Home Base 2: Kids, Parents, and Life in Christ

Intro

Three of the best things my dad ever did for me were to discipline me consistently, to make sure I went to church and learned the bible at home, and to make sure he was home in time for dinner most nights.

I think it’s a shame that in our culture today characters like June and Ward Cleaver have given way to Peter and Lois Griffin. The American home kind of reflects this change though. We are unstable. How many families do you know where mom and dad stay together for life and kids grow up well disciplined and balanced? That is no longer the American norm. I’m not saying this to guilt anyone because we all have our issues, but this imbalance in the home really is a problem. It says all we need to know about our culture. It’s in trouble.

But we Christians are called to be a preservative in this broken culture, displaying Christ and showing the world a better way. Many of us here have had rocky paths getting to this point. We aren’t here so much to focus on the rocks behind us, but on overcoming the rocks in front of us. No matter where we have been, we can have a better way forward in Christ. We can practice this by fighting to build the best homes we possibly can now. We can’t undo the past, but we can build a better future with the Spirit’s help.

Tension

The way we relate to people externally is a revelation of what is alive internally in us.

If I am relating to my wife, my kids, my coworkers, and my neighbors in an unhealthy way then something deep and deeply troubling is exposed in me. The way we relate to others shows whether it is our sin nature or Christ and our new nature in Him which has a controlling interest in our lives.

For many of us, we really struggle to build and maintain healthy relationships and that bothers us. The truth is that every relationship is broken through sin and only in Christ can we get beyond the sin nature to start building healthy relationships with those around us.

Truth

Colossians 3:20–21 ESV

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

I. Our home lives are the primary place where our faith is put on display

Examining our the family dynamics is critical for spiritual growth and happiness.

There is no place in our lives like the home to expose what remains broken in us, what remains outside of the influence of Christ.

We are generally spatially and emotionally closest to those we live with. Our guard tends to come down at home and family sees the truest version of who we are right now.

Think about who you have the most potential in your life to wound or hurt. It’s your family, because you are closest to them.

Is your family generally life-giving for you and one another, or does your life together precipitate brokenness in one another?

Our general rule of life begins in the home. If we can't have proper balance at home, it is unlikely that we will have balance anywhere.

We have to work on this if we are going to be successful examples of the Holy Spirit's human heart restoration project.

Paul wrote, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12-13). We enter the faith by grace, and we continue in Christ by grace, and we work to grow into our Christ-identity by grace (Philippians 2:13).

Our home lives are critical for this task, giving us great and regular opportunities to practice repentance, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, each of the beatitudes, and the fruit of the Spirit.

It’s also the most likely place for us to be stretched in these areas. It isn’t always easy to be patient with people you live with.

Colossians 3 is all about seeking the things above and setting our minds on Christ relating to every aspect of our lives (1-4).

God has put all things under the subjection of Christ (Hebrews 12:2). That is the reality.

Therefore when we subject every part and parcel of our lives under the authority of Christ we are most in line with what is true, good, and right and we are also most happy and at rest.

So what does all of this have to do with the parent to child relationship?

II. When children are obedient to parents, they are most happy, there is greater peace, and the glory of Christ is revealed to the world.

Children are disciples of Christ who have been put under the authority and teaching of their parents.

By learning obedience to their parents, kids are ultimately learning obedience to Christ.

Exodus 20:12 ESV

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

They glorify Christ through obedience to their parents and they grow as people of peace, truth, and love as a result.

A disobedient child displays in his outermost person a disconnect from Christ in his or her heart.

This disconnect from God will always rob him or her of ultimate thriving in life.

No vine which lives detached from the branch can attain to what it was created to be.

A child who grows up disobedient and rebellious will ultimately become a shell of an adult human.

Since it is in our hearts for our children to grow to become thriving adults who are submitted to Christ, full of the Spirit, and living from peace and rest we must require obedience from them and they must learn to obey.

Our world views freedom as the lack of limitations, but true freedom is wisdom to properly apply limitations.

It is good for our kids to learn how to properly limit themselves

III. When parents disciple their kids well, it builds them up and brings glory to Christ.

God desires to have churches filled with families, which are filled with obedient Children and gracious parents.

1 Timothy 3:2–5 ESV

Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

We don't want to be the sort of parents who are difficult to obey.

Like the marriage relationship, we make it much easier on our kids to live up to the obedience standard when we are Christ-like in our parenting.

When we parent in a way that shows Christ to our kids, we glorify God. They see the fruit of the Spirit growing in us and that is good for them.

When we are angry, short-fused, graceless, obnoxious, nagging, lazy, and/or overbearing in the way we discipline our children we show signs of our outward person being controlled not by Christ but by the flesh.

We have to fight against using exasperating tactics to force our kids to obey.

Exasperate in this context means to be quarrelsome, to provoke, to intentionally rouse to anger for the sake of doing so, to have a fighting spirit towards our kids, to approach them with selfish ambition, and/or to enrage them.

Especially if our kids are regenerated, we must learn to assume the same Spirit is working in them which works in us. We want to give the Holy Spirit room to work in our kids lives and not stifle the Spirit’s work.

Our culture likes to blame kids for discontent. Instead, we should be looking within ourselves.

When we feel like we have come to the end of our ropes as parents, we often tend to blame our kids.

Perhaps instead we should be looking internally and asking what in us is out of alignment with Christ.

Our peace is stolen not by our external circumstances but by our internal condition.

James 4:1 ESV

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?

In our culture today we spend far too much time blaming external oppressors and bullies for our problems.

This only reinforces a victim mentality and will never be constructive for obtaining inner peace.

Instead of blaming our kids, we must seek the Lord and ask him to direct our hearts that we might respond to our kids in a Christ-like way.

They need us to be Spirit-filled, Christ-centered, and Biblically grounded parents.

Our inner peace and rest in Christ will transfer over to our kids, as will our inner restlessness.

When my child lacks peace and balance, perhaps I should be asking the Lord whether or not that is a reflection of my character.

Then I must correct my character and call my child to follow suit in repentance and belief. This is very good modeling of discipleship for our kids.

Our kids don't need to see perfect parents so much as they need to see humble and repentant parents.

Application

What does the state of your home life say about who is currently leading your life? What is the Lord asking you to change starting today?

Moms and dads, if there are issues between you and your kids I am encouraging you to begin a process of change today. What are some action steps you can make together to elevate Christ to the central place in your home?

What needs to die in you today so that Christ can begin to repair the broken relationships in your life?