Taught 1/25/2009
Ephesians 6:1-5
Harmony in your family
Pray
Intro
√ Harmony in your family
Today as we look around us we see a very dysfunctional society and very few homes that are characterized by harmony!
Everywhere we look there’s division, antagonism, rebellion and discord.
Husbands and wives are divorcing, parents abandon their children, children rebel against their parents.
Everyone from government to Dr. Phil have tried to mend the divisions but nothing seems to work.
Enter the Apostle Paul!
His solution to address the disharmony in human relationships is to attack the core issue of our discord…
…that is a broken relationship with God!
That is, we’ll never patch up our human relationships until we have a right relationship with God.
That’s only possible by submitting one’s life to Jesus!
Then by His power He regenerates and makes us into new people who have the power and desire to live in harmony with one another.
In this section on walking in harmony Paul addresses the very important areas of family relationships.
Ap. We need Godly instruction!
These are important issues because most of us grew up in broken homes and therefore did not benefit from a good and godly role model.
That’s not to say that our parents may not have tried their best to give us a good upbringing.
Unfortunately though the reality is that a healthy family needs a mommy and a daddy to function properly.
Harmony with your parents (vs. 1-3)
Eph. 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Eph. 6:2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise:
Eph. 6:3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
√ Harmony with your parents
Notice that Paul’s instructions to children come on the heals of his instructions to husbands and wives.
The reason of course is that a couple who is living together in harmony may find that the addition of children in their home can upset that harmony!
Children…
Take time and attention away from the marriage relationship.
Kids, especially infants require extra time and care as they are not able to care for themselves.
Kids of all ages have their own will!
Kids are born sinners and it takes time and energy from parents to disciple them.
All that and more upset the harmony in your home.
So, Paul makes it simple for children to help create and maintain harmony in the home, he simply says to children…
Obey your parents
Then he gives three reasons that kids ought to obey their parents…
It’s the right thing to do in God’s eyes ~ vs. 1
God commanded it ~ vs. 2
Obedience brings blessing ~ vs. 2-3
Let’s look at those in detail.
Obedience is right
By “the right thing to do” Paul is appealing to the natural order that God has placed in His Creation.
That is, the parents are the ones who brought the child into the world, and at great sacrifice protect and provide for that child…
…therefore the child should obey their parents.
Additionally, it should be self evident that parents by their age and experience know more about life and godliness than their children.
Ex. Monitoring and choosing your child’s friends
Can’t tell you how many times we had to limit one of our children’s contact with some latest friend they’d met at school.
We could discern that there was something fishy about the new friend even though our kids couldn’t see it.
At first they gave us grief about us butting into their lives but over time they came to see that we were better equipped at discerning people than they were.
So, children should obey their parents because it’s the right thing to do!
2) Obedience is commanded
Additionally children are to obey their parents because God commanded it!
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.” ~ Exo. 20:12
Honor means more than obedience, it means that a child is to demonstrate love and respect for their parents by living in such a way that they put their parents in a good light.
Not only in their presence, but also when their parents aren’t around!
That is a child should conduct themselves in such a way that brings honor rather than dishonor to their parents.
Ex. The sons of Jacob
Joseph, throughout his life in good times and bad always acted with integrity and thereby brought honor to his father.
But not all of Jacob’s sons honored their father.
Rueben slept with his father’s concubine.
Levi and Simeon murdered innocent men.
At his death Jacob blessed Joseph for his faithful obedience and cursed Rueben, Levi and Simeon for dishonoring their father.
So, children should obey their parents because God said so.
3) Obedience brings blessing
Perhaps the greatest motivation for obeying one’s parents is that God promises to bless those who do!
Eph. 6:2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise:
Eph. 6:3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
Paul is quoting from both Exodus and Deuteronomy, but he changes one word to expand the blessing beyond the scope of the Jewish people.
The promise in both Exodus and Deuteronomy is that…
“you may live long in the land.”
Notice that Paul change it to…
“you may live long on the earth.”
The point is that the promise of God is to all of God’s children, Jew and Gentile alike who have come to faith in Jesus.
So, those who honor their parents will enjoy God’s blessings.
