Both Sides of the Table - Ephesians 6:1-4

Have you ever, um, for the parents in the room or just adults in the room, have you ever opened your mouth to say something and you quickly realized your mom or your dad spilled out of you? Like, I just had this moment. I have this moment often. A couple of weeks ago, I was in the kitchen and we were getting ready for dinner and I opened my mouth to tell my kids something and my dad just came out. So I told my son, uh, one of my boys was sitting at the table and I said, hey, uh, can you put your feet in front of you, please, and make sure that you sit squarely on the chair? And then a few moments later, I heard myself saying, with another son, hey, can you leave the table, go to your room, and put a shirt on, please, and then come back to the table. And I realized those are 2 things that my dad told me all the time. I didn't come up with either of those. My dad said them to me often. And honestly, as a kid, I was frustrated with both of them. I was like, why, I don't understand why my dad cared about how I sat in a chair. Uh, and I didn't understand why a shirt mattered at my own table. We didn't have any guests over. It wasn't like a formal event or something. But now as a dad, I totally get it, right? Uh, he wasn't fussing about legs and shirts. It really wasn't about that. He was building a culture around the table. He was protecting something of value to my mom and to my dad. Sitting up with both legs in front of me, where I was completely on the chair, taught me good posture. It taught me manners at the table that extends to just what you say, but also to how you sit, and putting on a shirt taught me this healthy respect for what the table means to us as a family. Now, we don't have to get all dressed up and everything. But when I was a kid, I would just like play outside without a shirt on, then come to the table, and he said, no, don't do that. He was teaching me what the family table means to us. Now, why do I say that? Well, because this morning, Paul, the apostle Paul speaks to both sides of the table. He's going to talk to the parents and he's going to talk to the kids. And every single one of us has been somebody's child. And many of us are somebody's parent, and Paul has a few words for both of us. So here's where we're headed this morning. A few points for us. Let's go to the next slide where we see our overview and our breakdown of where we're headed. Three points this morning. Obey in verse one, honor in verses 2 and three, and then bring them up or raise. Some translations may say raise in verse four. So these are 3 phrases, 3 points that encapsulate what we're to do as kids as parents and as fathers. So I want us to pray briefly, and then we'll jump into Ephesians chapter 6 that Braden Red Force earlier. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you've gathered us here to this time and this place to worship you. To be the reminded of all the good blessings, the good news that we have in Christ. And Lord, you have brought us here to this room from all walks of life and backgrounds and countries and parts of the city, stages of life, parenting that we're in the thick of, parenting that we look back on, parenting that we're maybe looking forward to. And Lord, I pray that you would speak to each and every one of us this morning, myself included. Mold us into the image of your son. Humble us under the authority of your word, and teach us how we can obey you. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. So we've been in Ephesians for several months now. We've walked through the 1st 5 chapters and now we're in the last chapter, chapter six. So if you're dropping in for the 1st time. Paul doesn't start with parents and kids. There's 5 chapters that he's been talking about, a lot of other stuff. So all of our sermons are available online. They're all audio, if you're curious about anything that Paul has said or that we have said in the last few weeks, check out any of those sermons online. Last week, Dalton wrapped up chapter 5 verses 22 through 33, and that led us into marriage. Okay? And now Paul walks down the hallway of the home into the next room. And all of it is still standing back on a phrase in Ephesians 5, verse 21, which I want to put on the screen for us. All of this that we've been talking about for the last 2 weeks falls under this phrase, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. So he says that in verse 21, and then 22 through 33 talks about the family, marriage, and now he moves on. That's the roof over this whole section of the letter. That's the roof. And now, this week, he gets to the kids' room. So let's look at our 1st point, obey. Look at verse one. