Ephesians, chapter six, we're
picking up where we left off last week. Looking at verse four, let's
read there, starting in chapter six, verse one. Children, obey
your parents and the 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. Fathers, do not provoke your
children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and
instruction of the Lord. Well, I'm tempted to tell a lot
of personal stories here today, and being that neither of my
parents are in the room, it might serve me well to do it today
rather than later. But as a child, there was there
were several things that you're afraid of as a child. I don't
know about you, but some children are scared of the dark and the
dark can't really hurt you. It's what you can't see that
you think there that might hurt you. So it's always really fun
dealing with children philosophically about being fearful of that which
is impossible to harm. But rather, we try to then understand
and sympathetically realize that there is a fear there that's
irrational, but just the same fear. Some children are scared
of stories, things that they've heard through the years that
make them think of creatures or goblins or boogers or whatever
it might be that resides under their beds. Some people are scared
of all sorts of things. Some children, maybe a fairy
tale, a fable or something they saw on television or in a book,
books usually what scared me. But as parents, one of the most
horrifying things that you'll experience is a sound. And for us as four children and
one coming, there's always one sound when the children are with
you in the bed, the sleeping and when they're small, there's
a sound that causes horror. And that sound is. In the middle
of the night, no matter what you're dreaming, what you're
thinking, no matter how well prepared you are when the gag
comes in the middle of the bed, it is a horrifying thing. Well,
as a child, there was a sound that horrified me. And that sound
sounded something like this. It was the sound of belts coming
through the loops of my father's pants. That sound would put the
fear of God in any child in my household growing up, no matter
what was happening. You know how it is when children
are playing and carrying on and there's noise already. No one
can hear anything, much less converse. But it doesn't matter.
It's sort of like God at Mount Sinai. When that comes off, everything
stops. It's all as though the rapture,
if you believe in such, has happened and there are no children to
be found innocent, guilty and the like. No child within three
blocks of that home, when that sound comes, will be able to
be found or to give an account or to even see what horror might
entail or who might be getting it. Just the idea that it's going
to happen to someone inflicts great fear in the hearts of children. And so I chose as a father not
to employ that sound in my home. I'm more stealth when it comes
to that type of thing. I don't like the alluring and
then the stones and then the jingle of the buckle as it rattles
so that children can find me and hide under the carpet or
into the ceiling or wherever it might be. I have what someone
would call a silent, but deadly hickory paddle. And it's made
of the most beautiful wood that you've ever seen, handmade by
a Mennonite, to be honest with you. Some of the folks who love
to bake bread and as a matter of fact, these people who made
this paddle are bread bakers by profession and they make bread
and these boards are made to put the bread dough in and pull
the bread dough out. And I ordered one from him and
I had one special request and the request was, can you polish
it really well and can you drill some holes in it? And so my hickory
paddle is beautiful and it doesn't jingle and it doesn't make a
sound and it doesn't it doesn't inform the expecting rear end
that it's coming. But still the same, it inflicts
great horror. I think my children would rather
be decapitated and fed to the neighborhood dog rather than
have one lick of that paddle. Unbeknownst to me, it actually
does hurt. And so years after I began to
employ such discipline in my home, I decided to test it upon
my own by and where I danced around like Michael Jackson for
about three minutes. Gladly, I was by myself. It does
hurt. I say that because when you think
of discipline and you think of children, all of us, just as
I spoke on Tuesday night, have a different idea or ideal as
to what that might look like. But understand, as we get here
and as we see fathers being addressed by Paul, thus by the Lord, he
calls them out specifically and he says fathers. He says, children,
obey your mother, obey your father, honor your father and your mother.
Wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wife as Christ
loved the church. Wives, submit to your husbands
in everything. Husbands, love your wife always. Children obey your parents, but
now fathers, he pulls out and begins to talk to fathers directly
because fathers in the picture of the gospel are pictures of
the headship of Christ and his church. And therefore, just as
Christ is responsible for the righteousness of his church,
the father is responsible for the righteousness of his home.
And I want you to understand, it is not a degrading thing,
it does not let mothers off the hook. Mothers could also be employed
there. Mothers do not exasperate your
children. That's the one that I memorized.
But of course, my text did not provoke your children to anger.
but rather bring them up in the discipline and instruction of
the Lord. And so as we saw last week, in
some sense, that anger provoking to anger, oftentimes I must confess
to you that as a father, even in my discipline that is required,
I often, even without knowing, have provoked my children to
anger. Does that mean that we do not
discipline? Does it mean we do not hold accountable? Does it
mean that we do not correct? Absolutely not. For that is wicked.
