"Parenting with Purpose" Ephesians 6:4 Sunday Morning Worship Service

This past week, Virginia had a new governor installed, and in one of his well, his second act in office, he issued an executive order that was four pages long, and it's a remarkable read, really.

It's four pages about uh masking children in school.

And he waged to the science.

It really is four concise pages, I think.

If you want kind of a survey of research and of the efficacy of masking, you know, kindergartners for six hours a day to curb a virus, I would recommend reading the governor's executive order, but the science behind that is not what caught my attention, although I'm interested in it.

What caught my attention is the opening sentences of it.

It begins this way: reaffirming the rights of parents in the upbringing, education, and care of their children.

He says there's no greater priority than the health and welfare of Virginia's children.

And I, of course, would quibble with that little sentence, I would say.

The greatest priority is honoring the Lord Jesus Christ and all that we do.

But I get the point.

Under Virginia law, parents, not the government, have the fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care of their children.

I really do think that as far as the masking goes, I think future generations are going to look back and just marvel at what we did to kids and just be astonished at it.

But as I mentioned, that's only secondarily important to me.

The primary thing of importance to me is the recognition that it is parents in a complicated moral situation where you know people have science on this side and science on that side, and what do you trust and who do you trust?

In a complicated societal situation like that, the primary decision makers for children should not be schools, should not be government, but should be parents.

That's a basic Christian principle that God has given children as a blessing, not to the government, not to the state, but he's given children as a blessing to the family.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that the leaders of many school districts in our state have said that they're not going to honor or follow this executive order because it rubs against their authority.

In their mind, they are the authority over the education of children.

They are the authority over whether or not kids should be masked.

They think it falls to school boards and superintendents, not to parents.

And of course, that is, I would say, rebellion against the clear teaching of scripture that children fall under the authority of parents.

Now we recognize that there's overlapping circles of influence in this world, that you're a subject of the state, that you honor the laws of the state, that you pay taxes to the state.

You know, a child can't buy a Snickers bar and say, I don't have to pay sales tax because I belong to my parents.

The clerk would say, okay, have your parents pay the sales tax then.

But the superintendents are right on the point.

They get that the issue is not about masking.

The issue is not about whether or not kids wear masks at schools.

That's not what has superintendents and school boards so up in arms right now.

They're up in arms not over the masking part of it, but over the sentence that I just read.

That it falls to parents to make decisions about the care of their children, not to the government.

Of course, that militates against the whole worldview in Western civilization right now, and the sexually immoral, materialistic society that has become, you know, in the progressive West.

That whole society feeds off of the indoctrination of children.

When you think of the moral depravity and the logical contradictions that are inherent in the so much of the sexually immoral worldview right now, most grown adults aren't going to fall for that kind of nonsense.

You know, if you have a PhD in gender studies who can't define what it means to be a woman, most grown people aren't going to listen to that person.

And so that whole worldview doesn't grow and prosper off of adults.

It grows and prospers off of the hearts of the gullible, off the little children who are given to their care for six hours a day.

And if you start at a young age with them, teaching them this depraved worldview, then you find fertile soil in the heart for the seeds of depravity to grow and blossom.

But only if you get them when they're young.

That's where the war is at.

You know, it's not about masking, it's about who has the authority to teach and instruct children.

Is it the state or is it the family?

God has given, of course, children as a blessing to the world.

Government does have an obligation to care for children.

There is a basic obligation for functioning government and society to have a social safety net to be able to care for widows and orphans.

I think that honors the Lord when society cares for the vulnerable and defends them.

I think it falls to schools to educate and defend children and protect children, but the primary responsibility for the instruction of children falls not to government or not to schools, but to family.

Children are given not to the government as a burden, but as to family as a blessing.

It's obvious, I think this last few years has shown that in many school districts, anyway, children are an impediment to what the school does.

Bring the children in there just complicates everything in so many school systems.

But children are given by the Lord to families.

To families, specifically to parents who will stand before God and give an account for how they raise their children.

Now, to parents, you recognize that being a parent is not easy.

But the Bible says that it is a blessing.

Psalm 127, verse 3, behold, children are a heritage from Yahweh.

