God’s Expectations for Parents

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Transcript:

Well, turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. If I haven’t made it clear before, I’d like to state outright that I believe our families are under attack in today’s world.

There appears to me to be a concerted effort to undermine our families, to undermine our marriages, our relationships with our children. It seems like it comes from every corner. The world wants to keep members of the family, wants to keep men and women and children, I think, intoxicated on the things of this world, whether it’s drugs, whether it’s alcohol, whether it’s pornography, whether it’s money, whether it’s media even.

The world seems intent on keeping our families so intoxicated on the things of this world that we can’t relate to one another and we can’t hear the call of God’s Word calling us to something better. Make no mistake, there is an attack on our families. And that’s why it’s imperative that we as the church, We as the church not only stand for biblical values when it comes to the family, that we stand for traditional marriage, we stand for the primacy of parents and the raising of their children, that we stand for these things, but also that we practice them in our own homes.

And whether we have children at home or not, whether we’re married or not, that we practice biblical values and that we encourage those around us to live by what God says is best for our families. Is it the easy way? No.

It would be so much easier if we just slacked off and let other people raise our children. We just slacked off and ignored our spouse, but it’s not God’s best for us. And as I shared with you last week, when we talked about God’s expectations for children, I shared with you some stories out of Washington State about the way there are some government agencies that were taking away children for just ridiculous reasons, and this started back in 1980.

It probably went on before that, but the first case I told you about last week was in 1980, and it’s only gotten worse. We’re rapidly approaching a point where society, they will kind of whisper it in our kids’ ears at this point, but we’re fast approaching a point in which society wants to shout it at our children that the parents are irrelevant, that the parents don’t matter. You don’t have to do what your parents say.

And we’re approaching a point where society is increasingly telling us, well, you really don’t have to do that for your children. You really don’t have to teach them this. You don’t have to teach them that.

They’ll be all right. Folks, if we don’t teach our kids the right thing, they’re not going to learn it elsewhere. Ladies and gentlemen, as much as the church is here to help with our families, we cannot raise godly children.

The church cannot raise godly children in three hours a week. I’m sorry. We just can’t.

The public schools will not raise godly children. Government agencies will not raise godly children. The media will not raise godly children.

And yet we’re continuously told that the parents need to just take a back seat and be quiet. Now, I’ve told you all before, I’ve been political since even before I could vote. Okay?

And so having Benjamin is not an excuse for it. But I got even more political, it seems like. I got even more passionate about certain things when he was born, or really when we were expecting our first child even, because I began to think about the kind of world that he would inherit from us.

And already Christian and I have told each other, one of these days, we’re going to have to apologize to Benjamin and our other kids about the state of the world that we brought them into. But I’ve read, I’ve kept up with issues, and especially as it relates to parenting, for the last few years, even before I was a parent. And I’ve been amazed at some things that have gone on.

Now, as I told you, the effort to undermine our families and undermine parents and things is coming from all corners. It’s coming from the media. It’s coming from everywhere else.

But the things I’m going to tell you about this morning come from the courts and the public school system. Again, not to say they’re the only ones involved, but I couldn’t believe these things when I read them and reading them again this week, I still couldn’t believe them. There was a case, I won’t go into all the particulars, but there was a case in Massachusetts in 2007 where in kindergarten and first grade, children were being taught sex education in the public schools.

Kindergarten and first grade, if you didn’t catch that, let me repeat it. One parent had the crazy outdated notion that somehow that was inappropriate and didn’t want his son involved in that and went up to the school and said, I’m not leaving until I speak to somebody about this. They had the man arrested for trespassing.

The district court for Massachusetts, I believe it was the U. S. District Court, federal court, said that the parents, their rights in as far as what their child was taught, that parents’ rights were limited to determining what school they go to, and beyond that, they’ve made their decision, and now they have to deal with it.

And the case was appealed, went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court declined to hear it, which means that became precedent for the rest of the country. They basically let the decision stand that parents have no role in what their children are taught other than to determine what school they go to.

I thought that was incredible. There was a case that, excuse me, there was a case that I read about back in 2005 when I was just in college, didn’t have kids. I think I had met Christian at that point, but we weren’t even dating yet.

And this still made me want to shoot blood out of my eyes. Have any of y’all ever felt that way? Some of you have.

There was a case in which young children in an elementary school were given questionnaires of, let’s just say, there are kids in here, let’s just say of an inappropriate nature, about their feelings and their knowledge on things that kids in high school shouldn’t even know about, let alone kids in elementary school. Parents complained about this, and the case went all the way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals out in California, arguably the most liberal court in our country. They were told that they had no right to question what was taught to their children of an explicit sexual nature.