The scripture says that he who does not discipline hates his
children. And in turn, it shows that they
are illegitimate and not children at all, just to be cast away
and cared less for. Of course, there are some who
would say, well, discipline means to beat the living daylights
out of a child. Matter of fact, we beat the devil
out of them, then they'll be righteous. No, they'll be beaten
and they'll be angry. And they will hate you for it.
And so there is balance. There is understanding. And I'm
not here today to preach about how to discipline your children,
but I'm here to preach what Paul is preaching in the context of
fathers. Do not provoke your children to anger the negative
aspect of this text. Paul says, do not do this. And
so we as fathers must recognize we do not do this. It is a command
of God. Do not provoke your children
to anger. How do we do those things? Well,
when we say things that are demeaning, demoralizing, humiliating, when
we use our mouth to make our children feel like they are inferior
to their own existence, then we are provoking our children
to anger. It's much like the bully in the
third grade who calls you names and makes fun of you and entices
the other children in that group to make fun of you when you walk
down the sidewalk or down the hall. What happens to the one
who's bullied? He or she begins to become callous
and out of that callousness comes malice and out of that malice
comes wrath. The same is true for children.
That when we say with our mouths things that do not build up,
we are sinning before God. And thus we are provoking our
children to anger, not just out of our mouths, but also with
our hands and our actions. Do we discipline sometimes strongly,
but still gently knowing that we are not there to break, but
to guide and to correct? Well, that's not what we're here.
We looked at some of those things last week. But what we're here
to do today is to answer the question, what does it truly
mean to train a child, train your children and the Lord, teach
your children Christ? And when they are older, they
will not depart from it. The words of wisdom from Proverbs. And so here, I believe Paul is
referring to just this thing, fathers, Bring up your children
in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. And so now we see
that there is a discipline. There's a practice. The word
there, if you know Matthew 28, the command of our Christ as
he ascends into glory is for all authority on heaven and in
earth has been given unto me. Therefore, as you go make disciples. Fathers, as you grow your children,
make them disciples. That's what the Bible is teaching
fathers to do, to make disciples of Christ out of their children.
Now, there is no salvific effort put forth here. There is no supernatural
grace given to fathers to effect salvation into the lives of their
children. But it is an absolutely divine
responsibility given by the grace of God with the filling of His
Spirit that fathers are to teach their children in Christ and
to train them to know Christ. and to experience life in Christ. And that through the making of
children as disciples, God's grace saves them. Matthew 28,
19. Go make disciples. Verse 20. Teaching them. How do you make
disciples? Jesus says it there in Matthew.
Teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And behold,
I'm with you forever. So Christ is with us. See, Christ
summarized the entire whole teaching of Ephesians, minus a few things
in that phrase, go make disciples by teaching them to obey all
that I've taught you to obey. And don't forget that I am with
you. So evangelistic understanding,
as we talked about Tuesday, is primarily in the message of the
cross of Jesus Christ and the obedience to come, believe, repent. Turn, trust, see, savor, live,
pursue, press by the grace of God through faith, which are
gifts given to you by God. And now we understand that the
fullness of what God is teaching his disciples to do, we as the
church to do in the home, we do that. And with our children,
we do that. Fathers, we do that. But there's
a reality in the world that we live in. And the reality of the
generation today is that they are not being taught the Lord.
They are not being taught to be trained and instructed in
the Lord. They are not taught to practice
the instruction of Christ. They are not taught that. What
are children taught? Well, they're taught. And just
off the top of my head, six things came to mind. One, we teach our
children academics, and that could be from the three R's,
as my grandmother used to call it, the reading, the writing
and the arithmetic. And I'm thinking, well, you need
to go back to the reading part. It's not the three R's. It's
the two R's and the A. So but either way, you know what
I'm saying? We teach academics and we We
pit academics against doctrine of Scripture. So we doctrinate
in academics versus indoctrinate in doctrine, theology, biblical
things. So in some sense, we say math
versus majesty. Math loses. Because when I see
math, I see majesty. When I see history, I see sovereignty.
You see the difference? So, yes, my children academically
are taught, but I don't care about whether or not they remember
the rote garbage of academic endeavors, because I've never
met a person and having interviewed over twenty five hundred people
in a five year period for jobs all across Georgia. I've never
met any of them who could give me the opening line to the Magna
Carta. None of them. I've never met
any of them who could actually Pars, the Greek. I've never met
any of them who could give me the full detail of Euclidean
geometry and explain to me how that integrates with Pythagoras
theorem and how any of that amounts to anything in the context of
physics. Nobody. I made a 100 average
in physics and I couldn't take those things. And I can get the formula out,
I can think for a few minutes and bring it back. So the exposure
to learning is what's important. But academics is not important
versus doctrine of God. And any father who puts academics
over worship is sinful. Take that dog and eat it. If
you don't like it, put your face in the face of God, not mine.
