Ephesians 6:1-3 - A Commandment and a Promise

INTRODUCTION

So kids—how many of you remember having Junior Church? When we used to dismiss anyone third grade and under and have them go downstairs for a Bible lesson and game or craft? Have you ever wondered why we stopped doing that? One of the main reasons is because of passages like the one we are studying today, where the Apostle Paul writes specifically to children in his letter! Remember that the book of Ephesians was a letter that Paul sent so that it could be read in church—and he wrote instructions to children because he assumed that they would be in church to hear them!

The Apostle Paul believed that children belong in church with the adults! And since we have come to the verses that he wrote for children, then this sermon is going to be especially for you this morning! Paul wrote to wives, and so we had a sermon for wives. He wrote to husbands, and so we have a sermon for husbands. And now—it’s your turn! So moms and dads can listen in, but this message today is especially for you kids. (Make sure to help your mom and dad with their sermon outlines if they need it! In fact, maybe we should give your mom and dad candy for finishing the outline today instead of you, since this is your sermon!?!?)

Now, the first thing I want to tell you is that you are children who have been very blessed by God. This is because you have moms and dads who love you and who love God—they love you so much, in fact, that they try very hard to be the kind of parents that we read about earlier in our worship service—they want to teach you to love and obey God the way God commanded in Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 6:7 LSB

“You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

This is another reason why we don’t have Junior Church anymore—because your mom and dad want you to learn how to worship God and learn to love and obey His Word, and the one of the best ways to do that is to watch how they worship and follow them.

So here are the verses that the Apostle Paul wrote to the children in the church at Ephesus:

Ephesians 6:1–3 LSB

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long in the land.

Now, what I want to show you from these verses—what I believe the Apostle Paul was teaching when he wrote these verses under the direction of the Holy Spirit—is for you as a Christian kid to

LOVE and OBEY God by LOVING and OBEYING your parents

Now, in order to understand these verses the way God wants us to, we have to start by understanding a little bit about what it was like for the kids that first heard this teaching. Growing up in Ephesus two thousand years ago was very different than the way you are growing up. For one thing, fathers treated their children very differently. In the Roman Empire of Paul’s day it wasn’t unusual for a father to never see or speak to his young children for weeks or even months at a time; when you did see him, it was more like talking to your boss at work—he would give you instructions and tasks to carry out, or test you on how well you understood your school work. You would most likely grow up with your mother taking care of you when you were a tiny baby, but soon you would be handed over to a nanny to raise you when you were small, and then a tutor (an in-home teacher) as you got older. You would probably see your parents several times a week, but as you got older you would see them less often.

Once you were in your mid to late teen years, your father would start taking more notice of you, mainly to teach you how to be a good Roman citizen and train you to take over the running of the household—a very big responsibility, and one that was very important for the survival of the family. But for your whole life you would always be ruled by your father with absolute authority—under Roman law a father could do anything he wanted with his child—give you a fortune, throw you in jail, arrange who you would marry, dictate what job you would do—he could even have you killed if he wanted to, and there was nothing you could do about it!

So you can see here, can’t you, that these verses we read would have a very big impact on the way you related to your father and mother, wouldn’t t—but hey? What God was commanding the children who first heard these words was very different from the way they were growing up. But God’s household i meant to be run very differently from the Roman Empire’s idea of a household!

Paul gives three reasons in these verses for his command to love and obey your parents—the first one is in Verse 1—Paul writes that you must obey your parents

I. Because it is RIGHT AND GOOD to do it (Ephesians 6:1)

Ephesians 6:1 LSB

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

The word “right” means that it is fitting, it is proper. For instance: If you have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, which is fitting to pour on it? Milk or beef gravy? Which is a proper thing to put on pancakes—maple syrup or motor oil?? In the same way, it is right—fitting and proper—for children to obey their parents. The reason for that first of all is that

God MADE THE WORLD this way (cp. 2 Tim 3:1-2)

Everyone in the world—whether they worship Jesus or not—every culture in every country throughout all times all agree that children should do what their parents tell them. There is no question about whether it is good for children to obey their parents, because it is the way God made the world. We can even see this with the animal world God made—you can come see our cows as an exampe. The calves all like to gather in one big group and hang out across the pasture from their mothers—but when the momma cow calls, her calf recognizes her voice and comes trotting over. Even animals obey their parents—this is the way God made the world, and so it is right for you to obey your mom and dad! In fact, the Apostle Paul says that when children become disobedient it is a sign that the whole world is falling apart!