They had no right to question what was taught. Some quotes from the actual court decision said, in some we affirm that the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children does not exist beyond the threshold of the school door. That’s not some activist group.

That’s the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Parents have no constitutional right to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise, when and as the school determines it is appropriate to do so. We conclude that the parents are possessed of no constitutional right to prevent the public schools from providing information on that subject to their students in any form or any manner they select.

So parents have absolutely no rights in the upbringing of their kids as far as the school is involved. And I remember reading this back in 2005, and like I said, blood pressure shot way up. didn’t have kids, and I thought, one day I’m going to have kids, and you’re telling me that from the hours of eight to three, they don’t belong to me?

That doesn’t seem to be the way my father raised me. He’d go into the principal’s office if he didn’t agree with something that was being taught, and he’d just deal with it, and I guess I inherited his hot-headed streak. But these are people that, folks, these are not just far-left activist groups.

These are people that sit on the federal benches in our country making law, should be interpreting law, but making law about what rights we have with our children and saying basically the parents need to sit down, be quiet, and shut up. I don’t think they’re qualified to work in the food court, let alone the federal court. And then there was a case even earlier than that, and I won’t read the name to you of the case because I find even the name of the case explicit, but they said in a similar case, the Supreme Court has yet to decide whether the right to direct the upbringing and education of one’s children is among those fundamental rights whose infringement merits heightened security.

What that means is this court, it’s another court in Massachusetts, said that the Supreme Court has not yet determined whether or not parents have the utmost right in determining what their children are taught. They haven’t decided yet, so that court couldn’t comment on the case at hand because the Supreme Court hadn’t said whether or not they have a right. Well, with all due or maybe more respect than is due, with all due respect to the federal courts, I’m going to side with the Supreme Court in heaven who said this in Ephesians chapter 6, Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.

Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. We read and studied into those three verses last week about God’s expectation for children. Then we move on to verse 4, and it says, And ye fathers, God doesn’t leave them out, doesn’t leave the parents out, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Now, he gives other instructions to parents throughout the Bible of the way they’re to raise the children. Throughout the Old Testament, there are references to teaching them God’s Word, and teach them to your children and to your children’s children. Let them know what God has done.

but folks, I believe all of the instructions that he gives to parents can be summed up in the principles of this verse, or at least most of them can. Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I like the way it’s phrased in Young’s literal translation.

If you don’t know what that is, it was produced back in the 1800s, I believe, by Robert Young, and it’s based off the same text as the King James Version. It’s probably the most literal translation out there, so much so that it’s not normally good for public reading. It’s more of a study Bible because it keeps the Greek word order, and in some verses it ends up sounding like the Yoda version of the Bible.

My wife would be proud that I now know who Yoda is. A few weeks ago I didn’t. Some of you all will know what I mean if I say the Yoda version of the Bible.

It’s just the words are out of order. But the way he translates this verse, and the fathers. And there’s an exclamation point.

In the Greek, there’s almost an excitement behind the words because he’s been talking about the children and then, ah, I better not forget the fathers. And over here he turns and says, by the way, you fathers, provoke not your children, but nourish them in the instruction and admonition of the Lord. Some of the same words in there, but I love the passion and the intensity behind it.

We better not forget the fathers. Here’s your instruction. Don’t provoke your children, but nourish them in the instruction and admonition of the Lord.

Now, we can learn from this verse some good principles when it comes to raising children. Ladies and gentlemen, most of you in here this morning are parents. Now, your kids may be grown.

Your kids may be older than I am. That’s okay. Some of us in the room have children still at home.

Some are still raising adult children. Some of you have grandchildren and great-grandchildren that you have a hand in, an influence in raising. Some of you don’t have children yet, but may in the next few years.

These are principles that we all can learn, that we all can glean from. And even if you’ve never had children and don’t have any desire to ever have children, folks, we are still an influence on the children in this church. And we’re still called on to be a godly influence on generations behind us.

But he says, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. The first thing that we can learn from this passage is that God expects parents to treat our children with kindness. God expects parents to treat their children with kindness.

Now, that should go without saying, but there seems to me to be an awful lot of people who didn’t get that memo. Not saying they’re in this church, but there seemed to be an awful lot of people who didn’t get the memo that God expects parents to treat their children with kindness. I just caught a bit of the story last week, but it sounded to me like the director of the DHS in Oklahoma was made to resign because of so many cases of death from child abuse that had been mishandled by the department.

Now, I know when we lived over there, that was just constantly in the news that parents, they were already watching who had a history of abusing their kids. They were not doing their job. They were not watching.

And these parents were ending up killing these kids. And from what I understand, the director of the agency was made to resign over it, finally. Now, I’m not talking about him.