The second thing that we teach our children in today's generations
is a worldview and the worldview is always being taught. It's
taught by the cartoons that we watch. It's taught by the books
that we read. It's taught by the television
shows that we see, the music that we hear, the clothes that
we buy and that we wear. The worldview is constantly being
taught to our children and is being taught to us. And by our
allowances of such things, we teach them that worldview. And the worldview that is not
Christ is a worldview that is Antichrist, 1 John. And this
is the Antichrist. Anyone who says that Jesus Christ
is not the Son of God. Well, yeah, I believe that. My
children know that. So what? Satan knows that it has no effects
in his life. He doesn't care. He doesn't care. He's not alive. The knowledge
of Christ in the head, academically, is death. Romans 1, for men are
without excuse, for God has made himself known. No one that says
there is no God is anything but a liar. He is a liar, for he
knows that God is. That's why he builds such a worldview
to say that God is not, so that he can rest in the pathetic and
depraved reality of his own flesh and feel like he's gotten away
with it. We teach our children critical
thinking, I believe is essential. I'll be honest with you, I think
everyone before they were given a diploma, a job, a heartbeat
should be a critical thinker. They should learn to hear a premises
and to hear the outcome of that, the conclusion and decide, does
this match? Does this prove that you want
to know why algebra is important? Because it teaches that. You
don't know about geometry is important because it teaches
that. I'll never use this again. You probably won't. If that's
the way you look at it. Conditional statements, critical
thinking, you can't even read the Bible without it. You can't
understand grammar, you can't understand English. One of the
most difficult languages in the world today throughout all of
history is English. It is one of the hardest languages
in the world to learn. Yeah, we don't need critical
thinking. We need critical thinking. But you know what? We need discerning
spirits. Discerning spirits teach our children to be critical thinkers,
the objective versus subjectivity of looking at the world, looking
at that which they learn, seeing how it applies and glorifies
God in all things. I believe that we teach our children
and I say we, I mean, the culture in which we live, the world in
which we live, I believe we teach our children self versus us. I believe that we've taught our
society of children the American dream versus the gospel. The
American dream is it's about me. It's up to me. It's up to
me. It's up to me. It's about me. It's for me. It's
because of me. And I'm going to be great and
I'm going to be great and I'm going to be wise and I'm going to be
rich and I'm going to be glorious and I'm going to do this and
I'm going to do that. I'm going to be somebody. Everybody in the world one day
at some point in their life has said that. You know what? We're
all nobodies. Who cares? Who cares what an
athlete can do on the field? You know what I think it is?
Stupid. If it doesn't give credit to God. Because God gave them that and
then they didn't glorify him in it. And in Romans one, it
says, and they exchanged the glory of God for the glory of
immortal things and man and images of beasts and birds. And, you
know, God made the body. to do all that it does. And we
can enjoy athleticism and we can enjoy talent and we can enjoy
music and we can enjoy everybody who God has endowed to do those
things. But everyone who does it, apart from giving glory to
God, is nothing but stacking judgment on their heads. And
that it doesn't matter if it's an A in a scholarship or or a
triple A ball team that wants to take them out or a concert
with 50 million people to watch and buy your album. Who cares? We don't teach our children that
it's about us. The body of Christ is about Christ. The American dream is in direct
opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That says, what profit
does a man? If he loses his soul and gains
the world. Fathers, do not provoke your
children to anger, but listen to these phrases, bring them
up. Bring them up. Last week, we
saw anger and provoking. We saw that provoking fathers
cause hostility toward the authority of the Word of God and Christ
and God. And we see now that fathers who
provoke their children to anger are disobedient sons. Therefore,
they cannot bring up children. You cannot bring up children
if you live in disobedience to God. And we'll see that. So what are we to be doing, fathers?
In bringing up our children to things in the discipline and
in the instruction. But why is it that so many fathers
fail at this? Because they do not practice
that discipline nor learn that instruction. So, fathers, as
I've already said, we hold the key responsibility in seeing
that children grow in Christ. Mothers, you are to teach your
children Christ. You are to teach them to obey
Christ. You ought to show the example of obedience to Christ
by being obedient to your husband in all things. I don't like that
word. I don't care. You don't like
the gospel if you don't like that word. I'm a feminist. I don't like it either, but I
love Christ. Be obedient, submit and everything
to your husband. Husbands, in all times, in all
ways, eternally love your wife as Christ loved the church. Children,
obey them. Fathers, teach them, instruct
them and bring them up. Wives, you show your children
how to be obedient by being submissive. Husbands, you show your children
how to be obedient by being Christ-like. Church, we're only going to be
as strong as the weakest marriage that sits upon us. A couple of things to think about
as we get into this. One is that, well, one is that
Paul moves from the negative, do not provoke, to the positive.