Having said that it is also important to mention that this isn’t a magical formula that protects good and obedient children from the consequences of living in a Fallen world.
Ex. Children with cancer
We probably all know of some precious child whose life was cut short by cancer or some other serious disease.
It would be a wrong interpretation of Scripture to say that that child suffered and died because they were disobedient to the parents.
Rather, what God gives us in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and here in Ephesians is a general principle of how life works.
That is, when children obey their parents in the Lord they will escape a good deal of sin and danger in life and thereby avoid things that could shorten their life.
On the other hand kids who disobey their parents will find themselves involved in activities and in places that are dangerous and often end up dead at an early age.
Paul’s instructions to kids here really echoes a principle we see all through the Bible, that is…
…sin always robs us, obedience always enriches us.
Ap. Modeling relationship with God
One other point that I’ve observed in parent-child relationships is by learning to obey their parents whom they can see…
…prepares them for obedience to the heavenly Father whom they cannot see!
Harmony with your children (vs. 4)
Eph. 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
√ Harmony with your children
Paul addresses fathers specifically rather that both parents because the father has the primary responsibility for the well being of the family.
Guys that’s an important point because too many men think that it’s the wife’s job alone to raise the kids.
In one sense that’s true because stay-at-home moms have more contact with the children.
However, it’s the husband’s job to oversee and manage the family and that includes developing the spiritual lives of your children by teaching and example.
It also means that you need to discipline your children when they sin.
If you don’t take an active role in raising your kids you’re going to have trouble!
Ex. David
For all his good qualities David was a terrible father!
He set a poor example for his kids.
When his son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar David didn’t deal with it.
So Tamar’s brother Absalom took matters into his own hands and murdered Amnon.
Then David pampered Absalom rather than deal with him which produced tragic results for the entire nation.
So, it’s vitally important that father’s pay attention to Paul’s godly and practical instruction for creating and maintaining harmony with their children.
Don’t provoke them
Paul writes…
“And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath” ~ vs. 4
Paul begins with a “don’t” rather than a “do” probably because so many fathers fail in this area.
So, he tells fathers not to do or say things that would harden the hearts of their children.
For example…
Don’t place unreasonable demands upon them.
Don’t establish petty rules for them to follow.
Don’t show favoritism.
Don’t blame them but never praise them.
Don’t be inconsistent or unfair in discipline.
Don’t make promises and not keep them.
Don’t ignore them and not take an interest in their lives.
What should we do? In a parallel scripture Paul writes…
“Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” ~ Col. 3:20
If provoking our children discourages them then I’d suggest that the opposite of provoking is encouraging.
Dads, we live in a pretty scary world.
Most kids grow up with a lot of insecurity and fear.
They need our encouragement on a regular basis to build them up so that they can face the world with confidence.
What that means is that we need to look for opportunities to…
Praise them when they do the right things!
Make spending time with them a priority in your life.
Make it to their games, concerts and plays.
Speak well of them to others.
Play with them!
Make sure they know that they’re more important to you than your job, hobby, and other people (except your wife!).
Obviously there’s a balance here, after all you do have to go to work, fix the car, and take your wife on dates…
…but the point is that as a father you need to actively pursue ways to encourage your children.
Ex. Lunch at school, daddy~daughter dates, model airplanes
Nurture them
The verb in vs. 4 translated “bring them up” is the same word translated “nourishes” in Eph. 5:29.
The Christian husband is to “nourish” his wife and children by sharing his love with them and by encouraging them.
That is, our job has fathers isn’t just to “bring home the bacon” and thereby meet the physical needs of our children…
…we’re also to nurture them emotionally and spiritually.
We do that by spending time with them.
Building good and happy memories with them.
Teaching them the Word of God and then living it before their eyes.
Remember, great Sunday school classes can never be a substitute for what you should be teaching your kids everyday in your home!
Ap. Family devotions and prayer
Start a family prayer journal and keep track of how God answers your prayers.
Discipline them
Paul’s third instruction to father’s is that we are to train, or discipline our children…
“but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” ~ vs. 4b
The word in the Greek is used for instruction by both positive and negative reinforcement.
