Ephesians 6 Fathers & Children - Leland Zehr

Good morning to each one of you here this morning. It's good to see

you all. I want to welcome all of you. I know some of

our people from the Home Congregation are gone today. Dan's at Palisades, I

believe, and Jason, I think, getting company and others are missing.

But it's nice to have visitors to fill in the benches as well and appreciate

that you're here. I also really did was blast in different ways, but

things that were said this morning, songs that were saying. I could comment

on various things, but I know there's a funeral this afternoon, and I

want to feel like I should just keep moving along. I've I don't want

to hold you later than possible. Moses wasn't a amazing man, though I'm

always impressed with Moses. They're from that decision if we could, you know,

looking back, it's one thing, but doing that in real time is

a whole other thing. To make those choices to suffer when when when you

had the opportunity, you're born into the royal family, wealth and ease was

at your fingertips if you wanted it. But it says that, yeah,

he esteemed the the blessings the suffering of God's people over the temporal ease,

and then many other things about Moses are impressive. But I plan to preach

out of the book of Ephesians Effusion six this morning for your visitors. I've

been seems like slowly working through this book. We're in the last two after

now, and I want to look at the first nine verses of Ephesians chapter

six, and before I read that, there are four specific groups here that

are listed groups of people positions not sure to describe them, that are given

specific instruction and commandments on things to do and not to do. And that

is children, fathers, servants, and masters. And if I believe that

every one of us here either have, does, or will be, at

least one fall into one of these categories, and some of us in all

four as a child, a father, servant, and master. Some of

us are still relating to parents. Some of us have dren some of us

are under authority in some areas of our lives, and in other areas we

are in authority and responsible for people. So I want to spend a little

time this morning addressing these four particular groups that are mentioned here in Ephesians.

The first nine verses. I'll probably give more time to the children and the

fathers this morning, and a little bit to servants and masters. So let's

read these first nine verses. Children, obey your parents in the Lord,

for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first

commandment, with promise that it may be well with thee, and thou mayst

live long on the earth. And ye, fathers, provoke not your children

to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the

flesh, with fear and trembling, with singleness of heart, as unto Christ,

not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ,

doing the will of God from the heart, with good with good will,

doing service as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that

whatsoever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord,

whether he be bond or free. And ye masters, do the same

things unto them for bearing threatening, knowing that your Master also is in heaven.

Neither is their respect of persons with him. So I want to start

here where where the chapter starts. With you children, children, obey your

parents and I'm by the way, how many of you are children this morning?

Any children here? I just curious what my audience is when I'm speaking

on this, and it's good to see that it's pretty broad. Wasn't sure

how many of you consider yourself children anymore? And of course I can have

more than one, meaning we often refer to children as I don't know under

adolescence. But the reality is that I think most of us here there's a

few exceptions, I think, but most of us here have at least one

parent living. So in that sense, we still are a child of a

living parent, regardless of whether we were ten, twenty or sixty seventy.

There's still that reality. These verses are very, very, very familiar to

us, probably one of the first verses that most of us remember or memorized

as a little children growing up. Children, obey your parents and the Lord,

for this is right. And that goes on to say honor their father

and mother, which is the first commandment. So these are the two main

commandments given to children this morning. To obey and to honor. It's not

very difficult to understand, it's not very complicated, but it's sometimes hard to

do. And do you understand. Maybe I could ask this, do you

for sure understand what it means to obey? Because we don't want any misunderstandings.

We want you to be clear on that. And I think the answer

is, yeah, we know what it means to obey. But I'd like

to look at something a little bit closer here. I don't like to get

too wordy and Greek and all that, but I think sometimes a little deeper

look into some words and pulling them apart in the Greek adds some real depth

and broad the scope of the meaning, at least it does for me at

times when I want to show you this on the board here, this word

obey this last time. We'll stay right there for now, children of all

your parents and the Lord, for this is right. And I want to

show you just a little bit to add a little more doubt to this word

obey in the Greek. Here I think it has said hoop a coo,

hoop a coo, if I'm saying it right. But then that word comes

from two other Greek words put together. Hoopa means the first part of this

word is too is kind of the thing add a position. It means to

be under a place, beneath or below, so order a position. And

then this, uh, the other part of the word a coup, I

think right here is to hear and to give a tendence or audience too,

And that is maybe more the part that we think about to obey to.