2 Timothy 3:1–2 LSB

But know this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,

God’s Word says that it is right and good for you to obey your parents—it is the way God made the world. And that means that

Your PARENTS ARE RIGHT to make you obey (cp. Prov. 13:24)

You probably don’t like it very much when your mom or dad discipline you because you disobeyed them, don’t you? (Let’s face it—nobody likes it!) If you are told to clean your room or feed the animals or do your homework and ou don’t do it, then your mom and dad will impose consequences for your disobedience. They aren’t just doing this to be mean to you or because they don’t want you to have any fun or just because they’re grumpy or on a power trip—they are doing this (if they are faithful parents who love God) because they know that it is right for you to obey them.

Some people think that teaching their children to obey them is being mean to them—that children shouldn’t be “forced” to obey anyone if they don’t want to. But God’s Word says something very different:

Proverbs 13:24 LSB

He who holds back his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.

The “rod” in this verse means discipline—a father who does not teach his son to obey him is ruining his son’s life:

Proverbs 22:15 LSB

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.

So, even though you really don’t like it when your parents discipline you for disobeying, God’s Word says it is good and right for you to be taught to obey them, because if they don’t, you will grow up as a foolish and rebellious person who will grow up into a life of great suffering, grief and shame.

The first reason, then, that you must obey your parents is because it is right and good to do it. The second reason that Paul gives us here in our passage this morning is

II. Because the BIBLE TELLS US so (Ephesians 6:2-3)

In verses 2-3, Paul writes:

Ephesians 6:2–3 LSB

honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long in the land.

If you are following along in your Bible (which you should always do during a sermon to make sure the preacher isn’t making things up!), you will see that some of the words may be printed with different type—that is the way you can tell that the author is quoting from the Old Testament—in this case, from Exodus 20:12, where we find the Ten Commandments. Paul also quotes from Deuteronomy 5:16 in order to make his point—so we will look now and see how these verses fit with his command for children to love and obey God by loving and obeying their parents.

So notice first of all that verse 1 says that children must obey their parents. Here in Verse 2 the word is to honor your parents. Honoring is more than just doing what someone says—these verses are telling you that

You must LOVE OBEYING your parents (cp. Psalm 119:47)

It is not enough to just do what you are told—there are a lot of people out there that you must obey in this world, but you don’t obey them because you love them. For instance, if you are driving in your car and a policeman pulls you over, when he walks up to your window, you don’t have to tell him “I love you!” But it is different for your parents—you must learn to delight in doing what your mom and dad tell you, because that is the way you are supposed to obey God!

This means that you do not grumble or complain in your obedience—in our house we used to say “don’t be a little black rain cloud!” You are not truly obeying your mom and dad if you are weeding the garden while complaining and snapping at your siblings because you are in a bad mood over it. Obedience to your parents means being glad to do what they tell you. You are called to obey your parents the way you obey God—as it says in the Psalms:

Psalm 119:47 LSB

I shall delight in Your commandments, Which I love.

And this means that your mom and dad must not make obedience difficult for you to love. They must teach you to obey them, but they must not be harsh or overly demanding. You are to learn to love obeying them, but that would be very hard if the things they demand of you are too hard for you to do, or if they are never happy with your obedience no matter how hard you are trying. I hope—if God allows it—that next week we will talk more about the way parents must teach obedience, but for now it is important to know that you must learn to delight in doing what your parents tell you even as you learn to delight in what God tells you to do in His Word.

God tells you in His Word here that you must learn to love obeying your parents, and in verse 3 of Ephesians 6 you are promised that when you obey your parents

You will be HAPPY and SAFE (v. 3)

Ephesians 6:3 LSB

so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long in the land.

Now, for the children in Ephesus who first heard this letter from Paul, they were living in households where they were expected to grow up to learn the family trade—business, or farming, or politics or craftsmanship. It was very important for those children to listen carefully and obey their parents’ teachings so that they would grow up to keep their household running. That was the way they would be happy and safe—they would have a good life if they obeyed their parents’ teaching and training.

In the same way, if your mom and dad love the Lord and are loving you the way they ought, the things that they are teaching you will set you up for a good life. Of course this doesn’t mean that if you are careful to obey and honor your mom and dad that you will never suffer or have bad things happen to you—sometimes you will be unhappy, and sometimes you will not be safe. But on the other hand, if you refuse to obey or honor your parents; if you grow up to hate or despise your mom or dad, you will have a life of suffering and unhappiness. Proverbs 30:17 says

Proverbs 30:17 LSB

The eye that mocks a father And despises obedience to a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it.