I've said that probably six times already today. And the positive
is bring up, raise your children. Bringing up, think about what
this means. There's some what I call presuppositions
that need to take place. There's some things that are
already on the table that we need to be reminded of that the
text doesn't really teach us, but we know because of how children
are. And some of those are this four
or five things, not necessarily a specific order or any specific
importance. Just here they are. Children,
as they come up or are raised. are raised into different stages
of maturity. It's like a, not a ladder, but
a staircase. And so if I had a chalkboard
here, I could, I could draw a staircase and this little infant type idea
or understanding, it stays with the child all the way through
life. It's the foundation of the steps of life of maturity
and then another step. And then that one builds up upon
it. It reminds me of Paul teaching to the Corinthians that we lay
the foundation Christ and him crucified and that everything
else that's built upon that must be Christ and him crucified.
So we teach our children with the basic building blocks of
the faith. But as they grow with that basic
understanding, they get deeper in their wisdom and in their
knowledge and in their understanding. And then their worship becomes
more intimate because they understand to see a little bit more of the
understanding. Are you understanding? So as children grow, they're
not going to start out with PhDs in epistemology. They're not
going to come up here and begin to understand that the hypostatic
union is the fact that Christ created the womb from which he
was born and created the zygote that was implanted by the Spirit
of God into the womb of Mary. And then he was born and he was
fully God, but he was fully man. And neither one of those natures
mixed with the other one. It was absolutely one person,
two natures in the same body. It was the God that spoke at
all, that knew all things. It was everywhere, omniscient
and omnipresent. But yet he was stuck in the body
of a human being. And yet he was fully man in every
faculty. He had to grow. He had to learn
to talk. He had to learn to do math. He had to learn to read
Hebrew. He had to learn to speak. He had to learn to walk. He had
to learn to run. He had to learn to obey. But he did. You can't teach that to a three-year-old.
You say God is and Jesus is, and that's the end of it. But
that doesn't graduate to deeper things. It's the foundation of
those deeper things. So children are going to grow,
holding on to the very foundation of what we teach them. And it
is the building blocks to which they grow deeper in understanding
of the Word of God. And they're going to be at different
stages. Expect those stages. Remember how you have grown in
Christ, parents. Another thing that we need to
understand as we embark on knowing how children are, is it children?
And I'm not saying this is the cop out or a cliche. Children
are children. Children are going to be children.
Children are going to do the things which children do. Some
of them we just expect. Some of them to go, oh, my dear,
that's my child help. What is it doing? Some of them
are just social issues that are just a little like belching in
public or picking their nose and flicking it on their sister
or something like that. I mean, those are things that
you just sort of have to you have to work toward, but that's
going to happen. Expect children to do childlike
things. Expect them to think the way
children think. Expect them to act the way children act. So
expect children to be children. And in that, then know this,
that children are only going to be able to accomplish that
which they're capable of accomplishing. Hey, infant, wash the dishes. What did I tell you? Watch the
digits. I mean, you know, that's just
great. And that's absurd. But we know
what we're talking about here. What can children do that they're
capable of doing? What about the Holy Spirit? I'm
not talking about that right now. I'm talking about learning behavior. Children can only do what they're
capable of doing and finally discipline. Discipline brings children up
in the discipline of the Lord and instruction of the Lord.
The word discipline, we have totally destroyed it. Discipline
at all times, in every way, forever, has always been wonderfully,
awesomely good. There's no such thing as punitive
discipline. That's like saying dirty clinics
or dirty cleanliness. It's oxymoronic. There's no such
thing as what's punitive punishment. There is no punishment for sin,
except that which Christ took. Children. Must know fathers must
recognize discipline is not for the bad of a child. It is not
punishment. It is correction. It is for the
good of the child. It is always for a specific outcome. Now, what I'm going to do today
is going to be very wide open, fast and furious. I'm not kidding.
Because what Paul is doing right here is he's telling these fathers
to do everything and to teach everything that he's taught in
this letter thus far from verse one. Chapter one, verse three,
he said, I'm going to you need to bring your children up in
this discipline, you need to instruct them in this way. So
what I want to do is I want to show you quickly how that works. First, let's look at the outcome.
What's the outcome of training children in the Lord, of bringing
them up in the discipline, the trend, the Lord, the outcome,
as we see in chapter one, verse four, and I'm just going to use
chapter one and two just to give you the outcome. I can go through
everything. But chapter one verse four, so they'll be holy and
blameless as Christ loved the church and presented him. He,
he what died for the church so that he can present his bride.
