Amen. Please be seated. Well, good morning to you all and special warm welcome to those who are visiting with us. We're glad to have you worshiping our great God with us today. We're preaching through Ephesians in the morning and we begin first if you open with me to the Old Testament reading. This is taken from Deuteronomy chapter 6. This is the famous Shema, it's called Hear O Israel. The Jews call it Shema because of that first word in Hebrew, hear. And it's an important, it's important teaching, but listen to especially what it says about teaching our children and the picture that the Old Testament gives to us. Deuteronomy chapter six, this is page 151 in your church Bible. Beginning at verse four, brothers and sisters, this is the word of God. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, And shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates. And now turning forward to Ephesians chapter six, This is page 979 in your pew Bibles, Ephesians chapter 6, and we'll read verses 1 through 4. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Amen. Let's ask for God's blessing on his word this morning to us. Our Lord and our God, your people have assembled now, and we have come to worship you, the great triune God, because you are worthy of our worship. But Lord, we also come expectantly waiting upon you to speak to us through your word. And so we ask that you would, that you would give us all hearts that are soft towards your teaching, and that you would instruct us, that you would encourage us, Lord, with this. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well, as we saw last week, Paul is now addressing how the gospel influences life in the home. In chapter four, if you can remember that back far, we saw how God fills the church. He calls us in his gospel to walk together in unity, in love, to walk in the spirit, chapter five, and now what he's doing is he's practically laying out what that looks like in our relationships as husbands and wives, as parents and children, as bondservants or slaves and masters. And as we read these passages, I think one thing should be very clear to you. God cares about households. God cares about households. And this isn't a New Testament thing. He always has. Households have always been a part of God's covenant purposes. His redemptive plan. You go all the way back to Genesis when he calls Abraham, right, a pagan moon worshiper, and he calls him and says, Abraham, you're gonna be my people, and this covenant of grace, this great promises that I give to you, it's for you and your children. And so it should be no surprise that Paul now, he's zooming in and he's focusing in on households. Now as Russell mentioned last week, the way these passages are laid out would have been probably familiar to any first century Jew or Greek because they are in the format of what's called a household code. There were other secular versions of household codes. There are household codes today, of course. But household codes that would have reflected the Roman society of that day. What was expected of the family in Roman society. But as we've already begun to see last week with husbands and wives, there's some things that are pretty unique about what Paul's saying here. Very unique. And it's unique because it isn't determined automatically by society. It's not determined by the culture. Rather, this household code that you and I are reading is formed by God's wisdom, is formed by the grace in his gospel. They show us what a home transformed by the gospel should grow into. And this morning we move on from husbands and wives to address one of the most fundamental relationships, parents and children. And we find here that God's ultimate purpose for parents and children is to grow them in the knowledge of the Lord and his gospel. That's the primary purpose. Grow them in the knowledge of the Lord and his gospel. And this goal, this purpose is also actually what drives their relationship. Just like we saw last week with husbands and wives. The gospel is at the center of their marriage, a husband and wife. And we see that again today in parents and children. So simply two points, because there's two people being addressed here. Gospel-driven children, and secondly, gospel-driven parents. Gospel-driven children and gospel-driven parents. So first, gospel-driven children. Now Paul begins this passage by directly addressing the children. Now, we shouldn't skip over that too quickly. This is significant because remember how he started this letter. He opened it up, his opening line in writing Ephesians is to the saints in Ephesus. And here he is addressing them, right? Husbands and wives, parents and children, and bondservants, masters. Now, remember that these letters would have been read aloud in the congregation. gathered together just like we are this morning. And notice, he doesn't say, hey parents, make sure that your kids obey you. Instead, he speaks directly to the children because they're responsible members of the congregation. They're members of the covenant community. Like Jesus, Paul's treating the children of believers as being included in the kingdom of God. And so kids, kids, if I could get your attention, I'm going to not just be speaking about you in the sermon. I'm going to be speaking to you because that's what the Apostle Paul does. And so that's what I'm going to do today. God's speaking to you because he loves you and because you're part of his church. Now, what is God telling you here, kids? Well, he tells you to obey your parents. See, your mom and dad didn't just make that up. That really is in the Bible. God gave you that commandment. It comes from him. Now, obeying, of course, is one of the things that, one of the first things you learn as children, right? Don't eat that, don't put it in your mouth, don't touch that. And you have to listen and obey, right? It means we listen to what our parents are saying. It means we follow through with their instruction. Now remember something, it's easy to forget this kids, but your parents are a gift to you. God