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Now, before we get to what Paul actually says, don't miss who he's saying this to. Paul turns and speaks directly to the kids. And this is a world where children, they are not often addressed, they're managed. They're kind of just put up with. And Paul talks to them like members of the church, members of the body who can hear God's word and then respond to it. So Paul's got a word for them. So kids in the room. Let me see your eyes, kids in the room. This is for you. Paul is going to talk to you, and Paul didn't write this verse just about you. Paul is telling you something. He wrote it to you. And here's what he says. Obey your parents. Obey your parents. I thought I would get an amen from the parents this morning. But in your home, in our home, in the Rosas home, we have some key phrases that we like to repeat to our kids over and over. One of those phrases is listen and obey. We say it constantly. From the time they could understand words to this morning, we repeat that, listen and obey. One of the many phrases. Because hearing and listening are not the same thing. Hearing happens with our ears. Listening implies action. So kids, you can hear your mom say something clearly and not listen to her. You cannot obey. And in our home in the Rose's home. I know every home is different, but in our home, we say that late obedience is disobedience. Obedience with grumbling and complaining attached to it is disobedience. And obedience that does half the job instead of the full job is also disobedience. It makes me think of something one of my favorite preachers said a long time ago, maybe a decade or more. Francis Chan was giving a sermon, and he talked about something that he would challenge his daughter to do. Like all good parents, he would say, hey, Rachel, I want you to go clean your room. And what if, he said, hypothetical, she hasn't done this, but what if hypothetical situation she comes back an hour later and says, hey, dad? I memorized what you said. Uh, you said, Rach, go clean your room. He would be like, okay, did you did you obey what I said? No, but I memorized it. Okay, go clean your room. And what if an hour later, she came back and said, hey, dad? Uh, I can say what you said in Greek. Pretty impressive, right? I know Greek. And he goes, but did you obey what I asked you to do? No. Okay, go clean your room. And then what if a 3rd time she comes back and says, Dad, I am so excited. Me and my friends, we're getting a small group together. We're gonna meet on Tuesday nights to discuss what you told me to do. It's so exciting. He'd be like, That's great, honey. Did you clean your room? And see, I think sometimes, not just kids, but adults, we can get caught up in that, as good intentioned as each of those things may be, and we'll encourage you guys, memorize what God says, learn some of the languages sometimes to see the original language, get together, huddle together in a life group, to discuss God's words, but none of them are actually obeying what the Father asks his daughter to do. So that's not far off from what we do as adults with God's word. We can memorize a verse and never once obey it. We can take notes on a sermon, talk about it at lunch, and never once apply it to our week. Let it inform our heads and our hearts so it works itself out through our hands. We can get together in a life group and talk about it and never actually apply what God wants us to do with our lives. And all of it we can call spiritual growth. And Jesus said, he told people, hey, you call me Lord, Lord. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? See, I think oftentimes we can think of this command as just for the kids. Like, kids, listen up. Obey your parents. But that means our job as parents is way bigger than just enforcing obedience. It's also helping our kids understand the why? that we're giving a command and not just the what? We're helping our kids in that process put the pieces together. It means we're helping them to obey. Because we're not just trying to raise kids that comply with our orders, we're trying to raise kids that's going to follow who are going to follow Jesus for the rest of their lives. Long after our influence ends. And that's why Paul tells us the next 3 words. Look at this phrase, in the Lord, in the Lord. That's the reason underneath this whole command. So kids, you don't just obey mom and dad because they're bigger than you. You don't just obey because they're louder or because they hold all the snacks, right? You obey them because God placed them in your life as your authority. Which means obeying mom and dad is actually one of the 1st and one of the most direct ways that kids obey God. So if you're a kid and you're like, how can I obey God? It starts with obeying your parents. But parents, that phrase, in the Lord, does something for us too. If our authorities given by God, then our authority is in ours. It's on loan. It's been delegated to us. And it runs under Christ's authority. Which means we can never use verse one to demand from a child what God would not have us do or them. So we're not standing at the top of the authority of our homes, moms and dads. Jesus is at the top. We're standing under his authority. Christ is the authority over our homes. And