Ephesians 6:1-4 • Patterns for Parenting
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
>>> We've seen the Lord's blessing in any number of families up on this platform today and fitting, I suppose, in this time that we are looking at the scriptures at God's plan for families that we would have that special blessing in this service today.
God can, of course, bless singles and every stage of life, but every one of us started in a family, somehow, some way.
And so God wants to show us how to bless that in particular and He does so in Ephesians chapter 6, Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1-4.
Let me ask that you'd stand as we would read that portion of scripture.
In your Grace bibles, it's page 679, Ephesians 6 verses 1-4, as God gives this instruction to parents and children.
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
'Honor your father and mother,' this is the first commandment with a promise, 'that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.'
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."
Let's pray together.
>>> Father, thank You that we can call you Father, that something deep in us reaches out for an eternal belonging and You offer it as our Father and through the gift of Your Son.
Help us to discern this day how that great good news, the gospel that the Father shared with us in Jesus, is our hope, our model, our power for being those families that You are calling to reflect Christ in our nation and our community, in the hearts of our children.
This we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
>>> Please be seated.
Some years ago, I was invited to a church for a series of messages, an evening conference, and because the messages were in the evening, I spent the afternoons preparing.
And the pastor of that church invited me just to use his office in his home, and I did.
I can remember one particular afternoon working on the message, and as I was working on the message, his children were playing outside the window.
Well, you could call it playing.
It was actually an older brother who was ruling over his siblings with intimidation and cruelty and profanity.
It was hard to listen to.
It was harder to study through.
So at some point, I just walked out the room, into the hallway, and as I went out into that hallway, there was a motion that kind of caught my eye up a stairway to my left.
And I looked up the stairway and there silhouette against the window that was at the top of the stairway was the boy's mother.
She was listening to her children playing too.
And as she listened, she flinched with the latest profanity from her oldest son and then turned toward me, saw I was there, and I could see that she was crying.
And she said, "We don't know what to do.
My husband doesn't know what to do.
All we know is that he is 9 years old and we already have lost control of our son.
We don't know what to do."
In the "we," there was actually hope.
Because there was this acknowledgement that it was still our responsibility to reach our son, to seek the Lord.
Somehow we still have responsibility here, even though we wonder what it's to be.
And if you ever face that as a parent or feared it as a parent, grandparent, prospective parent, you have questions of the Lord.
Lord, how do we actually become the family, raise the children as You desire according to Your Word?
And if you have that longing in you, I wonder if you don't have some disappointment if you just looked at the passage with me of scripture that we read.
Because, after all, this is the basic and most complete passage on parenting in the Bible.
And do you know what?
In this long family section that we began looking at with husband and wives and now parents, there is one verse, one verse, of explicit instruction to parents on what it means to parent children.
Just one verse.
I mean, there are twenty verses, if you count the whole of what it means to be a husband and a wife and what it means to be an employer, a master of servants, what it means to be a child at home.
But, actually, chapter 6 and verse 4 is just the only verse on parenting that's given.
And it's actually just addressed to one parent.
And that's the father.
We long for more.
We want volumes, not one verse.
And so our hearts begin to say, "Is there some wisdom that the Lord is communicating, even the way that He is expressing things here?"
That what we want is we want that child rearing instruction manual, and instead what God is giving is an architecture to our homes.
Saying, "Here are the basic building blocks that are more important than, you know, who takes out the trash or what movie do you see."
I mean, here is the building block of God's architecture.
And it begins with an understanding of the foundation relationships that are so important for building God's families.
The first foundational relationship you understand if you just kind of back up into this whole epistle of the apostle Paul.
I mean, we're getting toward the end now as he begins to give instructions to parents.
And you have to say: Well, what already began all of this?
Five chapters on the nature of the church.
As the apostle is reminding us that God called His church from all eternity to be the powerful transforming agent of His own love in all the world.
And so He called the church from the foundations of the world, before they were laid.
He called the church into purity, into unity, into ways in which His love is being made manifest in the home, but what's clear is that whatever he is saying to families is in the context of the church.
