Walk Worthy in Your Family Part 1

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. As we experience inward heart change through the redemptive work of Christ, that change will flow out into our relationships with others. Our family units begin to reflect God's love. Today Rich examines gospel living between parents and their children from Ephesians 6, 1 through 4.

Let's listen now to Walk Worthy in Your Family. Turn with me in your copy of the scriptures now to Ephesians 6. We are making progress, we're in the last chapter of Ephesians now, as the Lord has lavished upon us the riches of His grace. And this time, Ephesians 6, verses 1 through 4, Walk Worthy in the Family. It is a continuing thought of walking worthy in the Lord, which is manifested in mutual submission in marriage, in family, and at work. Husbands are to submit with sacrificial love. And as a result of that loving, sacrificial, self-giving love, the wife is called to willingly, freely, respectfully yield to the leadership of the husband. And children then, as we see today, are called to obey. Now, as the wife is called to freely and willingly yield, children are not called to willingly, freely obey.

You understand the difference, right? They are just simply called to obey. I often question when I hear parents give their children a directive and then they say please. Did you know please is short for if you please? So, when a parent says, come here, if you please, you're confusing the child.

Just no extra charge for that. Parents, invest in your children as a trust from God. And that's what I want you to understand this morning. Now, some of you here say, yeah, my children are all grown up. Now it's time for grandkids, right? And, you know, this is four verses and people say, you know, you got kids, there's no manual that comes with kids. Yes, there is. Right here. Right here. But not only that, it's not just this sermon.

I hope you take some notes today for those of you who might be having kids someday or have young kids now, or you have grown kids and you look back and say, where do we go? No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But, you know, we do have in this church a whole university focused on this topic today.

All right. So, and many of you are going through that. But this is a huge, you know, the day-to-day task of walking worthy of God and it is the role of parents to instill in their children.

That skill that comes from the heart of walking with God and walking worthy of his gospel. And so this is why he says, beginning of chapter six, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Children obey.

Now, let's break this down phrase by phrase. Children obey your parents, right? That is in the context of authority, roles, order. What children need to do is develop a proper disposition toward authority. And listen, that doesn't come by default, does it?

It doesn't come by default. It is up to the parents to develop the proper disposition toward authority in their children. And it starts with helping your children understand that you, the child, you are not the greatest and most important reality because, you know, the child is born thinking that. That is the default way of thinking for a child.

I am the greatest and most important reality. And the real tragedy is when a child grows up into adulthood and they're still thinking that. You see, the gospel rescues us from that.

They are not the greatest and most important reality and life does not revolve around them. This is why the command is given, children obey your parents. And then it says, children obey your parents in the Lord, in the Lord. That is so key, in the Lord.

In other words, to discover his loving boundaries and his good purpose. A parallel passage to this in Colossians 3-20 says, this pleases the Lord. Children obey your parents for this pleases the Lord. What this also gives us is due limitation of obedience because if parents are commanding their children to do something that displeases the Lord, that is against his will, then children who are capable of obeying the Lord and understanding the will of the Lord need to understand that their highest authority is in the Lord himself. Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right, he says. Right meaning proper. It is the proper order in God's design.

There is a design and every one of us is under this design and plan and we are submitted to it. In saying this, the apostle then appeals to instructions that were given long ago and those instructions were given for our good. For our good. He quotes Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy, Exodus and Deuteronomy as Deuteronomy gives the second law and he says in what we have here in verses 2 and 3 is a quote from the Old Testament law.

Honor your father and mother and then he adds an insert. This is the first commandment with a promise and then he continues the quote that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Understand that these laws, these commands were given, as it says numerous times, for our good.

This is God's good purpose. These are his loving parameters and what is the promise that he says that it may go well with you? That means a life well lived. A proper disposition toward authority is a fundamental factor in a successful life.

A proper disposition toward authority. Part of our submission to God is a proper disposition towards God-ordained authority. And then he says that you may live long in the land.

Of course this given under the Mosaic law in the context of the children of Israel going to the promised land. So what is his promise here? It is a promise of longevity. If there is the proper disposition toward authority that begins with children in the home. He says what you're doing when that proper disposition toward authority is developed then what you are doing is guarding against internal breakdown and dissolution of the society. That's what his promise is.

Longevity in the land. So children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. And then he comes to verse 4. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. So how do we provoke our children to anger? So he's spoken to the children.

This is common through here. He speaks to the subordinate and then to the superior in this, in all of these. And when we continue with the Ephesians text of sometime in January because after this we're going to do an exposition for Matthew chapter 1 for the Christmas season. In verse 5 he begins with bondservants but here fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Here's the context in which Paul was writing this. Fathers of that day. A father had sovereign absolute power in his family. Sovereign absolute power over his wife. This is in the Roman context, okay, of the Roman culture of the order of the day. And remember he's writing to Ephesians.

So these are Gentiles under Roman and Greco-Roman culture. And fathers had sovereign absolute power and so they controlled others by force and by fear. That was pretty much how fathers ruled their families. And you can imagine growing up in that system, a father who would control others by force and by fear, that is abuse. And we know that abuse breeds abuse.

And so that is this was becoming a, this was a very common part of the culture. And men do have a default sense of being powerful and controlling by force. And so it says provoke not your children to wrath. And the word provoke means to aggravate, to incite.

In other words, if you provoke your children to wrath, you develop a disposition of anger and outrage in your children. We see a lot of outrage today, don't we? It's the number one emotion on social media, outrage.

We have a whole culture, a whole generation of people growing up with outrage. Christians, you need to stop being outraged. It is not a fruit of the Spirit. You don't see that listed in Galatians or Romans, do you? The fruit of the Spirit is outrage.

It's not there. But parents, parents can nurture a disposition of anger and outrage in their children. It is the opposite of the mutual submission of which he speaks in this context. James 1 20 says that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Indeed, we are called to be slow to anger. And so the word here provoke to anger is the is one Greek word parogizo. And the root of that is the word orge, which means anger or fury, to fume that sense of outrage.

And what is it? The root of it is self preeminence, that I am the greatest and most important reality. My rights are being violated. Something is happening the way I don't want it to I don't want it to happen. And then from that self preeminence comes a disposition of judgmentalism. Parents don't develop this in your children. In other words, you can develop the disposition of my way or else.

And that's the context in which we live today, isn't it? We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's Word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace weekdays at 10 a.m.