Holy and blameless spotless without wrinkle before him in splendor. So we then love our wives under
the same guys, under the same reason. And we train our children
for the same purpose that they would be holy and blameless before
God, but not in ability and not in action, but in purity and
supernatural affection. God saves our children, not that
they walk around like mindless robots looking like Christians
while they're on the way to hell. I want you to know that behavior
modification and discipline is the greatest, one of the greatest,
not the greatest, one of the greatest lies that Satan has
ever perpetrated in the church. So you mean we ought to let our
children? No, I didn't say let them get away with it, but don't. The end of
discipline is not the correct behavior. The end of discipline
is for salvation. Righteousness, not right words,
which are death. Right words equals death. Right
words equals death. For the righteousness of man
are filth before God. We cannot affect salvation, but
we are saved. Right words is worship. Which
God has prepared beforehand for us to walk in. Fathers, we walk
with our children before Christ in that way and we teach our
children and we discipline our children so that they will be
holy and blameless before God. And then secondly, we want them
to praise God because of the hope that they have in Christ.
First of all, chapter one. And verse chapter two, verse
five, that they are made alive in Christ. We want our children
to be made alive in Christ. And then we want them to chapter
two, verse 10, walk in the way Christ has called and ordained
for them to walk holy and blameless before him. But what happens? What happens? So, oh, wow, I've really got
a lot to do, boy, we all do. And this sermon isn't a sermon
to get us off the hook and make us feel good about our failures.
This sermon is to get us up off our butts and make us move. That's
what this text is for. Because all the while, these
fathers are like, yeah, man, we're going to we're going to rock together
as the church. Sit down and shut up or I'll step on you. You know,
I'm just saying what I feel sometimes when I'm up here and my son's
standing on his head. And his sister is trying to be
his mother. Right. Stupid. You know, I don't
know what you're thinking. Simple. It's being honest. But
I got you, church, you're going to be holy. Can't wait till we
get home. I mean, you know. Nothing wrong with discipline
when we get home, but my anger, you see what the point? What happens without the discipline
instruction in Christ, Ephesians 419, they become callous. They
become callous against authority. They become callous and cold. Without salvation, that's where
we are. What does he say? The very next
verse, do not. That's not the way you've learned
Christ. But to take it off and put it on when we don't train
our children in the Lord. to the outcome of holy worship,
then we train them to become callous and hate. We provoke
them to anger. We push them to hardness. Hard
children are soon to be sociopaths. At best, they'll be narcissists. But that is not the way you learn
Christ, Paul says. So the ultimate end, then, is
maturity. Let's talk about maturity. The
ultimate end of maturing a child. We grow up. What does Paul say
already in just a few verses prior? For no one ever hated
his own flesh, 529, but what nourishes and cherishes it just
as Christ does the church. It's not an ambiguous metaphor. It's not a simile of ambiguity
that just makes us wonder what he's talking about. He says,
just as Christ does, what nourishes and cherishes the church. So
husbands nourish and cherish your wife. Why? They're one body.
You don't cut off your hand because you're frustrated. Fathers, don't cut off your children
because you're frustrated. But grow them and nourish them
and cherish them. Our society has given. And boy,
you don't know about the Romans, these Greeks here and these Romans
in this day. I mean, those, these are hard
people. Roman men ruled, owned their
wives and children. And they had absolute sovereign
authority over all of it. And Paul saying, Dive yourself
and be gentle with your children. Any child will walk in line instead
of being choked. But what's the nourishment? That's
the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The cherishing out
of your love and your affection for your children, fathers, you
nourish them and you cherish them. And the result of that
is that they know the Lord and they obey the Lord. We talked
about that last week is that Paul is saying he teaches the
children. He says, children, obey your
parents in the Lord for this is right. This is righteous.
This is good. This is a picture of Jesus. So
do that. And then he's. Then he quotes
the law. He quotes the commandment to
love, to honor your father and mother. And then he says in the
parenthetical, for this is the first commandment with a promise
that you may go well and live long in the land. Don't you see,
children? The Bible teaches us that we
should love our parents and honor them and obey them. And so I'm
teaching our children, Paul teaches the children, this is God. He's
righteous and obedience is a righteous act. And you should know that
the word of God has authority over you. And so the teaching
of the word of God ultimately results in what? Salvation. And salvation results in what?
Obedience. Always. I guess the question is, do you
desire your children to know the Lord? Or do you just want
them to look godly in their actions? Which is it? You can't have both.
Either you want them to know the Lord or you want them to
look like they know him. And if they know him, then they'll
look like they know him. But be careful we don't put,
there's not even a cart before the horse, it's not in the same
track. Be careful we don't put the Tonka dump truck in place
of the real thing and think we're hauling something around. So I guess the question then
that's left for me is what do I teach? What is the discipline
and instruction of the Lord? And that's what every father
want to know. Were you ready for the roller coaster ride?
