Duties of children and parents
Ephesians 6:1-4 · Randy Peterman · Dec 2, 2018
Ephesians (2018-19), No. 45
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926191391128

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

I told Roger a little bit before we got started, this is actually one of the hardest lessons I've had to prepare for. We're going to take a look at Ephesians 6, 1 through 4. Why it is difficult is actually probably not going to be obvious on the surface, but I'll explain that here in a moment.

We want to start actually in Ephesians 5.21.

So I'm going to go ahead and read that first, because that's going to be setting the foundation. Like we said last week in chapter 5, as a summary, the text of the scripture is inspired, but the numbering is not. So a lot of what's happening that Paul's been building on is actually rooted all the way back in chapter 1. You're probably not surprised to hear that.

But let's start in 521 and then we'll read 6.1-4. He says, And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. And then in 6.1, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. And verse 4, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction in the Lord.

For whatever it's worth, I've got to note the cross-reference passage is Colossians 3.20-21. It is literally the same instruction minus the fifth commandment being drawn in.

So he definitely wanted the church in Colossae to understand that same principle. So Paul is building up on this line of subjection to one another, and he's applied it to marriage already. He's applied it to Christ in the church, and now he's going to bring that same principle to bear in appropriation to the parent-child relationship. Paul is focused on older children, not teenagers. We have to remember sometimes that we're here in now. 2018 for at least a month left, right?

And we tend to think of people in the past, sometimes if we haven't studied it, we tend to think of them in Well, they just didn't have modern cars and cell phones, but they kind of lived like we lived. When you wanted to send a text message, you had to get your scroll out and write it, and then you'd send it with somebody, and then they'd get it. There was no AT&T to be in the middle of that. The technology was very different.

But I think it's important for us to recognize that when he says children, he's not talking about infants. There's a Greek word for that. But he's also probably not talking about teenagers. When we think about teenagers today, we think, ah, that's that adolescent age where they're in between being children and not quite adults. Historically at the time, if you were a teenager, by the time you were 14 to 17 as a male, you were considered an adult. So when he's saying children, he's not saying what we consider to be children. He's talking about somewhere around probably 4, 5 to 11, 12, the tween ages we have now is our vernacular.

So when he's talking about children, keep that in mind. This is a different age culture scenario. And because our cultures are different, we want to keep that at the forefront of our minds. So he's building that. They're old enough to have understood and believe the gospel, and they're to be part of the body's call. And what is the body called to in Ephesians?

When we look at Ephesians 3.17-19, what is Paul talking about there? Does anybody remember? I keep harping back on it, so I'm hoping those who've been in the class so far remember. Or if you've listened online, Ephesians 3, 17-19, Paul is talking about the need to understand love together.

That we would, as a family, that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith and that they would be rooted and grounded in love. That they may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that ye may be filled up to all the fullness of God."

That's the kids. That's the children. He's talking about them. And when we move forward to 4.15-16, He says, But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. So there's this theme here of growth and development that Paul has been building on and he's been talking about this intimacy of the body in these previous chapters. In chapter 5 he says that they would be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us and offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. That's the kids too. And when he talks about submission to one another in 25-21, that's the kids too.

This is a big deal because how often in the modern church do we think about the strata of age groups? You're in this group, you're in this group, and you're in this group. It's almost an unfortunate habit in a lot of the megachurches today. We're going to find out what group you belong to and we're going to plug you into our program for that group. The great thing is that never Never do you intermingle the groups, right? Because if you intermingle the groups, someone might get uncomfortable. And if they get uncomfortable, they might not come.

So the idea that children are part of the body and actively members of the body is a significant doctrinal idea. So Paul is setting up some things for us to wrestle with. Now, why is it that this is difficult for us today? Why is it that we don't want to have children to be part of the body?

And I'm asking that more as a rhetorical question. But if we think about it in our own interactions, Paul, and we're going to take a look at this, Paul actually is going to be digging into some things that are going to challenge our thinking. So if I am in charge of a specific ministry inside the church, or I'm in charge of my family, or I'm in charge of some element, the idea that I am intentional about how the children are involved is important. We have Sunday school, and then we send the kids to Camp Elam here, right? What else do we do? So there's things that are part of the body that we can be challenged by. This is part of why I was challenged by this passage as I was preparing, is the reality of maybe my own thoughts about children being confronted by the inspired Word of God.