When you're told to do something, you obey, but at least in this

word, in this use here, children obey your parents. Not only do

you just do what they tell you to do, but you do it in

the mindset, with the attitude, with the awareness of that I am under

my parents. They are over me. And that is not to say in

a lording, selfish sort of way, but more of a protecting sort of

a way God has given each child parents. Sometimes they're taken away or something,

but parents are over above and overshadowing a child, and they're in their

childhood and coming up through life. And so children, he said, remember

that, remember that your parents are over you. They're your authority, and

you need to not only obey them, but to have the attitude of being

under them, which is respect and honor, which we will get to him

a little bit. Obedience isn't really that hard to understand. It's it's just

hard to do like I said sometimes And why is that? Why is it

that we do not like to obey at times? Well, I don't know.

I think it's just we're born that way. We're naturally selfish, were

naturally are rebellion. We want what we want, we don't want anything to

stand in the way of what we want. And that all starts at a

very very young age, maybe under one the child you start seeing its will

of being restrained and it fights back against that doesn't want to be restrained.

There are many different ways that we are children can disobey, and I want

to list a few of them for you to think about. One way is

just outright rebellion, in your face, I will not do what you're telling

me to do. No defiance. When mommy says come, then he or

she runs the other way. Just very straightforward disobedience. Other kinds of disobedience

is it would be a delayed obedience. Okay, you tell them what to

do and he says okay, but he doesn't move, she doesn't move.

He's going to finish what he's doing, and then what do you know of

a little bit later they're still not doing well. Then they forgot or they

didn't hear and see, this is the way that disobedient happens. Sometimes it's

not just a real angry heart, but it's not prompt obedience, which leads

to a delayed disobedience. Or we can just ignore the command. Now we

hear mom calling from the distance, come and I'll just hope she gets one

of my other brothers and sisters to do the job. If I just be

quiet long enough, don't answer, maybe they'll forget about it. Maybe they'll

forget they told us. And if they remind us a second time, then

maybe we'll do it another way. Can Maybe this gets into more of the

adolescence or middle aged children, is to bait and lure our parents into a

discussion about it. We're told to do something, and well, then we

want to talk about it. We want to give reasons why we don't think

that's a good idea, why it should be done a different way. Can't

we talk about this? And next thing you know, there's this discussion going

on. In five to ten minutes later, you're still wearing yourself out in

trying to get this child to obey. It's another way of disobeying. Another

way would be to obey. Most of what you're told to do, what

you're told to do, but then there's a piece of it, maybe the

shortcut it you don't follow the details, you make your own decision against what

you're you were told to do, disobeying incrementally or gradually. I don't know

if you have that. We have that at our house sometimes, and I'm

I'm bad with being distracted and unaware, and I can tell my children to

do something, they just disobey right under my nose and I don't realize it

right away, and so I have to bring my mind into discipline my own

self. But some times you'll watch that with a child, Sit at the

table, keep your hands down under the table while we pray and sing something

like that, And the next thing you know that there's a finger over the

top of the table, hooked on it, and they're just and then if

you don't catch that, then pretty soon the hand is up and two hands

are up, and there's silver, and there's water, and there's a mess,

and it just it's wearing. It takes Dylan with It's all kinds of

ways to disobey your parents. Those are just a few. Sometimes big people

do this as well. With God, with other authorities, with the church,

with whoever it might be. You're told not to do it's clear,

it's plain, but you just do it a little bit. And then if

the authority, whoever they are, don't tell you to quit it, tell

you to stop it, well, then it must be all right. God

doesn't write me down, then it must be all right. Well that is

I think we are risking, especially spiritually and physically, because we are disobey

when we know, regardless if we're corrected in the moment, and God especially

doesn't usually just bring correction into our life right away when we disobey, He

lets us you can go down that trail for a long ways, often before

you maybe start running into problems. Most of us are born with this strong

will of not being told what to do. In fact, some of us

are wired where if the person asks us to do something, especially somebody we

don't like, or they're asking the wrong way, then that's a good enough

reason to not do it, because you just there's just something to do the

opposite. And children, I can't and I'm a child, I can't explain.

