An Obedient Home
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Introduction
Introduction
Thank you to everyone that came out to the park yesterday. Thank you to our first responders represented here.
While there are times I take the opportunity to preach special messages on days like today, this year I believe it would be more beneficial to our church family and anyone who is new to our church to continue and finish our series on the home.
Each of us has a home and family that we are apart of. It may look different than others but we are all apart of a home none the less. There could be young kids, older kids, no kids, grand kids, two parents, one parent, or a number of combinations that could apply here. The principles and truths we’ve preached the last few weeks out of Ephesians 5 and today in Ephesians 6 are ones that can be applied to our lives no matter our situation. The application I make isn’t the only one that can be made.
With that said open your Bibles to ephesians 6 or follow along on the screen as I read verses 1-4.
Eph 6:1-4
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
2 Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;)
3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
PRAY
Have you ever noticed that many families resemble one another. Maybe you got your mothers eyes like all of my children or you have your fathers hair. Maybe it’s the dimples you inherited from your grandmother or your grandpas ears.
Just as you have the physical traits of family members, you may also find yourself with personality traits that your family members exhibit. If your an easily frustrated person you may see your children begin acting the same way. You could be someone who is a very organized by nature and you begin to notice that in your children as they organize their crayons by color.
Children are notorious for mimicking behavior they see in their parents.
Today as we approach this passage of scripture that I believe can help us have an obedient home, remember this truth.
For those that might not be familiar with this book of the Bible, it was written by the Apostle Paul to the church of Ephesus. A church he had planted on a missionary journey around the region to get the gospel of Jesus to everyone he could.
Here in chapter 6 he begins by writing a couple sentences that I believe can help us to have an obedient home.
It starts with understanding The Role of a Child
I. The Role of a Child
I. The Role of a Child
I believe it’s first important to define what a child is.
There are varying opinions as to the exact age of when a person goes from a child to an adult but one of the per-dominate thoughts I came across in studying was that a a person does not become an “adult” until 20.
This is based off of the how God had the Israelites wander the desert for 40 years until everyone 20 and older had passed away.
I won’t be dogmatic about this but I do believe most of us here could say that when we were under 20 or for late bloomers like me, in your early 20’s we were making some dumb decisions.
So with that understanding we will approach this text. Which means, teenagers, even though you may not like it, I encourage you to accept that your a child with lots to learn. Accept that God has a role for you to play in the family and spend your time seeking to fulfill that role to the absolute best of your abilities.
The role of a child start with Obeying the Lord
A. Obeying the Lord
A. Obeying the Lord
As we spoke last week about husbands and wives surrendering to the Lord to submit to one another, the same is true in a child’s life. Their obedience should be motivated by their love for Jesus rather than just their fear of the parent.
When babies come out of the womb, is that how they see life? Do they see themselves as submissive, obedient, children that love the Lord and obey their parents? No.
So how do they learn this behavior. The same way they learn to eat, to not lie, and to never put pineapple on pizza. They are taught.
They are taught to obey mom and dad and they are also taught why they should obey.
Often times we teach them to obey “because I said so.” and don’t get me wrong, I understand there are times that is the best answer to get things accomplished. I’ve used it myself. However, do ever go back and teach them why you said so?
Getting children to obey is easy, especially the younger they are. You are bigger, you can get louder, you can ground them, you can do a lot of things that can garner obedience but are you doing the right things to foster a relationship and teach why that obedience is important?
The verse here tells us why children should obey their parents, It is right. It’s not just obedience though, it’s obedience in the Lord.
I believe this speaks to obedience with a proper attitude.
Have you ever been told to do something by a parent, boss, or maybe a spouse and you do it begrudgingly? (EXAMPLE)
That’s obedience with a bad attitude. That’s obedience without love
notice what jesus said about obedience
John 14:23
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
If someone loves Jesus they keep His words, they keep his commandments. So what do we do when our children are not obeying us in the Lord?
We scream and yell until they do right?…No…not at all.
We do what Jesus does. We love them.
It is God that so loved us He sent Jesus
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
When we do wrong we aren’t berated and beaten down, if we confess it, we are forgiven
1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We learn and grow from it and then move on.
Too often we seek to use our position to garner obedience when it wasn’t the position that Jesus’ used, it was love.
The Child’s role in the home is to obey because it is right and the children in the home should also be known for honoring their parents.
B. Honoring the Parents
B. Honoring the Parents
The word for honor in this verse carries with it the weight of reverence and respect.
Honoring a person may bring obedience but obedience isn’t the definition of honoring.
