Raising Godly Kids--Ephesians 6:1-4 (May 5, 2024)

Raising Godly Kids in Ephesians 6:1-4

Are going to be in Ephesians chapter 6 this morning, Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 4. If you're new with us, we normally preach through books of the Bible here. Kind of go verse by verse, chapter by chapter.

We finished Acts a few weeks ago and so we're taking just a few weeks to tackle some subjects that I, as your pastor, believe will be helpful for our congregation. And so today the subject is raising godly kids.

Raising godly kids. I hope that this will be a very practical sermon for all of us. And that includes those of us who maybe don't have kids yet. Maybe aren't even married yet. Maybe married but no kids yet.

I hope it will be practical for those whose kids are grown up and you're empty nesters now. Of course it will be most applicable for our families with kids still at home. And on that note, I just want to mention again, we say this from time to time, I just want to mention again that we love having families worshiping together and kids in our worship service.

We hear them let out a cry or a scream from time to time and I just want you to know that's okay. We don't mind it. We like it. And we also recognize the difficulty that you parents are doing in training your kids.

And we just want to commend you for it. And so I just want you to know we love our young families here. We believe it's good and right to have families worshiping together. If you're new with us, and that might be new for you, I did preach a sermon about this time last year that's on our YouTube page that you can find if you're interested in hearing more about that practice.

I do want to begin with a word to those with young kids, and that word is an encouragement to keep at it. Keep at it. You're doing well. Do not grow weary in doing good. It's what Paul says in Galatians 6.

I think it's applicable to your situation. Raising young kids, do not grow weary in doing good, for you will reap a harvest in time if you don't give up.

And so keep at it.

My hope is that this sermon is an encouragement to you, and a reminder of your holy calling as parents. And my hope is that you leave more equipped for the good work of parenting. If you leave here burdened and beaten down, then I haven't done my job very well.

And if you leave here unchallenged, then I likely have not done my job very well. But if you leave here freshly encouraged and equipped to raise your kids in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, then praise God, that'll be what we're aiming for.

And so before we get into our passage there in Ephesians 6, I want to acknowledge two things about raising godly kids. One, the task of parenting is hard. And those who have passed that season of life, they'll tell you it was hard.

We mess up a lot. No one gets it perfect. We drift from our principles. We lose our cool, and it's hard. And therefore, we ought to approach this topic with humility. With humility. And then the second thing would be the fact that it's hard doesn't give us an excuse to do it poorly.

We're called by God to raise our kids in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And so what He calls us to, He will equip us for. And that's what I hope that we see from Ephesians 6, 1 through 4.

So let me read that passage to us this morning. The Word of God says, 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. Amen. This is the Word of God to us this morning.

I want to briefly work our way through this passage and then make some specific practical application for all of us. In verse 1, we see that Paul, he's addressing the children that are in the church. And so kids that are in our church today, listen to this.

Paul's talking to you. This is the Word, more so than Paul's Word, this is the Word of Almighty God to you. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, written by the hand of Paul, God says this, Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

So verse 1 is a command to children.

Obey.

And then he underlines the command by pointing to its rightness. It is right, not wrong. It is right, not optional. It is right, not indifferent. But it is right, children, that you obey your parents.

That's the first thing we see. Then, verses 2 and 3, Paul quotes from the 5th commandment. He goes back to the 10 commandments in Exodus and he quotes that 5th commandment saying, Honor your father and your mother.

Honor your father and your mother. In other words, this is not a new commandment that he's giving.

This is an old commandment.

This is one of the foundational commandments given to God's people back at Sinai. Honoring parents is part of keeping the eternal moral law of God. It's not one that ever changes. And it is right. It is right because it's God's law.

If you remember Psalm 119, God's law is more valuable than gold and sweeter than honey. It is good. And not only is it right, but there's a promise attached to it. It's good for us. It's the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you that you live long on the earth.

You live long in the land. You see, generally speaking, keeping God's commandments leads to blessing. And generally speaking, breaking God's commandments leads to cursing. We see this in Deuteronomy 28.