then Paul gives the reason. Four words. For this is right. He just says 2 things here. It's right because God says it's right, and it's right because it's how he built the world to work. Learning to live under authority at 8 is training us for living under authority at 48. Everyone lives under authority. But here's the thing about a child's obedience. It has an expiration date. At 30 a 38-year-old man isn't required to obey his mother and father. So does the man, does the command just run out the day we move out? Well, no, because Paul reaches for a 2nd word. Look at verse 2 and 3. Here's our 2nd point this morning. It's honor. Honor your father and mother. This is the 1st commandment with a promise that it may go well with you in well with you and that you may live long in the land. So Paul is quoting from the 10 commandments here in Exodus 20. Paul calls it, the 1st commandment with the promise. This is the 5th commandment. There are 4 commandments that come before this one, and all of them deal with how we treat God, how we view God. And this is the 1st one about how we actually treat people. And Paul's right. It's the 1st with a promise attached to it with one to the one keeping it. But notice that Paul just used 2 very different words. Verse one says obey. Verse 2 says honor. So what are those? Well, obey his action, honor is respect. That word behind honor means to treat somebody with value, with respect, as someone carrying real weight. But obedience is what a child does while they're still dependent on a parent. Honor is the respect we give our parents for the rest of our lives. No expiration date. No graduation from honor. And that means these 2 commands don't end at the same time, right? We eventually become independent. We're not needing our parents, financial, emotional, spiritual. We don't need them as often. And obedience is no longer required. But honor always required. So what does honor look like once we're grown independent adults? Well, it looks like speaking well of them when they're not in the room. It looks like actually showing up, calling them the visit to them, the drive, the long drive. It looks like caring for them, when the roles flip and the parent becomes the one that needs to be cared for. Jesus went after religious people, who had found this loophole, who tried to avoid supporting their aging parents. And he said that they were nullifying the word of God to protect their own tradition, their own interests. Because honor costs something at 48, that it never cost you at eight. At 8, honor mostly costs you like your own preference in the moment. Put down the video game, turn the show off, answer the parents when they're calling you. But at 48, it costs money. It costs vacation time. It costs a weekend that you could be using for something else. It may cost an empty bedroom that your parents, aging parents, move in. But look at that last phrase, because we have to handle it carefully, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the lamp. Now, I think Paul is using this in Ephesians 6 as proverbial language. That's to say, the way that proverbs often describes how life generally works. And so it's not a contract like it was in its original setting in Exodus 20. It's not a guarantee. Because some of us have known really godly people. whose lives ended earlier than we expected. And if we turn this verse into a formula, we end up handing a parent, a grieving parent a lie. So originally, this was covenant language about Israel's life in the land that God gave them, and a life lived under God's good design generally does go well. A life that despises all authority, generally does not go well. But some of us, we heard this phrase, this part of the scripture that says, honor your father and mother. And when we heard that, like our whole attitude changed. Maybe your stomach cramped a little bit. Because not everybody has fond memories of their childhood. Not everyone has nostalgia wrapped up in being a kid. Some of us had a dad who left. Some of us had a dad that we wish had left. That it was harder to have him in the home than if he was just gone. Some of us grew up managing addictions that weren't for us to manage. Some of us grew up raising a sibling. It wasn't, who wasn't ours to raise. So I recognize this doesn't maybe speak to every little nuance of every situation in the room. Some of us are still carrying things we have never told our parents out loud. So let's be really clear about what honor is and what honor is not. We've got it on the screen for us. Let's go back to that slide. What honor is not. Honor is not obedience. Paul uses a different word. If we're grown, we don't owe them obedience anymore. That season is over. Doesn't mean you can't be obedient. doesn't mean you can't work things out, but it means if you're an independent adult, you're not required to follow all the rules of mom and dad. Honor is not an agreement. We can really honor a parent and still believe that they did something badly