Psalms 127:3

The fruit of the womb is a reward.

But parenting requires work.

Parenting, like many of God's blessings, not all of them, but many of God's blessings, do require work.

But because parenting is a blessing, that work that goes into parenting is also a blessing.

And yet, some parents who are negligent or reluctant to do the work of parenting find then parenting not as a joy but as a burden.

This is one of those strange causal relationships in the way God made the world.

And as they're less inclined to do it, the more difficult it becomes.

And the more difficult it becomes, the less inclined they are to do it.

Do you see the cycle there?

One of the things I just grew so much in this week in my appreciation of the book of Ephesians and studying Ephesians 6, verse 4, is our verse for this morning.

Ephesians 6:4

I just marvel at all the complexity in the book of Ephesians, truth upon truth, layer upon layer, all interwoven, and Paul recycles themes and words and phrases from all over the book.

Chapter 1, this massive complex teaching about the predestination and the sovereignty of God and the triune will of God over mankind.

And chapter two about the agency of regeneration through the Holy Spirit.

And just it's so complex.

Chapter 4 about sanctification and the putting off and putting on through the work of the Holy Spirit.

There's just so many complex truths that he develops over the course of a chapter.

And then you get to the practical outworking of it, and you get to parenting, and you get one verse.

But that verse is so concise and yet comprehensive.

It contains what we need to hear this morning, at least.

It contains what parents need to know.

I'll read it right now.

Ephesians 6, verse 4.

Ephesians 6:4

Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

The word for fathers here, it is a word that is sometimes used to be just parent, generically parent.

You know, in English, we'll we have a gender-neutral phrase, parents, but Greek uses the word father and you just pluralize it.

There's a different word for mother.

This word is used in Hebrews 11, for example, to speak of both of Moses' parents, so it is often uh inclusive of both father and mother.

And yet in Ephesians, I'm I'm not entirely sure which way to take it.

It could be addressing both father and mother, and yet, right after chapter 2, or chapter 6, verse 2, honor your father and mother.

Paul has just used the word for father in addition to the word for mother.

He's already established that fathers are the federal head of the household, that they stand before the Lord in the primary position of responsibility and accountability over the protection and instruction of their household.

And so it seems likely that it could just be a plural of fathers here.

I don't want to get too weighed down by that because the application, what is in the rest of verse 4, does apply to both fathers and mothers, certainly.

Fathers are primarily responsible to make sure this is occurring in their household, but certainly both fathers and mothers are the ones implementing these instructions.

And the instruction comes in the form of a contrast: do not provoke your children, but rather bring them up.

You know, in the pagan world, pagans tend to ignore their children or to rule over their children, to view them as subjects or to view them as distractions.

But in the Christian world, children are to be viewed as a blessing and a fertile field for work and efforts, the recipient of instruction and the potential for growth.

Even in the Greco-Roman world, children would often be brought to the father at birth and you know, set on a rock, and the father could even pick them up, demonstrating that he's receiving the child in the family, or the father could turn away and leave the child, in which case he'd be abandoned or left to die or be adopted, or who knows what would happen to him.

In the Greco, and it's not every Roman family, it was like was not like that, of course, but many of them were.

That's the world in which Paul is living, and that's the world in which he says, fathers, actually raise your children.

Nurture them.

The word bring them up in the middle of verse 4 is the same word used in chapter 5, for as Christ feeds and nourishes his own body.

So husbands should, as they care for their own bodies, should care for their wives.

That's the word.

It's a word that means to cherish.

You love something and so you carry it where it needs to go.

That's kind of the connotation of that word and how it's used.

It's translated into English here, bring them up.

Very different in the Roman concept of subjugate them, of rule them, or of ignore them.

Very different than kind of the Americanized, uh, child-centered world of, you know, indulge them.

It's a very nuanced middle ground.

Bring them up in discipline and fear of the Lord without provoking them to anger.

Let me just start with a basic observation about this text.

Children have souls.

Children are people.

We can lose, even parents can lose sight of that.

You know, your kids are actual people, individual human souls that will stand before the Lord on their own for judgment.

They're capable of honoring the Lord by delighting in him and believing in him and magnifying his glory, and they're capable of rebelling against the Lord and cultivating sin in their own heart.