I'm not going to count all this. I just went through the entire
letter of the Ephesians up to this point, and I wrote down
every instruction and every application and everything that we have learned
in the last year. Thus far, and so without even
moving out of Ephesians, I think I can tell you what Paul means
when he says to bring up your children in the discipline and
the instruction of the Lord. You ready? Well, I'm going to
be slow to start because there's some things first, your children
need to be taught. To answer the question, I always
answer questions, who is God, what is the truth of God? And
although there's a lot there, if I just go by Ephesians, there's
a lot to be said here. But just think about it for a
moment. What is the truth of God? What do we teach our children
about the truth of God? Ephesians chapter one, verse
three, that he's holy, that he's loving, that he's giving. Verse
four, that he's adopting. He comes in and he takes those
which are estranged and he brings them to him. This is just in
the prologue. That he is redeeming. That God redeems in Christ Jesus. That is the truth, dear child.
That God redeems in Christ by the blood of the Lamb. He shed
on the cross that you could be forgiven of your sins. Did you
see that? We didn't teach our children that we have an inheritance
and that we're a saint. We're called out. Holy, separated,
set apart. We're not in the world anymore.
We're not dead. We're not in darkness anymore.
We're children of the light. So we know that God, the truth
of God, is that he has saved us in Christ Jesus and not just
saved us and given us a ramp to walk up, but sealed us with
the Holy Spirit. Chapter 1, verse 13 through 14.
We're sealed in Christ. So we need to teach our children
who God is and what he's done. And those are the things that
we see just in the first few verses of Ephesians 1. We need
to teach our children to hope in God. The truth of God is that
we should hope in him, not just know about him, but hope in him. Verse 17, that he's our wisdom,
that he's our revelation. He's made known, he's shown in
our hearts, 2 Corinthians 4, 6, to give us the light and the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
We have been shown the truth. And then with that truth, we
have full seen hearts. Chapter 1, verse 18. We see fully
who Christ is. And not only just that we see
fully, but we see fully with power. Verse 19, chapter 1. Power! Children, God in you is power. And we'll get to that in a minute. How is that power revealed or
realized? Chapter 1, verse 20. Christ has
been raised from the dead. Therefore, you can be raised
from the dead. So the truth of God, we should
teach them. See how there's much more there? That's just a few. We should teach them the truth
of man, too. The truth of man, as Paul starts in chapter 2,
he says, man is dead in their sins and trespasses. Enemies
of God walking apart from him. And not only do they walk in
death, they deserve death. They deserve judgment. They deserve
wrath. And that they're living, but
they're dead. And so the acts that they perform
are dead acts. When you disobey daddy's son,
you are doing a dead act. And you deserve death. You deserve
hell. You deserve all that God has
in the fullness of His wrath, whether you're six months old
or 76 years old. You deserve every ounce of the
wrath of God because you disobeyed your daddy. And if there is not
a Christ who died for you and was raised from the dead, you
are damned forever. There's the truth about man.
And there's the truth about God. Raise our children in that. Why
should they obey? Because it is right. Because I said so is not an answer. Because I'm the daddy is not
an answer, because if you don't, I'll is not an answer, but we'll
keep giving those answers. But we need to we need to put
the gospel in there to hold those answers together. Because I said
so, and God has said I must be your authority, and when you
disobey, you must disobey Him, and you deserve hell, and only
Christ can save you from that. See? Start that with your children
early. And do it with a great, great
fear and trembling. And not only the truth of man,
that we're dead and deserving death, but we're living in dead
acts and we're just like all of humanity. The third thing
we need to teach our children out of Ephesians is that God
is a God of love and mercy. In chapter two, verse four, being
rich in mercy because of the great love in which he loved
us, he has made us and caused to be born again in Christ. He's
made us alive. God makes us alive in Christ.
His love and his mercy makes us alive. In verse 7, because
of his kindness toward us who believe, God is kind. God's grace and faith given to
you, Ephesians 2.8, Ephesians 2.9, over the works of obedience.