wrong. Honor is not trust. Trust is earned Trust can be lost. And honor doesn't automatically hand trust back to someone. Honor is not unlimited access. to us or to our children. A person can be honored, a parent can be honored and still not be invited to Christmas. Honor is not pretending that something bad never happened. Honor is naming the truth is not dishonor. Now, the context, the environment, in which you say it could be, but just naming the truth face to face is not dishonor. So, what is honor then? Let's go to this one. Honor is speaking well of them. Especially in front of other people. You got kids around, kids at the table. Even when you know they're not perfect, you speak well of them in front of the kids. It can look like refusing to run them down in front of other people, even when the story that you tell could be true. It can look like a boundary that gets held firmly, but gets held without bitterness. It can look like praying for somebody, then we can't always be in the same room with, for lots of reasons. Maybe we don't want to be in the same room with them. Maybe we're just so far away that we can't be in the same room with them, but we pray for them. When we pray for them, we honor them. It can look like sometimes the most honoring thing available to us. is telling the truth about them without contempt, without anger, without bitterness. And for some of us in the room, our parents are already gone. So honor doesn't get spoken to them anymore. It gets lived out in front of everyone around us. and how we honor our parents that are no longer with us. It gets told in the stories that we pass down to our kids. It gets told and what we choose to carry forward from them and what we choose to end with us. And sometimes it looks like forgiveness offered to somebody who will never hear you say it. They're gone. That time has passed. But forgiveness can still be offered. And let me tell you, if you had good parents, say it out loud this week. Tell it to him. Get on a phone call. Tell them face to face, not a card at Christmas, an actual sentence, out loud to their face over the phone, tell them something they did well that you're still living with today, because honor delegated, Sometime or delayed, honor delayed is so often honor never given. Don't save it for a eulogy. Don't save it for a perfect day. Let's move to our third point. Bring them up, or raise them up, Look at verse four. Fathers. Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Now, for those of us that have kids in the home right now, we're in the thick of this, right? But for others of us, this verse is speaking into a home without kids. You might be in a season of young adulthood or singleness, maybe you're a couple that's walking through infertility, maybe you're an empty nester whose home quickly got too quiet. Maybe you... Maybe you've buried a child. Or maybe you have a child who's just walked away from the Lord, and this passage just stings every time you read it. This passage just hurts. Let me say something as plainly as I know how, especially if you have a child who has walked away from the Lord. No parenting method guarantees an outcome. No parenting method guarantees that your children will love the Lord. We aren't manufacturing Christians. Only God can raise a dead heart to life. Only the Spirit of God through Jesus can do that. But I should say that even though no parenting method guarantees an outcome. Some ways of parenting are plainly wiser than others. And scripture gives us that wisdom. It gives us that guidance. Peter will say, all that pertains to life and godliness is in this word. It guides us. It helps us. It helps us to walk in wisdom, even in parenting. And Excuse me. Here's one thing that scripture reminds us of us of often as parents, raising our kids was never assigned to just parents alone. The church has always needed spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers. It takes a village to raise kids, right? A place, it's a place for parents. The church has always needed it. This room is full of kids and young adults that need godly examples. So if you've been walking with Jesus for more than 20, 30 years, Can I just encourage you? You should probably be more on the giving end of things than on the receiving end of things. Let me say that again. If you've been walking with Jesus in the context of the local church for more than 20 years, you probably should be more on the giving end of things, not that you can't receive, then you are on the receiving end of things. And I think it's a tragedy, sometimes we can go, we can be Christians our entire lives and never transition to giving more than receiving. And we can come to church and go, I just need to get and get, I need to be fed, and those are good things, we should be fed. But if the whole Christian life is about receiving, we got something crucially wrong. And so the church is a place that we can raise kids together. And that's exactly what we're building toward on Wednesday