It's just a reminder to us.
If you're saying, "What are the building blocks of the home?" the first building block for the foundation of the home is a loving relationship with God that's established in the context of the church.
There are some people in this room, I won't identify them by name, Bill and Diane, but.
[Laughter]
We had the great privilege of raising our children in a church in southern Illinois when we were a bunch of couples in that church and we were all about the same age and we all had children about the same age.
And what we were doing, of course, was we were watching one another and learning from one another and instructing one another: This worked, that didn't work, how do you do this.
And it's really part of God's plan.
No one knows it all.
And so we're put together in the church of Jesus Christ to be helping, instructing, unifying one another so that we can learn from one another.
That's actually part of the plan.
And as cultures change, as people change, God is saying, "But I still need My people in the church together."
It's why we don't say, "I can just worship in the woods all out by myself."
Of course you can.
But we need you.
And you need us, to be learning how we function together as the families that God has called.
But it's not just that we need the corporate nature of the church: In the church, we are learning something about God the Father.
After all, from the very first chapter, we learned that He was the Father who united us in the beloved.
In this chapter 5 in which the apostle is beginning to say what it means to be the people of God in the home, chapter 5 just begins with these words: "Be imitators of God as beloved children."
It's the reminder for all of us that God is our Father and we need that.
We need it first for modeling, that we are learning in the church what parenting is because we have a heavenly parent; we have a Father.
Why is that important?
Because despite what we may wish, we tend to become our parents.
Right?
You said those words would never come out of your mouth, and they did, didn't they?
[Laughter]
Right?
Even the same tone.
Well, the fact that we become our parents, of course, is a good thing if we had good parents.
But what if you're on the negative side?
What if you simply recognize the realities that abusers tend to raise abusers, alcoholics tend to raise alcoholics, anxious parents raise anxious children?
What then?
Then you rejoice that we have a Father in heaven, that more foundational than biology or background is an eternal Father, the one who has given us peace for our souls, comfort for our lives, forgiveness for our sins, pardon for our past.
That is my Father.
And when I recognize that, I recognize I have this model that is giving me foundational security for even what I need to live.
I don't just have a Father so I can model after Him: I actually need to know a Father in heaven because inevitably we will parent either out of security or insecurity.
If we parent out of insecurity, it's usually marked in our discipline.
Right?
When do you and I tend to get the angriest at our kids?
When they embarrass us.
Because we don't like looking bad.
We don't like being reduced in stature or status in other people's eyes.
One of my worst experiences as a parent, I can remember it now, I don't like remembering it, was at Covenant Seminary.
I was a new professor.
I had young kids.
And one of my kids after a chapel program came running down the center aisle and ran right into Dr. Rayburn, the president, and almost knocked him over.
[Laughter]
Now, my child was not hurt.
Dr. Rayburn was not hurt.
My ego was bruised.
That was my child in the chapel that ran into Dr. Rayburn.
I got so mad.
Why?
Because I was embarrassed because of what it supposedly said about me as a parent.
And at the very moment that my child, my baby, needed me to pick him up and hold him and say, "It's going to be okay," instead I was just red-faced angry.
It can take other forms, can't it?
When our older children are struggling with their addiction or pregnancy or anorexia or arrest and so much of what we think about is what others will think of us and our rage grows out of our own insecurity rather than the attention we know that our child needs in the worst of what they're struggling with.
If we don't recognize our own security in Christ, we may discipline out of the insecurity, which means that we will rage because of our fear of embarrassment.
But we also may fail to discipline in our insecurity, because we fear the loss of affection of our children.
If I discipline, they'll get mad at me.
If I discipline, they'll walk away from me.
If I discipline, they'll be upset with me.
That's not really the point.
We are called to be the parents of our children for their sake, not for what they think of us.
And we will walk away from our discipline requirements if we are not secure in the Lord and say, "But I am loved of the Father.
I am secure in Him."
And so I discipline when needed out of my security, not of my insecurity that requires my child's affection.
