Ephesians: Training Our Children with Grace

Well, good morning.

We're studying our way through the book of Ephesians.

We've been saying two key insights as we've been working our way through this book.

And the first is this what we learn in chapters one through three is what God has done for us in Christ.

Then there's a transition halfway through the book.

In chapters four through six, we learn how we should live in light of that.

And so we've been saying, because of that, our walk with Jesus is not for God's love, but from God's love.

That's what Paul does in the book of Ephesians, in the structure itself.

He embeds us in God's love for us, and then from that, how do we live?

Ephesians 5 and 6, Paul teaches us about relationships.

Last week we talked about marriage, and today we're going to talk about parenting.

This week we have another installment from the movie The Incredibles.

There's a parenting scene, a dinner, family life, and well, let's see how family life can often feel.

So how about you, Vi?

How's school?

What else I need to room for?

You've hardly touched your food.

Hungry for me, Lo.

Well, it is left overnight.

We have today, pasta.

What are you hungry for?

Tony Red.

Well, you want the Well, that I mean, that's silly, but that's what life can feel like, right?

I mean, you're asking one question, how was your day?

And you get back, well, I don't want what you cooked, and you're like, well, thanks a lot.

I just you know slaved over this for you.

Or you ask how your kid is, and then that turns into a disaster, and it sort of like just de-escalates from there, and one kid picks on another one, another kid picks on another one.

One parent's distracted, one parent wants another parent to do something, another parent wants the other parent to do something.

That can feel a lot like parenting.

We have three children.

For years we were drowning and cute little girls, lots of car seats and equipment.

Uh, our names were called out 75 times a day.

Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

You're exhausted.

Uh, if you want to take a nap the next 20 minutes, it might be the best parenting sermon you can have, is just for you to take a nap.

You will survive, you will make it.

And now we're parenting teenagers.

Some of you are parenting adult children.

And we're all trying to figure out how to parent these children that we have.

So, how does Paul guide us to guide our children?

Ephesians 6, 1 through 3.

Children, first he speaks to the children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother.

This is the first commandment with a promise.

Okay, well, why would I do that?

That it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land.

So, children, listen and obey your parents as they're instructing you in what is good and moral and healthy.

Now, verse 4 is where we're going to center our attention.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.

And we can say parents.

Parents do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction, or we say training them, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Those words provoke to anger can be translated exasperate.

So do not parent them so intensely, so consistently and intensely, that they are perpetually angry.

We need to pace our parenting.

Proper pacing.

Or else you just end up with an angry, worn down, worn out, condemned child.

And then part B to discipline and instruct, it means to teach them what is true and right and good.

What is self-control and responsibility and respect.

We're training them.

So just to ponder the idea of training for the next few minutes, four parenting truths that came to mind for me this week.

I'm sure there's more.

Parenting truth number one.

Your will to train your children must be more resolved than their will to manipulate you.

When my oldest was two years old, she discovered the game of throwing food onto the floor.

And so she would be sitting there, and I would put food on her tray, and then she would throw it onto the floor.

She was our first child.

She was amazing.

We just circled around her, and everything was so cute.

And wasn't this cute how she was throwing food on the floor?

You know, the eighth, the ninth, the tenth time, I'm picking it back up, and then she's still so cute.

And then it dawns on me that this little snot is messing with me.

She is messing, she's manipulating me.

If you think your children are not manipulating you, I can guarantee you, your children are manipulating you.

These little babies, like those little people who were just up here, they are so intuitive.

And they will begin to manipulate us from an incredibly early age to get control and for them to get what they want.

It dawned on me as I was probably negotiating the number of cookies my children could have, and I'm a 35-year-old successful man in a long negotiation on how many Oreos this four-year-old could have.

At some point it dawned on me, I am a grown man.

Like my yes needs to be yes, and my no demeanings needs to mean no at some point.

Like if we said something, at some point we need to just expect it to happen.

And so we finally had a song in our family, fast, happy, and all the way.