So I want to take a minute here. I've got a section in this intro called A Note on Parenting. A lot of ink has been spilled, or today with the internet a lot of pixels have been lit up, on the topic of parenting and how to do it. This is not that. This is not how to parent by itself. There's a broader topic of parenting and a biblical parenting that is useful and it would refer in part to this passage. But in part, parenting is personal and should be done in an abiding way.

How many of you have met people who, when they find out you're having children, some of you don't have children, that's okay. When they find out you are going to have children, they're like, you need this book. Because this strategy in this book is the way. This is how you know that you're parenting the right way, because you do it like this book. This is the blueprint. We used to sell them at the Christian bookstore. There were Christian versions. Attachment parenting is really popular today.

There's all these approaches to parenting that are prominent, but the focus of this passage is not to do a whole lesson on parenting. In the Extreme Marriage course, and there's a link to it as kind of an end note, in the Extreme Marriage course that was done a few years back, there's a section on parenting. You can go back and listen to that and look at the handouts and take that in. Part of my challenge was there are some things about parenting and fatherhood here, but there's also some things that are not said that I have really strong opinions about. I'm not going to share him with you, okay? So I'm going to have self-control and it's the fruit of the Spirit. Hopefully he will teach through me, right? So let's talk about this.

He says, the children are to obey your parents and the Lord. And your translation may be slightly differently worded. I actually modified the NASB here because I wanted to reflect the definite articles. The children are to obey their the parents. There's actually not a definite article in front of the Lord. Not that that matters too much. We know exactly who he's talking about.

But why does Paul mention children in the context of the submission within the body? We need to ask that question. I kind of preloaded this discussion with the idea that children are part of the body. But Paul wants to emphasize that the children are to be an integral part of the body.

This is going to impact their specific sanctification, the children's sanctification. Now when we say sanctification, what do we mean? What's our working definition of sanctification? Set apart. They're set apart unto the Lord. Their spiritual growth as they're maturing and walking with the Lord. If they're part of the body, it's going to impact their walk.

I'm going to tell you a little tiny thing. This is not bragging. Part of why when I do music I have the little kids come up is because one of my earliest childhood memories was being at church singing. Let me tell you, I really maimed the words of the songs. I couldn't read yet, but I knew the melody. The words I knew I would blurt out and the rest of them would get kind of a gummy muttering noise. It's kind of nonsense now, and I'm a little embarrassed by it, but my sense of community, my sense of being part of the body was fundamental to growing up in the church. Music was something I connected with.

These are people I know. I know they care about me, and I know I'm part of this. So having the kids come up for me is an intentional decision. to make them part of the body. It's for their sanctification and growth. And sometimes we do get a chuckle out of it. Not at their expense, but they are fun. How about the family's sanctification? This is important. Paul is talking about these children. He's talking about their interactions with their parents. The parents' sanctification is involved. When Jessica and I were in seminary, one of the classes we took was biblical manhood and womanhood. And the instructor said something, it was just kind of an offhand comment, but it lodged itself in the back of my head.

And she used the analogy of a rock tumbler. How many of you have ever polished rocks or seen rocks polished? But the way that works is you've got this not so pretty rock and you put it in this tumbling thing that rotates. Like a cement mixer. Like a cement mixer, there you go. And you put finer and finer other rocks or sand or powders in with the tumbler and those finer and finer grains of sand knock off and chip off the hard edges and the hard surfaces of the rocks you're trying to polish, and the chipping off is what makes it polished. I'm simplifying that. If you're into geology, you can correct me later.

But the point of the analogy was that the children are actually sanctifying us. God uses our children to grow us as parents, to polish us. So inside the family, that matters. And then so after we have the sanctification of the family, we have the sanctification of the local body. That's a big deal. We're being sanctified by the kids that go to Holly Hills. Do you think about that? Do you think about being sanctified by the kids? That the Lord uses them?

Maybe he's using them to chip off your edges, like the rock tumbler, right? Sometimes it's easy to get into that get-off-my-lawn mood or attitude as an adult. But the kids are there for our growth as a local body, but they're also there for the worldwide church. That's something to consider.

How many times have you ever heard, like especially around this season, we've got Christmas songs that are played. Have you heard a children's choir in the background of a song and gone, man, that sounds gorgeous. Well, those kids probably, if they're singing Christian songs, grew up in a church and they were impacting the church and they were learning to sing and the Lord used that gift in a special way. That's an example of that edifying people across the globe. So those are things where this process of sanctification is not just for the children, it's for all of us. They're part of the body. Now let's talk about the Jewish children.

