The Christ Life for Children and Parents- Ephesians 6:1-4

(Dear Reader: These are recreated notes from my sermon yesterday at The Well. I came to the pulpit with minimal notes due mainly to spending much of last week with my daughter’s three children due to her having had emergency surgery last Wednesday morning and having half of her colon removed and now waiting for pathology report probably tomorrow = 5/26/25 (report didn't come today). Here is the link for the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJjIvbIMBkM Please also note that in the beginning of my sermon the camera was on me but later for a short time was not because I moved the podium not knowing the camera was fixed on where it was initially. I will eventually re-appear once someone noticed and moved the camera. )

INTRODUCTION – Somehow and I don’t remember how – many years ago we Nashes obtained an ollalaberry plant. By the grace of God this one little plant has morphed into maybe twenty long healthy vines - which this year especially has given us tons of fruit. Because these vines have become so healthy and full it is getting more and more difficult to find all the ripe berries. I’m finding I have to look at the same patch or section from every possible angle and height and distance to be able to find the ones that tend to be hidden or not so obvious. Sometimes berries that I can’t find in the morning light I see more clearly in the evening light. Sometimes I have to almost get on my knees. Sometimes I have to move small branches in the front to see berries hidden in the back. Sometimes I have to step back for a moment to see the bigger picture.

It occurred to me this week that mining the depths of the book of Ephesians is very similar to this harvesting process of ollalaberries. There is so much to see and know and understand and observe that occasional mere and quick readings are just not going to cut it. Precious fruit that God wants us to have from this book will fall by the wayside or to the birds unless we keep pressing in and looking at its truths from every possible angle. We have at least a chapter and a half left to cover, which will probably translate into four to six more sermons. I want to encourage you to dig a deep well with this book. Maybe consider reading the whole book at one sitting or reading it in different translations...

Second INTRODUCTION - On any given Sunday morning, if we were to take a poll on what is the greatest burden everyone walked into this building with, my guess is most would say something having to do with family or extended family. Few things in life give us as much joy and cause us as much pain as family does. And thus if you have been following along with us through this sermon series in the six chapter book of Ephesians you might have wondered, why at least in the first four chapters and into the fifth one that Joshua touched on last week has Paul yet to address the family? Does he not know or care about the weight we carry on any given day regarding some aspect of family life?  I mean how practical is the gospel of Christ if it doesn’t address what is mostly on our minds?

Well that is a very good question and the answer is: First of all - God created the family,   Second, God knows every city and society on planet earth rides on the back of families, Third, God inspired the writing of Ephesians through Paul’s hand and its order and its symmetry,                                                                                                                                             Fourth God knows “unless the Lord builds the house they labor in vain who build it”,                 and God (unlike us) never gets the cart before the horse;                                                             and God (unlike us) knows how to build a foundation that can support the weight of any and every challenge any marriage and family might ever face.   

And thus God decided that before He addressed in the book of Ephesians through the apostle Paul the subject of marriage or children and their parents, He would lovingly and wisely build a foundation of our life in Christ and our life in Christ with His people and our life in Christ in the world. His loving and wise intention was to help us build a foundation of this new Christ life so that we could have every resource we would ever need to thrive as children and as parents in this sin sick world system ruled by satan and his demons.     Most of us going into marriage and parenting do not yet realize how these cruel and hideous spirit beings are hell bent on destroying children and the parents called to raise them, not to mention the marriages from which they eventually come forth.

So the Big picture of Ephesians is - - The path to much personal transformation is explained and expected before introducing the challenging and humbling righteous standard of oneness in marriage and then of honor, harmony and order in child and parent relationships. Put another way - - God always meant for His creation to walk out family life from the fullness of their relationship with Christ and with His people.

So let’s review the foundation for a bit:

Ephesians: ch. 1 – the Believer’s wealth       (individually/collectively)  - His intentional choosing of us; His adoption of us as His sons and daughters; His redemption of us and forgiveness for all our sins; His lavished grace on us; etc., etc.                                                     ch. 2 – God’s Great deliverance of us from darkness, slavery to sin and satan, and His re-creating of us to rule and reign with Christ; And His joining us and uniting us with other believers to make a dwelling place of God         (individually/collectively)                                   ch. 3 -  The stewardship of the riches of God’s grace for the Gentiles given to a little Jewish guy named Paul; Why and how he received such a privilege and responsibility;  Paul’s prayer for poured out fullness on the Gentile believers in Ephesus                                                   ch. 4 – 5:21 – The Believer’s new walk in Christ and with other believers and the call on all of us to live and serve together in unity and humility and Christlike love                 

Only when we are grounded in that does Paul begin to deal with:                                               ch. 5:22-6:4 – The Believer’s way for family starting with what a Christlike marriage looks like and then what children and parents under one roof should look like                                   ch. 6:5-9 The Believer’s Work life                                                                                                       ch. 6:10-20 The Believer’s Warfare                                                                                                     ch. 6:21-Paul’s Closing Comments/concerns

Normally in a sermon series  I would be picking up where Joshua left off, which is in the early part of chapter five. But this time around he asked me to skip ahead and discuss with you some thoughts about children and parenting, so please turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 6:1-4.