I would maybe clarify this, And I think the command children obey your

parents and the Lord, for this is right is for younger children, although

all of us have been or our children. I think it's more directed towards

while you're in the home. But I don't. I mean, I think

I understand, but it's just God's order Why God said children obey your parents.

But I think the one thing is that we need to know is that

God loves you, and your parents love you generally. And although sometimes when

your parents are asking things of you it doesn't feel very loving, in the

moment where God is asking things of us, we need to remember that,

and even if we don't understand that, we need to just trust that that

is the case. God is trying to take do the best for us,

and usually our parents are as well. They are there to protect us,

to provide for us, to teach us both of earthly things and spiritual things.

And as children, you have the simple responsibility at this stage of life.

It may seem like it's hard, but it's really the simple, simple

part of the equation, and that is to simply obey. Now, there's

sometimes that I wish that someone would just tell me what to do and I

could just obey and I wouldn't have to figure out what to tell other people

what to do. And so if you think, if you can't learn to

obey, then you will never make a very good parent master adult in your

life. It is one of the one of the principles of God's word to

obey. Disobedience is so wearing. If you are a parent or you are

a school teacher, you are a boss at a job, just always having

to pull someone back and they're not obeying again, and they're always doing it

a different way, and call he's got to be calling them down. It's

just it's a tiring job. It's wearing. One of the best things that

a child can do for their parents is just obey them. Just simply obey

them when when they tell you to do something. And sometimes we bargain subconsciously

and think, well, maybe I'll offset disobedience with something good. And I

Samuel said this to Saul when Saul disobeyed and made the sacrifice against God.

Samuel told him to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken in the

fat a rounds. And I don't know if you've ever had that, I

I think I have where I've had a sweet, precious little child come to

me and share their piece of gum with me. But the only problem was

that that gum was supposed to be asked for before they brought it to me.

But I think that is maybe that's their way of asking to give half

the gum to me and then if it passes, and then we're all good.

But I think that there again, that's what we can do as adults.

Even we can like well, do a good deed, but really we're

not obeying the second part of this commandment is honor honor your father and mother,

which is a first commandment with promise that it may be well with the

anal mayst live long on the earth. And honor is it can be different

things, but it's it's more of an attitude of the heart than a deed,

although it affects our deeds and actions. It's a it's an inward respect,

a high reverence, high regard, esteeming someone. He says that to

honor your father and mother, And I think this starts to merge now into

maybe older children, although younger children definitely need to be taught this. But

as as we grow and maybe we get married, go out of the home,

we are not under the direct commands of our parents as much in obeying,

but this thing of honor lives on with us as long as our parents

live, and even after they live after they die. Honor your father and

mother. Now this is an interesting there's a piece of this that is interesting.

As you know. This is one of the command the ten commandments in

the Old Testament that God told the children of Israel to your father and mother.

But it's the only one that has a promise attached to it. All

the other nine commandments are just commandments don't kill, don't stay, don't don't

cove it, don't commit adultery. But this one says honor thy father and

mother. And I think in the Old Testament there it says that thy days

may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. And

this is a promise from God to the children of that time. And maybe

it sounds a little bit like the health and Wealth gospel of our day today,

but I don't think that that is what it is. Where the health

and wealth is if you do right, then you'll be rich and all the

life will go well, no problems, pain free. That's not what he's

saying. But I think there's an underlying principle that is even still true today

that God said, and it was especially true in the Old Testament. I

want you to listen. You don't have to turn there if you don't want

to. But in Deuteronomy twenty one eighteen it says this a few verses.

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the

voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that when they

have chastened him, will not hearken unto them, Then shall his father and

his mother lay hold on him and bring him out unto the elders of his

city and under the gate of his place, And they shall say, unto

the elders of his city, this our son is stubborn and rebellious. He

will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard. And

all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die.

So shall thou put away evil, Put evil away from among you, and

all Israel shall hear and fear. That's a terrible thing. I don't know

if you can imagine that, or want to imagine that, what that must

have been like. As a parent, you raise your children, and it

appears to me like, this is not just some nine ten year old,

but an older child, because it says he's glutton and drunkard seems to be

an older child, least in the upper teams, maybe older. But he

won't listen. They've tried everything they could. They punished him, rebuked him,

warned him, and he just keeps living the life that he wants to

live. And God said, not Moses, no one else. God said,

you parents, Take that child, take him to the elders in the

city, to the gate, which I imagine is a highway tight place where

all can see, and tell the elders that this child will not listen.

