EPH 30 KIDS & PARENTS

Well, once again, Paul is leading us in a direction that I wouldn’t normally go on a Wednesday night, so I’m assuming that God knows that there will be some parents here tonight who need some help and some kids who need to turn your hats around the right way and stop sagging…or probably something more substantial. Paul says that one of the characteristics of the last days is that children will be disobedient to parents. People will also be unthankful, unloving, and unholy. It all is of a piece. They all grow out of the same culture of godlessness and narcissism. So, given our current last days state of affairs, it is worth looking at the problem and see if we can find solutions.

Ephesians 6:1–4 NKJV

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

OBEY YOUR PARENTS!!!

The Inner Rebel

We have a visceral reaction to the word obey, starting from our earliest understanding of the word right up until we check out and stand before God in judgment.

This is the rebel in all of us. It is Adam and Eve’s gene of disobedience that we all received at birth.

Doesn’t Genesis 3 remind you of dad coming home and catching you in the act?

Genesis 3:11 NKJV

And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”

Uh oh. Where’d you get that skateboard? Didn’t I tell you not to hang around with that Tommy kid? The skater with the nose ring and 666 tattoo?

Who gave you the booze? Who sent your these pictures? Busted! We all hate getting busted. Not because what we did was wrong…that didn’t stop us from doing it so that isn’t what bothers us. We’ll look at that in a minute. What bothers us is the consequences. Dad is ticked. It’s not going to be good.

2. It might be a good idea to keep that in mind BEFORE you do what you know you shouldn’t do.

Actions have consequences and if your parents are doing their job the consequences are not going to be good.

In the Lord

And you might want to consider the qualifying phrase: “In the Lord”.

The Lord is real, and He’s in your parent’s corner on this issue. You are not just disobeying your parents, you’re disobeying God.

God is so much behind this that Paul cites one of the 10 commandments to justify this position. Of 10 things God commanded humans to do, one of them is OBEY YOUR PARENTS. That’s significant. You would think it would be a given, but apparently not because God has to make a point of telling you kids to do this!

I don’t know if you believe in God or not. You certainly don’t believe in Him simply because your parents believe in Him. That is something that you will have to arrive at on your own! But mark it down…whether you believe in Him or not, He is real.

If you are bothered by the idea that Dad is ticked and your day is about to take a nasty turn, you probably should think about the implications of ticking God off.

Oh, I know. He doesn’t care. He won’t do anything. Tell that to the junkies and the alcoholics and the porn addicts and the prostitutes. Tell it to all the backsliders who have blown up their lives thinking there are no consequences. When God lifts His protective hand of grace from your life, things get really bad really fast. This is not going to be good.

You would be amazed how often God ratted our kids out to us. Exposed their sin that they thought they would never get caught at. God is definitely on your parents’ side in this argument, which does not bode well for you. Even if you get away with 50%, your parents in the Lord can make your life miserable in their effort to keep your soul from hell!

For this is right

Now Paul says, “This is right”. Obeying your parents is right. Again, that might not be particularly persuasive for the rebel inside, but you need to think it through.

If you’re in a burning building and you start to go down a hall, but a fireman says: “No, go this way. The exit is this way!”, you’re not going to argue with him. You’re not going to say, “You’re not the boss of me. You can’t tell me what to do.” You recognize his authority and are thankful for his wisdom.

If you’re parents say, Stay way from that Tommy kid, or do your homework before you go out and shoot hoops, you have to understand that they are trying to do right by you. They don’t want you to die in the burning building.

But some would fight with the fireman, not because he’s wrong, but simply because you consider your will supreme. Some of you fight with your parents simply because you consider your will supreme.

Imagine a world where obedience flowed down through headship/authority from creator God. The God who is love and the God who is perfectly just and right. This would be a world of love, justice, and righteousness.

Now imagine a world where everyone thinks just like you. My will is supreme. I care nothing for right or wrong. I care nothing for you and your will because my will is supreme. I suppose a world like that would be as close to hell as you could get. There would never be justice, or love. Right would never prevail. Your will would only be honored until someone came along who was bigger and badder than you. Then you would be crushed. Ever meet a bully kids? Welcome to your world.

Which one of those worlds would you want to live in? FOR THIS IS RIGHT. Obedience is right. It produces right in your life, the right outcome.

TRAINING PARENTS TO TRAIN KIDS

Do Not Provoke

Now Paul doesn’t just leave it as an admonition to kids to pull their pants up and turn their hat around. He addresses parents. Fathers in particular because they are the source of discipline and teaching in the NT Jewish culture, but the statement can be equally applied to mothers.

Do not provoke your children to wrath. What exactly is Paul suggesting here. I believe there are two sides to this coin, and striking the balance can be very challenging sometimes. We provoke our children by over-disciplining them and under-disciplining them.