It is not of your own doing. And it's over and above the works
of obedience. They do not merit such salvation. It is God's graciousness toward
you. And then in verse 10 of chapter
two, we see that God's love and mercy prepares us to walk in
holy words. The scripture also teaches us
the fourth thing that I believe is that we ought to be rooted
in Jesus. We ought to be rooted children. You ought to be rooted
in Jesus. Now here's an amazing thing that
usually gets kids attention. It's ironic that today is probably
the less attended day by children in a long time, but just the
same, they'll miss it. Think of a superhero that you
love all the most, all the more. Think of Superman and Spider-Man
and believe it or not, the incredible Hulk. And think of some things,
maybe Wonder Woman or Catwoman or Batman or whoever they might
be. Think of some superhero that you know of, that you've heard
of. Maybe it's a Bible hero or somebody, but they have supernatural
abilities that are beyond the natural. That's what supernatural
means. Super is natural and the supernatural. So it's beyond
the natural. They're able to move buildings
by blowing them. They're able to jump over the
sun. They're able to just do all sorts of crazy stuff, and
that's power. The Scripture teaches us in chapter
3 of Ephesians that we should teach our children that they
are rooted in Christ and thus they have power. Power. I look at Superman and I think,
what a wimp! I look at our Marines and I think,
cities! No offense, Marines, if you ever
hear this message. Stay at bay. Semper Fi. But in comparison to the God
of the universe walking this earth, wimps. I don't esteem
man and their feats. It's boring. It's worthless. It's silly. It's like watching
grass grow. I think I'll watch that blade
of grass. You can't help. It's just a joke. But we're rooted
in Christ and we're rooted with strength, 316, because Christ
317 is in your children, you who are in Christ, Christ is
in you. Do you see that? And so because of that, there
is a love within you that is powerful and it's filled with
all the fullness of God, 319. And that power and the fullness
of God, 320, can do more than you could ever think of. 321.
And because of that, Jesus Christ is deserving of all praise. So
we learn then that we teach them who God is or the truth of God
and the truth of man. We teach them that God is love
and mercy. We teach them that they should be rooted in Christ
with all power. And then fifth and finally, We
teach them that because of that, they can walk in that power.
Children can walk in the power of God obediently, children can
walk just as their fathers walk as a loving husband and their
wives as a submissive wife, they can walk as obedient children,
children, you have the power of God in you, if indeed you
are in Christ and have been taught in him. And we need to understand what
Paul teaches here in chapter four and five about walking in
the power of grace. We just go through them quickly
as a list. First, in chapter four, verses
one and two, we walk worthy, humbly, gently. Patiently, bearing
one another's burdens and lovingly. Child, if you want to walk in
the power of God, you walk lovingly and bearing each other's burdens.
That's one of the most frustrating thing about being a parent is
when siblings just nag at one another. And it drives me crazy. I hate it. And I say this out
of true sincerity. I'd rather my children die than
nag one another. I can't stand it. And I tell
them that. And they don't understand it. They don't grasp it. But
I say I'd rather you die than nag one another because that
nagging and hatred toward one another is not of Christ. And
if you're going to rebel against Christ, go ahead and just get
out of here. Honesty. But then just as Moses, oh, please,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So we fathers, as we also sometimes
wish we could stone them, we'd never throw it. We walk with that power in verse
three of chapter four, eager to maintain peace and four through
six as one body. Not an individual, but concerned
about the others around us and in our lives. In 9 through 10,
we do all of this through Christ. In 11 through 14, we walk maturely. unto maturity. We don't walk
with fickleness, changing our mind from one thing to another
and doing this and that. But we walk firmly in the wisdom
of God. In verse 15, we grow up in every way into him who
is the head, who is Christ in every way. That's what our minds
and our eyes, our hands, our actions and our desires and our
affections and how we manage our business and how we manage
our home and how we manage our money. We grow up into all these
things. In every way, we grow up into
Christ mature. Why? Verse 16, for the sake of
the rest of the church, that we might teach each other how
to do the work of the ministry, not so we can gain from it, but
so that we can give out of it. We walk in this power, verses
17 through 19, usefully. Not futilely. Not dead works,
but useful works. In verse 22, we do so by putting
off the old self, which is crucified in Christ and putting on the
new. In verse 23, by renewing our minds. How do we renew our
minds the same way we're talking about here, continue to learn
that, see, this is foundation. That's why I close your mind
to this letter. You will fail yourself miserably
in your worship and in your and in your understanding of Christ.
If we think we have, oh, we've studied Ephesians and now we're
moving on. But when you study Philippians and you study Colossians,
Ephesians better pop right up in there. You study 1st John,
it better be there. And it should continually be
compounding. So what are the things that we are supposed to
learn with our minds and thus practice with our with our lives?