What I ultimately recognize is God is saying our discipline finds its consistency and its balance in understanding that I have a loving relationship with the Father that makes me secure, so I can do what I am called to do in the given moments.
Now, a question for all of us as you think about how this epistle is laid out: If it begins by talking about our security in God the Father, how is that security reinforced in the home for parents?
Through our spouses.
Twelve verses to one, twelve verses talking about how we relate to one another in marriage before a single verse on talking about how parents should relate to their children.
Why is that?
Because the first building block for Christian families is a loving relationship with God in the context of the church, but the next solid building block that is needed for solid families is a loving relationship with our spouses.
These are just the foundation relationships before God is talking about any practices that we would be doing as parents.
Why do we need that second building block of a foundation relationship with our spouse?
Because parenting is a team sport.
Right?
Two on one.
[Laughter]
The goal is that we would be together in disciplining and loving and caring for and figuring out how we care for our children and we do that as we are together with our spouses.
It's more than just modeling: It's understanding how children gain information, how they learn what it means themselves to be related to another person in marriage in a way that is dear and appropriate for life's greatest blessing beyond our salvation unless God, again, has gifted you for being single.
If He hasn't gifted you for being single, our greatest heart's fulfillment is when united to the companion of His choosing.
When that happens, you have to recognize our children are learning all kinds of things from us in the way they are observing us.
Last Sunday, we watched that little film clip about the N.A.S.C.A.R. race driver who was marrying the single mom and actually made vows to her three year old as well as to the mom.
And some of the words he said, do you remember them?
He spoke to the three-year-old daughter and said, "I promise to show you how a man should treat a woman by how I care for your mom."
I'm going to show you what it means for a man to treat a woman as she should be treated.
At the same time, I'm teaching you what a woman should expect.
Our marriages are ways that we are showing people what God intends, how you relate to the opposite gender, how the fulfillment that God intends is to be exemplified because you love one another.
You're showing it to your children.
Of course, it's troublesome in today's society, isn't it?
I mean, we can point to all the statistics.
Mike Flynn last week went he was up here reminded us of some things.
You know, one-third of all America's youth now are growing up in homes without both biological parents in the home.
There are actually scarier statistics.
Those who estimate say right now those who are born today, of those who are born today, two-thirds of them will graduate high school without both biological parents in the home.
Two-thirds.
What will that mean for a culture where men and women don't know how to relate to men and women, don't have modeling of families that are whole in the Lord?
I mean, we can point to terrible things.
Right now in the United States if you look at the imprisoned population, and, by the way, if you look just at the United States, twenty-five percent of the entire world's imprisoned population is in the United States alone.
And eighty-five percent of them will say they had no father influence, dominance in their lives.
Eighty-five percent of those in prison will say no dominant father influence in their lives.
So we can say, "Well, that's just that portion of society."
But some of you have looked already and you've reminded me in that book that I wrote with Kathy, "Each For the Other," we quoted the Duke Study in which students at Duke University, you know, the best and the brightest of our culture: Forty-five percent of them, and this was ten years ago, forty-five percent of those at Duke said their parents' divorce was the most life determinative event in their lives to that point.
Forty-five percent of the students at Duke.
The most important gift you can give to your children is a good relationship with your spouse.
No question.
The most important gift that you can give to your children is a good relationship with your spouse.
Implications: Love one another deeply; find ways to forgive; work past the diff--, the rough patches.
Everybody has the rough patches.
Can we say that?
Everybody has the rough patches.
But to find ways to work past them, to teach pardon and forgiveness and respect for somebody, even when there are difficult things, is what God is saying is so important, because we know how significant it is for children to learn to relate to their future spouse, to relate to another person is simply learned in the intimacy of the parents' relationship with the child.
And, of course, it's not just the child learning about the relationship with the parent but even learning about God Himself.
Why is God so concerned about parents and children?
Because it's, again, often through the intimate that we learn the transcendent.
What does it mean to have a Father who loves me in heaven?
Well, I sometimes learn that through the father who loves me on earth.