If you grew up in a Jewish household at the point in time that this was written, the Jewish children would have been given a specific expectation under the law that would have been pretty blunt and bold about their behavior and what they're supposed to do and the rigidity of what was expected from them as being under the law. The Gentile children would have grown up, they had the fear of their parents having the right to get rid of them at any given time. Their parents would have been involved with cultic practices that would have been difficult. Part of why God sent Israel in to wipe out the Canaanites is to Molech, their idol god, the firstborn was to be set on the molten hot hands of their idol to Molech. You would sacrifice your first child in there. So if you're talking about pagan rituals and pagan cultures throughout biblical history, we want to have something that's high contrast to pagan rituals and pagan ideas.

The idea of watching your parents participate in drunken revelry. Today we have child services. CPS will come take your kids away if you do that. Then it was culturally normative. So this idea of these children participating in their households and their families' lives, it's important for us to get a context for that. So this passage sets clear expectations for children and for fathers, which in some cases also applies to mothers as well. So let's take a look at this.

He says, children, you are to obey your parents and the Lord. So what is obedience? How would we define obedience? I know when my children are disobedient, I know what that feels like, right? Listen under. The Greek word is a compound word that comes from the idea of two things, to listen under. But the idea is not just to hear under somebody else's authority, right? So the idea of obey, that you would listen to somebody and then follow the direction, is a good, clear working definition and it reflects not only the Greek compound word but our word obey in modern translations and vocabulary is an appropriate word, okay? The idea that you hear a command and then do it because you've listened under someone.

Maybe we could see it that way. I was kind of thinking, and maybe we'll get to it here, is that part of the cool thing here is that you're pointing out the age of the children. The children initially, who are they going to hear these instructions from? Hopefully they're going to hear it from you. You're going to lovingly tell them, well, you know, it's the best situation for you if you listen under to what I say. Of course that, you know, sometimes falls on deaf ears.

But you have an opportunity in the first two verses to instruct your kids on what the Lord would have you do. And to tell them, hey, this is what will be best for our family and our household. This is the way God has planned it. Just like with marriage, this is the best way. Marriage is God's institution. The family is God's institution. And children listening under are His plan. It's not just something that mom and dad thought up. It's God's plan. Yeah, it's God's plan.

It's funny because the idea of not listening, to hear but not obey, is a real problem. How many times have you had the kid touch the hot stove, don't touch it, it's hot, and they're like... I always think of Indiana Jones where the guy grabs that thing out of the fire and it's burned into his hand. I'm not listening, I'm going to touch this thing and boy the scars are real.

The idea of instruction, we're going to look at that in verse four. You said maybe I'll touch on it more, I will. In verse four we're going to get into it with some depth. Obedience is not necessarily about control, but about relationship roles and understanding.

I think that's an important principle. Obedience, when you have this micromanaging approach to parenting, is often a challenge. I don't know. I'm going to be careful. Again, this is where I don't want to intersect my opinion with your lives in a way that maybe you feel the Spirit is leading you. But, when we think about obedience as control, then obedience becomes a separator from relationship. That's an important detail. Oh, I must have control, you disobeyed and you've got to bring down the iron fist of authority.

Now, I'm going to share a personal story. I wrote a song called, I Picked All the Battles, because one day Abby came out. And she had yet again not followed the letter of the law that I had set forth. And I was ready to just let her have it because she needed to do the right thing. And Jessica said to me, you need to pick your battles. You can't pick all of them.

And as you can tell since I wrote a song about it, it kind of hit me in a hard way to where I realized that I was never going to be able to make Abby in my image. That would be terrible in the first place. But the consequence of trying to rule with an iron fist was going to separate Abby from me. It was going to ruin the relationship aspect.

So when we look at obedience and we see it as only control, we miss an important principle that obedience is about understanding the relationship and understanding the roles and just having understanding in general. That's a principle. That's something to consider. Obviously, if we've been in work situations where there's somebody who's a micromanager, we all know exactly how wonderful that feels. those same principles carry over in parenting where micromanagement is probably not an effective technique.

As Christ illustrated in Matthew 7, 7-11, the Heavenly Father has the authority to do whatever he pleases, but his character is one of care and provision. Let's jump over there and let's read Matthew 7, 7, 1-11. This is going to tell us about our Heavenly Father as well.