And then the elders are to stone that child. And I just can't imagine

a young man that is our, one of our sons, being drugged to

a gate and watching that happen. But I think it gives us a glimpse

of the seriousness of disobedience and dishonor disrespect in the eyes of God. And

part of the reason was that to put away that evil, but also to

remind everyone else to be respectful, to honor, to be obedient, because

it's a serious thing. Of course, we don't do that today. Anymore.

In fact, we're way over on the other side of permissiveness and children

can do pretty much whatever they want in our society. But I would say

this that this phrase I think lives on in principle today. Yes, there

is good young men that are obedient and honor their parents that die young.

That's true. But I think the overall principle is true that an obedience and

an honorable child positions himself in life to avoid a lot of heartache, a

lot of pain, and often death. And if you look at if you

were to look at all our prisons that are full of people, I would

tend to think that many, many of them never learn proper obedience or honor

and respect in their life in some way or another, and it leads to

prisonment and death at times. Also, I think obedience and respectful children and

youth are accepted into communities and societies and job sites and job opportunities and Bible

schools and a lot of other social networks when they have a reputation of obedience

and respect. When they get a reputation that they're not obedient to the current

authorities and they're not respectful, many people stand back. Even in our secular

society. They don't want to hire them kind of people. They're jobless,

and it's just a downward spiral from there. So it has implications in this

life and in the life to come. Maybe the question comes, well,

what if my parent is not a good parent, what if they're bad or

wicked or I think I would say that you still honor them. You must

honor them and respect them. And it is not honor this kind of honor

and esteem. Yes, doesn't mean that you deep down and admire that the

actions that parent is doing, but you honor them because of who they are,

the position that they're in relation to you, and treat them with honor

and respect. It's like this, It's it's kind of like the reason that

you do it is not so much for them. The reason you do it

is for you. That's why you do it. It's kind of like the

choice between forgiveness and resentment. You can be wronged and it can be clear

that you were wrong, there's no question, But then the choice is will

I forgive that person and go on a free man, or will I carry

resentment towards that person and the person that gets impacted by that the most that

decision is not the person you either forgive or don't forgive. It is you,

and it is your life that is impacted. And so you're doing it

to yourself when you have bitterness, you're poisoning your own all areas of your

life, and it can be hard to do. It doesn't feel deserving their

respect a dishonorable person. I can still feel that well up inside of me

if a man, or an authority, or a contemporary is very clearly out

of line. They're they're not kind, they're they're rude, they're demanding,

they're being selfish. And yet you want to fight that with fire, You

want to fight that with disrespect. But it doesn't help. It only poisons

my own self. One of the things listed in Second Timothy three two in

the last days perless time shall come, and there's a whole list of things,

and one of them is children shall be disobedient to their parents. Okay,

moving on to fathers. There's only one verse in this chapter to us

fathers. It's not even that long of a verse says, any fathers,

something not to do, a couple of things to do. Provoke not your

children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of

the Lord. And this is an interesting command. I out of all the

things that Paul could have said to the church and Efhesians, I don't know

why he picked this one for sure, but maybe it was a problem,

maybe he was addressing a specific area. But I think one thing is one

reason maybe is is that sometimes we fathers, more than mothers, just tend

to do this, have a tendency to provoke our children to wrath with our

makeup were made up different. Typically it's not always the same, but often

a father, a man is a little firmer, a little less moved by

emotional appeal or emotional drama or lots of tears. A father often is impenetrable

when it comes to those shenanigans that little children or even other people are playing.

Just harden their heart. No, not gonna bend to that. And

that's good, that's needed, that's useful to have that side of us.