And sometimes, of course, it's hard to learn about the Father in heaven because of a father who has struggled to love me on earth.
But when I see, when I see what God is demonstrating through the couple that He has put into my life, I'm learning about God.
And so we have to say to one another in our Christian homes, however we display affection, however we explain forgiveness and help to a spouse, that's teaching our children about God and their relationship to Him.
So we say, "Allright, lots of hugs and kisses," even if the kids say yuck.
Right?
[Laughter]
Why?
In whatever way is appropriate to show affection in our family, we have to learn to do it.
Now, maybe that sounds hard, but you must recognize the great hope that it is.
If the relationship of spouse is so important for the child learning about God as well as about how to relate to other people, what that's saying to you and me is, parents, we all know this, right: There will be moments that we hope our children forget, right?
Right?
Where we have erred, we got too mad, we stepped out of line.
And, you know, maybe it was more than a moment.
You know, maybe we followed that crazy child-rearing book for about six months until we said, "This is crazy," you know.
What, whatever it was, if the foundation that the building blocks of this child relationship are not just a particular moment or even a particular period of months but a whole relationship, that means we can make mistakes and still bless our children.
Because the mistake is not determinative: It's the relationship that's building the building blocks.
It's the architecture of the home.
Not just mistakes made.
We all make mistakes.
God forgives you.
Forgive yourself.
Move on.
And build the marriage that God intends to be the model by which your children are learning about Him as well as about how to relate to others.
If you think about the relationship with God and the relationship with spouse as being foundation building blocks, you're now ready to start moving forward to say, "Allright, well, what are the expectations; what are the actual responsibilities that are to be expressed in this parent-child relationship?"
So interesting that in chapter 6 when we finally get to instruction, they're not to parents first but to children.
Right?
Chapter 6 in verse 1, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."
So we understand there are instructions to children.
I mean, that's another one of the building blocks.
We have to understand that the Bible is not silent on this.
It hasn't failed to address the subject.
That parents are not alone responsible.
Children are responsible before the Lord to obey His Word.
And so there are instructions to the children.
And they start out with just what to do.
Now, verse 1 is not hard.
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord."
That's just talking about behavior or actions, right?
Verse 2 is about attitudes as well as actions.
"'Honor your father and mother.'"
This is reminding us that behavior is not the only object of the instruction but heart attitude as well.
So obedience with belligerence or demeaning backtalk or slammed doors is not what God is after.
Because what God is trying to do is not just raise a child: He is trying to raise an eternal soul to honor Himself.
And to have bare obedience without heart commitment is the worst of hypocrisy.
I mean, children who are raised to be obedient only outwardly without internal desire to do so create the hypocrites that they themselves hate.
And so God is saying here, "I'm after the heart as well as after the behavior."
We can laugh at the stories, right, that we all know about the kid who's made to sit in the car seat, right, and finally sits down, you know, with kind of this, "I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside," you know.
[Laughter]
And we know it.
We enjoy it.
But we recognize that that really is where the child is, that that does not bode good things for the future if attitude and action get segregated in that way.
And so the Bible is just so basic and plain in verse 1 there as parents are to be understanding the responsibilities of children.
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."
Isn't that almost silly?
I mean, why include the phrase "for this is right"?
Because there are so many philosophies of childrearing.
There are so many things that go against the notion that discipline is important, that obedience is important, that children are safe and better and healthier when they obey: that the apostle just said, "You know what?
It's right that children obey."
And we say, "But what if they're really cute and small?"
[Chuckles]
Now listen: There are different stages of child development, for sure, that we need to be sensitive of and aware of.
I mean, there are sometimes Christian parents who are requiring things in discipline inappropriate for the age of their children.
But if the basic question is should my child learn to obey, the Bible just says, "Yeah.
This is what is right."
Why?
Verse 2, "'Honor your father and mother,' this is the first commandment with a promise."
Now, that's the reference to the Ten Commandments and the fifth commandment, which is honor your father and mother, and what is the promise?
Verse 3, "'That it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.'"
Teach your children to obey, that it may go well with.