And if somebody gets there, go ahead and read that out loud. You can even read verse 12 if you want to, but Matthew 7, 7 through 11 or 12. Go ahead. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. And he who seeks, seeks, finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened.

For what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give what is good to those who ask him? In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets.

Alright, so I referenced this not so that we could get too wrapped around the name it and claim it thing. That's not what Christ is talking about and that's not what we want to spend too much energy on. But the idea is that children being obedient to parents and the Lord What are the parents and the Lord going to be engaging in or engaging with? They're going to be looking at the model of their Heavenly Father in parenting. So it will be a context of kindness, a context of caring.

But Paul adds the qualifier in his instruction so that believers would not see obedience as a higher priority than their faith. And that's important because when we think about this, Have you ever seen a relationship where a believer and a non-believer are married? Maybe somebody became a believer first and their spouse is not a believer yet, and the will of the parents is divided. Friends, and so they were children once, friends in growing up where one parent wanted them to make good righteous choices and the other parent was like, hey, we're going to go do all the secular things that are considered cool. I heard of one young man whose dad decided when he turned 18 he was going to take him to a brothel and make him a man. That to me is pretty gross. You've crossed some serious lines there. Maybe not that. But that's an extreme case.

But sometimes as parents, we have these young children. They're impressionable. They're believers. And they're presented with two choices. They're presented with parent A or parent B. And I remember a few times thinking if I could just manipulate the situation, think of the advantage I could have. My parents were both believers, but I still would look for which parent can I get the most leverage with. I want to have John come spend the night. Which one of them is most likely to say yes to me? I'll go talk with Nana. I'm not helping you, Papa. I don't know what you're going to say. You already have that. He always works on the system.

But the idea is that believers see their faith and their relationship with Christ as the primary focus. So even these young believers, these children, are being told, your primary focus is in your walk with the Lord, and that's going to be the deciding factor, not the obedience. And the reason why I want to highlight that is I think it's important for us to recognize that we are put in earthly conditional situations that demand from us a prayerful, thoughtful, abiding response to reality. The idea of obedience is super critical. Let's take a look. This is a parallel principle.

Let's take a look at 1 Peter 3, verses 1-7. And I'll go ahead and read that. 1 Peter 3, verses 1-7. And he says, "...in the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior." And I'm going to stop there. We won't read all the way to 7, but please do that if you have some time later on. It's a good passage. But the principle that is there is that the godliness of the wife is evangelistic.

But imagine, if you will, you're parenting and your kid's behavior changes. And I'm going to be honest with you, I think that would get my attention sometimes more than watching an adult's behavior change, because I've seen people do that. But kids don't often have radical behavior changes, right?

But the idea here is there's a parallel principle. If they're obedient to the Lord and the father or the mother is not a believer, that's going to actually get some attention. So in the Lord matters a lot here. That gives us some context. But then Paul doesn't say it, but I think it's worth addressing. What about the parents that are not in the Lord? So what we're going to talk about right now is somewhat hypothetical, because this is what we're saying here is not what Paul said. Because Paul didn't say, and for children whose parents are not in the Lord, do this, right?

But let's take a look and consider some principles. While obedience is right for children in a godly home, the disobedience towards unbiblical things is worth considering. Paul is going to quote the fifth commandment in this passage which says we need to be honoring our parents. A child asked to do something such as sacrificing an animal to a pagan god would need to object to the thing they're being asked to do. Now, we don't do a lot of animal sacrifices in America today so that maybe seems like a a less relevant illustration. But like I mentioned, the dad before, when you turn 18 we're going to go make you a man, that's an opportunity for a child to say no. That's an extreme case, but it's definitely worth considering.

Referring back to Ephesians 4.28, we see that stealing was common, but part of pagan practices.

Imagine the dad's like, well, I'm going to take you out and teach you the family trade, and we're going to go steal and then get it close to the Temple of Artemis so that it's ours. The kid's going to have to say, no, dad, I can't steal anymore. And the dad's going to say, what? That's how we make our living. He says, well, Paul sent this letter, and we're supposed to work with our hands now. we're supposed to make an honest living. So the principle carries on there.

They're going to need to very carefully and respectfully reject the direction of their parents. And I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know how that works out. I know that if my children came to me and said, hey dad, I want to go follow this pagan practice. By the way, don't do that. For the recording, they're in the back of the room.