has given them as a gift to you. And they're a gift because they care for you, they protect you, they teach you how to live in the world. But here's the thing, if we don't listen to what they have to say, then you can miss out on the blessing that God wants them to be for you. We can miss out on the good things that God wants for us if we don't listen to our parents. Now, is obeying your parents always easy? No. Of course not. It's not always easy. And you know, guess what? Every kid struggles with that. You should ask your parents if they always found it easy obeying their parents. They could tell you after. Now, there's a number of reasons why, different ways we can struggle with obeying our parents. It's confusing sometimes. How come mom doesn't let me sled down the stairs? Or jump off the roof with an umbrella or something to see if it works? No, there's reasons why they tell you not to do things. And I know it can be challenging, right, to obey your dad when he tells you to apologize to maybe your brother or sister. And you don't feel like doing it because you're angry. Or older kids, high schoolers. It can be hard to understand why they won't let you stay out late with your friends. Or there's mornings where you don't feel like coming to church, but they tell you you need to come. And there's times, especially when you're an older kid, where you disagree with the wisdom of your parents' decisions. But God tells you to obey them. And he gives us three reasons why in this passage. The first is very simple. Children, obey your parents and Lord for this is right. It's right. It's fitting. God designed it to be like that way. He designed it to be that way. He designed in the same way, right, moms and dads to be for each other. He designed children to follow their parents. And here's the thing kids, when we fight against that, when we fight against that, we are going against God's created order and things don't go well when that happens. It doesn't go well. But when we follow his design, we can see blessing that comes from it. Now the second reason why we're called to obey their parents is because God gives you a gracious promise of blessing when you obey your mom's dads. This might be your favorite one. It's a very, he gives you what's called an incentive. He wants you to encourage, to encourage you to to obey your parents. And so he quotes the fifth commandment. Honor your father and mother. And he reminds you that there is a promise that's attached to this commandment. It's unique in that way. It's got a promise that comes with it. He says that it might go well with you. And that you might live long in the land. Now we can have a tendency to sometimes over spiritualize that. To say, well he's talking about heaven. But actually he's saying on the land, in the earth. And there's a promise here of long life of blessing that we should look forward to. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that in every single circumstance that children will always, obedient children, will always live long. There's many exceptions, of course, to that in this fallen world. But we read this promise the same way we read the book of Proverbs, right? Foolishness leads to this. Wisdom leads to this. Blessing. The general promise that when we live in obedience the way God intended, that leads to blessing. It ought to. And this is a very gracious promise, right? God doesn't owe us anything, kids, does he? He doesn't owe us anything. We're always called to obey him. But because he's so gracious, he loves to give you blessings when you walk in his path. He loves to give that to you. And so kids, obey your parents and ask God to show you the blessings that comes from that. Open your eyes to the blessings that will come. Now the third reason why we are to obey our parents is because you're doing it for the Lord, first and foremost. You're doing it for the Lord. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. because of what Jesus has done for us in the gospel, because he's your Lord and Savior, we should want to love and to honor Jesus, shouldn't we? We should want to honor him, and the best way you can do that, or one of the best ways you can do that, is by obeying the mom and dad he's given you. That's how we love and honor Jesus. Now kids, would it be a surprise to you if I told you that Jesus had to obey his parents too? He did. Remember that Jesus at one time was a kid. He was just like you. He was 7 years old. He grew up to be 9 and then 11. A teenager. Jesus went through those years. And in Luke 2, verse 51, it says that Jesus was submissive to his parents. Just means he obeyed them. Now why do you think he did that, kids? Why did Jesus obey his parents? You could have said, well, I'm the son of God, I don't need to do this. Why did he obey his parents? Well, he did it first because he loved his heavenly father. That's primarily why he did it. He loved his heavenly father, and yes, he loved his parents. And that's why you and I should do it too, right? Because your love for your Heavenly Father, your love to the Lord, you should obey your parents. And so when you obey them, you're also obeying who? God. Him. First of all. Now remember that the kind of obedience God has in mind involves more than just doing what mom and dad told you, right? It involves doing it with the right attitude too. Right, not rolling our eyes, dragging our feet, complaining and say, well, I did what you asked. No, we can't do that because the kind of obedience we're called to is one that comes from the heart. We can't do that because we are called to do it from the heart. That's what the fifth commandment says. Honor your father and mother. That means we obey them with the right attitude that shows respect and love. And God is pleased when you do that. He loves to see that. Now, as I said, this can be challenging. This can be hard to do. But when you struggle with that, kids, pray for God's help in the spirit. Ask for him to help you to do it with the right attitude of love for him first. He will help you. Now in verse