Teaching Children to Live Meaningful Lives

I love Dothan for a lot of reasons. One is because it is very family oriented. There is a lot for children and youth to be involved in. Youth sports is a big in our area. Your kids can play just about everything. And since I wasn’t very good in sports growing up, I like many of you look forward to living out my dreams through my kids. Nah, I’m just kidding…kind of. I do enjoy watching my children in activities. Noah has chosen to love soccer and AvaGrace has chosen to love dance. I’m confident that they chose those because I know absolutely nothing about either of them. I’ve got one more hope. Maybe Keller will chose golf or baseball.

Recently I read that 3 out of 4 families that with school aged children in America has at least on child in an organized sport. I think kids being involved in sports and other activities is very healthy for kids and families. But I wonder if we are communicating that being good in sports equates to a meaningful life. Or even if we might be saying just being successful in school or in a job, etc. equals a meaningful life. It’s great to urge them to succeed and be the very best they can be. But, if we are teaching them that success will lead to a meaningful, purposeful life; we are lying to them.

It’s great to urge them to succeed and be the very best they can be. But, if we are teaching them that success will lead to a meaningful, purposeful life; we are lying to them.

The world is full of successful people who live meaningless lives. One of the most successful people in the world is Tom Brady, the former quarterback for the New England Patriots. He has played in 9 superbowls and won 6 of them. Since this video he married the supermodel Gisele. Here’s what he had to say about finding meaning in life.

(Show Video)

He was looking for something because he was not fulfilled.

Paul wants the believers in Ephesus to live with fulfillment. And so, he starts by looking at those that don’t and mentions why they don’t.

Paul wants the believers in Ephesus to live with fulfillment. And so, he starts by looking at those that don’t and mentions why they don’t.

Ephesians 4:17 ESV

17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.

Gentiles is the Bible’s word for unbelievers. He says that their problem is the “futility of their minds.” (v.17). The word futility could also be translated “vanity” or “aimlessness.” In other words, the way they think has set them on a path in life that will lead them to nowhere meaningful. Why is that? Paul says its because we can’t experience a really meaningful life unless we do it living in relationship with God.

For that reason, based on this text, realize that Dads who teach their children to follow Christ prepare them to live meaningful lives. We often talk about knowing Christ and going to heaven. That is true, but Christ didn’t come just to give us eternal life after we die. But eternal life starts today. Eternal life is not just the length of life, but it is the quality of life as well.

Lead them to become:

I. A Completely New Creation in Christ

The primary problem for humanity according to Scripture is our hardness of heart toward God. All the problems of aimlessness come due to hard heartedness toward God.

Ephesians 4:18 ESV

18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

What that means is that we don’t naturally feel love in our heart toward God or the things of God, so we don’t naturally obeys God. Earlier in Ephesians, Paul described the unbelievers heart as being, “dead in sin.” ()

That is a state they we come to this world in. The result of this hard hearted, depraved state is that we are “darkened in their understanding.” (v.18) There is a moral ignorance that results from our separation and hardness to God.

+And so instead of understanding that we are here to know God and love God, we think that we have to make our own meaning and pursue pleasure everywhere we can find it in the world.

And so sometimes it looks like what Paul discusses here:

Ephesians 4:19 ESV

19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

In society, we see this kind of rank immorality that results in all kind of corruptness in the world. But the callousness toward God doesn’t always result in sensual types of sins. That callousness may result in sin of making idols of success or sports or hobbies.

So what is the answer for a hardened heart that leads to a futile mind?

The answer is to learn Christ. The answer to a hard heart and a futile mind is the gospel of Jesus.

Notice the emphasis on the role of the gospel on the mind.

Ephesians 4:20–21 ESV

20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,

Eph. 4:

What does this tell us about the gospel. The gospel is something that has to be taught. The gospel means “good news.” News has to be told. So Dads from a very young age tell your children about Jesus.

Make sure the basics of the gospel is the at the heart of the way they see life. God made us to know and love and to glorify him. But Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. They were sinners, so we became sinners. Our sin separates us from God in spiritual death. But, God sent us a Savior who lived a perfect life and died our death on the cross. And, he rose again to prove that anyone who places faith in Christ will be forgiven and have his life. We be born again and live in new eternal life forever with God.

