Children & the Church

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Ephesians 6:1-3

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Amen and amen. If your
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Bible's like mine, it just naturally opens up to the book of Ephesians, right? Here we are in Ephesians chapter 6.
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We embark this morning upon the very final chapter of Ephesians.
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That means, I would imagine, within a year or so we should be finished with this wonderful book.
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I think next we're going to look at 1 Samuel, but I don't know. Pray for me in that. I want to begin the message today by asking you to just imagine with me, consider if you will, what it would be like if in the center of the city of Perryville, there was a great mound of, let's just say, gold.
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Some sort of treasure, some sort of valuable commodity. Let's say in the middle of the city there's this great mound of gold, and it really is free for us to come and take and to use for the betterment of ourselves or for the betterment of society even.
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But let's say you go to the center of the city and you begin to notice after some years that people begin to take that gold and they begin to abuse it, or they begin to mistreat it, or they begin to neglect it altogether.
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They look around and they have resources that they could go to and use, and yet there is the pile of gold that they leave untapped.
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Or they begin to use it for strange things. You go down to the baseball field and what they're using for a baseball is now a chunk of gold.
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And you say, don't you understand, sir, ma 'am, don't you understand what you're doing? Little boy, don't you understand how wonderful a treasure it is that you hold in your hands and now you're just knocking it around as though it's valueless.
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What if I told you this morning that that is an analogy of an infinitely greater commodity, an infinitely greater treasure, an infinitely greater value in our society today.
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There is a great value, a great gift, a great wonder given to us from our high and holy
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God that society today has treated as valueless, worthless, a burden.
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Of course, I'm talking about the treasure of children. Ephesians chapter 6.
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We talk today from the text of children and the church.
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Would you stand with me as we read this passage? I'll just read the first three verses. Providentially, that means next week, verse 4 on Father's Day, is fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.
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It's only appropriate if I preach on Mother's Day, wives submit to your husband, that I should have to preach on Father's Day to fathers raising your children.
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Now we come to honor the reading of God's Word. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 1.
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Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
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Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
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Let's pray. Father, would you help us to understand the great treasure that is our children?
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Help us to understand this text rightly. Help us to understand the great weight that is upon this text and the great necessity of this text in our society today.
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Help us to understand also and chiefly how this text points us to Christ. We pray your blessing over the preaching of the
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Word and that we would respond in faith. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated.
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I want to make a note for a moment here. Considering the way that Paul uses the
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Ten Commandments in making an application to a largely Gentile church.
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Now, I may come back to this in a couple of weeks. Actually, it will be after I return from Mexico.
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I may come back to this and preach a whole sermon on how we ought to think through this. But just notice here, to a largely
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Gentile church, Paul quotes the Ten Commandments. In other words, he doesn't just say, well, that was just something for Israel.
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He actually quotes to the church, honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with the promise that it may go well with you and you may live long in the land.
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So, I want to encourage you with something. As Christians, we do not do away with God's law.
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Paul quotes what we call the moral law here. A summation of the moral law, which is even further summarized by Christ when
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He says, love the Lord your God with everything, and love your neighbor as yourself. But Paul quotes this, and so we don't do away, or Paul didn't do away, with God's moral law.
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But now we understand that we're not justified by it, that we're not standing under its condemnation.
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But now as believers, the law of God is written on our hearts. That's the promise of the
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New Covenant, right? And even that's why Paul says, children, obey your parents in the
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Lord. Let me read to you a quote from Kevin DeYoung. He says, salvation is not the reward for obedience.
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Salvation is the reason for obedience. Jesus does not say, if you obey
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My commandments, I will love you. Instead, He first washes the feet of His disciples, and then says, if you love
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Me, you will keep My commandments. All of our doing is only because of what
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He has first done for us. I want you to consider this as we examine the text today.
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And let me exhort us that since we're talking about obedience, that our salvation is procured only by perfect obedience.
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That is, Christ secured our salvation by His perfect obedience.
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And He purchased our pardon by His own blood, death, burial, and bodily resurrection.
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So let me encourage you, children, you need to hear this as we think about the text today. And adults, by the way, you need this too.
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But you can't obey your way into the Kingdom of God, right?