But the fact that we need an agency to police child abuse, the fact that we need an entire state bureaucracy to deal with that tells me that a lot of parents did not get the message, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. That doesn’t mean we don’t punish them when they’re bad. That doesn’t mean we don’t discipline them.

That doesn’t mean that sometimes we don’t make the hard calls and do things that they don’t like. I can’t even imagine what my house would look like if I let Benjamin do everything he wanted. Some of you all have, he’s not to teenage years yet, some of you all think back to if you had let your teenagers run amok and do whatever they wanted.

God is not telling us here that we can’t discipline our children or that we shouldn’t make the hard calls. Folks, as a parent, that’s your job is to make the hard calls because they’re littler than you and they’re inexperienced and they don’t know the dangers and they don’t know the consequences of actions yet. That’s why we teach them.

But we do so in a loving way. We do so in a kind way. See, there was this paradigm in the Roman world that I mentioned last week where fathers could kill their children even after they were born.

Folks, we think it’s bad. We think it’s bad today that we have court-mandated legalized abortion throughout this country, and it is bad. Believe me, it is.

It goes against the Bible and the natural rights that we have endowed by our Creator. However, as bad as it is, in the Roman world, it was worse that they could kill their children up until the time that they were no longer under their parents’ rule. And as I read more, it appears that somebody was under their father’s rule until the day their father died.

Now, I don’t know if that means he could execute his kids when they were in their 50s if they talked back, but I had a professor at the University of Oklahoma who advocated that people should be able to kill their children for disobedience or for any reason that he deemed fit up to the age of 18. The man was serious. He got it from a lecturer of his at Princeton who’s written books on the subject.

Folks, it was a cruel world they lived in, this Roman world, where parents, yes, they discipline their children just like we’re told to, just like in the Hebrew culture, but they were actually allowed to kill their children when and if they saw fit. They were able to beat them. Folks, we are not expected to be cruel dictators over our children.

We’re expected to discipline them, but in a loving way. God commands us here to treat our children with kindness. When Paul writes, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

I’ve been told by people who’ve been parents a lot longer than I have that it’s not rules and it’s not punishment that children react negatively to. but a lack of fairness, coming down on them too harshly, when the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, things like that. We see all around us parents that, as though I know so well, as though I’m so experienced, I’ve always said, even before I had kids, that the problem with children today is that some parents beat their children too much and some other parents don’t beat their children enough.

I still stand by that. Some people don’t, I don’t literally mean beat, but some people beat their children, don’t treat their children with kindness, and some others don’t discipline their children. And either extreme doesn’t work.

Either extreme is not what the Bible calls for. We’re told in the latter part of this verse to discipline our children, but we’re told in the beginning of this verse to treat them with kindness. Do not provoke your children to wrath.

Now, sometimes we’re going to do things that upset our kids. Sometimes I do things that upset Benjamin. Folks, if we’re out of line, we apologize.

If we’re out of line, we make things right as we’re supposed to. We don’t just keep adding on to it. But a pattern of cruelty in the way we deal with our children will produce the opposite result of what we’re going for.

A pattern of cruelty, whether it’s physical abuse, whether it’s mental abuse, whether it’s whatever it is, instead of bringing up disciplined kids who follow what we want them to do, who live by our values, who hold the same faith that we do, all of these things that we want for our children, it will produce the opposite result because they will rebel against us. And folks, Paul was smart enough to know this. Of course, it helped that he was being inspired by the Holy Spirit when he wrote.

But Paul was smart enough to know this. We’re not to provoke our children to wrath. Now, does that mean we’re supposed to be their best friends?

No. Our kids have enough friends. Our grandkids have enough friends.

What they need are parents. What they need are parents. Benjamin will get to a point where he has friends.

Madeline, when she’s older and out of the womb, she will get to a point where she has friends. And you know what? Those friends will come and go.

they’ll leave from their lives and they’ll replace them with new ones. But I’m the only father they have. Christian is the only mother that they have.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your kids, you are the only parents that they have, and you’re irreplaceable. They can find other friends. We’re not called to be our kids’ friends.

We’re called to treat them with kindness, but that doesn’t mean that we step back from doing our job as parents and just, whatever you want, honey. God expects parents to treat their children with kindness. But God also expects, second of all, God expects parents to help their children grow.

God expects parents to help their children grow. I remember being, almost from the minute Benjamin was born, I remember being struck with the thought that my job is to get him ready for life, is to get him ready to be a godly man. See, it’s easy, it would be so easy to think my job is just to feed him and change him and then get it, whatever else, and get him out of the house when he’s 18.

But then I’d probably raise an 18-year-old baby who was no good to anybody. No, my job is to for life. Parents, your job, your God-given job is to grow your children, to help your children grow.