Fast, happy, and all the way.

So if we said something, you need to do it fast, happy, and all the way.

Like, and I still, today, I'll ask my children to do something, and it may take a little bit longer today, and I will finally start to sing around the house, and they just love it.

Just fast, happy, and they love it's just a beautiful dad walking around singing a song about obedience.

Parenting truth number two, they cry now or you will cry later.

When I was in the second grade, I had a big spelling test and I'd studied.

I was actually prepared for it, but my friend Matthew and I, we decided we were going to cheat on the test, and so we wrote the ten words on a little sheet of paper, and I put them between my legs, and I sat at my desk, and every time Miss Minor, who I adored, my second grade teacher, she would call out the word and I would look down at the word, and then I'd write about halfway through the test, I felt her hand on my shoulder.

What was worse was my mom was substitute teaching two doors down.

And Miss Minor got me by the arm, walked me straight out of the classroom, straight down the hallway, got my mom out of that classroom, and I am crying at this point.

And then when I got home, I wasn't allowed to go outside and play, which was the only thing I cared about in life.

And my mom set up a spelling test, and I had to take the spelling test five times.

And then I had to write a letter to my teacher, Miss Minor, apologizing to her for cheating on the test.

And then the next morning, my mom walked with me to my classroom for me to deliver the letter to this teacher that I adored and to apologize to her verbally in person, along with the letter, for cheating on the test.

Now that was just one little 10-word spelling test in the second grade that really means nothing in the scheme of life.

But my parents needed to make sure I cried then.

Needed to feel the weight of dishonesty in second grade so I don't have to feel the weight of dishonesty in 12th grade.

You make the consequence this big for an offense this big so the offense doesn't become this big.

About 15 years ago, a parenting author, John Roseman, he spent a day with our church staff, a whole day lectured, we had QA.

It was great, it was really, really great.

One thing I remember was he said, whose problem is it?

Your children's misbehavior, their grades, a bad grade, a speeding ticket.

Whose problem is it?

Is it your problem as a parent, or is it their problem?

Are you transferring the problem to the child?

Here's what he meant.

The child's disliking of your decision on how you're instructing them and teaching them and training them, like the verse says, is their problem.

If they have a problem with it, that's their problem.

It's not your problem.

The child's misbehavior is their problem, not your problem.

It's the parent's job to transfer that problem over to the child.

So maybe they miss their lacrosse game.

Maybe they miss their dance recital.

They have prepared for all semester.

Maybe they have to pay for a speeding ticket.

Maybe they lose their phone, or maybe they lose their car, maybe they have to move home from college.

Oh, I could never do that.

I couldn't do that.

I just couldn't do that.

He has worked so hard and he's on a team, he's made a team commitment, and she would be so upset.

Okay, well, now it's your problem.

So this is all your problem.

You have to make it their problem.

I had a friend say to me, we do not clear and pave the road for our children.

We set the guardrails on the road that already exists.

We're not perfect parents.

We're far from it.

We're still learning.

But my girls do understand, uh, they don't they don't own a phone or a car.

I own phones and I own cars.

At this point, I own a fleet of cars, and I own like a whole Apple store, but I own them, and then I let them use them, and I can pull them back at any point.

Happy to, because they're mine.

And we have contracts between parent and child, a car a phone contract, and what's expected, and what do you get, and when do you get it?

We have a car contract.

The point is this, you'll work all that out.

The point is this we don't abdicate our parenting to the world, and we don't abdicate our parenting to just magically happen.

No, we engage, we communicate, we train, we instruct and discipline our children.

Point number three, we can parent without getting on our child's emotional roller coaster.

This means uh you're connected but not enmeshed.

You can be on the platform of the roller coaster while your child is riding the roller coaster.

So you're connected, you're loving, you're instructing, you're guiding, you're involved, you are engaged.

But it is their life.

I'm learning that.

I mean, I live with four ladies and a dog.

Trust me, I am learning this.