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You cannot obey your way into God's Kingdom. Rather, Jesus says, you must be born again.
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Those who are born again desire to live now under the righteous rule of Christ as King.
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But that's perhaps for a couple of weeks. We'll address that a little bit later in the sermon. Today's sermon is
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Children and the Church. So I just want to make some observations from the text concerning children and the church.
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Some of these observations will be slightly more topical, and it will take a few points to get warmed up before we dive directly into what the text is saying.
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But the first observation is this. Number one, children are a blessing. Observation number one
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I want to make here is that children are a blessing. Now, I understand that the text does not say that to us.
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It doesn't say children are a blessing. However, it is given within a whole Bible context that portrays children not as a burden, not as a killjoy, not as a menace, but as a blessing.
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Psalm 127 .3 that was read earlier in the service. Behold, children are a heritage from Yahweh.
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The fruit of the womb, a reward. Friends, if you get nothing else out of this first point, get this.
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Children are a gift of God. They are, whether they're in your family by natural birth, whether they're in your family by adoption, children are very high of all the good gifts that God gives to the children of men, to the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, of all the great gifts that God gives, children are very, very high on that list.
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I preached a few weeks ago about the household, and I preached about how the home is under attack today.
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I want to encourage you with something, church. We may not understand the full ramifications of the attack on the home today if we do not understand the attack that is being made, the war that is being waged today on our children.
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Children are under attack in our society.
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They are a despised treasure. Let me give you some stats. The CDC, which if you're, you know, completely trusting the
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CDC today, I don't know what to tell you, but I wouldn't. But their numbers tend to be on the low side.
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The CDC reported in 2020 that there were 600 ,000 abortions in the
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United States. They're probably on the low side. Other sites report closer to one million.
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Okay, if you sort of split the difference between those numbers, then what you come up with is appalling.
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Every day, statistically speaking, every day, statistically today, 2 ,000 children will be murdered in the womb of their mothers.
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You understand that the safest place on earth for a child is the womb of its mother, and our godless society has taken the war not just into the home, but into the very womb, killing children.
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It goes further than that, though. In the
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U .S., the fertility rate, that is, how many children are being born per woman, is dropping significantly.
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200 years ago, per woman, the number was six and a half.
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That is, if you look around to a family with, say, four, five, six, seven kids, it wasn't odd.
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It was normal. You think, no big deal, that's average, 200 years ago. A hundred years ago, it was just over three.
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So again, you look around, you say, okay, a family with three, four, five kids, okay, no big deal, that's average.
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In 1960, it went up a little bit to over three and a half. So again, big families in the 60s and 70s, not that odd.
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But in 2020, that number, the fertility rate, that is the average number of children per woman in the
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United States, 1 .7. Now that's very significant.
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Do you understand that statisticians say if the birth rate falls under 2 .1, you no longer have an increasing population?
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That just makes sense, right? You understand there needs to be two children per woman to replace mother and father.
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So anytime a society, that number falls below 2 .1, that speaks volumes to the society.
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And it means that the society itself by population is decreasing. So it is at 1 .7.
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We are in decline. So even today in conservative circles, having one kid, you're called responsible.
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Having two, okay, that's acceptable. But having more than that, people start making jokes about it.
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Or they give you weird looks in Walmart or whatever. Our society and the cost of things and events, all of that is geared toward small families.
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Families with maybe one child, maybe two at the most because children are a pain.
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Now listen to me. I'm not up here preaching. The Bible does not say that you have to have a specific number of children, right?
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And I disagree that you physically have to have as many children as you can physically possibly have, right?
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I don't think that's what the Bible is teaching us either. However, we cannot get past this concept that children in the
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Bible are a blessing of God. And if children in the Bible, and this is true, they are a blessing of God, then surely the church today must push back on the accepted norms that exist in our society that call children a burden to endure or even parasites to eliminate.
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Let me give you one more example. States today, this just happened this week. The one was a few weeks ago,
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Washington. But following suit was California, and we probably can assume there will be more liberal states do this.
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But they're scrambling to pass laws to make it easier for children, right?
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Children who are too young to drive, too young to smoke a cigarette, too young to buy alcoholic beverages, too young to vote on who's president, too young to fight in the army.