If my children came to me and said, hey dad, we're going to go do this pagan thing, or we're going to do this other thing, I would be like, no, if you're under my roof, this is where the boundaries are. So you know that disobeying your parents could come with consequences.

But Paul's instruction here is specifically that they should be aligning with the Lord's work and obedience in a right context. So, the next thing he says, for this is right. The idea of something being right carries with it a sense of virtue. In the case of the New Testament believer, we see that righteousness is directly linked to our position. We are declared righteous. But our position should impact our condition. So we say it's right because it looks like what God has represented for us. That's why we can understand the imitation in chapter 5 verse 1.

We know what this looks like. But it's rooted in abiding. If we don't teach our children abiding, they won't know. Abiding is not something that you intuit. We need to teach abiding to our children so that they can know how to do these things and they will know what is right. And they will be able to take that and do something with that. It also may mean that, at least today, when they can't get married as young teenagers like they did 2,000 years ago, it may save them from a world of hurt, or at least part of it. That the flesh rears its ugly head and the world around them says, do it! Teach them about abiding.

So then Paul does this thing here, which on the surface could be alarming, but I hope that when we're done with this, you'll be less alarmed. In verse 2 he says, So Paul is bringing in the law. Oh no! The law! As it happens, after having spent some some time discussing the law with friends that are reformed, for example. I don't get so alarmed when I find the law in the New Testament because I understand its place, but let's talk about that so that everybody can be comfortable with this.

Paul is not trying to be a legalist. but to highlight that even in the past this was a requirement, or this was a standard that children would honor or obey their parents. This isn't something new. This is not mysterious. This is something that God has already established, and it shouldn't be shocking to people.

If you had grown up as a Jewish reader, you would have heard about their forefather Jacob deceiving his dad. Right? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What did Jacob do? He stole the birthright, and we're supposed to honor Jacob. He became Israel. He made some pretty terrible decisions, but don't worry, because his grandpa, Abraham, also made some pretty terrible decisions.

Salvation is by faith. But the law comes in and the Jews would have understood that, but the Gentiles would not have. The Gentiles did not have the law. They wouldn't have grown up with it. And so they might be able to be edified or learn from this and see that God is consistent in his expectations for some of these things.

The law codifies God's righteousness in the time and the culture of Israel and the land. So Paul is not bringing the law into the New Testament so we can do it. He's merely citing the reliability of God, the faithfulness of God, and the consistency of God here. Paul credits God's law as righteous and good and signing it does not make it part of the canon of New Testament doctrines for the believer. Now it turns out nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament. What believer is going to be alarmed with the idea that you love God with all your heart?

That's not legalism. We have a relationship, right? Don't steal your neighbor's stuff. Well, we saw that in 428, right? Don't steal. Don't be covetous of it either. Don't be an adulterer. Seems pretty safe. None of the Ten Commandments are alarming. What about eating bacon. I'm personally opinionated about this, but when we talk about bacon, the law is superseded. There are 613 Old Testament laws, and the fact that nine of the ten commandments are repeated doesn't mean that we're under the law.

It means that the principles that those carried for moral behavior line up with what the Holy Spirit is going to be doing in the life of the believer today. So, we're not going to be overly alarmed that these things are here. Now, I do want to take a moment to emphasize something here.

Paul, throughout Romans and in 1 Corinthians and Galatians, establishes the law. And he doesn't establish the law in a way that says, this is for you. He establishes the law in a way that says God is righteous and this is his standard for righteousness for people who are trying to be good enough and they'll never make it. So he establishes the righteousness of the law. He does not establish it as part of the doctrine for the church today.

And I want to be very careful that that establishing and preservation of the law is to drive us to faith in Christ and grace. Is everybody okay with that? Anybody find that alarming or confusing or difficult? Because I don't want to move on until everybody's on the same page with that.

Paul's establishing of the law, and I've got these cross-references there in the middle of page three, Paul emphasizes even more firmly that salvation was never by the law. How was Abraham saved? By faith. How was David saved? By faith. Paul? Saved by faith. All of us, saved by faith. Adam? Saved by faith. Every person that's ever walked the earth was saved by faith. So then he says, honor your father and mother, and I think he's citing the Old Testament there. Paul cites the law's use of honor, which is not the same as obedience. But the honor implies the obedience.

