitful. Do you tolerate deceitfulness and lying within your home? The Bible says you're dealing with a fool and this must be dealt with. Look at verse 16. A wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and is self-confident. So here we see in this passage that a fool is one who is arrogant, they're careless, they're not sensitive to the things of God. The things of God don't guide them. Why? Well, they don't know the things of God. Probably it starts there. But there's a disregard for the things of God and when the things of God are brought to their attention, They disregard it. They're careless. They're arrogant. An arrogant person thinks that he can walk and live a life that is independent of God. Go to chapter 15, look at verse 5. A fool despises his father's instruction, but he who receives correction is prudent or is wise. In verse 5, we see that this is a child. You have a child that not only rejects or grieves his mother, but he rejects his father's instruction. Fathers, if you have children that you are constantly instructing over and over again, and they refuse to listen to your instruction, they despise it, they reject it, they're going to go ahead and go their own way. And when does this usually happen? when you're not around. Most of your children are going to do what you say when your presence is there, but will they do it when you're not there? Well, this is one who is a fool who rejects his father's instructions. Look at verse 20. We see this again. A wise son makes the father glad, but a foolish man despises his mother. So we see this connection. He despises his mother. He rejects his mother. He does not submit to her authority. He does not honor her. Look at Proverbs 17. Look at verse 10. Rebuke is more effective for a wise man than a hundred blows on a fool. So notice, a foolish person does not respond well to discipline. Look at verse 16. Why is there in the hand of a fool the purchase price of wisdom, since he has no heart for it? So they don't understand wisdom. They don't desire it. Look at verse 24. This is talking about a person who has a worldly focus. They have a carnal value system. It's not based upon God's values, it's not based upon God's morality, but basically they have a worldly focus. They have no eternal perspective. That's the fool. They live for the here and now. It's kind of this, I'm going to get all, I'm going to take everything, but I'm not giving anything back. kind of mentality. Look at verse 25. A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore him. So once again, this is a person who grieves his parents. Proverbs 18, Luke verse 2. A fool has no delight in understanding but in expressing his own heart. So they're not going to discuss, the fool is one who does not discuss any viewpoint but his own. Drop down to verse 6, a fool's lips enter into contention and his mouth calls for blows. So this is one, a child who provokes strife and anger by his words, well then you're dealing with a fool. A wise person is about instructing. A wise person is about encouraging, bringing people up and walking along beside them, not trying to provoke them to strife. Look at verse 7, a fool's mouth is his destruction and his lips are a snare to his soul. He has a smart mouth that gets him into trouble all the time. Do you have a child such as that? Go over to chapter 20. Look at verse 3. It is honorable for a man to stop striving since any fool can start a quarrel. So once again we see that a foolish person is a quarrelsome person. They like quarrels. They like strife. They just live on it. They like being contentious. Does that describe any of your children? Let me get you to think about it this way. Do you have to intervene in all conflicts when there's conflicts between children or do they know how to resolve those conflicts? Some of you as husband and wife haven't learned how to resolve conflicts because you weren't taught as a child how to resolve conflicts. Looking for the interest, out for the interest, learning to esteem another better than yourself. What happens is you try to press your rights. You must be right all the time. And you assert your rights in these arguments rather than standing on your responsibility. Be quick to forgive, slow to anger, quick to hear, slow to speak. But a fool is one who is quarrelsome, they're contentious. You might want to put this passage to memory. You need to learn how to teach your children how to deal with strife because what ends up happening is they become adults who don't know how to deal with strife. Proverbs 26. Look at verse 11. As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. So he repeats his folly. He doesn't learn. He continues to make the same foolish mistakes over and over and over again. This is a foolish child. Go to Proverbs 28. Look at verse 26. He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered. So he trusts in his own wickedness, his own false. His own heart is what leads him around and guides him. You might call this gut intuition. But a wise one is one who is led and guided by God's infinite wisdom, not his own finite wisdom. Proverbs 29. Proverbs 29. Look at verse 9. If a wise man contends with a foolish man, whether the fool rages or laughs, there is no peace. And so, this is talking about a person who cannot resolve conflicts. They don't have the skills. They don't have the ability. Well, where are they going to learn them? They're going to learn them in your home. You cannot allow and tolerate this issue of contention and strife to exist amongst your children because what happens is if you don't teach them here, they continue to take this out and it's rebellion against God. You need to understand that. One more. Look at verse 11, a fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back. And the idea here is that a fool gives full vent to his anger. You know, the ability for you to evaluate these characteristics in your children, and I would say even in yourself, is critical for you as parents. Why? Because you need to learn to minister God's Word appropriately. You need to be able to take God's Word, look at the character issues that are going on within your children, and learn to minister God's Word in those areas. And I can't emphasize this enough. If you're scripturally illiterate, you're not going to know how to do this. You're not going to know even what I'm talking about. But as you become wise and mighty in the Scriptures, you'll be able to speak the Word appropriately in their life. Remember, God has given us the sword of the Spirit. This is the weapon we have, that we've been given, that we may use. to open the child up, to help him understand. Remember, the Word of God is powerful. It's like a two-edged sword. It lays us open. It exposes us. It lays us bare before God's infinite wisdom, before His sight. And this is what God has given to us to minister to our children, is His Word. And I'd really encourage you to think about this. Think about the condition of your child. If you don't have God's Word to bear, to bring God's Word to bear in their lives, what are you bringing? You're bringing your finite, flawed wisdom, which does nothing. It doesn't save the child. In fact, we'll learn here later on that this is what Paul is actually talking about when he says that fathers don't provoke your children to wrath. But do what? We're to train them. We're to discipline them. Okay? So let's get back to the subject of anger. Ephesians 6-4 commands us, particularly with fathers, we are not to provoke our children into wrath. And so, before we move into dealing with the issue of our children, I want to first begin with you as parents to make sure you haven't set your children up to fail in this area. In other words, I want to make sure you haven't structured your home in such a way that you're provoking them unnecessarily to wrath. One of the first mistakes we as parents make is that we set up our home in such a way that it's not Christ-centered, but rather it's child-centered. So now what's the difference? Well, let's think about it. Let's think about a child-centered home first. A child-centered home is one in which a child believes and is allowed to behave as though the entire household, parents, siblings, all of them exist to please Him. A child-centered home is a home that is a place where the children are allowed to commit some of the following indiscretions. And let me just give you something to think about. This is not an exhaustive list, but some of these examples may help to get your mind acclimated to think about, well, how is my home structured? Do you allow your child to interrupt adults when they're talking? That's a characteristic of a child-centered home. As your child, do you allow them to use manipulation and rebellion to get their way? Here's another characteristic of a child-centered home. They dictate the family schedule. They dictate mealtime. They dictate bedtime. They dictate the family schedule and so everything is revolving around them. Think about this. Contrast that with a Christ-centered home where everything is brought under the dominion of Christ. and that the activities you allow your children to be involved in will be geared around, not their pleasure, but what brings pleasure to the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you have a child that's dictating your schedule, and this is something you gotta be careful of when you're bringing your children into a lot of activities. It's not that the activities in and of themselves are immoral, but what happens is if they're consuming all of your time, then it doesn't allow you to do a whole lot of kingdom building work within your home. Here's another characteristic. The child's needs takes precedence over the needs of the spouse and we need to understand this that the relationship between the husband and wife is a permanent relationship. However, the relationship between the child and parent is not necessarily permanent because what happens according to Genesis 1 or Genesis 2, when the child leaves the home, he is to cleave to his spouse. You want to make sure, particularly fathers, you're not neglecting your wives, you're not neglecting your spouse's needs because everything is revolving around the child. Next, another characteristic of a child-centered home is that The child has an equal or overriding vote in all decision making matters. Now that's a problem, particularly when you have children who do not understand how to make decisions that are not selfish, self-centered, or based around themselves. Remember, you are the parents, you are the authority, you are the ones that are responsible for making all these decisions. And I'll give you an example. I see this a lot when we go out and hand out tracks and things or when I gave a lecture at one of the homeschool conferences on how to use homeschooling as a disciple, bringing homeschooling and using it as a means of discipleship. And so I had a lot of the parents come up afterwards and talk about some of the concepts we were discussing. But in any event, they were like, oh, this would be great. This would be great if we could get our, if we would bring our family. But our children really love their youth programs or whatever it is that's going on in their church. Well, once again, if they're not being a disciple, here's the question. Why does the child have any say in what church they go to? You see that's the responsibility of the parent. So a child-centered home is characterized by where the