And you're constantly telling them, even when they're little, parents of little ones, you can tell them, hey, I love you.

You can have a bad day today, but I'm gonna have a great day.

You just tell them that.

Say, you're welcome to have a bad day, I'm gonna have I'm planning on having a great day.

Like, you don't get to control everything about my emotions.

We can love them, be connected without being meshed.

Parenting truth number four, training, which is teaching plus discipline, that's what this verse is talking about, is in the context of one-way love, which is transforming.

And we know this in Ephesians because the first three chapters are embedding us in our identity and the wealth of Jesus, his love, sacrifice, and the cross for us.

That all of the righteousness we need to be secure, beloved sons and daughters, is not based on how good of a parent we are, or how Christian of a parent we are, or how perfect our children are.

None of that has to do with your righteous standing with God.

So our parenting is out of a secure place that we are beloved sons and daughters, and we're giving one-way love to these children.

We're an open fire hydrant of love to our children.

Over and over again, we're saying stuff to them like, you're not perfect, and that's okay, and I love you.

You're not perfect, and that's okay, and God loves you.

We're saying it over and over again, but we're also the fireman who comes along and teaches them what burns them.

And we're also the fireman that comes along and was like, hey, by the way, like you just broke the law, there's gonna be a consequence.

But we're doing that in the context of one-way love to them.

Our children need calm, loving, authoritative parents.

That's the position you're in that Ephesians 1 through 3 gives us in order to train them.

And if you lose your cool, like if you're like me and you lose your cool every once in a while, and maybe you lose it, you can be, you can just say to them, hey, hey, I'm about to lose it.

Just say it to them.

I am about to lose it.

I'm gonna go on a 10-minute walk, cool down, and I'll come back.

And then you re-engage.

It's okay to do that.

It's okay to be in the middle of a fight, you catch yourself losing it and say, I'm losing it.

I'm gonna go for a little walk, and I'll be back in five minutes.

And we'll re-engage then.

Our role is to keep loving them.

They won't be perfect.

They're probably gonna go off the rails at some point.

Maybe for a season, maybe for months, maybe for years, maybe for a day, maybe for weeks.

It's possible they make a decision that changes the trajectory of their life.

It may be in my family or your family, or not.

We're not gonna get all judgy about it.

We as a church and as parents bring them back onto the road with the guardrails.

And we love them, and we set them back on the road over and over again.

And it's never too late to parent with love.

Because maybe you messed up in the early stage or in the middle stage.

Never too late to parent love.

My mentor said the most powerful thing he did as a parent was apologize to his adult children.

He went to each child when they were adults and he asked them, Hey, I want you to tell me all the ways I have failed you.

I won't defend myself because I just want to say that I'm sorry.

And they told him.

And he said, I'm so sorry.

I love you.

That is powerful parenting and that later stage of parenting.

There's three stages of parenting.

Let's remember these.

Season one is training, roughly ages zero through twelve.

You're lovingly establishing authority, boundaries, training, and consequences.

There's bonding there and establishment of authority, and these children joined your world.

These children join your world, so you've got to teach them about your world.

Season number two is coaching, roughly ages 12 through 18.

You're lovingly guiding through conversations, giving freedom and consequences.

You're letting that rope of freedom out until they hang themselves and you pull them back in.

You're asking more questions, you're listening more, you're trying to talk less.

You're coaching.

Season three, consulting, roughly ages 18 and beyond.

And the goal here is friendship and shared wisdom with your adult children.

Isn't it amazing that the people we love the most were training them so they can live without us?

And then the thing that is success is that our adult children would actually want to be back around us every once in a while.

Now let's go ahead and finish this section.

Paul does transition from family life to work life, and we see it in verses five through nine.

Bondservants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ, not by way of eye service as people pleasing, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord, and not to man.

Knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.

Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

Now the Bible never speaks for slavery.

The Bible speaks into it, speaks against its abuses, and speaks against its violence.

Now there are differences between modern slavery and ancient Near East slavery.