Your child has that capability.

The word for anger here, it's the same word Paul used earlier in chapter four, is one of the sins Christians should have nothing to do with.

You put off malice, you put off deceit, you put off anger.

So every Christian, little, old, big, tall, small, whatever, every Christian should be putting off anger.

How much more should parents be cognizant of not putting in anger to your children?

You don't want to cause any Christian to sin, much less the ones that live with you.

And so, don't provoke your children to anger.

It's just a reminder that your children are capable of honoring the Lord, they're capable of growing in godliness, so don't hinder that.

Jesus says, if you cause a little one to sin, better to have a millstone tied around your neck, thrown into a sea.

Ouch.

And of course, in Matthew 18, that's children are an idiom there in Matthew 18 for an immature believer.

You don't want to cause an immature believer to sin.

But the idiom, the metaphor still works, it still holds up.

You want to protect and care for little children.

Have you noticed that when you spend a lot of time around people, you get angry with them?

It's a lesson you learned back in middle school.

You know, you spend the weekend with your best friends, by Sunday afternoon, you're done with that person.

You never want to see them again until like next Friday, and then your friends again.

How much more so your children?

You recognize your children live with you?

Very easy for them to get angry with you.

They live with you, they see you all the time.

And so Paul tells you don't provoke your children to anger.

Don't cultivate anger.

I want to give you a contrast here this morning.

First, I want to talk about parenting like the world.

Parenting like the world does provoke anger.

I'm thinking of this fresh from I spent the week uh skiing with my family, and it just I marveled.

Skiing can provoke sanctification in some people.

It can bring out sin so easily.

I not me, I grew up skiing in Steamboat, Colorado.

My mom lives there.

It brings out joy in me, but I watch other families that spend a lot of money and fly there, and they're expecting it to be fun, and it is cold, and they get upset, and they get upset at their kids.

And there's one day my Geneva and I were hanging at the bottom of the mountain, and we were watching these other people come down at the end of the day, and it was amazing.

Most of them, the parents were yelling at their kids, cussing at these little kids.

You know, we heard one mom tell her like 13-year-old son or so, I would literally slap your face all the way off right back up the mountain.

That was what they said as they skied skied by us.

And Geneva looks at me and says, Did that mom just say I will literally kiss your face off?

And I was like, Yes, that's totally what they said.

It's amazing how common it was for parents to be yelling and cussing at their kids.

It's I think typical in the world to parent in a way that produces anger.

I mean, those kids will grow up and you know rebel against their parents, and the parents are like, I don't know what we went wrong.

Well, you cussed at them and yelled at them all the time.

You want a Christmas gift now?

So parenting like the world provokes children, verse 4, to anger.

Provokes them to anger.

So, what kind of parenting provokes people to anger?

I think it's easy to provoke kids to anger by lack of discipline.

Especially with little kids.

I'm talking here about, you know, under age six or so, little kids, get provoked to anger so easily by lack of discipline.

Now, this initially is counterintuitive because a lot of parents say, I don't want to spank my kid because they don't like it.

In fact, I've heard parents say, I can't spank my kid because spanking my kid makes them angry.

And Ephesians 6 says, Don't provoke your children to anger.

It's like, man, is that a loophole the kid came up with?

Because that's kind of good.

It's not true, but it's kind of good.

You recognize that when you let a kid do what the kid wants to do, the kid will become angry.

If he gets what he wants all the time, he will be angry when he no longer gets it.

If he's not disciplined to learn boundaries and borders, then he will grow into an angry, even a little child.

Little kid will be angry all the time.

You hear the kid yell, no, at mom, and you're like, oh, you know, what an angry little kid, you know, he's just like that.

Well, is he allowed to say no to you?

Well, yeah, of course he is.

You don't spank him for that, no?

Okay.

So you're surprised that he's angry.

Like he gets to be angry at you, he gets to yell at you, he gets to shout at you, and you're like, oh, kids will be kids.

Maybe discipline him for it.

Maybe spank him for saying no to you.

So you're not allowed to say no to me.

Spanking.

And then you'll learn that his heart is curbed and he doesn't grow into anger when he doesn't get what he wants.