He says to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. As I said earlier, Young’s translation renders that nourish them in the instruction and admonition of the Lord. Whether we’re talking about bringing them up, whether we’re talking about nourishing them, or we’re talking about the nurture of the Lord, folks, there’s an element in there of helping them to grow.

We know what it means to nurture someone, to nourish them, and he’s not just talking about physical food. I haven’t done as well lately as I should have, but I have a garden that I’ve planted that I really like. It’s strange, not the attraction, that’s the wrong word.

The attachment you develop to your plants when you’ve cultivated the ground and you’ve grown them, you’ve watered them from a tiny seed, now you’ve got these plants. It’s nothing like the attachment to children, but there’s an attachment there. I like my plants and I don’t want anything bad to happen to them.

To nurture those plants, I need to go out there and pull the weeds. I need to go out there and water. I need to go out there sometimes and give them fertilizer, give them miracle grow or whatever.

I need to till the soil around them a little bit. All of that goes into nurturing these plants so that they grow from the tiny little seedlings into the big things that produce the food that I can eat. I think that’s why I develop an attachment to my plants is because I like what they give me back.

I like the vegetables. But folks, it’s the same kind of idea with nourishing our children, with nurturing our children. It’s a very hands-on idea of pulling the weeds, of watering them, of tending to them.

One of my goals for my children is that they come to know Christ and that they come to know Him at an early age. Now, anything can happen, but they are more likely for that to be the case if I start from an early age talking to them about the things of God, cultivating the Word of God in their lives. And folks, this idea of growing our children is not limited just to spiritual matters, although that is a vital component of it.

Let us not be so worried about preparing them for monetary success and job security and a good marriage and neglect the fact that they are spiritual beings and that we must cultivate the Word of God in their lives and help them to grow up, not just to be self-sufficient, not just to be contributing members of society, but to be godly men and women. We have a responsibility to grow our children. That means being involved with them.

That means teaching them. That means sometimes pulling the weeds in their lives. They’re not going to like that.

But it means basically tending to them, nourishing them, and helping them to grow strong in the Lord and strong as men and women as we prepare them for life as godly men and women. God expects parents to treat their children with kindness. God expects parents to help their children grow.

And finally this morning, God expects parents to instruct and discipline their children. We’re not just to bring them up in the nurture, but also in the admonition of the Lord. That comes from the word admonish, which is one of the many words used in the Bible that if we were making an Arkansas or Oklahoma translation of the Bible, we’d say get on to them.

There are going to be times that we have to instruct our kids. See, I think of the growing part as more of the fun part. I get to teach them things, and I get to show them things.

The instruction, the admonition part is sometimes the less fun part, when there are lessons that need to be taught. There are things that need to be learned. There are things that need to be disciplined, but we’re taught to bring up our children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.

And folks, as a parent, and sometimes as a grandparent, depending on the influence you have with your children, I believe God expects us to bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. We have a responsibility to instruct them. When we see them going down the wrong path, we have a responsibility to instruct them and say, honey, that’s going to hurt you.

That’s the wrong way to go. They’re not always going to like that. I was a Christian as a teenager, and my parents didn’t have to, my parents didn’t have to get on to me a lot.

You can ask my mother next time she’s here. I’m not just making it up. I was pretty well behaved.

But there were a few times they had to say, this is not the right direction. You know what? I didn’t like that.

Part of the reason I didn’t like it is because I knew they were right. And after a few hours, I’d say, yeah, they were right and go along with it. But they had a responsibility to instruct me, to discipline me, to admonish me, as Paul says here.

And parents, that’s where we fall short when we try to be their best friend. Our kids should love us and we should love them and we should enjoy spending time together. that they have enough friends.

It’s our responsibility as parents to instruct and discipline them, not only to grow them up, not only to build them up, but to also point them in the right direction so that they’ll lead godly lives. And finally, I don’t have this in my notes this morning, but God expects us to do all of this in a way that points them to the Lord. As I said before, we have a responsibility to grow them up and prepare them to be adults, and we have a responsibility to point them in the right direction, but grow them up to what kind of adults and point them in what right direction?

He says here in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Not the nurture and admonition of the world, because what the world sees as the ideal for our children, as we’ve already talked about from these court cases, what the world sees as the ideal result for our children is not necessarily in line with what God sees as the ideal result. I shouldn’t even say not necessarily.

It isn’t. Even the benign things like saying that we want them to be successful, we want them to be wealthy. We want them to have a good home and good job.

Folks, that’s not necessarily God’s ideal for them. I’m not saying God has anything against wealth or success. But God is far more concerned with our holiness than with our happiness.

Far more concerned. When it comes to our children, we need to be concerned about their holiness as well as their happiness. Ladies and gentlemen, our children will not grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord on their own.

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