Spiritual Parenting

“Spiritual Parenting”

Ephesians 6:1-4

I had the privilege recently to spend several hours in the walk-in clinic. I've got to tell you that it is a great place if you like to observe people. It's a sociology experiment in progress. Let me share a few scenarios with you. There was a woman with her son. The whole time I was there you could tell that the world revolved around the boy. At one point the boy relocated the garbage can so that he could discard his orange peels. That was all well and good up to the point when some of the others were also in need of such garbage can. However, the boy was unwilling to relinquish it for the sake the others. He preferred to use it for a leg rest to which his mother conceded. So everyone else held their garbage in their laps.

Another woman was there with her teenage son. Her appearance led me to conclude that she was trying desperately to cling to her youth. She and her son were quite “entertaining” as they fought with one another and as she was sort of the instigator in being a problem for the office. It seemed to me that she was more of a cool “buddy” than a parent.

Another encounter happened at another time and place that has stuck in my memory. I recall seeing a mom and young son going into a store. The interesting thing was that this 3 or 4 year old boy was wearing only underwear. The woman, upon seeing a friend's inquisitive look, informed the friend that her son did not 'want' to wear clothes that day.

This morning we are going to talk about Parenting and the Family – more specifically Spiritual Parenting in the family. To this point we have seen that God has clear expectations in the way we are to function and relate to one another. Last week we talked about the biblical roles and function within the marriage. Today we will focus on the roles and function of parents and their children. If you are not a parent, I’ll bet you know one, are planning to be one, have been one, or are now a grandparent. This message is still for you. This is a continuation of how God desires that we relate to one another in the body of Christ.

You see, the world has a distorted view of relationships. There is this notion that life is about us and all our actions develop independently of everyone else. “I have my rights. I’ll do what I want with my life. Who are you to tell me what to do?” But from the very beginning of time, human beings were designed to function in community. They took on the very image of God – a great part of which is the image of community as expressed in the trinitarian nature of God. God exists in three persons and is himself in relationship with the three Persons of the Godhead – Father, Son, and Spirit. Adam and Eve were commanded to reproduce and fill the earth. They were designed and created to live in community. And God set apart a nation for himself. It was his plan and desire that Israel will be a light to the nations to proclaim his name. In a very real sense, the obedience to the expectations and commands that God gave to Israel affected the nation as a whole. That is why sin was dealt with so harshly. Do you remember the sin of Achan? After one of the Israel’s conquests, Achan held back some of the spoils after God told them explicitly not to do so. His family was killed along with him. Sin is serious and has consequences for all that surround the person.

And I believe this individualistic mentality has infiltrated the church. It is easy for us to believe that they way we live and conduct ourselves have no bearing on other people. We have a disconnected mindset. The church, as a community, like the nation of Israel, is set apart to glorify God and to be a light to a dark world. We are a part of that community.

In the same way, individuals in the church do not act independently of one another. For our actions affect one another. The way we function in our families affects the composition of the church body as a whole. Last week we talked about the relationship between husband and wife. This week we will discuss how parents and children relate to one another.

Please turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Let’s read verse 1-4. The first point in the sermon this morning is
Spiritual Obedience.

Our text begins with the command to children. Verse 1 says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” To which you say, “That’s nice. But isn’t that a command to children? What are we supposed to do about it?” You know, I considered having the children sit in for the first part of the service this morning. And then I decided against it because, like we talked about this week (and will again in a few moments), the parents are the primary teachers of the children. So, I didn’t want to take away the privilege and responsibility of your conveying this biblical truth to your children.

Regarding the authority of parents, Tedd Tripp writes, As a parent, you have authority because God calls you to be an authority in your child’s life. You have the authority to act on behalf of God. As a father or mother, you do not exercise rule over your jurisdiction, but over God’s. You act at his command. You discharge a duty that he has given. You may not try to shape the lives of your children as pleases you, but as pleases him. All you do in your task as parents must be done from this point of view. You must undertake all your instruction, your care and nurture, your correction and discipline, because God has called you to.”

We need to recall that this section is also derived from the command to be filled by the Spirit in chapter 5 verse 18. So as wives are submitting to the headship of the husband, so children are submitting to their parents. Only in this case, Paul uses a stronger word than “submission.” He calls children to obey their parents. So it’s important that we talk a little bit about obedience. Obedience is an extremely important concept to get through our children for a couple of reasons. It is important because obedience is what God calls us to in faith. Faith and obedience are inextricably linked. There are a plethora of Scriptures that discuss what it means to follow our Lord Jesus. Jesus himself said in John 14 that “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And the apostle John wrote “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” And obedience and the filling of the Spirit are also linked, because the filling of the Spirit is likened to control. So when we talk about being filled by the Spirit, we are not talking about how much of the Holy Spirit that we have, but rather how much of us the Holy Spirit has. So when we are in obedience, we are being controlled by the Holy Spirit. And we want this for our children. We want them to be filled by the Spirit as they walk in obedience to God. And they are in obedient to God insofar as they are being obedient to us.

