A Mature Home: Parents and Children

Ephesians: A Mature Home

Ephesians 6:1–3 HCSB

1 Children, obey your parents as you would the Lord, because this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, 3 so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land.

Core Values Worked in?

Setting the Example

It’s important that Paul is helping us to demonstrate what TRUTH & FREEDOM in Christ looks like to God and a world that is looking on.

Jesus set the example for us by giving his life for us.

John 3:16 HCSB

16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 5:8 HCSB

8 But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

His work is one that sets us free from things that those who are not in Christ do not have freedom from.

THIS RESULTS in us Living a Life of WORSHIP By responding to God with lives lived in reflection of our new understanding of the TRUTH and the FREEDOM we now have in Jesus.

We now know who God is and our lives are RECONCILED to Him so we have nothing to prove to show our worth to the world. We are of immense value to God and have a mission to tell the world that they can have the same FREEDOM we have if they too, will accept the gift that Jesus has offered everyone who believes. They can have BE RECONCILED to GOD and each other and those RECONCILED RELATIONSHIPS become evidence of thEe power of God to change lives.

Paul has told us what This Looks like looks like in the general public

People who are Friends with God

People who are Restored to, instructed by, and Empowered By God Himself.

People who invite others to the circle of Friends

People who have no walls between them: age, sex, race, politics, etc. All have equal worth before God and to these folks.

As with last week Paul is making application of the teachings thus far to those who are around the family table.

Paul turns in Chapter 5 and 6 to the home. IT is here That this moves Into the individual STORY that we tell. WE All have a story and ti starts in our homes.

As with last week Paul is making application of the teachings thus far to those who are around the family table.

Three groups are identified. Husband and Wife, Children and Parent’s, household servants and family.

It’s important that Paul is helping us to demonstrate how Freedom looks to a world that is looking on.

The way we treat each other in our homes and the way we love and raise our children as well as how we demonstrate love to our parents is vital.

Paul ends Chapter 5 with this thought about Husbands and wives.

Ephesians 5:33 HCSB

33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

eph 5

Ephesians 5:33 The Message

33 And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.

eph 5

Kids and Parents

Paul now turns to Children and Parents.

Paul now turns to Children and Parents.

He gives three grounds for Obedience of Children Nature, The Law, and the Gospel

Children

Obedience is Natural

Wph 6 1

Ephesians 6:1 HCSB

1 Children, obey your parents as you would the Lord, because this is right.

eph 6

Ephesians 6:1–2 HCSB

1 Children, obey your parents as you would the Lord, because this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise,

Or Righteous. The natural order of things is something that is inscribed on the hearts of all men. It is natral for us to assume that children should obey their parents becasue it’s on the hearts of men to do so.

Romans 2:14 HCSB

14 So, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, instinctively do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law.

Let me share a quote with you from John Stott from...

The Message of Ephesians 1. The Duty of Children (Verses 1–3)

Child obedience belongs to that realm which came in medieval theology to be called ‘natural justice’. It does not depend on special revelation; it is part of the natural law which God has written on all human hearts.4 It is not confined to Christian ethics; it is standard behaviour in every society. Pagan moralists, both Greek and Roman, taught it. Stoic philosophers saw a son’s obedience as self-evident, plainly required by reason and part of ‘the nature of things’. Much earlier, and in oriental culture, one of the greatest emphases of Confucius was on filial respect, so that still today, though centuries later, Chinese, Korean and Japanese customs continue to reflect his influence. Indeed, virtually all civilizations have regarded the recognition of parental authority as indispensable to a stable society. We experience no sense of surprise, therefore, when Paul includes ‘disobedient to parents’ as a mark both of a decadent society which God has given up to its own godlessness and of ‘the last days’ which began with the coming of Christ

Obedience is Revealed

in the Torah..

eph

Ephesians 6:2–3 HCSB

2 Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, 3 so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land.

Paul is moving on to the Torah and is talking about what is still evident in that teaching.

Exodus 20:12 HCSB

12 Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

The first command with a promise.

Its the 5th commandment. But the first with a promise. Having a long life in the blessing God has given you.

While number five it’s on two tablets. One with instruction in relationship with God and the other with Mans relationship with each other. Therefore one has as it’s header HONOR GOD. The other Header HONOR PARENTS.

The Jewish culture found this vital and taught it in the same breath often. check out Gods word in Leviticus

Leviticus 19:2 HCSB

2 “Speak to the entire Israelite community and tell them: Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy.

Leviticus 19:2–3 HCSB

2 “Speak to the entire Israelite community and tell them: Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy. 3 “Each of you is to respect his mother and father. You are to keep My Sabbaths; I am Yahweh your God.

lev 192-3

lev 19

God is bringing these two ideas together as one here.

So parental honor is vital and one who is honoring God is one who is giving their parents honor in yielding to them.

When do you become free of that?

in our culture today? used to be 21 now it’s 18 when kids are given some independence and freedom

When Paul was writing in Rome children were always under their father’s authority until the Father died.

In some Asian countries today a similar tradition still exists.

some comments about the west, the nuclear family and the respect of elders. (retirement homes)

Obedience Is a Witness

how you act toward your parents is a picture of your relationship with God.

Parents

Ephesians 6:4 HCSB

4 Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Eph

Ephesians 6:4 HCSB

4 Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

eph 6 4

Pauls emphasis, similar to what he demonstrates in the Husband wife relationship, is restraint not heavy handedness.

Statt Writes

The Message of Ephesians 2. The Duty of Parents (Verse 4)

it is not the exercise, but the restraint, of their authority which he urges upon them.

The picture he paints of fathers as self-controlled, gentle, patient educators of their children is in stark contrast to the norm of his own day. ‘At the head of the Roman family … was the pater familias, who exercised a sovereign authority over all members of the family … The autocratic character of the patria potestas manifested itself not only in the father’s right to punish, but also in his iuo vitae necisque2 (killing the newborn; exposure of children) … The pater familias has a full right of disposal over his children, as over slaves and things …’3 William Barclay adds: ‘A Roman father had absolute power over his family. He could sell them as slaves, he could make them work in his fields even in chains, he could take the law into his own hands, for the law was in his own hands, and punish as he liked, he could even inflict the death penalty on his child

Fathers Model Christ To Their Children

The Father is to set an example of Who God is before His children just as he is before those in his community. There is to be integrity between the family and the public relationship. not a different at home then out and about kind of thing.

Remember in

Ephesians 3:14–15 HCSB

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

eph 3

and

Ephesians 4:6 HCSB

6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

eph

The overarching theme of Ephesians is that because of Jesus God is the Father of one multinational, multicultural family of God. So human fathers are to care for their families as God the Father cares for His.

Fathers; Treat them As Children, Not Mini Adults.

Remember you are training them to be godly adults not uniformed soldiers.

They are not fully formed and you need to remember that. If you try and force upon them things that they are not yet ready to receive they can grow increasingly resentful and anger.

The Message of Ephesians 2. The Duty of Parents (Verse 4)

Indeed, just as a husband’s love for his wife is expressed in helping her develop her full potential, so parents’ love for their children is expressed in helping them develop theirs

Raising a child according to his bent.

About Abusive situations.