night. We've been announcing this for several weeks, if not months now. We're starting this week. It's going to be a place for parents, a place for kids, for future parents, for spiritual mom and dads to get together and be equipped together. Not just to hear more, not just another sermon, but to actually be trained with the practicalities of following Christ. That's what Wednesday night's going to look like this week and throughout the rest of the year. Now, going back to our text. Let's look at this. Notice that Paul changed who he was talking to. Verse one, used the ordinary word for parents, moms and dads. Then verse 4 narrows it down to fathers. So now dad's, it's like what Paul is doing is he's pulling back a bow and he's aiming at dad's, all right? So get ready for it. And the question is, often for us, is like, hey, what about moms? Like, what do moms need to do here, right? Now, Paul had talked about marriage back at the end of chapter 5, but he aims the bow of dads. But moms, this doesn't excuse you. Because that word for fathers, most of the time in scripture, it is masculine, it's specifically dads, but there are a few occasions where it could actually apply to fathers and mothers. So I think this passage doesn't excuse moms. It's just directed at dads. Paul is talking to us because we're held responsible for the spiritual state of our homes. Ephesians 5. And honestly, we're probably the ones that are most prone to duck under that arrow, right? We're the ones most likely to just relax into passivity. And the 1st thing he says to dads is a do not. Look at that. Do not provoke your children to anger. Now this isn't, uh, don't ever make your kids mad. That's not what he's saying, because we all know if we've had kids that kids get mad from like no to anything, no to a popsicle, like meltdown, right? And so that's not what he's saying. That's not what this is. This is a slow kind of anger. This is the anger that builds in kids over years and years. Until one day, a kid just stops bringing you their trust and their lives, the difficulties, the pain, the tears, the friends. Anything that actually matters in them. It's not about them being mad at you once, it's about a settled pattern of anger towards you. So let me name 5 ways parents do this. Let's pull this up on the screen. Now there are way more than 5 ways. I read a parenting book a few years ago and it gave like over 20 ways that we provoke our kids. I tried to distill some of them down. And here we go for 5 of them. Rules that move with our mood. So the same thing that gets a laugh on a Tuesday gets a lecture on a Thursday. Inconsistency. And your children start having to guess not, they're no longer coming to you with trust. They're now trying to guess, is mom or dad in a good mood or a bad mood? Because if they're in a good mood, they'll be relaxed since they're in a bad mood. I'm going to get a lecture and get discipline. It's inconsistent. It fluctuates with the mood. Second thing, promises we don't keep. Man, there are things that are small to us. One afternoon, one evening. And if it's not kept, it's the whole week for them. It can be something that they remember from that year, for the rest of their lives. Third thing, volume that doesn't match the offense. When a spilled cup sounds like a house fire from your tone or from your volume, It's probably provoking the kids. It's building lack of trust. For, correcting them because they embarrassed us. We're not doing it for their good. We're doing it because there's people watching. And let me tell you, the kids, they know the difference. They know the difference between no one's around and dad is super strict when we're in public. Five, a bar they can never clear. They can never live up to. Maybe it's comparison to a sibling? Maybe it's unrealistic expectations. Maybe it's, I could do it better than you, son. I could do it quicker than you. I can do it faster than you. Nothing's ever quite good enough. Now, God has given me a lot of amazing opportunities in my life. And because of that, people are usually very respectful when they call my name. On any given day, I get called pastor, professor, doctor, sir, which I didn't think would come at 37 years old. But none of those titles. is the best title I have. I'm so grateful for the respect people show me that I don't ask for, it's not necessary. I tell my students in class at the beginning of a semester, call me what you want just as long as it's not offensive. So don't call you don't have to call me doctor, professor. Just call me Tyler. But of all the titles I've ever been given. The one I love the most is dad. Man, that is the best thing to hear from your kids. There is nothing in this world, like turning a corner, for me, at the end of the day, and seeing my three kids run up to me, arms extended. Dad, dad, daddy. And I scooped them into my arms, and my youngest daughter, my daughter, she says, I missed you today. Man, that's the best feeling in the world. Nothing like it. The best