And I think it's important for us to look at laws that were applicable to children. So let's take a quick gander at this list. Deuteronomy 11, 6-7, you must teach the law to your children. They must also recite it. If you're going to have the law, you've got to know it, and you've got to memorize it, and you've got to be talking it. And we talked about this a little bit in earlier lessons when we were talking about walking. Paul uses the Hebrew term of walk to describe the lifestyle of the believers.

The children needed to be walking with the parents and hearing it and reciting it. You were going to put parts of the law on your person, either on your wrist or your forehead. They were going to be on your door mantels. Mantels are different. The idea there is that the law had to be taught and had to be memorized and had to be constantly drilled into them.

The children had to be part of the General Assembly. The male children had to go. Every seventh year they had to go be part of the General Assembly with the men and the women, the fathers and the mothers, and you had to all go listen to the law be read together. Part of the law was that you had to go listen to the law some more. as a General Assembly of Israel.

Deuteronomy 31.19, they will have the Torah, the law for memorization. They needed to have their own copy of the law to take on and memorize it. My children are going, man, we would drive to school and we would do Bible memory verses on the way to school as part of what we did and we'd pray. But we didn't make you memorize all 613 laws. And I think they're probably grateful for that.

Exodus 34, 23. Three times a year, male children will be presented at the feasts. Genesis 17, 10. All males will be circumcised. That's a good one. So that's part of the law. On the eighth day, you'll be circumcised. Exodus 25, if a father hates God, God will punish his descendants, his children and his children's children's children's children for four generations. Oh boy! I'm grateful that's not the case today. Deuteronomy 24 16, the children cannot be punished with capital punishment for their father's crimes. That's also kind of a nice benefit.

Leviticus 19.18, do not bear grudges against the children of those who sinned. Instead, love your neighbor.

If someone has offended me deeply in the law, if I was walking in the law in Israel and the land and someone offended me deeply, I still couldn't take it out on their kids. That's kind of a powerful concept. And just in case you were feeling like they got to skip out on everything else, the rest of the 613 laws still applied to them because they were part of the nation of Israel. You did luck out if you were a woman, you had some laws that were just for you that the boys didn't have to comply with. You couldn't see the big smile on my face in the recording, but trust me, that's goofy. So let's continue on here.

A reminder, the purpose of the law was to separate the nation of Israel unto the Lord. If their children were unruly or walking away from the Lord, it should have been addressed through normal disciplinary measures as prescribed in the Torah or the first five books of the Old Testament. So it's possible that you could have a kid who's getting way out of hand and walking away from the Lord and they disobey and they do something really, really egregious and you take your kid out and they got to be stoned. That's a rough go for any parent, right? But all of the law applied to all of the children.

It's a big deal. So he says this is the first law with a promise. Does the New Testament believer expect to be inheriting any land on this earth? Anybody looking forward to the promised land? No. Paul says this is the first commandment with a promise.

The statement there is not so that we would go, oh, see, we're under the law, and get ready, because you're going to get some of Israel. By now, there's been enough believers on the earth that Israel is going to have to be cut into centimeter squares for us to be able to make sure everybody gets a little piece of the promised land, if Reform theology is correct. The idea of the application of the Old Testament so that we get the land is a bit absurd and something outside of what Paul's purpose is. Instead, and this is where we want to spend a good amount of time, he says, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

It would have been permissible in Ephesus and under Roman law for parents to treat their children poorly. There's pretty much no consequences if you take your kids out and kill them. All the way into adulthood under Roman law. So the idea that I would come and I would treat my children poorly and cause them to be angry at me, embittered, provoked, not a problem under Roman law.

If you want to be a jerk dad, you can. It makes a great character stereotype in movies today to have that really jerk dad or stepdad or somebody or they're dumb or whatever else it is that's popular in common culture. But the reality of the situation is that as believers, we're being called to something greater than that.

So don't provoke your children to anger. It seems like you would want to not do that, right? Like, why would you want to make your kids angry? And it's not because you're avoiding temper tantrums, right? But the reality of the situation is that you care about your children.

But instead of this provoking children to anger, we have a different calling. He says, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And this is a really short phrase with a whole lot of meaning behind it. The word translated discipline here is actually a word used to describe the idea of the whole training and education of children with the intent to cultivate thinking, morality, and training to curb immaturity and emotional behavior. carries with it those principles, but it's a little word with a big implication.