children have equal or overriding votes in all decision-making matters. There is a time where we start allowing our children to have say in some of the decisions we make, but that happens when we see them actually considering others' interests. So let's just take the issue of making the decision on where to go eat. When our children start actually making decisions where they're looking out for the interests of others, well then yeah, we'll bring them on that decision making. But as long as their decision is all about what they want, their selfishness, being self-absorbed and self-centered, they need to learn that that's not acceptable. And so the idea here is that you're not training them so that they never make decisions, but really what you're doing is you're training them to make unselfish decisions and seek the will of God in all things. Here's another characteristic of a child-centered home. They demand excessive time and attention from parents to the detriment of all the other responsibilities of the parents. Here's another one. A child-centered home is a home where the child can escape the consequences of their sinful and irresponsible behavior. Here's another one. In a child-centered home, the child speaks to parents as though they were peers. Remember, they need to respect you, they need to honor you. They're not your peer, they're your child. A child-centered home is characterized when the child is the dominant influence in the home. Here's another one. A child-centered home is a home where the child has to be entertained or coddled rather than disciplined out of a bad mood. I mean, there's a lot more we could go, but I think you get the point. And I would encourage you to step back and spend some time, husband and wife, making notes of your home. Would you describe your home as a Christ-centered home or is it more geared towards a child-centered home? Because what ends up happening or what we see is, when there's this sin of anger, you can usually trace that back to this issue of, allowing your child to dictate the culture and what goes on within your home. You see a child who is at the center of a child centered home believes that he and his desires should be the focal point of the whole house. And it's in that context that the child grows up thinking society owes them a living. You see, what happens is that you're making the child self-centered, self-absorbed, and refusing to look after the interests of others. And they don't understand Kingdom concepts such as sharing, such as caring for one another, encouraging one another. Nope. In a child-centered home, the child's being trained to look. and make everything revolve around himself. So you're encouraging them to be prideful, arrogant, certainly not humble. Now let's contrast this with the Christ-centered home. A Christ-centered home is based off the principles given to us in Genesis. So turn over to Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2, we're all familiar with this, but just read verse 24, "...therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh." Now this verse is critical for setting up the proper environment within your home. Most marital problems can be traced back to either someone who refuses to leave one's parents, or someone who refuses to cleave to one's spouse, or to become one flesh with the spouse. You see, when you leave your parents' home, you're establishing a home for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. When children are added to the family, the children come under the authority of the husband and wife, not made equal decision makers. It is the two. It is the husband and the wife that are one flesh. The children are not of one flesh. They're not cleaving in this biblical sense, in the sense that Genesis 2 is talking about, with the parents. The relationship between the husband and wife is a permanent relationship according to Matthew 19. The authority and submission relationship between the parent and the child is a temporal relationship. It's one that will be broken once the child is married. You see, the husband-wife relationship must have the priority within the home. The Christ-centered home has a purpose, and that purpose is to glorify God. And one of the ways we glorify God is by obeying God's ordained structure for the family. When the structure becomes misaligned in any way, when strife becomes the norm, then we begin to see disorder resulting when we get out of alignment with God's ordained will for the purpose of the family. The child must understand that his desires must come under God's will. And the home is the training ground to teach these principles. The reason why some of you have a hard time submitting to God in every area of your life is because you probably grew up in a home where you were not trained to bring your desires under God's will. And so there's still some selfishness that has to be pruned off. And when your child is raised in a Christ-centered home, he learns to serve rather than to be served. He learns to honor rather than having to be honored. He learns to give. He learns to be loving rather than to take and be selfish. So, what kind of things should your child be taught if you're going to have a Christ-centered home? Once again, this list is not going to be exhaustive, but it points out some critical areas that you probably need to be working on within your home. Number one, they need to, in a Christ-centered home, they need to joyfully learn how to serve others. Do you see this within your children? They need to joyfully learn to serve others. This is what is expected of every Christian. And so you need to start teaching your children. And once again, it may be difficult for some of you to teach your children this principle. Why? Because