day, other than the day that I, there's three, four, five best days of my life. The day I chose to follow Christ, to accept his grace, the day I married my wife, Abby, and then my 3 kids. Best day of my life, Titus, one of the top five, when I got to see you for the 1st time. Nothing in the world compares to that. But I'm also not a perfect dad. Not even close. I've violated all of these. Sometimes in the same day. Your pastors aren't perfect. We make mistakes. In fact, just about a week ago, I want to share them with you. I'm apologizing to my kids constantly. Big things and small things. I was thinking about them this week and my kids, they gave me permission to tell some of these. About a month ago, we were out and about, and I corrected one of my kids over something, and immediately within like 10 seconds, realized I was wrong, and I said, I am so sorry, buddy. I was wrong. Will you forgive me? And you know what I heard? No problem, dad. Not a big deal. But that's a small one. Let me tell you a big one. Just a few weeks ago, I hurt one of my kids with my words. And there were tears flowing. There were little feet running away from me. At that moment, I knew I messed up big time. So I ran after them. I got down on my knees on their level. And I said I am so sorry. I was wrong. And I didn't have a tone with them. I didn't yell at them. I thought I was joking, but they didn't hear it as a joke. They didn't receive it that way. And so immediately, I'm the father running after the son, I was wrong. Will you forgive me? And even if you don't forgive me now, that's okay. You don't have to. Let's come around to this later. Let's talk about this later. Let's talk about how I hurt you. When we're wrong, we should admit it. See, I think it is so helpful for our kids to know two things. One, mom and dad aren't perfect. Two, how do mom and dad repent? How do we apologize? How do we admit our mistakes? Because our kids need more than a mom and dad who never mess up. They need a parent who repents in front of them. that they can see what that looks like. When we apologize, we teach our kids what to do with their own sin. And when we're showing them that grace is a real thing in our family, we show them that the word just doesn't stay on Sunday morning, it goes into every area of our lives. So parents, let's make apologies and forgiveness, a regular occurrence in our homes. And Titus, while you're sitting here, I want to say something to you in front of everybody this morning. Because I think you're my only family member here. Mom's in the back. Zeke and Hosanna are in the back, and I just want to say to you, I am so honored to be your dad. And I want to apologize when I mess up. I am so sorry when I disappoint you. And I know I don't live up to all your expectations. And dad is a sinner, and I need to repent often. But I am so proud of who you are. Not the future version of you. I'm proud of who you are right now. You're my son, and I love you. All right? So let's move on to this text. Paul doesn't stop with do not for fathers. Look at the next race. He says, bring them up. in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. That phrase, bring them up, that is a feeding word. This isn't managing kids' behavior until they finally move out of the home. This is preparing a soul. For a lifetime of following Christ, following Jesus. And then Paul gives us 2 words, discipline and instruction. Discipline is the training we do. Instruction is the words we say. Let me differentiate those again. Discipline is the training we do. Instructions are the words we say. So discipline is the consequence we follow through with when we're exhausted, right? And parenting, it's mostly exhaustion. It's minimal sleep. It's 5 or 6 hours a night for years. It's 2 or 3 hours stretches for months. So young adults. You don't have to do this, but you could sleep deprive yourself for a couple of weeks and then see how your spiritual life is affected. That's parenting. It's getting off the couch. Discipline is getting off the couch to deal with something instead of just repeating the consequence from another room. It's following through on the consequence you've already announced, even when it's inconvenient for you. It's enforcing a consequence. When you'd much rather just let it slide. And instructions are the words we say. It's taking the time to tell them why something is wrong, not just that something is wrong. It's asking genuine questions about their interests, not just how is your day, but that's a beautiful drawing. What do you like about it? What's your favorite subject? Who's your best friend? What did you do at recess? What did you learn from your teachers? All the genuine interests about their day? It's the prayer at bedtime that tells God how grateful you are for your kids in front of them. It's asking God that your kids would come to know, love, and obey Jesus all the days of their lives. And our kids need both. We need discipline. We need instruction. But here's the