I mean, such a basic Christian principle that is.

Kids run around and grab whatever they want, they touch whatever they want, they can touch your phone, they can touch that person's phone, they can touch that person's food, they can touch the cat by the tail, they can touch whatever they want, and they get angry when they're told by somebody else they can't do that.

Oh, we just let them do whatever he wants to do.

You know how kids are, they get to do whatever they want to do.

That's going to produce anger in that child.

Rather than teaching the child limits of you can't touch things that aren't your toys.

You touch them, you'll have a consequence.

That creates freedom for the kid to play with his own things.

That freedom will grow into joy and delight rather than to anger and frustration.

But again, this requires discipline.

It requires actually instructing your kids in what they can and can't say, what they can and can't touch, where they can and can't go, and then disciplining them when they violate that.

When some parents say, I don't want to discipline them for saying this or for doing that because it makes them angry.

Well, watch what happens if they don't get disciplined for it.

They will grow and grow in anger and anger.

I'm talking about little kids now.

Now, when you progress to like, you know, six to ten in that window, it's no longer necessarily a lack of discipline that takes the place, but then it becomes more of criticism.

It becomes criticizing your kids.

Because you didn't discipline them when they were young, you criticize them when they're older.

Do you see the progression here?

Because they didn't learn limits, because they didn't learn not to talk to you like that, or they didn't learn to do, to obey when you tell them to go, you know, you say, hey, it's time to go from the playground.

No, I don't want to go.

Oh, you know how kids are.

What happens when they're eight years old?

They're still yelling at you from the playground.

So you criticize them.

You're like, hey, all my friends' kids, there, their mom called them and they all got in the car.

Why are you still on the monkey bars?

I want the kid to shout back, because you never taught me to obey you.

That would be a phenomenal conversation on the playground.

I'd bring my kids back out of the van to watch.

And of course, there's a difference between criticizing and correcting, right?

You know, criticizing is why aren't you obeying like those other kids?

Why aren't you smart enough?

Why aren't you reading yet?

Why aren't you doing your math?

Why aren't you eating your vegetables?

No, no, no, no, no.

That's criticizing.

Correcting is like when I instruct you in this, you have to obey, or you'll have a consequence.

That's correcting.

It's not criticizing, it's a totally different heart attitude behind it.

And I hope you understand the distinction between those two.

I've had had parents say I've heard parents tell me multiple times, I can't spank my kids.

Like one son hits the other son, I can't spank the first son, because the first son says, Well, you're spanking me for hitting him.

I don't understand the difference.

And your mom's like, I don't know how to explain the difference to them, so I don't spank anymore.

You don't understand the difference between kidnapping and jail?

I mean, what kind of nonsense is that?

You don't understand the difference between crime and punishment?

He commits a sin, he'll have a consequence that hurts him, that inflicts pain on him.

So he learns that pain produces that sin produces pain, that sin produces suffering, that conflict and strife and sin and punishing someone produces physical pain in yourself.

And so if you don't teach them that when they're young, it becomes criticizing when you're older.

Why are you always acting like that?

Why won't you obey?

Why won't you do this?

Why won't you do that?

It becomes criticizing.

That produces angry kids, kids who are criticized.

Produces anger in them.

Think of the criticizing that's like unfair comparisons, you know?

So-and-so kids, they obey.

So-and-so's kids, you know, your friends from Sunday school, those friends, they're reading chapter books by now, and you're just on those little, you know, board books.

Come on.

Your friends, kids, they can play piano all night long and you whine at 15 minutes.

Your friends' kids, they eat salad and you're still stuck on Slurpees.

Your friend's kids get you know it grows up, older kids, your friend's kids get better grades than you.

I mean, you think of your friends' kids that you're comparing them to, yeah, their parents are both, you know, lawyers and doctors.

You're not.

Hey, you expect your kids to turn out better than you?

Come on.

You're criticizing your kids because your kids are coming out like you.

Your criticism and comparisons to your kids have more to say about yourself than about your kids.

And your kids pick up on that.

They recognize I'm being criticized and critiqued because I'm not like my friends whose parents are smarter than my parents, and they become angry.