But then right with that comes a side that can be used in a way

that it shouldn't be used. In times. We should be moved to compassion,

we should be moved to change our mind, We should be moved to

back up and say I'm sorry I was wrong, and then if we use

that same self stubborn firmness, it isn't productive then, and it provokes our

children to wrath in many ways. I think one thing that is good to

mention is that I don't believe this is saying that our children will never be

upset with us, and that that's wrong if they are. I think sometimes

our children are upset with us, and they if they're never ever we can

raise our whole family and our children were never ever once upset with us as

parents. I would guess that we're doing something wrong, but that should be

a temporary thing that should be in the moment. That should be because they're

not getting what they want and they're fighting and resisting it. But it should

not be an underlying provoking of wrath in a way that because of we're doing

things that we should not do. I remember my dad used to say when

us children were unhappy about a decision that he made and we were fighting it,

and he said, I don't care so much what you think of me

right now. That's what you will think of me down the road. And

he would just stand firm on certain things, and now, looking back,

you know in the moment I was mad, I was upset maybe, but

deep down in I knew that my dad cared and that he was trying to

do the best that he could for the good of us. And so then

that didn't provoke that burning wrath because of that, even though in the moment

I wished he would have did something different. A few things, a few

ways that we as fathers can provoke our children to wrath. I just want

to mention these quickly. And of course we're talking here now. We can

talk from a one two year old to a five ten year old to a

fifteen twenty year old, and all these things. What provokes a two year

old to rath will be different than what we provoke maybe our twenty year old

to rath. And so there's a broad range of considerations here, but some

of them are, you know, versal. They provoke all of them to

write. And I would just say the first one is maybe one of the

most obvious ones, is just simply by being angry and impatient ourselves, we

as fathers and husbands, we are the leaders of our home. We are

generally the big and the strongest one in the house. We are, like

I said, our demeanor is unmoving. There the big, strong, strong

one in the home. Physically, mentally, hopefully spiritually, we have the

final word. If we decide something happens and we want to stand on that,

we can stand on that. But if we decide to indulge our anger

and our impatience, then there's really nothing that poor family can do but just

stand back, try not to get the brunt of it, wait for it

to pass, wait for dad to get out of his foul mood. But

when we practice at his father's you know, one day our children start to

not respect us. And one day they grow up and they get big and

they're looking at us in the eye, and then we can't physically control,

we can't demand. It's about a respect that was either earned or lost over

the course of many decisions in many years. And often there's a quiet,

hurting, deep anger in a child like that overly severe or harsh discipline,

and again we can justify that no one can talk back to us. We

can be mad and punish them, and if they try to protest, then

you don't talk back to me. There's all kinds of ways because we're in

this position as a father. But I just I would say that our children

can sense when our spirit and our attitude is operating of the flesh. They're

just upset and mad or Yes, we may be severe, we may be

firm, but there's a there's a heart that's concerned caring for they're good.

There's a big difference, and the children pick up on it. They know

it. They might not say it, they can feel it. A child

can take strong correction if they know that Dad and Mom love them deep down

in and it's coming from love. Okay, then another one maybe is a

little bit the other side. By being permissive and or being lenient, just

laughing at things that shouldn't be laughed at, and having kind of a buddy

mentality with our children, you know, that kind of buys us time through

stages of life. It all seems good, it all seems well, there's

no conflict. We just give our children what they want and let them lots

of free reign and leash. And but there comes a day when we're kind

of feeding that inner monster. If they're not getting disciplined, they're not getting

corrected, they're not being pulled short by our parents. Someday somebody's going to

have to do it, and then the fight will be on and a child

will be angry whenever he is restrained and whenever he does come to stop signs

in life because he's never been controlled and restrained in a proper way. Another

way to provoke them to anger is by not being consistent. And none of

us are perfectly consistent, I know, but we should strive to be.

Should be our goal. Do the best that we can. You know,

when a child when we laugh at a child the one time and we're and

then the next time we're in a bad mood and then they're just come down

on them with punishment, and it's exact same thing. It's all hinged on

how I'm feeling in the mood that I'm in. It creates confusion and insecurity

and anger and children they don't ever know where we're dad or mom will be

being and keeping our word as best we can to try to. If you're

going to do something with them and you promise them, unless there's something that's

very a good reason, you try to stick with that. Giving them permission

to do something and then withdrawing that permission last minute without good reasons is very

frustrating to children, maddening I remember in my life somewhere sometime having friends that