There is blessing in obedience.
If this is a safe and good path that God is laying for them and parents are helping children discover the safe and good path that God has for His people, then it's blessing to them to stay on that path.
And then the hard words, "'that you may live long in the land.'"
What does that mean?
That obedient children never get leukemia?
No, it doesn't mean that.
Live long in the land: You recognize that for a Hebrew, living in the land was part of their spiritual blessing, that God tabernacled among His people in the land.
This is the expression in colloquial Hebrew understanding that you would live long in the land was talking about an eternal nearness to God, that children who honor their parents in heart as well as in action are discovering something spiritually about their relationship with God, so that there is an eternity being secured, a soul eternity being secured.
There is blessing and spiritual wellbeing communicated by children who learn to obey.
And so it's for our children's good that discipline is put in place.
Now, I recognize it can be hard, but why does God take such care to just say, you know, "It's right and it's good that children learn to obey"?
For a lot of years, my family spent part of the summer in Colorado and Colorado Springs area, for those who you, of you who know that.
And so we learned a lot of the sites and the attractions of the Colorado Springs area.
And one place that we liked to go when our children were small was an amusement park that had a narrow gauge train in it.
And going on that, now some of you are bumping each other: Hey, I know that one.
Yeah.
[Chuckles]
You may remember, as you're getting ready for the narrow gauge train ride that you get in one of those lines, you know, where you go back and forth through the chains.
You know how you do that?
Go back and forth when the line gets long.
And we were in a long line at one point and there was a family up in front of us who had a boy who was getting tired of being in line.
So at some point, he actually got up on the standard, at a place where the line turned, and he sat on the standard and he put his feet across the line.
Which meant no one else could get through.
And so his mother kind of began this discipline process.
"Johnny, come down right now."
Hesitation.
[Laughter]
No action.
"Johnny, I mean it.
Now, you come down right now.
Johnny, I will not tell you again.
Johnny, I'm gonna count to three."
[Laughter]
"One, two.
Johnny, I'm gonna tell your father."
[Laughter]
"Johnny, please come down.
I'll buy you an ice cream cone if you come down, Johnny."
Now, while we were there that day, Johnny never moved.
We eventually kind of went under the standard to the next line.
And for all we know, Johnny is now 33 years old, still on that.
[Laughter]
Now, as we laugh about it, can you just in your minds eye not only see the child on the standard sitting there, but imagine the faces of everybody around him.
Glowering, angry frowns.
A disobedient child only sees the world's frown.
It is what you would hope for your enemy.
And that is why, in the book of Proverbs, the writer says, "The parent who will not discipline his child hates his child."
Because what you are preparing for that child is what you would desire for your enemy: the world's frown.
And so the Lord is making it clear that we have to understand there is a responsibility of the child to obey.
Now, of course, there is responsibility of the parent.
And the responsibility of the parent, the next building block that we have to understand, the responsibility of the parent is that we would parent.
I'm about to say the most controversial thing that I will say in this message today, but I want you to see where I get it.
The responsibility of the parent is to parent.
There's a worldview that's being expressed just understood in this passage, and you'll understand that if you look first at verse 2, speaking to children, "Honor your father and mother."
Verse 4, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger."
What's the worldview that's being presented here?
It's just this simple: Parents raise children.
Parents raise children.
Not grandparents.
Not daycare.
Not nannies.
Not coaches.
Not tutors.
Parents raise children.
Now, almost everybody's mind now is racing to the exceptions.
But what about when?
Does the Bible recognize exceptions?
Of course it does.
And nobody's now going to take out a stopwatch, right, and say for your family's necessity, right, you know, have you now gone two hours beyond the time that you should have been home?
Nobody's doing that.
That's not the point.
Listen, God will truly bless necessity.
I recognize and you recognize that there are things where families are torn apart, where there are deaths in families, where there are financial pressures, where there are difficulties of a time.
And we simply have to say God's grace is sufficient for all of that and He will bless areas of necessity in our lives.