And they become angry at you, their parents.

Discouragement.

There's another form of producing anger in your kids.

Colossians 3, where Paul talks about the same verse in Colossians 3, parents don't provoke your children, but Colossians 3, verse 21 finishes the verse differently than Ephesians 6.4.

Colossians 3:21

In Colossians 3, 21, parents don't provoke your children to anger lest you discourage them, Paul says.

I think the thought applies here as well.

Discouragement is a way of pushing someone down.

It constrains the heart, it constrains the affections.

That's what discouragement does.

You understand this as an adult at work.

You work harder when your boss encourages you than you do when your boss criticizes you.

Criticism might produce fruit for one project, and then you'll quit your job and go get a different one.

This principle applies to parenting.

Kids respond better to encouragement than they do to discouragement.

Harshness awakes rebellion in a child, whereas kindness cultivates love.

There's a natural affection between parents and children that is quenched with discouragement.

Harshness and pettiness honestly just cause children to become contrary.

Whereas love and affection causes that relationship to grow.

Another example of discouragement would be favoritism.

You know, parents that are obviously favoring one child over another.

This is very common in a family with like a difficult child.

You know, if you have five kids and one of them is difficult, you would neglect that difficult child for the other four.

And the more you neglect the difficult child, guess what?

The more difficult that child becomes.

The more difficult it becomes, the more you neglect him, and the cycle continues.

You see this in the Bible, don't you, with favoritism?

Think of Isaac and Rachel, they pampered respectively.

Jacob and Esau.

Not a good way to parent.

You know, I have my favorite son, you have your favorite son, let's see who makes dinner first.

We'll feed that kid.

Is it any wonder that Jacob grew up to parent exactly like he was parented?

He grows up and he parents his kids with favoritism, and his sons all rebel and sell Joseph into slavery.

That's how they responded to it.

But you saw the seeds of that already planted in Jacob's own upbringing.

You discourage your kids by not speaking the truth to them.

You discourage your kids by saying one thing and doing another, by lying to them.

You discourage them by, of course, I mentioned earlier not disciplining them, criticizing them, doing all of those things.

To reiterate, children are people, and they can be annoyed and provoked like people can.

You know, the same principles are true with adult communication.

You know, if you're tell your coworkers you'll do something and then you don't do it, you're gonna discourage your coworkers.

They're gonna be angry at you.

Ditto in parenting.

Now the contrast here, to guard against parenting like this, Paul gives you the flip side of it.

If you parent like the world, you're gonna end up with angry children.

The flip side of it is, oh, and sorry, one more comment.

Uh, overprotection, I think, is another way that kids are often discouraged.

And I think overprotection grows even more and more in our society, this idea that your kids always need to, the helicopter parent idea.

Your kids always have to be under your oversight, and you know, you wouldn't let them, you know, go in the backyard without your eyes on them.

You know, your kids grow up like this, this idea that they can never be out of your eyesight.

They're going to rebel because they're going to deduce from that that you don't trust them, that you don't have confidence in them, that you don't think they can walk to the mailbox without you hovering over them, much less to the pool.

It produces a kind of rebellion in the children as they get older.

Now, the contrast of all this is don't parent like the world, rather trust the Lord and parent in the Lord.

The contrast, of course, of overprotection is trusting the Lord.

The contrast of criticizing is correcting in the Lord.

The contrast of neglecting discipline is disciplining in the Lord.

All those contrasts are seen in the Lord.

And that's the phrase at the end of Ephesians 4.

Bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord to guard against favoritism, to guard against starvation, to guard against abuse.

You put off those things and you put on nurture and admonition in the Lord.

In the Lord.

What does nourishing a child in the Lord look like?

Two points.

Paul gives you both of them here.

First, discipline.

Discipline.

Bring them up.

That means nurture, raise, cherish, carry them from childhood to adulthood.

Bring them up in the discipline of the Lord.

The word discipline there means corrective.

It means instruction through correction.

It's the word that's used in 2 Timothy 3, verse 16.

2 Timothy 3:16

All scripture is God breathed, fit for rebuke, for reproof.

That's the word.

Hebrews 12, verse 5 renders the discipline there that the Lord disciplines his children.