phrase, this whole verse hangs on of the Lord. It's not the discipline instruction of our personal preferences. It's not the discipline and instruction of a political party. It's not the discipline and instruction of even our own family name. Your erosis. This is how Rosas's act. This is what Roseses do. This is how Christ would act, what Christ would do. We're not raising our own kids towards some perfect version of ourselves. We raise our kids towards the image of Christ, his likeness. And did you see what Paul did with this whole passage? Verse one, I love this, tells children to obey in the Lord. And then verse 4 tells fathers to raise them in the discipline instruction of the Lord. So he puts the Lord over both ends of the table. Both ends of the house. The kids obey in the Lord, the parents raise their kids under the Lord. This whole home, sits under the authority of the Lord. So let me give you 3 questions to sit with this week. As we go into the neighborhoods, into our schools, into our homes, here are 3 questions to think about. And hopefully at least one of them and multiple of them apply to your lives. As you go to life groups, as you raise your kids, which parent or parent figure can I honor this week? Is this a parent that's living? Is this a parent that has passed? Is it a parent figure, a spiritual father and mother? Who can I honor this week? No matter how old I am, or how young I am? And then how specifically can I do that? Parrots. Verse, question two, which of those 5 provoking examples would my kids say that I do the most? And what can I do to apologize today? Not this week, not this year. How can I apologize and ask for forgiveness today? And then third, which child or which young adult could I invest in this fault? Especially if I've been walking with Christ for more than 20 years? That's not a hard number. That's just a number I threw out. But how can you invest in the next generation, the younger generation? Because every person in this room has been a child. And every person in this room has broken verse one. We've all had a moment where we disobeyed a direct command. Every one of us has failed to honor our parents. And every parent in this room has provoked their children. But God made us to live under him, a perfect heavenly Father, and we walked out. We would rather live in a house without a father in it. We were so sinful that we couldn't even obey a perfect dad. But God would not let that be the end of our story. So he sent his son into a family, with an imperfect mom and an imperfect dad, to be raised in a small town under 2 ordinary parents. And the gospel of Luke tells us that Jesus was obedient to his parents. Jesus, as a little perfect boy, was obedient to imperfect parents. I'm sure that was so frustrating for Mary and Joseph. And the gospel of John, he told them several times that Jesus did nothing of his own will, but only what he saw the father doing. And then, when he's hanging on that cross, one of the last things he does is he makes sure his mom is being taken care of. He asked John, take care of my mom. He honors her in that moment. With his last breath. He honors his mother. He obeyed perfectly. He honored perfectly. And on the cross, he took every penalty that we didn't. And then 3 days later, the scriptures say he raised God raised him from the dead. So that when we trust in him, we get a heavenly Father that doesn't change the rules based on his mood. He doesn't, we get a heavenly Father who never breaks a promise. He never corrects us because he's embarrassed by us. He never compares us. He doesn't shame us, and he will never provoke us to anger. We have a perfectly heavenly Father, and a saving son, and a spirit that indwells us that we can always be thankful for. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it speaks to us, that it molds us. that it convicts us. It doesn't just speak to abstract principles, but engages our lives. It's not an old ancient book. It's an eternal book. that speaks a better word than we could ever give. Lord, I pray that we would take something that you've taught us this morning into our lives, into our families this week, that we could honor a parent or a parent figure, with our words, our actual words. that we could look forward to a day that we're going to be parents and begin preparing for that day, that we can honor our kids, ask our kids how we provoke them, where we mess up, and apologize for that. That we can look back on the stage of parenthood and ask for grace and forgiveness over the mistakes that we made. And Lord, that we could look up to you. And know that you're a perfect heavenly Father, who comes running after his kids and embraces us with open arms. You died for us. You rescued us. You brought us into your family. You love the family. Help us to love what you love, to cherish what you cherish, and to walk in obedience to you. We pray this all of this in Christ's name. Amen.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention Ephesians 5:21