And the 5th commandment carry with it the specific blessing of long life on the earth or long life in the land. Now, I want you to notice the connection between some of the commands in this passage. Paul says to obey.

The quote from the 10 commandments, 5th commandment is to honor. So Paul says obey. Moses says honor. And we can say that obedience is one way that we show honor to parents, especially for kids who are still in the home.

Verse 4 then switches from addressing children to addressing fathers. And giving them two commands. One negative, one positive. Negative command, do not provoke your children to wrath. That's the do not command.

Positive one is, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. That's the do this command. Now, it's interesting. The command is only given to fathers there, right? It says, and you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath.

Does that let moms off the hook? Like, are they allowed to provoke their children to wrath? Do they not have to raise them up in the training and admonition of the Lord? Well, I don't think that's the case at all.

Rather, because how God established the household, because God has given wives to husbands to be their help meat. The command to fathers extends to mothers as well. But because fathers are addressed specifically, it teaches us that fathers ultimately bear the responsibility.

The buck stops with dad.

And God will hold fathers responsible for the training of their kids. So, hearing that, what does it mean to provoke your children to wrath? What does it mean, as some translations have it, to exasperate your children?

I want to give a list, particularly as it relates to raising young children. I want to give a list from this book. It's a book by Reb Bradley. It's called Child Training Tips. It was published back in the mid -90s.

Excellent resource for parents. If you're a parent here of young kids and you want a free copy of this, I have about four of them down front. I'm happy for you to take one at the end of the service. I will warn you, you'll feel like you got beat up after reading it a little bit.

But you'll also feel freshly encouraged in your parenting practices. But it is an excellent, excellent resource. And I'm going to pull from that book for some of our practical application this morning, including What does it mean to exasperate your kids?

Here's a few ways, as a parent, if you wanted to exasperate your kids, this is what you'd do. You'd never admit you're wrong. You would model hypocrisy by holding them to a higher standard than you hold yourself.

Fail to keep promises. Demand too much. Over-protect them. Batter them with words. Abuse them verbally or with discipline that is too severe. You would show favoritism and maybe embarrass them or try to be their buddy.

Withhold firm discipline and proper training that exasperates children. Giving inconsistent discipline or asserting your parental authority weakly. Not weakly like every week, but weakly like without strength.

Bradley goes on to give many more examples. But those will suffice for what we're seeing here. These are ways that we don't give kids what they need in order to thrive. In order to grow up into maturity.

Our goal in parenting is that they would grow into maturity. Rather than doing those things that I just listed, parents are rather to bring their kids up in what Paul says, the training and instruction of the Lord.

What does that mean?

What does it mean to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord, as some of your translations have it. Or the nurture and admonition, the discipline and instruction of the Lord. What does that mean?

I want to focus specifically, as we answer that question, on the first of those words. What's translated as training here in Ephesians 6 .4 in our text. The Greek word for that is paideia. It's one of those words in the Greek tradition that you could give a shorthand translation of it.

You could also write books and books and books about it. It's kind of like the word liberty in the Western tradition. You could give a shorthand definition, like a dictionary definition of liberty. But somebody could also write books and books and books about liberty in the West.

There's a lot you could say about it. This is one of those words. But if I were to, I think the best summary word that I've heard for paideia, to really capture the concept, is enculturation.

Enculturation.

That is, that raising your kids in the training, nurture, and fear of the Lord, is to enculturate them into the culture of the kingdom of God. The culture of heaven. What is that culture? Well, it's one where the will of God is supreme.

It is one where the word of God is obeyed, where the name of God is hallowed. It's a culture, one with speech and habits and values and instincts and behavior, that all accords with God's word. This is the paideia of God.

It's the culture that we are to pass down to our children. Things like, we tell the truth, even when it hurts. That we seek the good of others, even at great cost to ourselves. That we believe the Bible.

All of it.