Hebrews 12:5

You go through trials and difficulties in your life.

It could be, not always, but it could be the Lord's discipline of you.

That's the word that's used here.

Parents are to discipline their children.

There's a negative connotation to it.

You know, you go through a trial and you're like, I don't want this trial.

Well, it could be the Lord purifying you through difficulty.

So parents are supposed to discipline their children so that they learn the gospel.

They learn that they're a sinner.

They learn that sin produces consequence.

Sin produces suffering.

That's sowing the seed for the gospel.

That sows the seed for them to understand that if they lead a life of sin, it ends with an eternity of suffering.

The seeds of hell are sown in the child that is disciplined.

They learned the framework for this.

If I give in to my sin, if I lead a life of sin, this ends badly.

They learned that as a three-year-old who associates sin with suffering.

Proverbs 22, verse 5 says it this way: Folly is bound up in the heart of a child.

Proverbs 22:5

But the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Do you understand the discipline is likely your child's greatest need?

There are parents that get wrapped up in so many secondary or tertiary things about parenting.

You know, new parents that ask, you know, how do we do nap time?

You know, how do we bottle feed or nurse or what kind of schedule?

What parenting book can teach us, you know, what reading gets older, what reading reading curriculum should we use?

What math curriculum, blah, blah, blah, and you know.

It's like, you know, that stuff doesn't matter, honestly.

Who cares if they sleep in a crib or a pack and play or on the floor?

It doesn't matter.

What matters is is the child receiving discipline?

That's what matters.

The other stuff.

Who cares?

There's whole schools of thought in our world that discipline is bad for kids.

You know, let them figure out their own boundaries, let them express themselves, let them grow up to figure out what they like and to say what they want to say and touch what they want to touch and eat what they want to really explore and identify themselves, you know.

Do you know what they're in their heart?

Have you seen their heart?

You want them to discover themselves, it's not going to be good.

It's going to be dark and sinful and rebellious against God.

That's what's in their heart.

That's the doctrine of total depravity.

Your kids come into this world with a heart that loves sin, not naturally the Lord.

Total depravity doesn't mean that your child is the worst child in the world, nor that your child is as bad as he or she could possibly be.

But total depravity means that the potential for that is in your child's heart.

The potential for your child to be as the worst person in the world is there.

Do you understand that?

It's already in your child.

You messing up your child's nap time is not going to turn them into a sinner.

They need a nap because they're already a sinner.

Your child's greatest need is to for the rod of discipline to drive folly out of their heart.

Eli didn't discipline his sons.

They disgraced him and led to Israel's defeat in a war.

If left to themselves, parenting will be difficult, and God's blessing in the family will be muted if not lost when kids live for themselves rather than for the Lord.

Proverbs 29, 17 says it this way: discipline your son, and he'll give you rest, not reset, but rest.

He will give delight to your heart.

You discipline your children?

They will bring joy to you in your life.

David pampered his children.

Ended with Anon rebelt rebelling, Absalom revolting, an assault of one of his daughters.

This is what's behind Proverbs 13, 24.

Whoever spares the rod hates his son.

But he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

You love your children, you will discipline them.

You'll teach him not to talk to you that way.

You'll teach them to obey.

She saw a worker at our apartment, and the worker was across the street.

We lived in kind of a busy street, and she was out the door across the street to go greet the worker.

It's like it was a kind of a busy road.

And uh that was probably the worst spanking she got in her life.

And, you know, something is a parent.

If my child cannot live on a busy road without learning, don't run into it, then it will bring suffering.

Imagine a parent being saying, I can't discipline my child for that, because you know they don't know.

They don't know the dangers of traffic, they don't know, so that it's not worthy of a spanking.

That's hatred towards your children.

There's even more direct way the New Testament says this.

Hebrews 12, verse 8.

Hebrews 12:8

If you are left without discipline, then you are an illegitimate child.

I mean, that's a very harsh way of saying it.

A parent says, I don't want to discipline my child because I love them too much.

The Bible responds to that with, no, you're treating your child like an illegitimate child.

You don't love him enough to discipline him.

You know, how old, how, how young is too young to start spanking?

And the guy gave kind of a thoughtful answer first.