When we see Hebrews 12, let's turn there because I find this to be one of the most challenging passages in all of the New Testament for me. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 3-11. You have not yet resisted the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him.

For those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of Spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good, so that we may share his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

So this idea of discipline when I was younger scared the snot out of me and I'm not exaggerating. I was very afraid of this idea of discipline because I was waiting for God's invisible belt to come swinging out of the ether and smack me on the hiney when I was least expecting it just because I had screwed up and he was just waiting to surprise me with this wrathful.

That's not what the author of Hebrews is talking about and it's not what Paul is talking about with discipline. Instead, it's correction. Instead, it's restoration to fellowship. Instead, it's pulling us away from a pathway that leads to unrighteousness and pain and suffering that are rooted in the flesh and worldly thinking and carnal thinking.

So the idea of discipline here is that it yields fruit and the purpose is in part to let us show off God's holiness as we represent him on this earth. Discipline rooted in love is not something that leads to revolting anger or animosity, but instead it leads to maturity.

We tell our girls, and I think they're tired of being examples, but they're going to be examples in this lesson because this is real life. We tell our girls that our job is to raise them to become adults not just legally, but functionally when they turn 18.

This is the goal. The goal is this. We're trying to raise you to be an adult. They've heard that enough times now that they're probably like, ugh. But the reality of the situation is that the discipline is leading to the fruit of, ideally, the Holy Spirit and maturity and not anger or animosity. Although I'm certain they get frustrated at times. Then he says instruction. While not specifically quoting the Old Testament, the same principle applies for New Testament fathers.

Teach your children about what God has revealed and teach them about biblical truth. We might use the term discipleship here. Take your kids. Show them what godly living looks like. Live it out. Teach them. Point out things to them so they can see it.

The complement of this is seen in Paul's instruction to Timothy. 1 Timothy 1-7 and specifically 4-5 about elders. Their children and household should reflect this sort of practice. If you look at an elder and their kids are out there gang banging or shooting up the neighborhood, maybe probably not ready to be an elder yet. I'm exaggerating for the point of humor, but the idea is this has already happened in their household.

In 1 Thessalonians 2.11 he compares the actions of himself and his co-teachers as being like fathers who encourage and implore their children. Not employ, implore. As people in our conditional context, our earthly fathers often color our perspective of our Heavenly Father.

I don't do a lot of quoting of outside books and I normally never ever ever quote Andre Agassi, but I read his autobiography, and in his autobiography, he was driving in one of his high-end sports cars with his pastor from Las Vegas. And his pastor said, God is not like your earthly father. And Andre said, say that again? And he said, God is not like your earthly father. And they pulled the car over, and he said, look me in the face and say that again. He said, God is not like your earthly father. But here's the thing, most kids grow up thinking that God is like their earthly father.

And we need to teach our kids that's not the case, right? But the idea of instruction is that we're living out as godly a life as parents and taking these things in. Paul is reminding us that God is not unstable, unreliable, inconsistent, a drunkard, a control freak, a workaholic, or an absentee. God is instead intentionally communicating, growing us, nurturing us, and has established the word so that Paul can say in Romans 11, 33-36, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to Him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." And I've got some closing thoughts here because I said we're not going to talk about parenting in the broader sense, but this is just in case. If you're a father, model your fatherhood on the Heavenly Father, not your earthly father.

When you learn something, make sure your children have a chance to see you learning and hopefully help them to learn it too, when possible. It matters a lot for your kids to see what this instruction looks like in your own life. Humility and mistakes in parenting may change your children's lives. Let your children know that you know something wasn't right. It will help them understand justice, righteousness, and grace. And know your children. If you don't know them, you won't know where to implore, urge, and lead them.

It's very easy to have children and say, alright, I made the babies. And then go out and conquer some other thing. know your children. Paul implies that in 1 Thessalonians 2. Alright, that's the second bell. I went over a few moments here. Any questions, thoughts, things you wish I hadn't said? Things you wish I had said? Alright, let's close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we come before you. We thank you that you are our Heavenly Father and that we can model our lives after you and your son as verse 5.1 says and 5.2. We just pray for your wisdom and guidance as we parent or grandparent and that we would or aunt and uncle or surrogate parent or whoever else you put us in. We pray for the children in this body that they would see your life and light and that we would be able to integrate with them in a way that shows the love of Christ. We just thank you in Jesus name. Amen.