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These states are saying these children, though, are old enough to decide which gender they want to be.
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And this is in California and Washington already. And if you push back as a parent, there is a possibility, if not a probability, that you could be counted as abusing your child.
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And you could lose custody of your children because you disagree with the world today that says children can choose whatever gender they want to choose.
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Now, you take an honest assessment of all these things I've just said, and I could say so many more, and you come to a different conclusion other than the reality that our society hates children.
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There is no other conclusion. Now, why is that? That goes all the way back to Genesis 3, right? The seed of the womb.
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You understand the reason that the devil is overthrown is because of a child, right? The promised one,
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Christ, born of the Virgin Mary. We see a war on children in the Scriptures and throughout the history of the world, and we see it again today.
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So understand today that children are a blessing. Do not miss the point that the Bible teaches that children are a gift from God, and our society seeks to murder them, and if it can't murder them, they will minimize them, and they will mutilate them.
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Secondly, children ought to be addressed from the pulpit. So just some observations first, and then
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I'm going to get to the point of the text in just a moment. But secondly, children ought to be addressed from the pulpit.
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Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Now, it's an amazing thing here, what
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I'm trying to say, it's an amazing thing of what Paul does. He doesn't tell parents what the children should do.
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You may almost expect Paul to say, Dads, moms, teach your children to be obedient.
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But he doesn't do that. Look at the text. He doesn't say, teach your children to be obedient.
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What does he say? He addresses children. Children, think about this. The Apostle Paul is writing not just to mommy and daddy, he's writing to you.
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Paul is writing this letter even to the children in our congregation. And so the idea is that this letter would be read by the church, and so Paul shows that he believes children are fellow image bearers of God, they're not subclass humans, the ones who are saved are not subclass
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Christians. Further, children, you are accountable before God.
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Are you listening to this? What Paul says here, he holds you accountable to.
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Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
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So this is just a reminder, when we preach, when we teach, we need to remember that we're preaching to children as well.
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This should help the way that we think about our sermon structure. I understand it doesn't mean that every child is going to remember or understand even all the big words, but it does mean that we should preach with the understanding that children are going to be in the worship service.
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That leads me to my third observation, and that is children should be in the main gathering of the church.
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Children should be in the main gathering of the church. Why don't we have children's church?
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Wouldn't that be easier? Y 'all, this is a mild Sunday, isn't it? Like all the children, I don't know what happened this morning, but they're all in unison in their quietness.
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But that hasn't been every Sunday, has it? Some Sundays, they have all eaten cinnamon rolls or something, and they're all making noises, right?
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And you think for a moment, wouldn't it be easier so the adults can worship? Wouldn't it be easier to get these rugrats out of here and teach them on their own level?
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Well, Paul says here in verse 1, children, obey your parents. He's addressing children in this letter. In other words,
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I think that if Paul were to walk into a service today, and if he were to see the children dismissed to another room,
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I think that he would be simply dumbfounded, if not irritated, if not angry.
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By Paul addressing children in this letter, he lets us know that the truth contained in this letter is not just meant for the adults.
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You understand? But by writing to the children, in other words, he's writing through this, and he says husbands, he says wives, he says masters, he says servants, slaves, he also says children.
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In other words, all this truth in the Scripture, all these things in this letter, they're not just for one class of Christian.
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They're for everyone, including the children. Now, I think that we've been conditioned by the education system in America to believe in the test analysis.
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That is, if a child can't give you back the three points from the sermon, then he or she isn't learning anything, which
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I might make this comment. A preacher better be careful asking the adults what the points of the sermon were, right?
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Because he might be disappointed. But what we have to know is this, as children are in the service, they are learning.
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We must take a holistic approach, not this narrow, do the test approach, right? Week in and week out, they're looking at mommy and daddy, they're looking at the adults, they're seeing the servants of the church, they're seeing the elders, they're looking, they're seeing the singing, they're seeing the giving, they're seeing the preaching, they're doing all of these things, they're praying, they're fellowshipping, and they're learning.
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Now, someone says, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we let children participate in all that, but right before the sermon, we send them out to something that they can understand better.