lived with that to some degree, where we were going to go do something

and the last minute the dad said yes, and then the last minute the

dad said no. No. Well, all of us involved were provoked to

anger. We're not happy about that, but it would happen, and it

just kind of gave this very uneasy, yeah, insecure, never knowing where

things we're going to be. Another one being absent or ignoring our children when

they need us, And maybe business falls into this. Fathers. We can

think and be very busy doing a lot of good things, and maybe this

gets closer home to preachers and missionaries, teachers, all of us. But

we can be on the phone and we can be just absorbed and running around

and doing things, and our children are just kind of kicking here and there

and never get any quality time. And after a while, I think children

start to really resent that and just wish they could just have their dad once

in a while or their mom. And I thought of the story of David

and Absalom. I don't want to go into that too much, but we

remember that Absalom was a proud, rebellious young man. It seems like for

sure, but it seems like David made some mistakes as his father as well.

And then one of the times there Absalom wanted to see his dad.

He told Joe ab, I want to see my father, and either Job

didn't tell his dad or David didn't want to come, but either way,

two years went by and Joeb waited wanted to see his father's face, but

he didn't. Finally, Job got su upset, I mean, excuse me.

Absalom got suupset. He sent his servants out and said, go to

light Job's field on fire, and that's what they did. And when Job's

field was on fire, it finally got his attention. He came to Absalom

said, why are you lighting my field on fire? He said, because

I want to see my dad. In other words, I've been asking to

go see my dad. Well, then Joeb went and Absalom says something entering

a second Samuel fourteen. He says, now, therefore, let me see

the king's face, his father, and if there being in any iniquity in

me, let him kill me. In other words, he was saying,

if I've done something wrong and my dad wants to kill me, then he

can kill me, but at least let me see the king's face. And

there's a side of being ignored. That is one of the worst and lowliest

things that we can do to someone, to just ignore them, you know,

to go to someone and confront them and say I don't appreciate what you're

doing, and you'd have it out with them. At least opens the door

for resolve to work through the issue, to engage about it. But when

someone stonewalls you won't look at you, won't talk to you about it,

whatever it is, it's much more frustrating, especially if it's a loved one.

You know, us fathers, we can do a lot of good things,

and we can do we can get a lot done in life, but

no one can fill the role that we as fathers are called to fill in

the lives of our children, no one. If we don't, people can

fill in. They can do it partially. They can try to cover bases,

but it's not the same. That's what a father can do for a

child. A few more things that provoke our children's rout being hypocritical, which

is the opposite of integrity. And I think this one can creep up on

us, you know, being at home one thing and in one mood,

and then we get ourselves together and we come to church and walk through the

door and all as well. But you know, just thirty minutes earlier were

frustrating, snapping and telling everybody everything. You know, I felt really close

to that this morning. I was trying to get in here to right on

the board. I was running out of time. The toilet got plugged.

I couldn't get it unplugged. It's still not unplugged, and you can just

feel things start welling up inside of you. And fathers, we have that

tendency. We have a lot on our shoulders, we have a lot of

responsibility, we have a lot on our minds, and the pressure can start

to mount. And the ones that take the brunt of that our children and

our wife at times, and it's not right. And the last, well,

one of the last ones I have is when we as fathers don't love

our mothers, love their mothers or wives like we should. That that could

be much said on that, But conflict and stress in a marriage makes raising

children very difficult. It can leave children lost and insecure, angry. Like

you've heard before, the greatest, one of the greatest gifts we fathers can

give our children is to simply love their mother, and that is means a

lot of things, but to love them to take care of them another thing

maybe, And maybe along with this, I can say I just read this

recently, so it's on my mind a little bit. In a books talks

about dividing the time in a marriage versus with children, and I would just

say that I think that our society is very child centered. Our homes have

become child centered. We love our children, we want to do the best

for them, and in society, parents are running all over taking children to

sports things and trying to get them positioned in life as best they can,

and often at the expense of our marriage marriages. And I'm right in the

middle of that. But a child centered home, as much as we love

our children, is not healthy. We need to have strong marriages so that

we can give our children the tools that they need. And sometimes just leaving

our children, letting them safely and of course taken care of, but just

a time away from them so that the marriage can be nurtured and can be

built up is important. It's actually not neglecting our children, it's giving them

a gift favoritism sarcasm, suppression, not letting them talk when they're frustrated or

when they've been hurt, or when they're processing things that needs guidance, but

that needs to there needs to be opportunity for that. Okay. So the

second part of the father's part is it says to bring them up in the

nurture and the admonition of the Lord's the last part of that verse. So

put this up here. The verse Father's provoking that your children are out.