That is news that no one naturally knows. You can’t find that news out by looking into creation or a crystal ball or any way else. Christ must be taught, which means we must teach him.

Paul tells us that:

A. Christ is the substance. (v.20)

You learned “Christ.” First and foremost that means that you have been saved. That you have repented from sin and place faith in Christ to save you. It means that you know him and he knows you.

Charles Spurgeon once said:

“I may know all the doctrines of the Bible, but unless I know Christ, there is not one of them that can save me.” -Charles Spurgeon

Christ is the substance of our teaching.

B. Christ is the teacher. (v.21)

This is not so clear in the ESV. “assuming that you have heard about him...” (v.21) But I don’t love that translation. It’s tying it back to v.20. But in the language of the NT, there is no “about” in the text. It just reads, “assuming that you have heard him.”

The KJV and the NASB reflects this in its translation:

King James Version Chapter 4

If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update Chapter 4

if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,

Paul is telling them that while they may have learned the gospel from many friends or family or a teacher, in reality you learned it from Christ. Paul is saying that Christ is really the teacher who taught you through that person.

Now the implications of that is that when you teach your children the gospel, Christ himself teaches through you.

+That’s important because sometimes parents think, but what if I mess it up. If you know Jesus and the gospel you can’t mess it us because Christ himself teaches through you.

+Also, we want to give our children the best. The best we can give them is to teach them about Jesus because then they have Christ himself teach them about himself through us.

C. Christ is the Classroom (v.21)

Ephesians 4:21 ESV

21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,

v.

Jesus is even the context of our truth. So how we understand Jesus based on his terms. We study the OT because through the truth of God’s word, we understand the person of God’s word.

Be a faithful father and give your children the gospel and you will give your children the path to the life of meaning.

Lead them to have:

Lead them to have:

Lead them to have:

II. A Constantly Renewing Mind in Christ (vv.22-24)

Paul tells us why that is important.

Ephesians 4:23 ESV

23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

Paul expects that Christians who have been recreated with the life of Christ would begin to live the in the righteousness and holiness of Christ.

Paul expects that Christians who have been recreated with the life of Christ would begin to live the in the righteousness and holiness of Christ.

Ephesians 4:24 ESV

24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:22–24 ESV

22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Paul tells us to put off your old self and put on the new self. In other words, don’t live following the pattern that lost people live by. Live by the pattern that Christ has remade us for.

*He does says that using the metaphor of wearing the right clothes for who you are. For many people, their dress is determined by their job. Doctors and nurses wear scrubs. Soldiers and sailors wear different uniforms. Firemen put on a certain uniform that is appropriate for who they are. Policemen put on a different uniform, but it is appropriate for who they are.

A Christian’s behavior is his uniform. It shows who they are. You need to wear the right uniform for your calling.

That’s important because you wouldn’t want to go fight a war prepared to fight a fire. You want to wear the uniform

Even prisoners often wear clothes that mark them as convicts. But when their identity changes, their clothes change. When a convict finishes their time or gets exonerated they take off the convict clothes. They don’t dress like captives, they dress like free men.

That’s what Paul is calling us to. We are not slaves to the world. We are free in Christ, we need to dress like free men and women.

This reminds us of when Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave. Does anyone remember what he told the people after Lazarus was raised?

John 11:44 ESV

44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

In other words, “take his grave clothes off” because this man isn’t dead.

If you are a believer, we are not dead in sin either. God tells us to take off the grave clothes and live like someone alive in Christ.

How do we do that?

Ephesians 4:23 ESV

23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

Just because we get saved doesn’t mean we are going to automatically live like Jesus. We have to intentionally have the truth of God poured into us or we will default back into the pattern of our old life. This is one reason that people backslide.

That is why day after day Bible reading, memorizing Scripture, listening to God exalting music, listening to sermons, reading books on God, getting into S.S. classes and men’s and women’s ministries, etc are so important.

If you want you children to have a meaningful life, give them the gospel and teach them to live daily renewing their mind in Christ.