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But I would say this, if we relegate them to children's church right before the sermon, then they miss what it looks like for a congregation to sit under the preaching of the
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Word of God. Our children should look at us and they should see, we're not on our phones, we're not worried about the newspaper, or eating, or whatever, we're sitting under the
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Word of God, we're eyes ahead, we're looking at the pastor, we're looking at our Bible, we're taking notes, our children are learning through all of these things.
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And I get that children can be fussy, especially young children, especially babies, fussy, messy, noisy, but I'm telling you,
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I have personally preached in places where the only children were my own, and the sound of silence in those places was deafening.
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Don't despise the treasure of children. Paul expected that our children would be in the main gathering.
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Why would we not want to replicate that in our churches today? Fourthly, children should be exhorted to believe on Christ.
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Paul says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. So here's just a logical conclusion from these other points.
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If children are to be preached to, and if children are to be in the main gathering of the church, it also follows that children should be exhorted to believe on Christ.
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Children are not automatically members of the New Covenant community.
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I'm going to use a verse that's often used to say contrary to this, but I'm going to use it to prove my position.
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And that is, Jesus says to the children, or to his disciples, let the little children, what, come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.
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That is, the children are not already in Christ, they need to come to Christ, and they ought to be exhorted to come to Christ, and to trust
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Christ in saving faith, and in repentance, knowing that it is his good will to bestow the kingdom only upon those who repent and believe the gospel.
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The kingdom of heaven is only for those who are born again. You are not in the kingdom of heaven by virtue of being a child, even if you're a child of believing parents or grandparents.
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You're not in the covenant because of that. It belongs, rather, the new covenant belongs to children and adults who come to Christ, trusting his promises.
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So I'm going to contradict myself for a moment, right? If you've been ever waiting for me to make a contradiction of myself, here it is.
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Earlier, I told you that the Bible has a very high view of children.
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Here's the contradiction. The Bible has a very low view of children as well.
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Now, what do I mean by that? The Bible understands children as sinners.
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Psalm 51 .5, for example, says, David writes, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
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That is, the Bible understands from the moment of our conception that we have inherited the guilt and sin nature of our father,
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Adam. And we're born fallen in Adam. This is one reason, by the way, that Christ was conceived by the
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Holy Spirit. And there are many examples in the Scriptures, but we're going to do a little test today.
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Many examples in the Scriptures of children. I shouldn't say test, examination, really. Many examples in the
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Bible of children as sinners. But let me give you one. Turn to 2 Kings. 2 Kings 2.
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We'll come right back. But the Bible understands children as a gift, as a treasure, but it also sees children as sinners.
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And so I want to read a passage you may or may not be familiar with, but this is 2
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Kings 2. In 2
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Kings 2, verse 23, this is talking about the prophet
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Elisha. Elisha. He went up from there to Bethel.
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That is, Elisha. And while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying,
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Go up, you bald head! Go up, you bald head! Just something like little boys would do, right? Come out and make fun of the prophet.
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But before you're ready to say something to Pastor Jacob, you need to think about this next verse.
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And he turned around and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of Yahweh.
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And two she bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of the boys.
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This is the Bible. This is the Word of God. It teaches us in this passage...
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I'll just make two comments for our purposes. First, it teaches us the responsibility that children have for their sins.
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And it teaches us also that God does not take lightly little boys despising
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His prophet Elisha, but by implication, His Word. By jeering at Elisha, they were jeering at the
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Word of God. And God does not take lightly these little boys doing that.
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Two bears? 42 of them? What I'm saying to you, friends, is that we must understand that the
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Bible sees children as responsible before God for their sin.
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So where am I getting with all that? Simply that we should exhort children just like we exhort adults to turn from their sin, right?
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And to find the mercy and peace and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that is only available to sinners.
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I'm trying to tell you that children this morning do not need a gospel -like. They do not just need veggie -tale moralism.
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They do not need Bible -story crafts that miss the hero of the Scriptures, namely,
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Jesus. We are being quite wicked to our children if we withhold from them, if we pretend that they have a different way to God than we do.