But I want to get show you another little word study on this. That

impressed me. But the two words nurture and admonition. Nurture would be to

like educate, train and struck, discipline, even feed and protect. All

of that stuff is part of nurturing. Admonition would be to call to attention.

We think of that. You admonish someone you hey, you tell him

something mild rebew or warning, You tell him that that's a wrong direction.

You want to go over here, But it's a mild review, can warning,

it's not all ramped up. Raise them up in the nurture and admonition

of the Lord. And I want you to I want to look at the

word admonition and John Colb can correct me if I'm wrong. But in my

study there again it comes from two words. But sometimes how it says in

the Strongs, the Greeks, it'll tell you to one word and then that

word is tied to another word, so it gets kind of spread out there.

But admonition comes from two words. I don't know how to say,

Newest. This part is the intellect, the mind, the thought, So

you're appealing to the mind and the thinking in the admonition. The other part,

this word from this word has an interesting thought. It says horizontal posture,

kneeling down, to lay aside, to sync down. And I thought

that was so interesting. To admonish a child is a mild is to warn

them, but it is to come down on their level. You come down,

and remember children are to come under their parents. But now we have

the father, the parent, coming down to the child, and he's admonishing

him in all areas of life, instructing him spiritually, physically, for his

safety, how to work, how to do a lot of things. But

he's getting down on their level. He's laying horizontal. Right. Maybe sometimes

in bed you're admonishing them, but the idea of coming off your pedestal and

getting down with that child, and then what do you do. You don't

stay there, but as life goes on, you bring them up in the

nurture and admonition of the Lord. As It's just a neat thought to me

on how a proper father relating to children in the course of life should be.

It's not harsh, but it's getting down and bringing them up, making

sure they understand what you're saying. Yes, warning them, rebuking them at

times is part of it. Deuteronomy six four. Nurturing and admonishing our children

is a way of life. I want to stress that it's not sit down

once a day for family devotions. Yes, that can be part of it,

but it is a way of life. It is. It is day

to day and Deuteronomy it kind of gives this picture. Six Versus four says

hero Israel, the Lord, our God is one lord. And thou shalt

love the Lord, thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul,

and with all they might. And these words which I command thee this

day shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy

children, and shalt talk to them when they'll sittest in thine house, and

when they'll walkst by the way, and when they'll lie est down, and

when thou risest up, and thou shalt buy them for a sign upon thine

hand, and thou shalt be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt

write them up on the post of thine house and on thy gates, and

so all of life and laying down, getting up, going through the day,

when you're cleaning the house, driving down the road and someone's cutting you

off, when they spill the water, when the disappointments come, when you're

being criticized and things aren't working out, disappointments happen, the wheel falls off

the trailer. How do you respond. You're teaching, we're teaching. We're

teaching as we go through life, and we are teaching many things. Often

in a context like this preaching, we talk about all the spiritual virtues,

which are very very important. I think we need to remember to teach them

how to cook, how to clean, how to clean up their room,

to be responsible, to be self disciplined, to restrain themselves from spending money

foolishly. And then there's a whole financial world of how do you do that?

Well? Do you just cold turkey? From twenty one on? They

got to figure all that out. I think that you've you give and you

provide things for them to learn while they're still under so when they get on

their own, they have some tools. They've had some experiences, they made

some mistakes, but it's been in a safe environment, nurturing. You know.

Often maybe we see things in our children we don't appreciate, we don't

like, we wish we're different. Maybe they're a little bit disrespectful, maybe

they're undisciplined, they're critical. What is that? Do we stop and consider

that? Where they're picking that up? Where's that coming from? Is it

somewhere throughout mom and Dad's life that this is coming through. Part of raising

children is along with the love and the nurture, is corrrect and restraint and

discipline. I mentioned that a little bit. I just want to read a

few verses here in Proverbs thirteen and twenty two. He that spareth his rod

hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him. Betimes, foolishness

is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall

drive it far from him. The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a

child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. And I know that our

country doesn't appreciate a lot of these ideas, but I would just say that

there's times for this and done in love and done in kindness, and like

we talked about, is very bears good fruit for our children. You know,

I love being a father. I wouldn't trade it for anything else.