It's like, you know, once they get mobile, they're probably gonna need to start getting discipline, you know, because they can't just touch whatever they want to touch.

So you've got to crack once to once they can start crawling around, is when the spankings are probably gonna come to town.

But then he said this, and this has always stuck in my mind.

He said, My my goal as a parent was to get all the spanking in by like age six.

So that the channels and the fences were built up in their life and they could grow up with the blessings of learning that, and they won't remember any of it.

I don't say that as a rule or as a law.

I just pass it along because it's stuck in my mind when I heard him say it.

Now, obviously, you don't discipline in anger.

Discipline in anger is itself sinful.

You discipline your child in anger, then you're provoking anger.

Remember, your child's not sinning primarily against you, but against the Lord, so you can't be, you shouldn't be angry with them when you're disciplining them, because that produces your anger in their own heart.

But a great way to tell the difference between discipline with anger and discipline with love is the second part of this.

Discipline with love is never by itself.

Discipline with love is always paired with instruction.

And that's how verse 4 ends.

And instruction of the Lord.

Instruction is the word used in 1 Corinthians 10 that the Old Testament was given to you as instruction.

Parents are supposed to take things that happen in life and use it to positively instruct their children.

Now, instruction is not always paired with discipline, but discipline is always paired with instruction.

Do you follow that connection?

You can instruct your parents.

Earlier, Pastor Tom had Deuteronomy 6 on the board.

The words I command you will be in your heart.

Teach your children as you walk, you know, as you sit in your house, as you walk on the way, when you lie down, when you rise, you're always instructing your children.

You're looking for any opportunity to instruct your children.

But when you discipline your children, instructions always got to be there.

So you don't just spank for saying no, you spank for saying no and instruct on what they should say instead.

You don't just spank for interrupting, you discipline for interrupting and then instruct on a better way to communicate.

You don't just spank for hitting your brother.

You do that and then you instruct on how you should behave.

There's always positive instruction with discipline, even here in Ephesians 6, 4.

But instruction is not confined to times of discipline.

Instruction is all the time.

In our family, we have, we do a kind of family devotional where we sing a hymn together and we talk about what's in the hymn, and it's kind of an instructing time.

But that is not where our instruction in our family is confined to.

Instruction in our family is any opportunity.

We see something in the world, we want to talk about it, it's a window for instruction.

Ultimately, a parent has patience in this.

Not every conversation is do or die.

Not every moment is like if they don't learn the gospel at this point, it's all over.

No.

You have patience.

You can seize the right moments at the right time, but that patience cannot turn into neglect, or your children will be raised without actually learning about the Lord.

One of the saddest verses in the Bible, Judges chapter 2.

Judges 2 · chapter mention

Israel crossed the promised land, took the promised land, Joshua died, and then it says, a new generation grew up in Israel that did not know the Lord.

Just think about that.

Like these kids grew up and didn't know who Yahweh was.

Their parents ate manna.

Their parents crossed the Jordan, saw the Jordan stop.

Their parents marched around Jericho, saw the walls fall.

That was their parents.

Their parents built an Ebenezer.

They just forgot to tell their kids about Yahweh.

They took out the trash, conquered the promised land, paid the taxes, forgot to tell Johnny about Yahweh.

So seize moments for instruction.

Recognize that God gave you your children for you to influence.

God gave you your children for you to instruct them.

The most significant influence in your child's life should be you.

Parents should have more of an impact on their children than their friends.

Parents should have more of an influence in their children's worldview than their discipler or their their youth pastor, even.

All that is secondary.

Parents are the ones primarily responsible for the instruction of their children.

And you're measured.

Success in parenting is measured.

When God rewards you for your parenting, he's looking at your instruction of your children.

You are not judged by the Lord.

Do you understand this?

You're not responsible before the Lord for if your kids get saved.

That's not up to you.

Salvation is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.

You're not responsible for your children's salvation.

Successful Christian parenting is not saved kids.

Parents are measured in the eyes of the Lord.

Parents are measured by what parents do, not by what kids do.

Kids have their own agency.

Parents would be so parenting would be much easier if kids didn't have their own agency.

You know what I mean by that?