I.  The Christ Life or Kingdom Life for Children – vs. 1-3

The bad news about every child – born in sin as Eph. 2:1-3 makes clear; the reality of sin nature not just sins; and naturally given to disobedience to parents – Paul in his long description of all of the ungodliness and unrighteousness that results from not placing one’s faith and trust in Christ for salvation says one of the results or consequences is that children are “….disobedient to parents” Rom. 1:30;

 In Paul’s second letter to Timothy re: what life will be like in the last days, he wrote, “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men (and women and children) will be: lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful,….” II Tim. 3:2

That’s the bad news:

The good news about every child is they can obey from the heart whether their parents are around or not once they begin to live the kingdom life/life in Christ. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”

What is the extent of the obedience commanded here? It is always, in all things (unless a child is being commanded to do outright evil), at all times – whether the parent is around or not, whether it is convenient or not, whether they fully understand why or not.

What is the first motivation? “in the Lord”. That is unto the Lord. As an act of devotion to the Lord. It is the same idea as what follows for slaves in vs. 5, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ.”

“for this is right” - - That is this is well pleasing to the Lord. It is the most reasonable and rational thing a child could ever do. It Is the righteous thing to do.

The second thing children should do as a way of life is honor their father and mother, “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.”  (quote from Ex. 20:12 & Deut. 5:16)    This is actually the fifth commandment of the ten commandments and the only one with a promise attached to it. Some scholars think what God was conveying here is the impact on society obeying this commandment has and thus the promise attached to it.

Additional motivation here is in general when we honor our parents our life will be more full and longer though there are exceptions with the longevity part of this.

(To learn more about what God's expectation and thus ours of our children should be you might be interested in this post on that subject - https://www.kingdomstreams.net/post/what-we-should-expect-from-our-children-or-defining-the-end-product-of-our-parenting )

II. The Christ Life or Kingdom Life for Parents – vs. 4

The bad news is most of we parents – especially in my generation -  have rarely seen or experienced Christ centered, Spirit filled, Kingdom based parenting. Most of us were not raised that way; and our most formative years were not lived in that realm or reality.  And thus what was formed in our brains and spirits is what we saw and experienced, not what God intended for us.            

For we men, if our fathers were even intact or in the home, they most likely at best fulfilled the American image of fathering which is providing for the family financially, and stepping in with heavy handed discipline when things were out of control or when their personal peace was being disturbed.

The good news is in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we men can parent in a way that pleases God and bears lasting fruit in our children’s lives.

So what would that look like? Let’s look at vs. 4 - - “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

First please note who is mentioned and who is not = FATHERS!

So what about mothers, and why just fathers? Well some would say it is because mothers are more naturally wired to nurture their children spiritually and thus no need to address their responsibilities. One reason I don’t necessarily agree with this is because there are three passages in the New Testament that directly speak to parenting and all three only address fathers (see Colossians 3:18-21 and I Cor. 7:36-39). I think the reason is more likely that God has designed it that fathers have great influence over their children, and thus when they invest in their children’s spiritual nurture it is much more likely to stick – if they do it in a way that pleases Christ and by the leading and power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Second we fathers are first told what not to do = “PROVOKE to anger” or as a parallel passage in Colossians 3:21  “Fathers, do not EXASPERATE your children, so that they will not lose heart.” and note the sad result.

When we fathers provoke or exasperate our children, we are harming their souls and spirits by saying or doing something or not doing something that they know should not be said or done or left undone. They innately know what and how their fathers should treat them, and when it doesn’t happen, great disappointment and wounding sets in.

https://www.kingdomstreams.net/post/raising-the-righteous-standard-of-fathering-for-the-glory-of-god-xxii-provoking-and-exasperating-c

Third we are told what to do and how – “ ….bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  

What is the primary role of fathers? Spiritual nurturing of their children. This was never meant to be relegated to the mothers. But in many cases it is.

So how are we dads supposed to do this if we have never seen it done or experienced it?  Or maybe we did see it and experience it to some degree growing up and still find it very difficult.  We are glad to work hard and support the family, but teaching and instructing and training our children in the ways of the Lord so that it sticks and brings transformation….well that is beyond me.    Listen, I know the battle this is. There are times when God nudged me to sit down and read and pray with my kids and I just didn’t do it usually because other things seemed more pressing and urgent. There are other times where I tried and all hell broke loose (children farting, belching, causing each other to cry, etc). If it was easy every father would be doing it regularly.

OK. I want to introduce you to a book that has ministered greatly to me by reading the quote from it that has proved extremely helpful to me in my journey of putting off the old (much of which I learned from my father) and putting on the new (that I’m learning from scripture and from the Holy Spirit).

“If the father has truly lived the Way in Christ, it is easy for a son to do the same; if the father has not, our Lord will first have to overcome and bring to death in the son what the father was.”  John & Paula Sanford p. 99  - Restoring the Christian Family  

This has been the most helpful advice I’ve ever heard. I just wish I would have heard it and understood it sooner.