That is, through constructive praise and corrective discipline.
We’ve already talked about the how we should encourage our children so let’s talk about how to apply corrective discipline.
Now I recognize that modern psychology and popular culture have labeled corrective discipline a bad thing and point to abuses such as…
Nuns beating students’ hands with a ruler until they bleed.
Abusive men pounding a child with his fists.
Locking children in a closet.
But that’s not what God is talking about.
Rather, the Biblical instruction for corrective discipline incorporates carefully controlled and administered spanking.
Yep, I said the word – “spanking”! Hey it’s Biblical!
Prov. 23:13 Do not withhold correction from a child,
For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.
Prov. 23:14 You shall beat him with a rod,
And deliver his soul from hell.
The KJV and NKJV translation sounds harsher than the original language intended. The NLT more correctly captures God’s instruction to parents…
Prov. 23:13 Don’t fail to correct your children. They won’t die if you spank them.
Prov. 23:14 Physical discipline may well save them from death.
The reason that spanking is effective, and Biblical is that children are born with a sin nature and there are children who do not respond to…
Time outs
Reasonable arguments for not sinning
Writing “I will not sin” a hundred times
Rather, our propensity to sin will only surrender when confronted with uncomfortable consequences…
Prov. 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child;
The rod of correction will drive it far from him.
“Foolishness” isn’t being silly and having fun…
…it’s a reference to our sin nature and unholy desire to rebel against God.
Ex. Sean riding his bike into the street
Spanking is the only thing that cured him of disobeying, and kept him from being killed by a passing car.
He needed to learn that willful disobedience brings painful consequences.
He needed to learn that we cared enough about him that we were not going to let him do whatever he wanted to do.
As much as I hated spanking him I’d glad that I did because as I look at my peers and compare our kids today with those who did not use spanking there is a vast difference!
All our kids are walking with the Lord.
All our kids are in college and leading productive lives.
All our kids love to be with us and bring their friends to our home.
In fact I invite you to talk to our kids, they’re all adults now, ask them about how they were disciplined and what they think about it.
Lastly, all of our kids need to learn that God will discipline them for their disobedience so it’s best to learn to obey now and avoid the serious consequences of sin.
Ex. God disciplines us!
Deut. 8:5 You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.
And…
Heb. 12:6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”
“Scourges” ~ yep, that’s a spanking!
The reality is that when God’s grace does bring about repentance in our lives then He will allow painful consequences into our lives to train us not to sin.
Not because He hates us, but because He loves us and doesn’t want us to be destroyed by our sin.
Ap. Parameters for spanking
Spanking doesn’t mean abuse, rather, it should only be used when…
A child willfully disobeys.
You’re not angry with them.
You’ve explained why the child deserves a spanking and they understand what they’ve done to deserve it.
After the spanking you want the child to express repentance and then you express forgiveness, hug them, kiss them and forget their disobedience.
Ex. “Spanking ~ a loving discipline” by Roy Lessin
So, dad’s it’s your responsibility to discipline your children. Don’t leave it to your wife.
4) Teach them
Paul’s last instruction to fathers is to teach their children…
“And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” ~ vs. 4
That’s “admonition” not “abomination”! The word admonition means…
“To teach, instruct, call attention to”
The distinction here from his previous instructions is that he’s reminding fathers that they are to use words to teach their children!
That is, the proper raising of a child involves more than just activity…
…parents, and here specifically fathers, are to teach their children by verbal communication.
For example, the Proverbs are the inspired words of a father to teach his children how to live…
How to please God
How to avoid sin
How to prioritize life
How to prosper in life
In the same way we as parents must invest time speaking to our children and sharing with them the wisdom that they’ll need to succeed in life.
Ap. Don’t leave it to the schools!
It is your responsibility as a father to impart a Christian worldview into your child’s heart and mind.
If you don’t then they’re going to be easy prey for the godless humanistic worldview promoted in our public schools.
Your kids need to know that God is real, that He loves, and that He created us with a purpose and plan.
So speak to your kids about God, teach them what the Bible says, and then live it before their eyes and they’ll grow to be men and woman of God.
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√ Harmony in your family