Honoring a person is appreciating and respecting them as individuals and valuing their opinions and input.
The application of honor changes over time though. The commandment doesn’t hold with it any sort of age restrictions. As children in the home we honor by obeying, by living by the parameters parents set in place to protect us. As young adults, we honor our parents by respecting their input in our lives, calling them and loving on them, and not getting angry or upset when they try to speak into our lives.
Then as we get older I believe honoring them changes to where you now take care of and provide for them in the best way possible. That can look different depending upon how their life goes.
this command of honoirng is the first one given with a promise to it.
Ex 20:12
12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Pastor, do you mean I’ll live along life if I honor my parents? According to this promise, yes. Does that mean everyone who passes young didn’t obey their parents? No, absolutely not.
Honoring and respecting parents should not be motivated by the blessing that may come from it. Just as living our lives for Christ should not be motived by the blessings that come from it, they should be motivated by Jesus Himself.
What do I mean by that? Well, we know that God is omnipotent, that means all powerful. We know that He can do anything but fail according to the song.
When we pursue after God because of the blessings he can provide we are pursuing Him for the wrong reasons.
It’s like the child that comes in and does the dishes and looks at you mom and says “can I have a candy bar now?” They didn’t do the dishes out of a love for you. They did the dishes out of a desire of what you can do for them
In the Bible there is a book called Job that walks us through the most tragic times of a mans life. He lost his children, his land, and his health. His wife and his friends told him to curse God and die.
It was during this time he said
Job 1:21
21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return thither: The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Job wasn’t serving God because of the blessings in his life. He was serving God because He was God. He was serving God because he love the Lord.
We serve Jesus because we love Him.
1 John 4:19
19 We love him, because he first loved us.
Jesus came as the Son of God to die on the cross for our sins. He gave His life that we might have a relationship with God for all of eternity.
Honoring our parents is the same as honoring Jesus. We don’t do it because of what they can provide for us, we do it because of who they are.
Children obey as unto the Lord, they honor becuase it is right. However, as children I beleive most of their actions are based upon our ours as parents.
What is our role in the home?
Notice with me the Role of the Parents
I. The Role of the Parents
I. The Role of the Parents
Eph 6:4
4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Paul specifically addresses fathers in this passage. I believe that’s because, as I was quite direct about last week, that the father is the one responsible for the home. Now if there is no father in the picture, moms you have the task of taking up that mantle.
The principles of this passage I believe are two fold.
First, parents are to encourage.
B. To Encourage
B. To Encourage
Paul specifically addresses provoking children to anger here. I believe the opposite of provoking to anger would be to provoke unto happiness and joy.
I’m as guilty as any other dad for getting caught up in work or being tired and having to do something while a kid is asking something, or doing something they are not supposed to and raising my voice or snapping. We’ve all been there…but doesn’t make it ok. it doesn’t mean we can just walk away and act as though because we are mom or dad we can treat our children anyway we want.
Children are precious in the eyes of God
Matthew 19:14
14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Luke 17:2
2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
Let’s breakdown that verse in a luke.
A mill stone is a large stone that donkeys would turn to grind wheat.
The context of this verse I believe carries with it two meanings. First, the little ones being described are those who are young in the faith. Second, the little ones being referred to are also children.
So it would be better for a person to have that large stone tied around their neck and thrown into the sea than to offend one of them.
The Greek word translated “shall offend” means to “entice to sin” If we as parents are enticing are little ones our children to sin by leading them away from the Lord or provoking them to anger we must be repentant toward God and them.
When we repent we let our kids know what we did wrong and what we should have done. We encourage them by our words and by our actions. We let them walk with us as we walk with God.
The problem comes moms and dads, when we are not walking with God. then we are unable to show our children who Jesus is because we do not know him ourselves.
Our Role as parents is to encourage our children and it is also to educate our children.
B. To Educate
B. To Educate
We are to raise our children in the nurture and admonishen of the Lord. The word for nurture means the “disciplinary correction” of the Lord.
This does not, I repeat this does not mean abuse. It means to appropriately discipline children for the purpose of correction. If you child spills milk and you ground them for a week, I would say that is an overreaction and not disciplinary correction.
disciplinary correction needs to be done in a manner that is not from anger. It should be accomplished in a calm, loving, and forgiving way for whatever the offence is.
Then, I believe, it should end with apologies to the offended parties whether siblings or parents, a prayer to God for forgiveness, and a hug and exchange of I love yous. Why?
When we offend, we are to go to the person we have offended and apologize and seek forgiveness. If we have been offended we are to to go them and seek reconciliation.