four, Paul turns now to address the parents. And this brings us to our second point, gospel-driven parents. Just as children are to be driven and motivated by the love for their Lord and Savior, it's the same with parents in our parenting. Now parents, you know that God has made you an essential part of raising your children, of course. You are the chief means that he uses to raise the children. I'm sure you'd agree with me. There's a lot of incredible weight and an incredible privilege that comes with that, isn't there? It's an incredible weighty thing. I remember one of my best friends, he became a father for the first time, and he was reflecting on it to me, and he was coming to the realization of his child's utter dependence on him. He says, man, if I don't feed this child, if I don't take care of them, they won't survive. It's dependent on me. It's a lot to care, to have responsibility for another human being. And even more, we're called to teach them about God, about ourselves, about the world. And all the while doing that, no pressure, in their most psychologically formative years. But nothing else should take the place of our responsibility. No school or institution should replace the call for parents to raise their children. They can help with that, but they cannot replace it. And yet also, as weighty as this is, we also know that it is an immense privilege. It's an immense privilege, right? You have the unique ability to influence your child in a way that no one else can. You can make a positive and a lasting impact far greater than any other teacher or caretaker possibly could. You get to teach them about who God is. You're the first people to teach your children who their creator is. You get to teach them the gospel, the good news of what he's done. That is an immense privilege. I remember right when I first born, I couldn't wait till she could start to understand my words and I could tell her about Jesus. It's an incredible privilege. to tell your children about the glories of who God is and what he's done. And now because this is such a significant role for children, everyone had a mom and dad, sadly not in every case, they were around necessarily, but we all came from a mom and a dad, and it's such a formative role, it's such a significant one, God doesn't leave us in the dark, he shows us what this looked like. Now, generally speaking, what we see here in this passage is that parenting obviously shouldn't merely be about good behavior, good manners. It shouldn't only be about providing for them, make sure they're fed and they're clothed and they're sheltered and safe. Not only that, right? I would ask you, right, how is that different from any decent secular parent? There's plenty of parents, moms and dads out there who aren't believers, and yet they love their children very much, and they take very good care of them, of their physical nurture. And while we do need to do those things, and that is an important part of parenting, feeding and clothing, it takes up a lot of it, we still need to parent in such a way where if the world were to see a window into our parenting, they could see something as distinctively Christian. So what does that look like? What does parenting that is motivated by the gospel really look like? Well first, he tells us positively, before he tells us positively what it looks like, he gives us here a negative command. He says, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. Now he's singling out fathers here especially because both in Jewish and in Roman culture, they were primarily called to oversee the instruction and the discipline of their children. Now obviously this doesn't mean that moms are out of the picture. Moms spend a lot of time with their children, training and rearing them. And remember in verse one, both the mother and the father have authority in the home because he tells children to obey their parents. mom and dad. And yet, while moms play such an incredibly vital role of their children's instruction, what we learn here is that fathers cannot be hands-off in their approach. Sadly, as many men in our culture are today, right? Mom takes care of the little ones, I just pay the bills. That's not an option for Christian parenting. And he specifically warns us to not provoke our children to anger. What does he mean by that? Well, it simply means that we do not, it doesn't mean that any time our child gets angry, it's our fault. But it does mean that we do not carelessly, unnecessarily exasperate our children to anger and frustration. Maybe because we're being overbearing in the way we discipline or instruct them. It could look like, as one commentator says, endless petty correction. Now, sometimes the reason we're overbearing, if we're honest, is because we've got idols in our hearts, right? We want control over everything. Or sometimes our discipline exasperate because it's not driven so much by us care for their spiritual well-being, but because I'm annoyed. Or because I'm embarrassed. And I think that sometimes, too, when we exasperate, what we're doing fundamentally is we're forgetting, too, the limitations of our children. What we're failing to do is model a love of the heavenly Father who remembers that we are dust, Psalm 103. Remembers that we are dust, that we are finite, that we are limited, and yet he is so patient. He's so kind to us. And so we're warned against this provoking and exasperating because partially it prohibits and it frustrates growth. It fails to teach them about God and his nature. And remember we teach not only with what we say but also by our attitude and our actions towards them. And this is what's so unique about this household code. I said it again. This household code. Romans in that day the father had supreme authority. They could do anything they wanted. They could even sentence their children to death, and the officials wouldn't do anything about it. It is interesting, and I don't know how long that was true in Roman culture, but we have records of them saying that. Now in contrast to this, we're told to not