Walk Worthy in Your Family Part 2

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, 1-4.

Let's listen now to Walk Worthy in Your Family. This is part two of the message first preached on December 3, 2017. 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? It's my way or else. Proverbs 29, 11 says, the fool vents all his feelings.

What is that? That's the disposition of outrage. In other words, here's the problem.

Here's the problem. Parents can bring up their children in the sense of not knowing how to handle circumstances if it's not what I want. But that's life, isn't it? That's life. Did you know that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it? You need to learn that. You need to learn that. And children need to grow up understanding that things are going to happen in their lives that they don't want to have happen.

How do you respond to that? This is so key that they are brought up in the training and instruction of the Lord because life isn't about them. How do parents provoke children to wrath?

Three things I want you to consider this morning. Number one, they learn by illustration. When dad comes home and punches a hole in the wall, right, I will have my way. Whether he does something in public or he does something at home, dad shows outrage and he vents himself with anger and fury and yelling. Dads, do you yell at your children? Is the only time your children obey is when they you reach that pitch in your voice or that volume in your voice that they know you know he really means what he says.

So children can learn by illustration. You know, it was funny last week when we talked about the marriage, walking worthy in the marriage situation, several people came up to me afterwards and said, you know, as you were saying all those things, Rich, it's so easy to think about, boy, this other person really needed to hear that. So if you're looking for illustration in this sermon today, just think about other people who need to hear that.

Right. And then let the Holy Spirit work in your heart and mind, because every one of us needs to hear this. The flesh demands, the flesh has very powerful appetites and it demands satisfaction. And that is why the only way you cannot fulfill the lust of the flesh is to walk in the Spirit.

And every one of us needs to work on these things. Children can be provoked to wrath through learning by illustration if they see mom and dad losing control over circumstances or situations that are not favorable to them. Secondly, provoking children to anger, that disposition of anger and fury, you can incite it through frustration. Fathers, if you demand that your children grow up in your image, you like this, you favor this, you value this, you do this kind of work, and you just, by default, expect that your children will do the same thing. And it might not be their disposition, it might not be their bent. Maybe you grew up blue collar and your son is growing up with a bent towards being white collar or academic.

That's okay. One of the most powerful moments in my life that I will never forget is when I was 14. My dad was a missionary and a pastor. He was a pastor in New Jersey.

We'd returned from the mission field. And you know, you grow up in a pastor's family, you kind of get, as a boy, you kind of get the sense, you know, you kind of need to follow in dad's footsteps. And everybody else kind of has that unspoken expectation.

And you know, you grow up in a pastor's family, unspoken expectation there, right? When I was 14, you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to join the Marine Corps.

I heard a snicker. I had a full-size poster of a private first class in his dress blues. I was totally impressed. I wanted to be that. So I went and I told my dad, I want to be a Marine. And my dad said, son, if you become a Marine, I will be very proud of you. That wasn't what I was expecting.

I have never forgotten that. He didn't expect me to grow up in his image. He was nurturing a different image in me. But we can incite our children to anger through frustration. When parents become overbearing, when they ridicule, you know, when you feed your children ridicule, the children will make foolish mistakes. And when you ridicule them for their mistakes, those are recorded messages in their minds.

And those messages stay there. And they are hard to overcome for children. And you can be overbearing in the sense that your child feels like they need to earn your love.

No, they don't. I actually heard a father say that one time about his son. I was in their home visiting them and the son was acting out and the father said, quote, he has to earn my love. I sensed outrage against this self-righteous dad who was provoking anger in his son.

To incite anger through frustration also comes through withdrawal. A parent, a father's withdrawal, absenteeism in a father. The father is there, but he's just not interested in investing anything, spending any time with his kids, not interested in what they do. He just does his own thing.

Or he just disappears altogether, runs away from responsibility. Gentlemen, do you know that you provoke anger in your children when you do this? Here's a third way to provoke anger in your children. Number three, follow the world's instruction. Follow the world's indoctrination.

The world's indoctrination is me first. It's giving your children overindulgence. It's to protect them from all risk or consequence.

This is commonly what we call today a helicopter parent. You damage your children when you do this, when you protect them from all risk or consequence. What you are doing when you do this is you are feeding self- preeminence. You are affirming in their mind that they are the greatest and most important reality, and you are there to just protect them from everything, from every risk, from every consequence. And when you protect your children from the consequences of their bad choices, you are feeding self-preeminence. And following the world's indoctrination includes an absence of loving boundaries. I want to show you a grid here, and this is something that is done by a study. And I learned this all the way back in the 80s when I worked at WHPE in High Point, and I had to interview community leaders.

And one interview that I had was with a professor from UNC Greensboro. And it was about the relationship between adults and youth in the community. And she says it comes back to the family, it comes back to the parents. And he says you've got several, you've got four different models of parenting, generally speaking four different models, and it's a combination of love and boundaries. And you can have on the love side, because if you think you love your child but you've not given them any boundaries, that's not love. But if you say, if you think love is just the affection part, and you want your child to like you and to be your friend, you are damaging your child. You are not their friend, you are their parent.

They don't need you to be their friend, they need you to be their parent. And when there's all love and there are no boundaries, it's kind of like growing a garden and then you don't ever bother weeding it. And you don't put a fence around it, you let anything come in and chew on it, and you don't weed it. That's all love and that's no boundaries, and it is destructive. And then you can go to the other extreme where there is all boundaries and no love, and that's overbearing. And all love and no boundaries is overindulgence. No love and all boundaries is overbearing.

And this produces bitterness, as does the other. If there is no love and if there's all love and no boundaries, that produces bitterness in a child. But if there is no love and all boundaries, that equally produces bitterness in a child. Because a parent, a father, a particular would just come down with a hammer, you must do this because I say so, period.

And there's no other reason. And there's no love, there's no care, there's no nurturing there, there's no cherishing there. That produces bitterness in a child. The one other model is where there are no love and no boundaries.

That is just an absent parent. No love and no boundaries. And we know that clearly all three of these will produce bitterness in a child. They will produce resentment in a child. Now these are, listen, these are studies that have come from the UNC Greensboro. But when I got done with that interview, what, 30 years ago now, I told her, I says, listen, these are principles that are 3,000 years old.

And science has discovered it. You want to not provoke your children to wrath? You want to not provoke your children to wrath? Then you need to give them loving boundaries. There needs to be boundaries. Your children desperately need and desire boundaries, but they need to be loving boundaries. And that's what God's law is. It is loving boundaries. And so he says, fathers, don't provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. There's four different parts here.

Bring them up. The word bring them up means, is the word extrafo means to nourish them up to maturity. And I want you to think athletically here. Think athletically. Think in terms of fine arts, the whole idea of discipline. If when you hear the word discipline, the first thing you think of is spanking your child, you need to rearrange your paradigm.

Okay? Because the word is paideia, and it means training, instruction, correction. And yes, it does include punishment because there is punishment, which means the proper recourse against errant behavior. And a children needs to know that.

But that's not where you begin. So discipline, the word paideia, think of athletics, think of fine arts. You are honing the craft of living successfully. You are honing the craft of knowing God and walking with him and introducing them to one who is the greatest and most important reality. This requires discipline.

So think of an athlete or someone learning the fine arts. 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.