you haven't learned how to joyfully serve others. You may do it, but your attitude is horrible. Well, you're passing that along to your children. and you're actually in sin and you're violating clear principles from the scriptures. Next, a Christ-centered home should be a home where the children cheerfully obey the parents the first time. All right, now the reason why some of you parents have a hard time not displaying anger to your children is you allow disobedience and rebellion to occur. And maybe you do a good job keeping your temper and keeping everything under control, but you let the rebellion build up. And the rebellion builds up. And as the morning goes on, your patience is growing less and less, right? And then finally, somewhere along midday, it snaps. Does that describe your home? The problem here is that you didn't enforce a zero tolerance policy against disobedience and rebellion in your home. If you would have dealt with it earlier in the day when you were under control, you could have stopped all these other signs of disobedience and all these other acts of rebellion in your home. You wouldn't have lost your temper. And when you lose your temper and you react in anger, uncontrolled anger against your child, you're training them. Not to cheerfully obey you the first time. What you're actually doing is you're training them to disobey you until the point you get mad. And so they're going to push those boundaries and they're going to start learning how far they can push you until you react. But that's not teaching them to cheerfully obey you the first time. Next, your child needs to learn not to interrupt adults when they're speaking to each other. Have you taught them this? Next, in a Christ-centered home, they need to understand they're not going to always get their way. You as adults know this. You don't always get your way. So you're setting them up to be dysfunctional in society. You're actually teaching them to be sinful in this area, but you need to train them. You know what? It's okay. You're not going to always get your way, and you're going to learn to be content with it. Next, in a Christ-centered home, The child learns to work their schedule around the parent's schedule. The parents are the ones who should be dictating what goes on within the home. Do you have a priority time that sets around family worship, time in the Word? Well, if your home is so preoccupied with the child's activities, then you'll never get there. In a Christ-centered home, the child needs to understand that God has given their parents other responsibilities in addition to just meeting their needs, and they need to be okay with that. Another characteristic of a Christ-centered home is that a child learns to suffer the natural consequences of sinful and irresponsible behavior. Does that happen in your home? Here's another one. Your children in a Christ-centered home would be taught not to speak to parents as though they were peers. But they need to learn to speak to the parents and honor them as their God-ordained authority. Do your children understand that you are the authority ordained by God that has been placed over them? Next, they need to learn to esteem others as more important than themselves. Are they being taught these kingdom principles? Go back and look at Philippians 2. How do we see unity being brought within the home? Is the peace of Christ being brought into your home because your children know how to esteem others more important than themselves? Where do strife and contentions come from? Think about your marital relationship. I mean, when the spouse is seeing that you're esteeming them above yourself, there's no real reason for strife and contention. Well, if there's disharmony within your home, it's because this principle is being violated. Next, the child needs to be taught to fulfill various household responsibilities. Do they understand their responsibilities within their home? Have you communicated this to them? They should learn this. Next, they need to learn to protect themselves from bad influences or temptations. They need to be taught at an early age about how to resist certain temptations by not putting themselves in front of those temptations. They also need to understand about how to properly select friends. Friends who encourage them to stay on the narrow path versus those that are going to constantly be tempting them to come to the broad path that brings about destruction. In a Christ-centered home, we would expect the child not to divide the parents over disciplinary issues. And this is really problematic, particularly when the parents are not on the same page with respect to discipline issues. But you need to teach your child not to divide the parents. Next. In a Christ-centered home, the child is taught not to be more intimate with either of the parents than the parents are with each other. Don't allow your kids to drive a wedge between the relationship that should be existing between you as husband and wife. And so a Christ-centered home makes Christ and His will the focal point, not the child. Your child needs to learn to submit to Christ's will. Now some of you have asked me when a child could be included in the decision making process. In other words, when would they learn to make decisions? Well, you're going to have to determine that for yourselves because each child is different. There are some children that can be brought into the decision making process and I think you should be bringing them into it so that you can teach them how to make decisions using God's Word. But let me just see if I can give you some guidelines. There's no magic age because it just depends on how selfish your child is. There may be some older kids that just have