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That if them just being children by virtue of their childhood, they're right with God. Friends, our children need
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Jesus. Christ is not just our Christ available to us, He is our children's
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Christ available to them. But they must be exhorted. They must understand that they have offended a holy
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God, justly deserve the death and hell and wrath of God, but that in Christ, God has made a way of atonement for their sins by punishing
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His Son for the ungodly. And if they will repent and believe the gospel, trusting
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Christ alone as their only suitable and all -sufficient Savior, they can have a right relationship with God and full pardon for their sins.
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Summertime is VBS. Let us do away with any sort of vacation Bible school that would teach our children only this.
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God loves you and wants you to have a happy life. Friends, that's not the gospel.
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And our children need the gospel. Fifthly, children should be taught the
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Ten Commandments. And just an observation here. Children, obey your parents and the
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Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with the promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
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In other words, Paul is teaching the children here the fifth commandment. And again, this is a largely
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Gentile church. And yet, Paul ties his instructions to the moral law of God, to the
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Ten Commandments. So Paul takes a command from a specific context given to Israel, but adapts the promise and he shows that the application of the
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Ten Commandments goes much broader than physical Israel. So for those who say there's no application or no necessity of the
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Ten Commandments in the church today, I would say you misunderstand what Paul understood. You misunderstand what
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Paul does here with this instruction. And so my point here is if the Apostle Paul thought it was prudent to teach the children the commandments, and the right application, then why wouldn't parents do that?
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For more on that, read chapter 19 of the 1689. Okay, now can we get to the purpose of the text?
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Yes, preacher. Point six. Children should be taught obedience.
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We've come to the point in one sense of the text. Not that everything else that I've said this morning didn't have to do with the text, but we explicitly see that Paul commands.
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This is an imperative, children. An imperative means a command. He's not suggesting this to you.
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He's not saying it would be a good idea if when you think about it, to maybe, you know, do what your mama says.
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And by the way, children, obey your parents, right? It's not just about fathers. Dads and moms.
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Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. This is right. This is
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God's design. We've talked about hierarchy and structure in the family.
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Well, this applies not just with husbands and wives, but it also applies with our children.
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And this is good. Do you think that our society, erasing these distinctions between men and women, erasing these distinctions between authority and oughtness and morality, do you think our society is better off by doing these things?
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I am convinced that our nation is under the judgment of God. This morning in Philadelphia, a truck blew up.
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I think it was an accident, but it destroyed the northbound lane of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia.
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That's one of the main interstates in the United States. That is a terrible tragedy for the city of Philadelphia, but not just the city of Philadelphia, even the entire eastern coast, in a sense.
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They're going to have some major problems with that. I don't think it's coincidence that stuff like that happens in the very month that we stand before God and shake our fist at Him, abuse
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His rainbow, and say, we're going to do what we want. Friends, our nation is under judgment.
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And we have to understand that part of the reason is because not just in 2023, but in 1993 and 1973, and maybe even back to 1953, families begin to lose the order and structure that God has given us in the home.
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We must recover this. This is God's good design. Think about the reality of what happens when children are not reared in homes where they're expected to obey.
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I've seen it. I've worked in secular counseling before, and the response of secular counseling is what this kid needs is a pill.
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When really what they need is a disciplining father who's absent from the home. Friends, when children are not taught to obey in the home, it affects society.
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They grow up. They hate authority. They don't care. They have a poor work ethic. If you remember from Romans 1, when we think about Romans 1, we think about the sexual sins.
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But did you know that one of the judgments of God upon a society, it says later in Romans 1, is children are disobedient to parents.
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They have no respect. They have no respect for adults. They call adults by their first name like it's nothing.
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They don't say yes sir or yes ma 'am or things like that. You know, obvious words of submission and understanding.
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Paul expects here though that children would obey their parents. In fact, children, he requires it.
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Right? And let me just make this note here. Children obey your parents.
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Right? So the idea is children are not the state's children. Right? So if you hear a state official talk about our children, he's full of nonsense.
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Right? The children are not the state's children and even they're not the church's children.
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Children are, under God, the parents' children. In these verses,
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God connects a specific duty of children to parents. And of course, by implication, parents to children.
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Because this is a special relationship that God has ordained between the family and the home.
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So children, listen up. I'm going to talk to you for a moment. We good?
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The Lord says that you ought to obey your parents.