But if the reason that we have now begun to make our children a lesser priority than eternal souls require, so that we would have a longer vacation or a nicer home or a better car or mess--, more prestigious position.
We have to say: Is it really worth the eternal soul of my child if I am putting the priority of the child below the priority of things?
I can't make that decision for you.
In some ways, the Lord is calling for us to make the decision in the very way that He has worded this passage.
Verse 4: Did you think it so strange that when you finally get to the instruction to parents, it's just given to one parent?
Right?
The only verse that actually has positive instruction to parents is verse 4.
"Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
It's not just talking about parents, there is family presence that is the Biblical worldview but that there is family priority in mind.
So much so that God, when He begins to talk about parenting, addresses the head of the home directly: Fathers.
As though there is something here to be paid attention to.
I am not saying that fathers are going to be the primary caregiver.
That's not the point.
It does say a little bit earlier, remember, "Honor your father and mother."
But there is a priority on families that's being communicated that God wants us to see and to know and to understand.
I think it in my own family when there were times that we struggled so much.
I've related some of that to you.
Where even as we struggled, I can remember a time when my father had opportunity to take a promotion in Kansas City.
And at some point, he did not take it.
And I can remember asking him out in the backyard one day, "Dad, why didn't you take that position?"
And his saying, "Because it would not be good for our family right now."
There is a priority on the spiritual nurture of families that God is directing and simply says, "You must consider this."
It can be hard decisions.
Kathy and I have friends, he's a doctor, she's a pharmacist, very affluent positions, and at some point they recognized that because of their busyness and the stress of their positions when they both got home, they had nothing but the leftovers for their kids.
That the primary influence in their fam--, in their child's life was the nanny.
And at some point they said, "We can use a nanny to some extent, but we have to think through the priorities.
We are the primary persons responsible for the spiritual nurture of our children.
And somehow we have seeded away that responsibility because we haven't thought about all the implications."
This was a very able, intelligent couple and they just began, "We have to think through the priorities again."
And God when He says something in this passage that seems so simple but is so controversial in our time such as parents parent children.
Isn't that strange that that would be controversial?
Parents parent children.
That that notion is calling for us to make hard but important decisions.
Not legalistically but realistically about who is having the greatest influence in our children's lives and making decisions as a consequence.
God is reminding us that we simply have to have responsibility clearly before us for the sake of our children.
And having put the responsibility on parents, now finally their instructions.
I mean, you know verse 4.
"Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger."
It's interesting that the parental responsibility begins with a don't.
Here's what you don't do: "Fathers, don't provoke your children to anger."
Some of your bibles use the word exasperate there, right?
"Fathers, do not exasperate your children."
The three words, provoke to anger, just one word in the Greek, which is exasperate, a word that is taken from the Old Testament that God has reserved for Himself alone.
God describes His exasperation when His children of Israel have not honored His word.
He grows exasperated with them.
They are not doing what He requires.
And now, curiously, it gets inverted here and fathers are told not to exasperate their children, as though the fathers themselves may be going down a path of not honoring God's purposes.
It's almost as though the apostle is saying to you, to me, as parents, "Are you requiring of your children what you yourself will not do?"
It's just not acceptable to have, you know, the little do-as-I-say-not-what-I-do.
That we are not to exasperate our children by correcting their tempers by raging at them.
Correcting their whining by whining at them.
To do what we are trying to correct, to create the hypocrisy before them of saying, "Here's what is required, but I myself will not live by it."
Ultimately we recognize that what we are doing when we do not provoke our children to anger is we are trying to live before them the life that God calls us to live.
And how do we do that?
It's not just through a series of don'ts.
We do finally get to the do's, right?
"But bring your children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."
This is the positive instruction.
Right?
I want you to "bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, " some of your pass--, some of your bibles say.
And it's reaction to understanding.
It's not just negative.
There's positive instruction.
Now, whichever translation Bible you have, whether it says nurture and admonition or discipline and instruction, you recognize there's positive and negative there, right?
That we're to be putting guardrails, the discipline, as well as guidance, right, the instruction.