It's a culture of the kingdom of God. That Paul commands passing on the culture of the kingdom of God. This is one reason why I am a huge proponent of Christian education. Because education by its very nature is enculturation into a specific view of the world and way of life.

And we ought to pass down a distinctly Christian way of life to our children. It's what Paul is teaching here in Ephesians 6 .4. I'd love to talk more about the paideia of God sometime. But for our purposes today, I really want to focus in on what we see in verse 1.

Which is the command given to children to obey. Children are commanded by God to obey their parents. And I want to ask first, why is this command so important? Why is this command so important? One, it's right.

He says that specifically at the end of verse 1. For this is right. If it's right, it's important, right? Second is practically, obedience to authority is necessary to the well ordering of a home. So if you want your home to be well ordered, there must be obedience.

And then third, I think this is the most important. Children learn to obey God by learning to obey their parents. So a son who hears his father's voice and obeys it, will be ready to hear his heavenly father's word and obey it.

And so there's no raising godly kids without obedience. That's because the command to children is what? It's to obey. And so if they're not obeying their parents, then they're not obeying God. Because God commanded them to obey their parents.

If they're not obeying God, then they're not godly. And so there is no raising godly kids without kids obeying. But here's the reality about children. Foolishness is bound up in their hearts, Proverbs 22, 15.

They are brought forth in iniquity and in sin their mothers conceived them, Psalm 51 and 5. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies, Psalm 58, 3. Through Adam's offense, judgment came to all men, Romans 5, 18.

And no one is good, no not one, Romans 3, 10. That is, children do not and will not of their own inclination, of their own accord, they won't naturally obey. But, Ephesians 6, 1, they're commanded to.

So what gives?

Well, God gave children who have folly bound up in their hearts. God gave to them fathers and mothers, commanding those fathers and mothers to train them. In other words, parents are to train their children for obedience.

Parents must teach and train their children to obey if their children are going to be godly. And so, one major way that parents can evaluate how they're doing, as parents, is this simple question. Do my children obey my voice?

That's a hard question. I've asked that question to myself. It's not always a fun answer. But that's how we measure. We don't measure our parenting by what kind of grades they get. We don't measure our parenting by their sports achievements.

We don't measure our parenting by the memories that were made, or by toys and stuff, or even family time. Those are all good things. We ought to give them attention. But if they got all A's, if they were tribal ball all-stars, if they had killer family vacations,.

If they received the best Christmas presents ever,.

But they lost their souls, what does it profit a child? A major factor in measuring our parenting is our children's obedience. The thing is, as parents, in everything that we're doing, one way or another, we are training them.

Whether we're actively doing it or inactively doing it, directly or indirectly, at all times, we're training them. One way or another, by our actions or our inactions. I remember reading an article about 10 years ago by a pastor named John Piper.

A tragic police shooting had been in the news at this time. There was a young boy, maybe about 10 years old, and he had pointed a toy gun at a police officer. Now, the officer didn't know that it was a toy gun, and the officer commanded the boy to put the gun down.

He felt threatened.

He sees the gun, pointed at him, commands him to put it down. The boy refuses. He does not obey. The officer, thinking it's a real gun and that his life is in danger, he shoots the boy. Tragic. Awful.

I'm not making any comment about the police work there. I'm only making a comment about the tragedy of it. A few days later, Piper was on an airplane. He noticed that there was a boy about the same age, about 10 years old, sitting in a neighboring seat.

The stewardess comes by. It's time for takeoff. You can't have electronics out during takeoff, you know. She tells him to put up his iPad.

He closes it.

As soon as he walks by, he opens it back up. The mother sees him, says nothing, does nothing. I'll never forget the next line that Piper wrote in that article. Because Hudson was a toddler at the time.

Child training is kind of front and center of my mind. And he wondered, is that mother training her son to get shot by the police? You see, they don't always seem like it in the moment. But the stakes of our parenting are always high.

The stakes of our parenting are always high. Now, the question, of course, then, if we're talking about the necessity of obedience and training for that, is how?