This slavery here that Paul's speaking into, these people sold themselves into slavery.

It was not race-based, and it was not for a lifetime.

Usually they were slaves until about the age of 30.

Now, here's the point for us.

What does this have to do with us?

You know, bond servants and masters.

Well, here's the point for us.

It has to do with work life.

Your boss is not your true boss.

We work unto the Lord.

Now, your boss may be amazing or he may be horrible, she may be horrible, but you can work for him or her because they are not your true boss.

We work unto the Lord.

This actually frees you to serve and work.

Now, modern culture wants us to use our work to feel fulfilled and validated and defined, and all that pressure leaves us empty.

As Christians, we don't have to use our jobs for our identity.

Work cannot quiet your heart or give you a secure identity because we're already valued and worthy in Jesus.

So it frees us that our work can just be work.

See, this is how it's related to parenting.

Because your children also cannot give you a quiet heart.

Amen.

Yet our culture will push you to try to find a sense of worth in your children, your children's success, how they're doing today or this week, or in your work, or in college football at about 11 o'clock last night.

Incredible sense of security and worth.

Two questions, considering your children and your work.

When everything's falling apart, where do you go to feel important or loved?

Where do you go on a day-to-day basis to feel secure and valuable?

Your children's current state?

Your work's current state?

Or Jesus' love for you?

About 15 years ago, we went to a concert of our friend Meredith.

She was finishing a music degree and she had a recital concert at the end of it.

Now, the week before this concert, she had shared a quote with me by author Tony Morrison.

And this person asked Morrison, said, How do you write these incredible books?

How do you, do you know, is it other books you've read?

You know, is it your method, or is it the way you structure it?

Here's what Tony Morrison said.

Oh no.

That's not why I'm a great writer.

I'm a great writer because when I was a little girl and walked into a room where my father was sitting, his eyes would light up.

That is why I'm a great writer.

That is why I'm a great writer.

That is why.

There isn't any other reason.

So we were at Meredith's side of the room's concert, and she's up there singing, confident.

She's very talented.

And I I looked over on the side of the room, and her dad, Don, a good, tough, good old boy, he's standing over there and he has tears.

Just streaming down his face as he's watching his daughter.

And I got to know Don, and Don was tough and strong, yet he adored his children.

When he said something, it meant something.

There were consequences if his children misbehaved.

And he loved his children.

And he delighted in his children.

Maybe you haven't parented like that.

I mean, that's possible.

There's nothing that can make you feel worse as a Christian or a person than a parenting or a marriage sermon, right?

Well, the good news is that story is not only an image of how to be a good parent, that story is an image of the gospel.

Because maybe you've had your pride or missed up, or maybe you were just distracted, you weren't engaged as a parent.

Here's the good news Your perfect parenting doesn't get God to love you anymore.

Your righteous standing with God has nothing to do with your parenting, good, bad, or average parenting.

God's light in you, his love of you is solely based in Jesus' work for you.

In Jesus, all of our mistakes are forgiven, our marriage mistakes, our family mistakes, any mistake.

All of our sins are put upon this Jesus on the cross, and his righteousness is given to us.

This is why Ephesians 1 through 3 come before Ephesians 4 through 6.

Out of that forgiveness, validation and work becomes our relational life.

Our walk with Jesus is not for God's love.

Like you or love you, walk with Jesus is from God's love.

And he doesn't just like you or love you, he delights in you.

Let's pray to God.

Heavenly Father, thank you that you love us, you like us, and you delight in us because of your love for us, that we know in Jesus Christ.

Thank you that the cross is enough for all of our sin and mistakes and our marriage life and our family life and our parenting and any of our relationships.

That all of our failures are forgotten, forgiven in Jesus.

And that you see us as your perfect sons and daughters.

That you delight in us.

May this delight that you have in us through the Son Jesus be the way we understand ourselves as people.

May it be the place, the source of empowerment for our relationship.

And even for our parenting.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.