no business being part of the decision-making process because they're just really not equipped. You haven't equipped them. Let me just give you some guidelines to think about. Number one, there are some decisions I will never let them weigh in on. Where we live, what job I take, things such as what church we go to. That's never going to be their decision. There are just some things I'll never let the children weigh in on. But here's some other things you can think of. I will let them weigh in on decisions when they start to show me that they can make decisions that take God's will into account. Or that they're looking out for the interests of others. And this is important. As a parent, you need to solicit input from them because this is the only way you're ever going to discern how well they are applying God's word. And then here's a third principle that I try to use and it is don't let them make a decision that would ever go against your spouse. And so, you kind of have to cut that one off. Now, the question some of you may have is, well, how does all this really relate to anger? Well, it's interesting that people that study this out and write on this tell us that whenever there's anger being displayed by the child. Typically what happens is the child has characteristics of one or more or maybe even all of these items of a child-centered home rather than being in a Christ-centered home. I think this is where we provoke our children. We allow this to take place. We don't have a Christ-centered home. We haven't thought through it. We haven't planned as husband and wife. Let's face it, where would you learn this if your parents didn't train you in this way? Most churches that I went to growing up, they didn't talk about any of this. So, we're just not instructed and so we've got to come back to God's Word. We need to sit down as husband and wife and allow His Word to begin the process of structuring the culture and the tone of our home. So, here's the embarrassing question for each of us. After everything we've heard this evening, what kind of home do you have? Do you have a child-centered home where the child perceives that the entire family exists essentially to please and to make him or her happy? In other words, mother, father, siblings only exist to serve and meet the needs of that child. Does that describe your home? Now think about a Christ-centered home. A Christ-centered home is a home where the child perceives that the husband is the head of the family, the wife is submissive to her husband, and this is important because if you don't have this, you're not submitting to the authority of the Word of God. But the husband-wife relationship in a Christ-centered home is the primary relationship. It's the permanent relationship, and it exists to picture The gospel, your relationship, is to picture how Christ views His church. And so it is a permanent relationship that exists to glorify God. And in this structure, children are secondary. They're the secondary relationship. That relationship is temporary. And those children within a Christ-centered home, they understand this, that they are being trained to be sent out. They're being trained so that they can go establish a Christ-centered home for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. Now if your home is a child-centered home, then the rest of our goal in this study is to begin to transition our home from where chaos rules to a home where the peace of Christ rules. And remember, the premise here is that by not ordering our house under God's rule, we're going to be provoking our children to wrath. And so the first thing we're going to do in our study is before we deal with the anger within the heart of our children, we want to start looking at ways that you as parents could be provoking your children to wrath. So let's just start with one of them. I think, number one, one of the ways we as parents provoke our children to wrath is a lack of marital harmony. And we see this in Genesis 2.24 where it says, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. Turn over to Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12. In Hebrews 12, look at verse 15, looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. I think perhaps the greatest provocation of anger in children would be parents who do not have a home, or parents who do not live in harmony with one another. If the husband and wife do not develop a one-flesh intimacy intended by God, then over time various other problems will develop. And of these, one of the most common is that each spouse is tempted to develop a deeper level of intimacy with something or someone else rather than the spouse. Typically what happens is the husband develops relationships with others at work or his work just becomes consuming and the wife develops an unbalanced intimacy with children. Now, they can have an unbalanced relationship or intimacy with other ladies and things like that, but typically what you see is it happens with the child. And once this happens, it's only a matter of time before the home becomes child-centered. Everything now, the focus is no longer on the husband-wife relationship but then everything becomes focused on the child itself and so it becomes child-centered. Now another correlation between a lack of marital harmony and anger within the child is this defiling effect that bitterness has on one another. As the children observe the resentment that results from the parents who lack any sort of harmony, then the child becomes more susceptible to acquiring bitter thoughts, bitter motives, bitter attitudes that will manifest themselves in actions that he has seen being modeled by the parents. Now I want you to understand, the ones that get damaged the most when