How do we do that?

That's a question that probably takes more time than we have this morning. But again, I want to make some application for us. And again, I'm going to do it from Bradley's book here. The first thing we must do in order to train for obedience is establish control in the home.

And so a controlled child is one who has submitted his or her will to his parents, Bradley says. A controlled child is one who has submitted his will. So he obeys all the way, does everything the parent says.

He does it right away, does it immediately, and he does it with a good attitude. Now, again, I want to try to make application where I can for all of us, even if you don't have young kids in the home.

That's a really good check for all of us. Do we obey God all the way, right away, and with a good attitude? It's a good check for all of us. Parents must have control of the home. Bradley says this, children who lack boundaries and are allowed to push and whine, constantly voicing their opinions about discipline, personal duties, or family decisions, they're actually being permitted to assume responsibility for running the home, which is a task that God has not equipped their small shoulders.

Now, he's given mothers and fathers for this. And so you can identify a child-run home if you find yourself saying things like, well, we can't make that for dinner or the kids will never eat it. We can't go there, the kids will be bored.

We'll have to change teachers or schools because Junior doesn't enjoy Mrs. So-and-so. There are reasons, multiple reasons, why families end up with a child-run home, but the main one is that parents are intimidated to exercise the authority that is given to them by God.

And so a few ways we can identify intimidated parents. They need their child's approval. They dread making children mad at them. They try to talk their kids into obedience with extensive arguments. Instead of disciplining their rebellious anger, they distract the kid.

There's more examples in the book. All of this undermines the respect that a child should have for his father and mother. And again, we remember that garnering this respect is part of how we teach them to respect and fear the Lord.

They learn it first by respecting their parents. And so a few tips for regaining respect and establishing control of the home. One is to speak commands clearly, calmly, to do it once, and then administer consistent discipline for disobedience.

To not allow a child to show disrespect, to not try to be their best buddy but be their authority figure. Aim for respect rather than affection. Remember your goal, which is you want them to have respect for you that leads to obedience, that leads to maturity.

The goal is maturity. Require quick obedience, knowing that delayed obedience is disobedience. Teach your child to obey without asking why. They don't always need to know. They don't always need to know why.

Your job as the parent is to know why. Their job is to comply. And so as they grow older and demonstrated ability to obey all the way right away and with a good attitude, then you start giving them reasons for what you require so that they understand and begin learning the wisdom of it.

And that's the process of maturity. But we don't start with the reasons, we start with obedience to your authority. That's the first thing is to establish control. Second is to stop using incorrect discipline.

This is the one that hurts. When I was reading this part of the book, it hurt me the most. It's pointing out all the things wrong that I've done. Examples of incorrect discipline. Repeating instructions and making threats.

Here's the thing. If your child can obey on the fifth time you tell them, they can obey on the first time. But we allow them to keep going sometimes. When you don't require immediate discipline, kids start looking for physical signs to know when you really mean business.

And so that's when you raise your hand or go grab the spank spoon or harsh voice, raised eyebrows, rage, threats. And all of this doesn't condition and train your child to respond to your authority. Rather it conditions them to respond to your harshness.

But that's not how God deals with us. We want them to learn how to respond to God's word. Another method of incorrect discipline is bribing. Which tells them that your word is insufficient. That they're actually in control of when they obey.

And they're just negotiating terms. You're at their mercy. And not worthy of their respect. Other means are allowing excuses. Tricking a child into obedience. Or what you want them to do. Rather than requiring it of them.

Distracting them. Particularly when they're in fits of anger or rebellion. These last two. Tricking and distracting may alleviate temporarily tension. But they don't teach them to obey. They don't submit their wills.

And they don't lead to maturity. So these are incorrect. And then third. If we put off the incorrect methods. We must put on the correct ones. We must nurture them with correct discipline. And so correct discipline takes the form three different ways.

Correction, chastisement, and punishment. Correction is making them do the right thing instead of the wrong thing. This is the foundation of training.