Both are needed.
There is this biblical balance.
And the reason I say there has to be biblical balance is, I've taught seminarians enough to do preaching, that I recognize the standard seminary sermon on this passage from a student who does not yet have children.
[Laughter]
The standard pattern of preaching on this passage for a student who does not have children is to say, "And what that means, parents, is you must correct every action of misbehavior.
Nothing should get past you."
And I'm thinking to myself: That's either going to kill the child or kill the parent.
[Laughter]
We make prudential choices.
We recognize how does God deal with us?
Why is it so important where the passage ends, "Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord"?
Does the Lord discipline your every sin?
[Chuckles]
You'd be long gone.
[Laughter]
And so the Lord is making decisions: What is necessary to build you up, to keep you on the straight path, to give you grace when you need it.
It's your heart, it's your goodness, it's what's best for you that's always in mind.
And so the Lord is balancing those things.
And as He has dealt with you saying, "So deal with your children."
If all your children know from you is harsh unbended requirement, that is not of the Lord.
And if all they know from you is it doesn't matter, do whatever you want, that is not of the Lord.
We are being called for each of our children to discern what is best for their hearts, and we cannot let ourselves off the hook as we are making those positive-negative judgment calls every day for each child.
And, parents, you know this if you've got kids: Each child is not the same.
Right?
Each child is not the same.
Now, I, because I'm a modern parent, I texted my son before I was going to tell you this.
[Laughter]
So I said to my son, I said, "Alright, is it going to embarrass or hurt you if I tell you about your mom's and my mistakes with you when you were little?"
He said, "Dad, go for it."
[Laughter]
Listen, we had four children.
Three of them convinced us that we were the world's perfect parents.
Compliant, easy to handle, ready to go down the path.
Our fourth child was not quite that way.
We had a child, okay, it's a family audience, so I'll word this carefully.
There was a child that we affectionately referred to as steel buns.
[Laughter]
Because nothing was going to impact the seat of education of that child.
Nothing.
[Laughter]
And the consequence of trying to get control of him as we ended up just kind of spanking more and more and more, trying to get control of him, until finally a woman who was in Kathy's choir, a child educator with special needs kids, actually asked us one day, "Is that child really smart?"
And we said, "He is incredibly smart.
He's off the charts."
And she said to us, "Don't you know that very intelligent children sometimes just crave stimulation?
The reason that he is going to the edge of every cliff, the reason that he is hitting every child, is he's just waiting for the stimulation to come back.
He is craving it.
And when you spank him, you're actually adding stimulation to his system, which is what he actually wants.
He doesn't know he wants it, but it's actually feeding more of what you're trying to stop."
For that child, we had to say, "He's not like our others.
We've got to treat him differently.
He's made in the image of God.
He's unique in some ways.
We cannot fail to discipline him: That's our responsibility.
But we have to deal with him with both instruction as well as discipline.
What is appropriate for this child?"
And what happened for--, what was torture for him was to remove all stimulation.
Sit down, be by yourself.
He hated it.
It was not magic.
Let me tell you: It was not magic.
But over the course of months and then years, we saw a child come under God's control as he was treated much differently from our other child but still under the discipline and nurture of the Lord.
How do you make those choices?
You treat children as God treats you in His Word.
He gives you nurture and admonition.
He tells you His heart and then works for your heart.
As you do that, reflecting the face of Christ to your family, God will bless.
I'm not saying it's easy.
God will bless as you become the face of Christ to those that you love.
As He has shown His face to you, show it to them.
And your children will be blessed.
>>> Father, I pray for the people here.
All of us want those instruction manuals.
And instead You are so gracious that You deal with us with our individuality and the grace of our own hearts, calling us to maturity, not just legalistic standards; calling us to discernment, not just discipline; calling us to discipline and not abandonment, all that our children may know You.
You give us the care of eternal souls.
For this great blessing, we thank You.
And for Your wisdom, we beseech You.
Teach us well, that our homes might be built on the architecture of the gospel for Christ's sake, in whose name we pray.
Amen.