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And the Scriptures teach us that to obey is better than sacrifice.
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So listen here. If you come to Sunday school and you're a good little boy, a good little girl, you memorize your
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Psalm 96 like you're supposed to, you know the songs that we sing on Wednesday nights, and you know the songs that we sing on Sunday morning.
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You do all of these things. But yet, at home, you don't obey and honor your parents.
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You are not pleasing to God. Colossians 3 .20
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says it this way. Children, obey your parents in everything for this pleases the
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Lord. So children, let me ask you this morning. Do you trust Christ? It pleases
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God that as you put your faith in Christ, as you seek to follow Christ, then you seek to obey and honor your parents.
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This brings pleasure to God. It pleases the Lord. You are to obey, the text says, your parents in the
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Lord. It's right for you to obey them as offspring. Like, that's just natural, right? The wolf pup ought to obey the wolf mom, right?
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That's just a natural thing, right? But no, it's beyond just natural obedience. It's obedience in the
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Lord, right? You are to obey them as servants of Christ. And let me tell you this, children.
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Obedience is blessed. Verse 3, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
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That it may go well with you, you may live long in the land. This is a general principle that you need to believe, children.
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It's not an ironclad promise, but I'm just going to tell you something. I know this as a parent.
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It doesn't take children to get 16 years of age before they think they're smarter than you. It takes them maybe to about 18 months or something.
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Maybe, right? But children, God has given you wise, and all the children
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I'm looking at in here, godly parents. You should listen to your parents.
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Because when they tell you don't do that. Don't hang out with that person.
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Don't put this in your body. You should think about this in your work ethic.
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You should watch this when you're driving. It's for your good.
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Right? It doesn't mean that if you obey your parents, you're guaranteed to live 100 years. That's not what
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Paul means. But there's a general practical truth here. That if you listen to your parents, if you honor your parents, if you obey your parents, then you will be kept from some of the most vile, wicked, evil, sinful things in this world.
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Now, they can't protect you from everything, but let me just say this, parents. You ought to protect your children. Right? You hear
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Christian parents today say things like this. Well, I don't want to shelter my kids. Why? Why don't you want to shelter your kids?
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Right? I want to shelter. I want to feed my kids. I want to clothe my kids. I want to teach my kids.
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And I want to shelter my kids. Right? I understand I can't take them to a little hole and pretend like there's going to be no influence from the world.
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We live in the world, right? But I do all that I can, as I can, to shield my children from the filth and the vileness and the wickedness that is in the world today.
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Why? Because I know that they're too young to understand it. And so I shield them from that. I see these things.
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I read the word of God. And then I come to my children and I say, children, you should do this. You should do this. You should do this.
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You shouldn't do this. You should refrain from this. And you should think about this. And when my children listen to me,
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God says it will go well with them and they'll live long in the land.
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Again, not an ironclad promise. Doesn't guarantee you're going to live to be 97. But it does mean, generally speaking, your life will be kept from some of the evils of this world.
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Now let me tell you something, parents. Obedience is hard.
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Some of you have already graduated your kids. You're on the grandparenting stage. You're like, obedience is not hard.
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I just give the kid whatever they want, right? Parents have to deal with that. Well, maybe we envy you a bit.
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But parents, obedience is hard. But it is a non -negotiable.
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It is a non -negotiable for our children. The text says, children, obey your parents.
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Our children need to be taught, they must be taught obedience from them to us as their parents and that this is non -negotiable.
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We should use words in our language like obey. You need to obey.
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You have disobeyed. This is really hard work sometimes and especially with younger children.
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But I'm just going to tell you, the older your kids get, it doesn't get easier, right? But it's hard with young children.
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But we have to eliminate some things that are modern practices today, right? Little Johnny, you let go of that toy right now.
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Drop it. I am serious. Drop that toy. One. You got two.
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Two and a half. Three. You know what you're teaching your children?
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You're teaching your children that it's okay to obey later. Delayed obedience is disobedience.
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Our children must be taught, not just because we're like authoritarians or whatever, it's for the good of their life, right?
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Don't you... Let me ask you something, parents. Do you want your child to experience verse 3? Like to live blessed or whatever?
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If you do, like how much must you hate your child to not care whether or not they obey you?