I very very much love it. But it is a huge undertaking, a

huge responsibility. It's engulfing at times. It feels never ending at times.

Sometimes you've hit a brief plateau, but depending on the stages of life,

it just goes on and on and on day and night. And I think

maybe some of you families that are in the middle of that probably can relate

to that. But I would just say keep going, Bradford said, patience

is what it's active endurance or something like that. Keep going, keep doing

the right thing, and it just you know, from the messes to the

broken to the school life, just busyness, that disciplining to say you're sorry

and thank you, make their bed, so many things. And I was

thinking about that in a family like mine, which many is maybe the average

family you end up teaching children from. If you have a child children that

are spaced still eighteen twenty years. By the time you get the first one

to the last one to eighteen or twenty, you're doing it for thirty five

forty years of just training. It's a lifelong process, so you're in it

for the long haul. But the Bible says that children are in heritage of

the Lord, and it's very fulfilling. And Psalm's twenty seven one says that

except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

Except the Lord keep the city. The watchman waketh but in vain. I

think we need to remember that that we need the Lord as fathers, as

all of us, whatever we're in. It says that children are in heritage

of the Lord. Arrows are as arrows are in the hands of a mighty

man. So are the children of the youth. It's a very godly and

fulfilling project. Okay, I'm almost done. Bear with me. Servants.

Just a couple of things to servants. Servants, be obedient to your masters,

and I won't read all that, but it talks about being I service

as men pleasers servants. Maybe a better word would be employees. We could

talk about employees and employers just a brief minute here. It says to obey

your masters and obey your employees, whoever that is. You chose them.

You're not there by constraint, but obey them. If you are under them,

do what they ask you to do. Do it with a good heart,

with singleness of heart. Not on your phone every two ticks, not

running around, not tweaking the clock to your favor, not getting busy when

he comes on the job. I service as men pleasers. You watch that.

Sometimes a person will be working, or there'll be a cluster of three

guys talking, and certain pickup drives in and then everybody just scatters, it

gets busy, gets back to where service the person, the boss or the

supervisor drove in. I think this is a really important one though, speaking

of Christian testimony, employees, to do your best on the job. Don't

underestimate you're witnessing in your Monday through Friday activities. That is probably where you're

witnessing the most. Not inside this building. It's out on the job,

it's in the home. It's when the pressure's on when someone does something irritating

to you. And I am ashamed to say that. Over the years I

have, yeah, some of some Mennonites, I'll just put it that way,

have been the behavior on the job site, from lack of getting along

to laziness to things is just it's a shame and it's a poor testimony.

And we need to remember that that it's important how we behave ourselves, how

we get along, how we act, the words that we say to other

people. That is the true true test of who we are. It's our

biggest testimony. Okay, masters, the masters do the same unto them.

Treat them well for bearing threatening and don't don't use your position as a master,

as a supervisor, as a teacher could be different things. You have

responsibilities over someone to manipulate, to take advantage of the people that are under

you. We as Christian masters, especially if we have that kind of responsibility,

we should be extra generous. We should be extra merciful because we have

a master in heaven. He says that is watching over us, and he's

not a respecter of persons. He's not going to be in prey used with

how much money you have as a master or how many employees you have,

you will be judged. You will give an account for what kind of a

master you were to whoever you think is less than you someday, So again,

regardless of whether we're children, a father, a servant, or a

master or a mother, we need the help of the Lord Jesus Christ to

be what we should be in our relationships. Fathers, we need wisdom,

we need humility. Children need patience sometimes for their parents to honor them.

And I was impressed with this verse. All of them related in the Lord.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, fathers bringing them up in

the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Servants, be obedient to your master's

and singleness of heart as unto Christ and as servants of Christ and masters.

Remember you have a master in heaven, so wherever we're at in that,

it's very important. I want to leave you with one last quote. My

wife told me this. I'm not sure where she got it. It says

flower, gardens, marriages, and children all reflect the care that they are

given. So remember that, God bless you. Let's have a song