No, no, no.

Not like that.

Like this.

Let's do it again.

Try again. Chastisement is the idea of making clean by the use of the rod. It's used in response to rebellion. And so it's not just from not knowing how to do something the right way. But there's conscious willful rebellion against your word.

And so you tell Johnny to clean his room. He looks at you. And he walks outside and picks up the basketball. It's rebellion.

You spank.

Punishment will be natural consequences for misbehavior. It's used in response to faultless disobedience. And so you've told Johnny not to play rough and play ball in the house. But he gets caught up with siblings and ends up breaking a lamp.

Well, he buys a new one. Natural consequences, right? I want to spend a few moments talking about chastisement. That's one that is controversial in our current culture. And so a few words on chastisement, spanking.

One, the Bible commends it. Proverbs 22, 15 says, Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him. Proverbs 29, 15, the rod of correction imparts wisdom.

This is God's word to us. He said it will make them wise to discipline them in this way. Proverbs 13, 24, He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. We spank our disobedient, rebellious children because we love them.

And we want them to learn wisdom. Though we are careful to make sure we know the difference and proclaim the difference between godly, biblical chastisement and child abuse. Chastisement is calm, measured, controlled, spanking on the bottom.

Whereas abuse is angry, out of control, beating, wherever. It doesn't humble a child, it terrorizes the child. Chastisement uses a lightweight rod on the bottom. Abuse pummels a child with any weapon at hand.

Chastisement is a planned action of love, where abuse is a reaction of anger. Chastisement is done after the first offense.

We obey right away.

Where abuse results when parents have been too lazy to chastise at first, then they get fed up and boil over. Chastisement is loving and constructive, while abuse is hurtful and demeaning. Chastisement brings a parent and child together.

It restores fellowship. Abuse alienates the child from the parent. The Bible commends chastisement. The Bible condemns abuse. And so we want to make sure that we have wisdom to know the difference. So we do what is godly and biblical, and we refuse to do what is ungodly and unbiblical.

The goals of chastisement are to humble the child before his parents' authority, to cause them to take responsibility for what they've done, and to cause them to submit to the consequences of their actions.

You might think of Hebrews 12 here as well, that God disciplines those he loves, and he disciplines so that we would submit our wills to him, and we would follow him in obedience. And I would mention again that the end of chastisement is that there is restored fellowship between parent and child.

If either of you are still in a huff at the end of it, then one of you is still sinning, and it's not done yet. The discipline's not done yet. There's a lot more we could say there about how to train children in obedience.

Lots more practical application and questions that we could address. I'm happy to gather parents for a workshop if there's interest in that. But for now, I know that we've gone through enough that it's more than enough for many parents to feel deep conviction.

Because what I've described here is hard. And I can go through the list of everything I just read, all these specific applications, and I can show you where I've failed in those. Some of those even in the past week.

And so I want to address the question, what if I messed up?

What if I've gone about it all wrong?

Is it too late for me and my child? And to that, I would remind you, God doesn't take you from where you ought to be. He doesn't take you where you should have been. He takes you from where you are. God always takes us from where we are.

The good news is that you can always start fresh. This is God's kindness and mercy towards you. It doesn't mean that there aren't natural consequences to previous action or inaction. It may take some time and hard work to untrain your kids or retrain your kids.

Or if your kids are grown, there's going to be all sorts of natural consequences. But you can always stand clean before God because of the mercy of Christ. You can always start afresh and start doing today what you should have done before.

We can always start fresh. I want you to know that it's not hopeless. And it's not hopeless because of the power of God and the mercy of God. The God who restores the years the locusts have eaten. The God who gives still more grace.

The God who takes what was meant for evil and turns it for good. Who works all things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. The God who redeems. I want you to know the mercy of God.

Ultimately, I want to apply the doctrine of the resurrection here. Ultimately, nothing is finally lost for those who are in Christ because we are vindicated by the resurrection. Worst case scenarios, God redeems.