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When God says there's a connection between their understanding of submission to you as their parent and their welfare and well -being in the world.
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So let me just say something. We cannot do that. It's not right for children to obey on 3 when they disobeyed on 1.
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Delayed obedience is disobedience. And so, parents, God commands us to hold our children to this.
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We shouldn't laugh at disobedience, right? Isn't that so funny?
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Little Johnny just spit in my eye. Like, that's not funny.
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I mean, you can pull away later and you and mom or you and dad, maybe you can laugh about it. But when children disobey a command, it's not funny.
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They should be taught to obey, expected to obey immediately and without whining, right?
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So like not go into your room and clean your room while you're whining. No, no. You are expected to obey without whining.
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And when a command is disobeyed or when it's done in a rebellious spirit, there must be appropriate discipline for the consequences of disobedience.
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Otherwise, it doesn't make sense, right? Now, each family, each home has to decide these things together and what those things will look like.
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But I can tell you from personal experience, it seems like all I did certain days sometimes was just discipline my children, right?
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What did you do today? Well, I tried to read my Bible a little bit and then I disciplined my children, right? Like all day, yeah.
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Well, it was hard. Now, sometimes kids do things that kids do.
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Look, sometimes a kid spills a drink, not because they meant to, but because why?
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Because they're a child. A glass is broken or something else is broken.
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It doesn't happen out of defiance. It happens because they're kids. And sometimes kids act like what?
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Kids. So we have to have patience. We have to have love. We have to have mercy.
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We have to have kindness. We have to have compassion. And even in these situations, you just got to laugh, right?
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When they didn't mean to, and the milk spills and it gets all over your pants and you're about to go out somewhere and it's like, oh, they didn't mean to.
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They're kids. And let's be honest. You make mistakes too sometimes. But there's a difference, isn't there?
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Between a true childlike accident and then disobedience. So parents, we need wisdom.
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Pray for that. We need wisdom to understand the difference and we must remember that we are modeling before our children what it looks like to obey
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God. So twofold here. When we don't take seriously the discipline and obedience of our children, we're telling them that God doesn't care about obedience, right?
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And then the other thing is, when we tell our children to be obedient and we're disobedient to God, we're telling them that we're hypocrites.
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If we tell them, you better clean your room, but we neglect what the
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Bible commands us to do, then we're only modeling hypocrisy.
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The answer, of course, is not to stop telling your child to obey. The answer is for you to repent. Humble yourself before the
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Lord so that you can help show your children what obedience to a higher authority looks like.
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Let me ask you this before we move on. Is there anything that God is calling you to do that you've delayed, right?
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This is not to be irreverent, but let me use the analogy, because God doesn't do this, but I'll use it as an analogy.
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Is there anything that God is standing over you today saying, I've told you to do this? One. Two.
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And you're just waiting on Him to get serious, right? Friends, if there's anything in your life that you're not being obedient to God about, quit delaying and submit your life to the
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Word. This brings me to the last point today. We've talked a lot about obedience. Obedience is in the text. Children, obey your parents and the
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Lord for this is right. We've talked about commandments, all these things, but this last point was going to carry us into the
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Lord's Supper and it's quite important for us to grasp. And that is, only Christ is our hope of saving obedience.
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Only Christ is our hope of saving obedience. Children, obey your parents. Honor your father and mother.
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And yet, you've already failed at this. Hey, I've seen you fail at it, right? You've crossed your arms.
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You've rolled your eyes. You've argued. You've talked back. You've lied. You've delayed obedience.
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You flat out disobeyed. You were disrespectful. I've seen it. Every child in this room,
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I've seen it. Parents, the truth is, the same for us too, isn't it? In some ways, our children's disobedience just models our own when we were growing up, right?
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Or even perhaps, in some ways, models our failures and sins to God's Word even today.
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And James says something very important. He says, whoever keeps the law, the whole law, but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
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Guilty of all of it. You understand? If you have rolled your eyes, children, are you listening?
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If you've rolled your eyes one time, stamped your foot one time, whined to your parents one time, you are guilty of the whole law.
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And you stand under condemnation of it. And that's the truth of parents too.