provoke them to anger, to not be harsh with them, but to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This is our goal in parenting. This is our mission statement, if you will. And before I continue, I want to just point out that those without children need to remember that you have also taken vows to care for and to assist the parents with their children, to pray for them, maybe to teach them in Sunday school, to be an influence in their lives at some level. Now, although parents are particularly dressed here, I just want to encourage us all as a congregation to not forget our obligations to this and the church. So he says, bring them up. Which is in contrast to this provoking somehow. Now this word for bring them up, it's actually a single word in the original language. And it's the same word that he uses actually for husbands caring for their wives. Look at chapter five, verse 29. He says right before that, in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but, here it is, nourishes it. It's the same word. Now, it means that we raise our children with a tender care, kind of the way you cultivate a plant. How do you grow a plant? Well, you don't start yanking it out of the ground as soon as you see some sprouts and trying to pull it out to get it to grow. That doesn't work. You give it water. You give it sun. You give it guidance. You nourish it. And bringing them up also assumes, and nurturing, that there's going to be progressive stages to growing. As a child grows up, the way we parent might need to change. Some things always remain the same, of course. But some children, they're different from each other. And sometimes, the ages, well, all the time, the ages are very different as well. We don't talk to teenagers the same way we talk to little children. There's different ways we are to challenge them and entrust them with responsibilities so that they can grow. And our approach to discipline may, in fact, look different as well. Now, he tells us, though, bring them up particularly in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Now, discipline and instruction, there's a lot of overlap between those words, of course. But the idea is that we are called to have an intentional teaching. guiding, correcting our children at times. And this is, although we need to do it carefully, we still need to do it and not neglect it. The opposite error of being overbearing is being overly passive and neglecting our call to do discipline and instruction. Instruction was to be an everyday thing, we saw that from Deuteronomy 6. When you walk by the way, when you're in the house and you're sitting down eating a meal, when you rise up, let it be a way of life, your instruction be a way of life. Now we also see here though it is discipline and instruction. Lastly, this is a very important part, of the Lord. Now, there's a lot of significant things in there. There's a lot of, I think, good application we could draw from those words. And I wanna just highlight two things that it means, two basic things that are very significant for parenting. And the first is this, that the Lord is the chief purpose of raising your children. He is the chief purpose. We are, yes, we are an authority that God has given to us to care for our children, but we teach them that we are not the ultimate authority, that there's someone actually higher than mommy and daddy. That's important because what we don't want to do, and we can very easily do this, implicitly teach our kids that they exist to please us, but they don't. They don't exist for that sole purpose. God has given these children on loan to us. They're His before they're ours. They're a heritage from the Lord, as the Bible says. They came from Him. He gave us the blessing, and they are for Him, just as we are for Him, too. And so our job, our primary goal as parents, is to direct and guide them to Him, to the Savior, to our Lord. to follow him, to raise disciples that follow him. Now secondly, the second thing that we see here, of the Lord also means that the gospel must be central to our teaching and instruction. Because the Lord that we're following is also a Savior. Now, as I was thinking about this, I was remembering, you know, passages of Jesus telling us to teach. And the first thing that came to mind was the end of Matthew, the Great Commission. And as I was thinking about this, I was imagining, right, okay, Jesus is saying there to the whole church, right, but especially the apostles present, remember, right, he's saying, go therefore and make disciples, teaching them all I've commanded you. Now, what just happened? He just died, was crucified for his people, and resurrected in power and glory. The gospel just was accomplished. And he's saying, go and teach them. And here we are called to teach by not only our Lord, but also by our Savior. And what this means is that you can't teach your children the Christian faith apart from the gospel, apart from chapters one through three of Ephesians. Remember that important word right smack dab in the middle of this book, therefore. It says everything, right, Paul's been saying in chapters four and five and now in chapter six, it's all founded on the gospel. Now for us, I know that those chapters are like months ago in the sermon series. But for the Ephesian Christians who are listening in and listening to this letter read, it was probably no less than 10 minutes ago. That's what we must remember. As we raise our children, don't forget the first three chapters of Ephesians. This means more, this means more than just teaching our kids the story of the gospel. It also means modeling the gospel in the way that we bring them up. Now what might that look like? Well, teaching with gospel principles affects the way we respond to their sin, doesn't it? First, we're not so surprised and in shock and disbelief when our children sin. I can't believe you did that because we know the Bible says about our sinful human nature. It looks like teaching them what to do with their sins. Okay, this is what we do. We confess our sin. We