We can over discipline them by being perfectionists…demanding more than they are capable of.

We can over discipline them by not loving them, by making it all about performance, by withholding love when we don’t think they’ve measured up.

We can over discipline them by being brutal. There is a difference between a spanking and a beating.

We can over discipline them by never just letting them be kids, and enjoy the experiences of growing up. No friends. No vacations or adventures. No games. No fun.

But we can provoke them to wrath by not disciplining them. By just letting them make their own way. Giving them no guidance.

We can under-discipline them by telling them that they can’t do something and then let them get away with doing it. Inconsistency is profoundly confusing for a child.

We can under-discipline them by giving them no boundaries and having no expectations for them. No chores. No routines. A child without limits is lost. Especially as they try to function in the world without any reference points.

The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive Parents and Children

Back as early as the 50s, Emile Durkheim was studying teenage suicide and said the kids who kill themselves or kids who are experiencing anomie, which literally means lawlessness, a sense of, “I don’t really know what is right and what is wrong …”

Kids need fences.

You can under-discipline them by neglect. You’re too busy to pay any attention to them. Kids understand the language, or perhaps the silence of neglect as well as abuse. They know you don’t give a flip about them.

You can under-discipline kids by letting them play on their digital screens all day. You want to turn your kids brain to mush, just give them an electronic baby-sitter. They won’t hate you now. They’ll hate you in twenty years.

Training and Admonition

Training and admonition has to do with teaching and correction. It is understanding that these young souls have been entrusted to you to do all you can to give them the wisdom and the understanding of life to be able to make good choices and to develop the skills they need in life, social, intellectual, and spiritual.

It requires as much encouragement as it does chastisement. And it requires a commitment to the process.

Deuteronomy 6:7 NKJV

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

2. Diligently! That is an important word. It is a word of responsibility. It is a word that requires much from us. This is not something that can be left to chance.

To train them is to have a very specific goal in mind, and the highest goal is to bring them to the knowledge of God…the training and admonition OF THE LORD!

Certainly there are many things we need to teach our children: financial wisdom, integrity, honor, courage, gratitude…but the crowning achievement is to bring them to Christ.

Obviously they have a will just like us, and in the end, they will have to make those choices for themselves, but we have to make sure that they have the tools to make the right choices.

Raise Them Up

The whole purpose of parenting is to raise them up, to equip them for life. To get them to where they can stand on their own two feet.

We aren’t trying to make them dependent on us. We aren’t trying to be the eternal mommacita! The whole idea is that when you hand them their suitcase on their 18th birthday, they are ready to go!!!

You have to let them go bit by bit, and put responsibility into their lives incrementally. You can’t just let them slum around until they’re 18. I was pushing a lawn mower as soon as I could reach the handle. I was washing cars, weeding gardens, doing homework, reading books…I was being groomed for what was coming.

Oh the rebel in me didn’t like it and blew off much of what I learned…and to a certain degree that was the product of being provoked to wrath! I won’t go into the details, but I can tell you that being a parent and getting it right is not easy. You have to learn each kid because they are all different. You have to spend time with them and you have to love them with the love of God.

Follow the logic of Ephesians. Get your relationship with God right. Then get your marriage right. Then get your kids right. Next week we’ll talk about getting your job right. But we have to take this seriously. It is the stuff of life.

THE PROMISE

Live long and Prosper

And that is exactly what Paul had in mind in these admonitions. He wants it to be well with our children and reminds them that this process comes with that promise: that it may be well with you and you may live long in the earth!

And that, I suppose, is the ultimate enticement to any of you kids that have half a brain tonight. I know it is hard to project in life when you’re young. But you have to ask yourself, “What kind of life do I want?”

Do you want it to be well with you? Do you want to live long and prosper? Or do you want life to be a train wreck?

You might think that you can have it both ways. That you can ignore God and ignore the scriptures and ignore your parents in the Lord…but it doesn’t work that way.

Oh, I know sinners who grew up fine, had a good life, didn’t wind up living under a bridge. But you know too much.

Oh I know backsliders who didn’t completely destroy their lives…few as they are…but they exist. But you know too much, and they know too much. They might be holding it all together on the outside, but they are not living well!! It isn’t well with them. It isn’t well in their souls. It isn’t well in their homes.

What kind of life do you want? You are in the process of creating it even as we speak. And how you handle tonight’s subject matter is the primary key. There are some of you who have already done damage to yourself!! And you know it!

Cheap piece of advice: repent. Surrender. Find your inner rebel and hang her from the closest street lamp! Stand him up against a wall and shoot him!!! Kill that inner rebel and live in obedience. Learn everything you can from your parents in the Lord. Get to know your Creator. You will never regret it.