In other words, if you grow up to mock and hate your parents, you will come to a miserable end—because if you hate and despise your parents it means that you are hating and despising God, who commanded you to love and respect them!

God’s Word teaches you that you love and obey God by loving and obeying your parents. We have seen that it is right and good to do this, and we have seen that the Bible tells us that we must. But there are a lot of times when obedience to your parents is very difficult—even when they both love you and love each other and love God (and you love them), it can be hard to do what they tell you—it can be hard to do it, and it can be hard to want to do it!

Obeying your mom and dad is hard because we live in a world that has been wrecked by disobedience. Think about it—Adam and Eve in the Garden disobeyed God’s command, and that disobedience has ruined every part of our lives. The reason you don’t want to obey is because you have the same sin in you that was in Adam and Eve. And the reason that there are so many terrible things that happen in this world—lying, violence, divorce, hatred, disease, death—is because this world has been broken by our sin.

So there is one more thing I want to show you here in our passage this morning—you have the ability to obey your mom and dad—even in this sinful world we live in

III. Because JESUS ROSE AGAIN (Ephesians 6:1)

Look back at me to Verse 1—there is one part of that verse we haven’t talked about yet:

Ephesians 6:1 LSB

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Because Jesus rose from the dead, He has changed everything about our lives! When we repent of our sins and come to Jesus to obey Him in everything, then in His strength and with the New Birth He works in us, we are able to obey our parents!

As we said a minute ago,

Obedience is VERY HARD in a SINFUL world (cp. 1 Peter 3:9)

It is hard enough to obey your mom and dad when they both love you and love each other and you all love God. But what about boys and girls who live with parents who don’t love God and don’t want to obey Him? How does a child obey when his dad is cruel to him? How do you honor your mom when you see her getting drunk all the time? What if your dad tells you to lie to someone to cover up something illegal he is doing or tells you to steal something from the supermarket? Are you supposed to obey in that situation? What about a kid whose parents are divorced, and her mother demands she go there for the weekend and her father demands she goes to his place, and by obeying one parent she has to disobey the other one?

I suppose this is a good time for me to let you in on a little secret—but because you are all very clever children you may have already figured this out, but when I said earlier that this sermon was just for you today, I was also wanting to say these same things to your parents and the other grownups in this room. Because every one of us is a son or daughter—every one of us have (or had) parents that may or may not have loved Jesus and may or may not have raised us the way God commands.

And so there are a lot of people—children and grownups alike—who want to know how to honor a parent who is not an honorable person; how to obey a parent that wants them to break one of God’s laws like stealing or lying? Obedience is very hard in a sinful world, and so when we read here that we are to obey our parents “in the Lord”, the first thing to remember is that first obedience is to the Lord. That means that whenever we are able to obey our parents without disobeying Jesus’ commands, we must do so. You must always start off with the plan of obeying your parents if at all possible—cheerfully and respectfully. Remember how the Bible says that as Jesus was growing up He was subject to His parents, Mary and Joseph? (Luke 2:51)? If Jesus—who never sinned!—could be obedient and respectful to His sinful parents, then He can show you how to be obedient and respectful to your sinful parents!

Even if you have a dishonorable parent—a mom or dad who is cruel or immoral or lazy or a drunkard or spiteful or bitter—even then you can honor them by not returning their hatred or spite or bitterness or cruelty. Honoring them means refusing to hate them back but loving them instead; it means not going around telling everyone you meet what a rotter of a father you have; it means praying for them and doing them as much good as you can whenever you can, no matter whether they accept it from you or not. It means

1 Peter 3:9 LSB

not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but giving a blessing instead, for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.

from your Heavenly Father, even if you only inherit curses from your earthly father.

But how in the world is this even possible? How can you be expected to return love for hatred when the one hating you is supposed to be the one who loves you more than anyone else on earth? How can you honor and love and respect someone whose sin has so consumed them that they have devastated your home life? There are families that have suffered such crippling blows because of the behavior of a father or a mother that it seems like there is no hope of ever functioning normally again. How do you obey and honor a parent who has so damaged their relationship with you that you can’t even look them in the eye, much less love and respect them?