there's bitterness between the husband and wife is the child. How you handle strife or how you handle, not strife necessarily, but disagreements, how you handle those is going to be exactly the way your child, because you're modeling this out in front of your child. Now, let me just stop for a moment and get you to think how a pathway to rebellion actually takes place and how rebellion is initiated by anger. A lot of times what we see in dealing with children is that, number one, there's a wounded spirit. The first step to rebellion many times starts by hurt spawned by an offense. And the offense could be real or it could just be perceived. But someone does something, typically sinful but not always, but someone does something that results in someone being emotionally hurt. This hurt, if not dealt with biblically, is the seed that germinates and grows into a root of bitterness. So it usually starts with a wounded spirit. The child has been wounded in some kind of way. And this could be true for an adult as well. But this is the beginning point of bitterness. Then this leads us to the second step, which is bitterness. If the person does not respond biblically to the hurt, such as forgiveness, overlooking the sin, without confronting, or realize that the offense was wrong, the person will start to rehearse the event in their mind. They will review it over and over again. And this practice of continually reviewing and imputing the offense not only violates 1 Corinthians 13 where it says love does not keep running the count of evil, but it also cultivates a seed of hurt that matures into a root of bitterness. And bitterness has an impact on everyone around you. So we go and start with someone who's been wounded. If it's not dealt with biblically, it leads to bitterness, and this leads us to the third step. The third step is anger. Now this is not the kind of anger where there's an outburst that settles down once the outburst is over. But what we're talking about is an anger that becomes characteristic of your personality. Turn back over to Proverbs 22, just to remind you of what we're talking about. We're talking about someone who's characterized by being angry all the time. Proverbs 22, look at verse 24, make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious man, do not go lest you learn his ways, so this is something that's characteristic, and set a snare for your soul. You see, you become the kind of person that we're warned to avoid. And this is the kind of anger we're trying to prevent becoming characteristic within your child. So typically what we see, rebellion that is initiated by anger starts with some offense, some wound that somebody's done to another person. It's not dealt with biblically. It leads to bitterness. From bitterness, anger begins to characterize the person. This leads to the fourth step which is now stubbornness, insubordination. Stubbornness comes right before full-blown rebellion. The word stubbornness has this picture of a heifer who digs in her hooves to counteract her master from pulling her forward. And it's a refusal to submit and follow after the master's will. And this is what ultimately will make one idolatrous in the sense he believes he becomes the ruler of his own destiny. But we see offense, bitterness if it's not dealt with biblically, anger, and then we see stubbornness and from stubbornness it leads right on into rebellion. And this is the final step to one's destruction. A rebellious person is one whose characteristics have gone beyond that of an angry man. or the proverbial fool. This is a person who refuses to submit to any authority. And so this is what we're attempting to prevent. And the best way to prevent a rebellious person is by dealing with sin and dealing with the heart of sin when? Early, early on. This is why you must know your children. This is why you must spend time communicating with them. Not only in just discipline, the negative discipline, but I'm talking about constantly coming along beside them as one sinner to another. And my point here is don't allow bitterness to take root in your relationship with your spouse. Learn how to deal biblically with offenses. Learn what God says concerning your role as a husband and a wife to be one, to cleave to one another. Learn to bring the peace of Christ's rule within your home instead of chaos and confusion, which comes when we deviate from God's ordained standard. God's standard is that the husband-wife relationship is the primary relationship. There should be harmony between the two. There should be an esteeming of one another. There should be this idea of not asserting your rights, but your responsibilities. But can you see how disharmony within the marriage relationship brings and provokes anger within your child? So if this is a problem within your home, then you need to learn to repent. You need to show your children how to biblically deal with sin in your life. And let the child see you humble yourself before God. And we're going to stop here and we're going to pick up, we'll go maybe a couple of weeks dealing with the different types of ways that we, within our homes, can provoke our children to wrath. And so we need to go back and think through what Ephesians 6 is talking about. Ephesians 6, 4. Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath. Let's first start looking at our homes. Let's take an inventory of our homes. Let's pay attention to what's going on within our homes. Look for these areas. That we're provoking our children. And if there is marital disharmony within the home, that needs to be dealt with immediately. Because that's probably one of the biggest ways I think we provoke our children. So let's stop here and Lord willing we'll pick up next week.