Now this next point (or points) that I raise can be a little confusing because it is circular. So I would ask that you pay close attention. So if you are still confused, I will know it’s my fault. As we teach our children this concept obedience, I would encourage you to show them the very words from Scripture. In so doing, you will be teaching them a couple of things. First, you are teaching them to be obedient to God’s Word by telling them that this is actually a mandate from God and not just something that you fabricated to put them in their place. You aren’t the authority because you are bigger. You are the authority because God has said so. You are showing your children that you are submissive to God and His Word and that you would be disobeying God’s Word by not carrying out the biblical role as parent. Are you still with me? There is a lot that is tied up in this. You are demonstrating to your children that you view Scripture as authoritative because they are God’s words. And you are showing your own obedience to it as you expect your child’s obedience. And if you allow them to disobey, you are communicating that you don’t take God’s Word seriously! So why should they?

James Montgomery Boice writes, “The obligation is not merely on the side of the child, who must obey, but also on the side of the parent, who must enforce the obedience. This is because the parent stands as God in relationship to the child. To teach the child to obey the parent is to teach the child to obey God. To allow the child to defy and disobey the parent is to teach the child to defy and disobey God with all the obvious consequences.” We are being disobedient if we don’t expect our children to obey us.

Now, this is where it gets tricky. Because the children watch us. As you continue to teach them God’s Word and extract biblical truth, you also need to change. For if you do not, it becomes merely an intellectual pursuit for them too! Not only do we teach them with words, we teach them with action. We need to model obedience for our children. If the text says that we are to love our wives as Christ loved the church, we need to do it because we are teaching our children how to be godly husbands. If the text says to put away falsehood and we lie, we teach our children how to be good hypocrites – and liars. We are discipling our children. To be a disciple in the times of Christ was not only to learn new truths but to follow and watch how they were applied to life. The words Christ spoke to his disciples were only half the lesson. Their days were spent walking with Jesus, eating with him, teaching and performing miracles with him. Our children are hearing our words and watching to see how we apply biblical truth to life. Intimidating, isn’t it?

While you’re feeling that burden, let me add one more point. Remember that how we train our children is how they are going to train theirs. We need to parent biblically for God’s sake and for generations to come. We need to do our part to stop the perpetuation of unhealthy families and parenting.

Let’s move on to verse 2. Verse 2 tells children to honor their father and mother. And Paul adds that it is one of the Ten Commandments issued to Moses. And it included a promise. And that promise was blessing and long life. Whereas obedience was an action or response, honor conveys the attitude children should have toward parents. This is the motive behind the action. I believe that children honoring parents has largely been lost today. Let me remind you what God’s Word says regarding the respect that parents are due. Exodus 21:15 says “Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. And verse 17 “Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.” Matthew 15:4 says, “For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’”

John MacArthur adds, “Although submission to parents should first of all be for the Lord’s sake, He has graciously added the promise of special blessing for those who obey this command.” And this blessing is more of a general blessing than a guarantee. It is essentially as a proverb – something that is generally true. For we know that many of those whose lives were characterized by their submission, honor and obedience to the Lord were taken from us at young ages. More often than not God blesses with longevity those faithful to him.

The second point this morning is Spiritual Leadership.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. You might ask, “Why does Paul single out fathers here? What is so important about dads?”

I did a little research and found a few statistics that I would like to share with you. First, I know that there are more than 500 female lone-parent families living in Squamish. In fact, there are likely some here with us today. I don’t bring up these statistics to frighten you, discourage you, or leave you with no hope. Because with Christ there is always hope. And there is hope because we are a church that cares for your needs and are here to help.

The problem is that dads are becoming increasingly absent. In fact, one-third of birth certificates today have no dad listed. And 40 percent of children are going to bed tonight without a dad. I’ve got to tell you that this just breaks my heart. 40 percent of children are being raised without a dad! We have men in our society that have abdicated their God-given “dad” responsibilities for the sake of convenience and their own selfish desires. And many have left women with the tremendous and often overwhelming task of acting as mother and father to their children! They have doubled the women’s responsibility because of their irresponsibility. And the women have little time to be in relationship to others. I understand that men aren’t always the ones to blame. But I would bet that it is the high majority.

The world has a distorted view of God’s design for family and God’s design for sex. We’ve got this all mixed up. God designed sex primarily for married men and women so that they could become more intimate, that they might carry out the command of the Lord to reproduce, and (bonus) for their enjoyment. And you may know this, this isn’t how most people think of it. In our society, sex is primarily for selfish gratification and fun. So that pregnancy is viewed as a curse and not blessing!! And that is sickening. Children are not a consequence, but a blessing from God.