If you are born again by the Spirit of God - - if you are certain Christ has saved you and adopted you into His forever family, then you might want to revisit Paul’s instruction in Eph. 4:22-24 - - put off the old which requires us to pinpoint or identify the old.

For example: feeling I have the right after working hard all day to read the newspaper and watch t.v. for most of the evening until its time for bed; I have the right to relax; for personal time;  justifying my lack of spiritual nurturing by I work hard all day and bring home the bacon and that is my wife’s job. That was pretty much how my father operated.

Then putting on the new self – being renewed in the spirit of my mind – basing my family roles on Scripture and truth and the way of Christ, not on what I have seen or experienced growing up or in others around me.

I'll never forget learning to father my daughter. I grew up with brothers and with a Dad that stayed married to my mother for all of their days, but who had not learned to live with her in understanding way as Peter commands in ch. 3:7 or honoring them as a fellow heir of the grace of life as Peter also commands in that verse. Men scorning women in subtle and not so subtle ways was fairly common in my close knit clan growing up. As I have gotten more in touch with this scorn of one's wife in my own life, I've had to repent of this both in my own life and come against it in my clan as a sin of the fathers or iniquity of the fathers as seen throughout the Old Testament especially. (If you want to really understand the reality of the sins or iniquity of the fathers or what some call generational sins and how to identify them and come against them in your family and extended family - I've written five articles on this subject. You can find the first one here: https://www.kingdomstreams.net/post/raising-the-righteous-standard-of-fathering-for-the-glory-of-god-part-ix ).

So I remember I used to often take her to the middle school in the mornings before I went to the office. She loved school, her friends, her basketball buddies and couldn't wait to see them and often would not say goodbye to me because she was so anxious to get out of the car and see them. I had to train her to look at me and say goodbye. I was out of my league for sure. Then in high school at some point - realizing my relationship with her was not just naturally flourishing (as Dennis Peacocke used to say, "the Natural state of a garden is weeds" - to get healthy flowers and vegies growing takes alot of consistent effort), my wife suggested I take her out to breakfast every Friday morning on my day off. Well that was not my ideal of how to start my day off; she would often order more expensive dishes than I would have preferred; and what were we going to talk about for such a long period of time?! But we did it fairly regularly and God faithfully worked on my inner attitudes in the process. Thank God for mothers who see the importance of nudging their children's fathers in the right direction!

(To learn more about what all the Scriptures teach about Fathers teaching their children, please see: https://www.kingdomstreams.net/post/raising-the-righteous-standard-of-fathering-for-the-glory-of-god-part-xvii-fathers-as-teachers-of-t

 Well we need to bring this to a close  – I want to talk to you briefly about the Role of the Holy Spirit as seen in the book of Ephesians - - Eph. 1:13 sealed with Holy Spirit of promise;  2:18 access in one Spirit to the Father;  2:22 dwelling of God in the Spirit;  Eph. 3:5 now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; Eph. 3:16 “strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; 4:3 unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.; 4:4 one body and one Spirit; 4:30 “do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” – So one time my wife and I took my wife’s mother to Tahoe Joe’s in San Luis Obispo for lunch. We took her there often actually. And most every time we went at some point I would have to go to the restroom. Well on the wall just outside the men’s restroom were maybe 3-5 pictures of the Ponderosa from the T.V. series Bonanza and pictures of the Dad = Ben Cartwright and the three sons, Adam, Hoss and little Joel. Walked by them many times and was always reminded of watching that show countless times with my dad and brothers. But on this particular day possibly in 2016 or 2017 I stopped and began to process something. My wife across a very large room saw me standing there and when I returned she asked me what was going on?  I responded something like “I think the Holy Spirit was telling me to repent of thinking along with the rest of the world that the family life they portrayed was normal or good or pleasing to the Lord. It wasn’t!!  And its influence on my thinking had to be cleansed!  Ben never prayed with or for his sons; he never read the Bible; I don’t remember them ever going to church; All three sons lusted after women. And on it goes…. Now I could have started having those thoughts and just chalked it up to eating some bad food or Satan. Had I done that I would have grieved the Holy Spirit. But instead I confessed to my wife what I was sensing and it was one of many instances where the Holy Spirit lovingly but firmly helped me see where and how I had been conformed to the world (see Romans 12:2) in my thinking about life and family.  

5:18 do not get drunk with wine but be filled with the Holy Spirit – He is not saying never drink wine, though for some of us perhaps we shouldn’t. But rather he is saying do not look to alcohol to soothe or calm or numb us when we should be going to the Holy Spirit for that and so much more; 6:17 – the sword of the Spirit is the word of God; 6:18 – pray at all times in the Spirit;

Prayer for Holy Spirit fullness and help for those listening – especially fathers in this interesting journey of identifying and putting off the old and putting on the new.

(Please ignore coloring here at the end. Don't know how I did it or how to undo it) :)