say something like this. This is the building blocks of what we do. We repent. We seek God's grace. And then after that, you assure them of God's grace. That they have it in Jesus Christ. When they look to him in faith. See, none of these things, confession, repentance, forgiveness, are possible apart from the gospel. It also looks like acknowledging that, well, we are sinners and that when we sin against our children, which does happen, we apologize to them because we want to humbly display, right, not only our humility before the Lord but our accountability to the Lord. You know, mommy and daddy are held accountable to the Lord too. goes back to the first point, it's all about him. It means that we prayerfully endeavor to show the same patience and the grace that our Heavenly Father shows to us and has shown us up to this point. We have all come here today blessed by the God of grace. You can think of countless trials that you have been through and the older you are, the more trials you could probably think of God being merciful to you. being a father to you. And we are to model that in some measure. We can't do it perfectly but we are to model it in some measure. To summarize, while we teach them obedience to the Lord and to obey his commandments, to follow the wisdom of his law, we're also doing this. We're also ensuring that they know as disciples of Christ the environment that they're in. That they're doing this in the environment of the gospel. And that is so important. That makes all the difference. Right? You're not saying to little Johnny, all right, follow God by walking this tightrope. And whatever you do, try your best not to fall down. That isn't gospel parenting, it's this. Okay, son, here's the path. It's a path of faith, a path of faith in the Lord, the path of his wisdom and righteousness. Let me tell you what it's like to walk this path when he's walking with us. Let me teach you of his love for you, how to believe and trust him, how to love him above all things, how to obey God as your heavenly father. the reason why we do this is very important. We so often forget it about ourselves, and therefore, we often forget it in training our children. Discipleship is impossible apart from the God's grace. Discipleship is impossible apart from God's grace. You've experienced that to be true, haven't you? Teach them that. Show them that. That they desperately need the gospel and that God gives it freely and abundantly. And this is something we all must live for ourselves too. I can't say that any of us as adults have, we get it now. We understand the gospel perfectly and we always apply it to ourselves consistently. We don't. This is something we are to live by for ourselves. Let me say this, there is no parent in this room that has done this perfectly. There is no parent in this room that has fulfilled this command perfectly. We have all failed in many different ways and I'm sure some of us were thinking even just the past week, right? Things I could have done differently, things I said or losing my temper. Whatever it is, or you think maybe decades ago, I wish I had parented this way. But brothers and sisters, you need grace just as much as your children do, and your heavenly Father gives it to you freely and abundantly. And another thing we can rejoice in is that God is sovereign. This is such a comfort to me. This is something I fall back on when I see my own failures and I see, okay, Lord, you're sovereign. You can even use my bumbling efforts for our children's good. Even though I'm imperfect, you can use me to raise them in a way that is pleasing to you. He does that all the time. He's not new to this. He's been doing this for a long time. Taking wayward parents, sinful parents, and using them to raise children in the word, in the disciplined instruction of the Lord. Now, I also want to give another, I don't know if it's a caution or a comfort, it's both, I think. As we know, there are sadly some cases when covenant children, right, they grow up and they do not know the Lord, despite a Christian upbringing. And I realize that for some of you, training your children was many years ago. And as you reflect on parenting, there can be the kind of the unhelpful temptation to think, oh, maybe if I just, if I just done this more, maybe they'd know the Lord. It's too easy to put that unnecessary burden of guilt on yourself. And I say it because this, although we are, it is a weighty responsibility, and although we are called, yes, to seek to be the most godly parents we could be in dependence on God's grace, we must also see this and remember that salvation is of the Lord and the Lord alone. Salvation is of the Lord. No matter how well you parent, no matter how poorly you parent, salvation is from the Lord. Now because of that, because salvation can only come from Him, what are we to do? Well, we continually commit our children to the Lord. whether they're still in the house or whether they're little ones as teenagers or any age. If they're grown up and they're out of the house, we commit them to the Lord in prayer. And remember what difference it makes to be gospel-driven people. This makes all the difference. Don't forget chapter five. We have the means to fulfill this weighty calling in the resources of God Almighty. walking in His Spirit. That means we don't walk alone. That means we're not confined to our own limited resources. Walking in the Spirit, in the guidance and enabling power of a God who deeply loves us and who loves our children too. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we do thank you that we can call you our heavenly father. That you have given us the gospel so that we come to you like children seeking your help. And that is what we have done this morning. Lord, we thank you for the gift of our children. We thank you for the gift of parents. And we ask that you would strengthen us to fulfill the weighty and privileged calling that you've given us. May you be honored. May you be glorified, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand and read.