When Paul writes to children to obey their parents “in the Lord”, it is a reminder that

Obedience is ONLY POSSIBLE with a NEW HEART

The world we live in is broken by sin; our minds, when left to ourselves, will only come out with anger and hatred and bitterness and fear and pride. In that old sinful way of living, all we want is revenge. I once heard of a man who, when he was told that his estranged father had died, responded by saying, “I hope he died alone...” Apart from Christ, that kind of bitterness is what our hearts will produce.

But in the Lord—in the new mind that we are given when we come to faith in Christ—we are able to replace bitterness with gentleness. We are able to respond to hate with love. Not because we are so perfect or because we are better people than the family member that hurt us, but because when we are living in the new mind of Christ we are able to love rightly.

The world around you tells you that if you have a bad home life that there is no way it can ever be rescued. Your only chance is to escape from it (and then spend the rest of your life blaming every unfortunate thing that happens to you on the horrible way you grew up.)

But God’s Word tells you that, when you walk according to the renewed mind of the New Birth, your home life may never go back to the way it was before it was devastated by sin, but it can be healthier than you ever thought possible. There are a lot of injuries that we carry around in our physical bodies—that old knee injury from high school soccer will never be completely healed this side of the resurrection—but it can be healed enough to function and allow you to work and play and prosper.

In the same way, your family may always have a limp, as it were—it will not be completely restored from the ravages of sin until that Day when Jesus returns to set every broken bone straight and heal every wound and dry every tear. But until then, when you live by faith in Christ and lean on His wisdom and the power of His Spirit dwelling in you, you can live in a broken but redeemed home that may limp along, but is limping in light of the grace of God!

What is God’s Word showing you about the way you obey your mom and dad this morning? Would you be happy to obey God the way you obey your parents? Or do you read God’s commands in the Bible and grumble at them and complain about the things He calls you to do? When Jesus came into the world He said that He delighted to do His Father’s will (Hebrews 10:7), and that He loved to do His Father’s will so much that it was what gave Him His strength every day (John 4:34). Are you glad for the chance to obey your parents because it is also your chance to obey your Heavenly Father? He promises you that when you honor and obey Him by honoring and obeying your mom and dad that you will save yourself a lifetime of grief and hardship—even if you go through hard times, you will always have the promise of your Heavenly Father’s care and the love and care of your mom and dad who love you and each other and Him.

And if you say that there is just no way to forgive the sin of your mother or father; if you can find absolutely no place in your heart to honor them or offer them grace because of the ways that they have sinned against you, then is it possible that you have no capacity to forgive them because you have never received forgiveness yourself?

We looked a bit ago at the Bible’s account of Jesus growing up as the Son of Joseph and Mary—God did not see fit to include many details of Jesus’ growing up years in the Bible, but we can be sure of two things: First, He never sinned in any way toward his mother or father. And second, they continuously sinned against Him. But He was never embittered against them; He never reviled or hated them; He did not hold grudges against them or condemn them—instead, He was condemned for them! The day came when all of the sins that Mary and Joseph committed were laid on their Son’s shoulders and He was beaten and flogged and nailed to a cross and tortured to death so that His mother and father could be forgiven for their sins against Him.

Friend, if you are here this morning and you refuse to offer forgiveness to your mother and father—who may have sinned grievously against you, but could never sin against you as grievously as Jesus’ parents sinned against Him—if you cannot forgive them, then Christ Himself warns you that He will not forgive you:

Matthew 6:14–15 LSB

“For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Yes, you may have been sinned against greatly by your mother or father. But if you insist on holding on to that unforgiveness and bitterness and anger, then the Day will come when you will have nothing else to hold on to as you are cast forever into Hell where your bitterness and unforgiveness and anger and hatred will consume you forever, away from the presence of the One Who invited you to call Him Father through the work of His Son.

Won’t you let go of the hatred this morning? It doesn’t mean that there isn’t real pain in your life; it doesn’t mean that you have to pretend that what they did didn’t happen; it doesn’t mean that everything will automatically be sunshine and roses forever. But there is a promise being held out to you today—repent of your bitterness and pride and anger and grudges, let go of the offenses and record of wrongs you are keeping and plead for the grace to honor your father and mother as God commands, and it will be well with you.

You cannot do this on your own; all you can do is lay it all down at the foot of the Cross, where a faithful Son bled for the redemption of faithless parents. Repent of the bitterness and anger and malice, put to death the grudges that you have been nursing and feeding all this time. Come and be cleansed from the bitterness and shame and pain, come for the healing for you and your family that will help you limp along for now, but will finally be made whole on the Day when all things are made new when you finally stand face-to-face with your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION:

Jude 24–25 LSB

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

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