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Children, parents, grandparents, we stand, everyone in here, dreadful word for us, we're guilty before a holy
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God, but consider this. Consider this. In fact, let's look at it real quick. Luke 2.
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Luke 2. You know your pastor is going to turn to a Christmas text any chance he can.
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But this really isn't a Christmas text, but it is a glorious hope for us this morning.
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Luke 2 and verse 51. Luke 2 verse 51.
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Luke 2 verse 51. And he went down with them, that is his parents, and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them.
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And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. Listen to me. Listen to me.
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We have hope today because our Lord Jesus, as a child, submitted to His earthly parents.
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He obeyed His earthly parents perfectly. And this is just emblematic of our
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Lord's righteous obedience to every command of God. He obeyed the fifth commandment.
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And He obeyed all ten commandments and beyond. And His obedience was to the point of death, the
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Scriptures say, even death on a cross. He was righteous in it all. And Pilate looked at our
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Lord and said, I find no guilt in this man. Which is true, but it's more than what Pilate was bargaining for or even understood that he was speaking.
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There was no guilt in the Lord Jesus. No guilt before Pilate. No guilt before the Pharisees. No guilt before God.
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He never offended the least jot or tittle of the law. He obeyed it to righteous perfection.
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And then Christ, the obedient one, took our obedience to Calvary, our rebellion, our defiance was imputed to Christ, and He bore our sins and His body on the tree.
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There Christ was punished, not for His disobedience, but for ours.
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He died. And He rose again the third day. Why did He do this? Because our obedience will never get us to heaven.
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Our only hope is the obedience of Christ and His death and His resurrection as our substitute.
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We must rest ourselves this morning in all that God has done for us in Christ. And everything that Christ has done for us in our place.
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Paul wrote Ephesians to Christians. Yes, unbelieving children of course are to be taught obedience too.
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But ultimately, believing children should obey their parents in the
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Lord. And believing parents should parent their children in the Lord. Why? Because it's only in Christ that all of these things have been fully and perfectly and finally accomplished.
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And it's only in Christ that we find the motivation and the power and the desire to live out these realities before a righteous and holy
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God. So parents and children must see their own obedience fall so short of God's standard that our only hope remains in the finished work of Christ on our behalf.
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And think about that for just a moment. What a freeing gospel.
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Right? The gospel is not a new law hanging above us saying if you don't measure up, you ain't getting in.
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No, the gospel comes in and says the law says that you don't measure up and here is the way.
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And it frees us now in joy and in hope to live out what
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God has worked in through the Spirit. So what I say, go to Him.
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Go to Christ. What a precious gospel we have. Believe on Christ. Find in Christ every solace necessary for your burdened soul.
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Every balm to heal. Every wound. And then see the joy and freedom we have in the Lord to actually do what
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Paul says here in Ephesians 6. And to carry out these things that Paul teaches us in this letter for the glory of God.
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In Christ, the law is no longer our enemy. It comes alongside us now as our friend in the sense that we use it not to gain favor with God and not to stand under the judgment of God.
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But rather we use it now to walk in the ways that God wants us to. We don't have to guess what is it that God wants us to do.
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We know now. And now it's our delight to do this. And when we fail, and we will fail, you'll fail today, we rest again in Jesus.
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Again, in Jesus. That's why when you're confronted about sin, your first response shouldn't be to double down, but take it again to Christ.
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As we think about the Lord's Supper again, reflect on these truths and prepare your hearts.
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Listen, the Lord's Supper is only for, there's only one class of people invited. That's sinners saved by grace.
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What I mean is this, not to distinguish out between sinners and saints, but what I mean is just this.
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You say this morning, I haven't been a perfect parent. Or children,
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I'm trying to think of those in here who are invited to the table, I think there's just one. You say, well,
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I haven't obeyed perfectly my parents. Well, what do I do? Friends, right now you take it to Christ. You repent.
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You repent. You come to the table. But you don't dare come to the table by harboring rebellion and disobedience.
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You deal with that now and be reminded, this table reminds us that only
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Christ is the way. It's only by His broken body and shed blood for our sins, because He was the obedient one, that we stand rightly before a holy and good
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God. Consider these things as we sing. Gunnar, you come and lead us in a song.