God restores. It's said that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. And so I would tell you, do not delay. Begin to model obedience to your children by obeying God's commands to raise them in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Do it today. Do it all the way. Do it with a good attitude. If there's changes that you're feeling convicted about that you need to make, do it today. Make those changes today. If you need help on how to do those, let's talk.

Let's get you in conversation with those who have done it before and can help you. But here's the thing, you've got to start with repentance. If you've got young kids in the home still, tell them you're sorry that you haven't done what God's required if that's the case.

You understand that now. You're going to begin making changes in the home. You're going to ask for their forgiveness. Explain to them what God requires of you. Explain what God requires of them. And pray for God's help and God's blessing.

Most of this sermon has been mostly applicable for those with young kids at home. But I know in our congregation we have some without kids and we have many who have grown kids. They're not in the home anymore.

So I want to address briefly the question, what if my kids are grown, what does this sermon have to do with me? Well I'd say it has to do with you in a few ways. One, you're in church with young families and so this will help you to know how to encourage them and pray for them.

Many of you have grandkids and this will help you know how to encourage, counsel and pray for your children who are raising your grandchildren. And I would encourage you to do all of these things. I would encourage you to come alongside young parents and help them.

I would encourage you to pray for them, for God's strength. I would encourage you to share with them, what did you do well? What did you not do well? What do you have regrets about that you wish you would have done differently?

Knowing what goes into child training can help you as a grandparent to reinforce what your children are doing. How your children are tasked to raise your grandchildren, their kids. And you can come alongside in that and help with it rather than sabotaging it when they come to grandma's house by spoiling them.

It's okay to spoil them a little bit. Maybe you realize where you went wrong in training your own kids many years ago, particularly if they've wandered from the faith. Maybe you need to repent to God and to your children and seek restoration.

But above all, I would encourage you to pray. Pray for those raising children today. We need God's strength for that. It's not a walk in the park. And then for all of us, the last thing I would remind us of is this.

God's grace is sufficient. Our duties are hard. We are weak. We failed in places. We succeeded in places. Sometimes there's hard providence that tests us. But in all of that, God's grace is sufficient.

2 Corinthians 12, 9, and 10 says this. And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly I will boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore, I take pleasures in infirmities, and reproaches, and needs, and persecutions, and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. God's grace is sufficient for you. Let's pray together.

Our Father in heaven, Lord, the first thing I ask for right now is encouragement. I pray that you would encourage especially young families with young kids. Give them fresh encouragement to keep going.

To do what is right. To do what is right even when it's hard. Lord, I ask for encouragement for them. Lord, I ask for encouragement for those who look back on decisions they've made. Lord, I pray for those who have lived hard realities and hard providence in recent years.

Lord, I pray that you would comfort them with the comfort of Christ. Lord, the second thing I ask for is strength. May you give each person here in their particular situation, may you give them strength and resolve.

Lord, if there's anywhere we need to repent, I pray that you would lead us to repentance. Lord, I pray that you would give us wisdom in relation to raising godly kids. What do we need to start? What do we need to stop?

What do we need to continue? Lord, will you give us wisdom for that? Lord, I pray for the children who are in this room right now. Lord, I pray that you would grow them up to be godly men and women. That you would fill them with faith in your Holy Spirit.

Father, I pray that our sons would be as plants grown up in their youth. That our daughters as pillars sculptured in the palace style, as Psalm 144 says. May you bless these children. May you keep these children.

May they know you, love you, worship you, serve you all the days of their lives. Father, I pray for those in our congregation who have lost children. Lord, I ask for your mercy and your comfort for them.

I imagine hearing a message about children can be very difficult. Lord, I pray that you will bind up their wounds. That you will give them your grace and your mercy and your comfort. And I pray that they will keep their eyes fixed on Christ.

Remembering, and all of us remembering, that your grace is sufficient for us. And so we come asking that you would give us more grace still.

And we ask all of this in the name of Jesus.