Well, if you just start looking there at the end of chapter four
and you go on into five and you see, and I'm just going to list
them and then we're going to close because there's no way to exposit
all this without repreaching 50 some odd sermons. But we're
to speak the truth and love were to be brightness and darkness. We're to be righteous when we
are angry. We are to be short in our anger. We are to be honest. We are to
be giving. We are to speak as to build one
another up. We are to be gentle in our actions,
in our heart and our spirit. We are to be gentle with our
words. We're to be forgiving at all times, with all people,
for all reasons. We are to forgive. And by the
way, that means that we don't hold it against them. And when
they do it again, we don't go see they did it again. We go,
man, I've never seen you do this before. That's forgiveness, by the way,
or better yet, what did you do to me again? You haven't harmed me. That's what God's going to say
to us. You're righteous, you talk about
us and you said against me, nobody, we paid for those. I crushed
Christ for that. It's over. We're to be pure. We're not supposed to be crude,
but wholesome. And out of that wholesomeness,
we're to be thankful. We're to seek what is good and seek what
is right. We're to walk in the light and
not fellowship with anyone who walks in darkness and their darkness. We're to expose their darkness.
We're to be wise in our understanding. We're to know the will of God. We're to be filled with the Holy
Spirit and to be overly gracious and adoring in worship with the
saints of God. And we're to come out of that
as submission, submissive worshipers to Christ and to his people.
As wives submitting to their husbands, as husbands submitting
to the call to love and as children obeying and submitting to their
parents and fathers submitting to the command of Christ to love
their children and teach them the power of God through Christ
in lesson and in practice. You see that there's the entire
letter of Ephesians right there summed up in that last 15 minutes. That's what that's what Paul's
teaching. So everything I've just taught
you fathers, you teach to them. Sort of what he tells Timothy,
isn't it? That good deposit that I entrusted to you teach to reliable
men who can teach others. Fathers, it's not somebody else's
job to teach your children. It's not somebody else's job
to make sure your children's worldview is in order. It's yours. And as you see and as you head
your home, then you give that responsibility also to your wife.
But you're going to be held accountable for it. The ultimate reality is this. If we desire children to be to
be saved. We gently discipline them in
Christ, knowing that God's discipline to us is for our good. And we
do so by teaching them and instructing them in Christ. And I'll be honest
with you. I hate to even say this, it doesn't
take a village to raise a family. It takes the body of Christ. and accountability, and in power
through prayer, and in responsibility. So you want to understand the
fullness of how the church operates? It mulls out into the temporal
shadows of the family. Your faith is personal, and I'll
say it again, but it is not private. Your home is your home. But it
is not it is not off limits by the authority of the Word of
God. And so in all things and in all
ways, at all times, we graciously endure as we all grow and mature
in different ways and different times, but we ought to care enough
about one another to engage and what not just rebuke and push
away, but to embrace and assist each other in molding ourselves
and each other into the likeness of Christ as we mold our marriages,
as we mold our parenting. Why do you think that Scripture
teaches that a man who cannot manage his own home cannot shepherd
the flock? Many pastors forsake their homes
for the sake of the ministry, and it's a sin. Now, forsaken isn't always having
vacations and all that kind of stuff. Husbands, we know. Is your heart there? Is your prayer there? Is your
instruction there? Sometimes a lot, sometimes a
little. What do we do about it when we
find that we failed? We trust in the faithfulness
of Christ. And then we submit to his power to work in us. knowing that we're forgiven.
Husbands, when we don't love our wives, we repent and believe
the gospel. Wives, when we don't submit to
our husbands, we repent and believe the gospel. Children, when we
don't obey our parents, we repent and believe the gospel. Fathers,
when we push our children to anger, we repent and believe
the gospel. We turn from that sin And we trust in the fullness
of Christ's fulfilling that law in our place. And we don't go
back. We don't look in the mirror and
turn away and forget what we look like. We continue to strive for righteousness.
Or we admit that the truth is not in us. Because ultimately what this
does and what we've talked about in the last so many months is
that the forgiveness of God through Christ Jesus affects personal
and powerful and permanent change in this people. And a Christian with no change
is no Christian at all. A Christian with no affection
for the people of God is a liar. Those aren't my words, those
are John's. Therefore, their gods, a Christian outside the
fellowship of the church. Is a rebellious child, a Christian
not pursuing righteousness through obedience, through making of
disciples is worthless. Where does it start in the home? Thank God for his grace toward
us. Thank God for his power in us. And thank God for allowing
all of us to come before His throne in Christ as we call Him
Daddy. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for Your love,
for Your power, Father, we thank you for just
the strength of the Word of God, that even though many of us,
as we leave services sometimes, we feel so inadequate, it's a
good thing. For we are not adequate. You
alone are adequate. You alone are sufficient. Continue
to work in us. Continue to build us. Continue
to grow us. Lord, convict us to pray for
one another. Bring our children to faith through
the teaching of the Word. Help us to be disciplined that
we might be filled with your Spirit to walk before them as
right worshipers. And when they say, oh daddy,
I want to be like you. Or mommy, I want to be like you.
We as parents say, no. You walk after Christ. Because
it's just His power in me that lives. I don't live. He lives.
And so I live by Him. We thank you God for that greatness.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.