Like if kids were just an extension, if they just did whatever you told them to, if they didn't have their own thoughts or their own actions, parenting would be easy.

It'd be like having a cat.

But your kids have agency.

And some of them will rebel, some of them will walk away, some of them will leave you.

And it's not your fault.

It sounds like you did something wrong.

You are responsible for what you are responsible for.

The simple principle of parenting is that the success in parenting is measured by what the parents do, not by what the child does.

If you understand that, you have a huge burden lifted off of you and a huge blessing put on you.

And along those lines, I do think I do want to say this before we wrap up.

I think so many parents can get confused or sidetracked about whether or not their kids are saved.

The parents, in a way, that's angling for salvation for their kids, that is pushing them to say a prayer, pushing them then to be encouraged.

Remember when you said the prayer, you know, you're a Christian now, so you know kind of trying to cultivate this gospel response in them, which is good to cultivate faith in a child.

It's good to fan any flame towards Christ, you want to encourage that.

Any nod towards Jesus, you want to encourage that.

But I would just caution you against putting too much stock in your ability to discern whether or not your child is saved.

I think parents get easily confused with like, I don't know how I should parent them because I don't know if they're saved or not.

And if they're not saved, I can't do this, and if they are saved, I can't do this kind of thing.

And just put that aside.

Put that all aside.

Your kids, regardless of whether or not they're saved, your kids need to have their sin pointed out to them.

They need to be disciplined, and they need to be instructed in the Lord.

They need to be told that repentance is the pathway to happiness, that faith is the pathway to blessing.

Teach them theology.

Teach them that Jesus died as a substitutionary sacrifice for their sin.

Teach them the importance of the resurrection.

There's eternal life, that Jesus conquered the grave.

Teach them those things, whether or not they're saved.

Point out their sin to them, whether or not they're saved.

Call them to repent of their sin, whether or not you think they're saved, because you can barely discern your own heart half of the time.

How are you going to discern somebody else's heart?

Instead of getting fixated on that, be focused as a parent on discipline and instruction.

Fan any faithfulness, any love of Christ in your child's heart, fan that, encourage that.

You know, don't say, ah, that's that's not legitimate faith.

Come on now.

No, encourage any faith in the child's heart.

Any faith, any nod towards Jesus, encourage it.

Any nod towards sin, correct it.

And then be patient over the course of their life.

As long as the Lord gives them to you, be patient to instruct them in the things of the Lord.

We live in a world that is so easily distracted, so easily divided about politics and you know, this and that, Facebook fights, and you know, you're so concerned about the shift in our culture and the decline in our culture.

Let me tell you, as parents, the most the single most countercultural revolutionary thing you can do is to discipline and instruct your children.

If you do that, you will have a bigger impact on this world than going to the march for life.

You'll have a bigger impact on life than a petition you sign, or voting this way in an election, or voting that way in an election, or saging a sit-in at the school board, or whatever other activity you might have up your sleeve.

The single most countercultural revolutionary thing you can do in this world is to parent your children with love, discipline, and instruction.

You do that, and you will be a bright light shining in our dark world.

Lord, we're thankful for the children in our congregation.

You don't belong to our church, of course.

They're gifts to these families.

These precious little ones that you have placed.

Placed here in this period of time, in this culture, in this world.

It's so common to fret about where the world is going, about where society is going.

It's so common to fret about things that we are not in control of.

So, Lord, give us, give this church, give a manual Bible church.

Especially the parents, give them a focus on the discipline and instruction of their children.

Help them grow in their own knowledge of you to pass it along to their children.

We know that the gospel is not like the ABCs, it can't just simply be memorized.

We know it has to be lived out in front.

It involves repentance.

Involves faith.

I pray for parents and their difficult task of parenting.

I pray that you would help them be repentant in their own lives as they fan the faith in the hearts of their little ones.

What a blessing these families are.

Thankful for Pastor Tom and his leadership in our children's ministry and student ministry and the work he puts in equipping families.

We're so grateful for him and even see some of the fruit of that labor today with all these little ones on the stage and being dedicated.

What a joy.

We're thankful for your kindness towards Emmanuel.

And uh we give you the thanks for it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.