So here are the statistics:

63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.
85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes.
80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes.
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.
70% of juveniles in state operated institutions come from fatherless homes
85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home.
Nearly 2 of every 5 children in America do not live with their fathers.

What does this all mean? It means that children from fatherless homes are:

4.6 times more likely to commit suicide,
6.6 times to become teenaged mothers (if they are girls, of course),
24.3 times more likely to run away,
15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders,
6.3 times more likely to be in a state-operated institutions,
10.8 times more likely to commit rape,
6.6 times more likely to drop out of school,
15.3 times more likely to end up in prison while a teenager.

and — compared to children who are in the care of two biological, married parents — children who are in the care of single mothers are:

33 times more likely to be seriously abused (so that they will require medical attention), and
73 times more likely to be killed.

Fathers are important because they have the God-ordained role of being the heads of households. The text reads that we, as fathers, are not to provoke our children to anger. If I was writing this verse, I’m not sure I would have put that first. But God did. Maybe he was thinking of the anger that children have for not having a dad – either not having one at all or one that finds other “more important” things to occupy his time. Do we provoke them by ignoring them, not caring? Are we lazy or selfish, mean or abusive to mom? Do we bully the children? Do we exercise punitive discipline rather than corrective discipline? We’ll get to that in a minute. Do we mock them, belittle them, annoy them? These are all things for we fathers to consider.

Paul says rather we are responsible to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We are primarily responsible to ensure that they are being raised in godliness. Do you know what that means? That means that we are to be actively involved in all areas of their lives. We don’t have to DO everything. It means that we are involved in the educational decisions of their lives. We need to find out what is best for our children in this area – homeschool, public school, private school. And, by the way, there is no right and universal answer. We need to make sure that they are involved in church life. We are interested in who their friends are – the major influencers in their lives. What they watch and listen to. Where they are on the internet? Computer in a main room. All these sorts of things. Be involved, invested, connected.

But most of all, they are leading the charge in spiritual matters. We talked a bit about this last week. A lot of people think that the Sunday School teacher or Youth Pastor is responsible for teaching spiritual things. But God determined that it is the dads that are the ones that are opening the Word at the dinner table, kneeling with their kids in prayer, getting the family in the car for church. Ultimately, we want them to surpass us. We want them to do a better job of parenting than us. We want to be honest with them, sharing our struggles, asking for forgiveness when we’ve sinned against them. We want to be discipling them.

And perhaps some of you are overwhelmed. Perhaps you know that this is your responsibility and just don’t know what to do or where to start. If you have children in our Sunday School programs to Grade 5, we’ve placed a little section in the bulletin to help you out. You can sit at the dinner table and go over the review material there. If they’re older ask them what they’re learning and if they have any questions. They should be coming to you first with spiritual questions. Read the Bible with them. You don’t have to be a seminary prof to read God’s Word with them. Pick up some worship CD’s and sing with your family. There is some great stuff out there. Ask Anne. She has pointed me to some quality children’s worship. Awesome God by Sovereign Grace. And I know that she loves to pass that stuff on. Memorize Scripture with your kids. They’ll surprise you and might do better than you.

We’ve got some books out back to help you. You can see Lorrette after the service. Craftsmen is a book we studied as a men’s group that is about skillfully leading your family for Christ – based on the book of Proverbs. For parents, Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp is a great book and study to remind you that ultimately we are not looking for good behavior, but a heart that is inclined to worship and obey God. And only when that happens are they able to please him by their behavior. Everyday Talk: Talking Freely and Naturally about God with Your Children. The title is self-explanatory. If you’ve read Tedd Tripp’s book, this would be a great follow-up. John Younts is the person who helped out with the supplementary material for Shepherding a Child’s Heart. In addition, I brought in a small paperback by John Piper called What’s the Difference. It’s about biblical gender roles if you had some additional questions about the topic.

Lastly, I don’t think the men have been challenged enough of late. So I’m going to press a little harder. We do have the issue of single mom households in Squamish. And I’ll bet if you looked at your front door from home, you wouldn’t have to look far to find one. If the kids don’t have a father, they still need a positive male influence in their life. I would encourage you that next time you pick up a hockey stick, basketball, or go for a bike ride with your kids, invite the neighbor’s kids too. I know many of you do that already. But this serves as a reminder for me as well. Not only are you influencing the neighbors kids, but you are being a witness for Christ to your neighbor and even your own children.

I close with the words of James Boice once again. “The world is against us. The world wants absolute autonomy and will attempt to destroy any established structure to get it. It will try to destroy our families. It will try to get us on its side. But it need not succeed. We can live as Jesus tells us to live, and God can and will bless our homes.”