Children (Part 2 of 2)

There's no shortage of books available in this podcast. Obey your parents. So, when you undergo the discipline of correction, it is there to drive out faults so that you're able to come and say, I was sorry, I'm sorry, I was wrong, and I accept the consequences. But part of our obedience is not simply to the discipline that comes to us by way of correction, but it is the disciplines that comes by way of instruction. So the instruction is absolutely clear.

And secondly, the instruction is absolutely comprehensive, isn't it? Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. The third thing to notice is that this is in the context of the lordship of Jesus. The instruction is clear, it is comprehensive, but it is also within the context of the lordship of Jesus. Remember we said on the first night that ultimately the reason for the wife's submission, the submission of love to love, the submission of equals to one another, is an expression of her submission to Jesus as Lord. She says, Jesus is Lord, and therefore this is how she lives within the framework of the family. The husband says, Jesus is Lord, and this is therefore how he lives within that context. The child says, Jesus is Lord of my life, and this is how he or she then lives within the framework of the family. In other words, this little phrase brings child obedience specifically into the realm of Christian duty. It lays upon children the responsibility of obeying their parents because of their own personal relationship with Jesus. And it seems patently obvious that it is in the home primarily and not in the church where this lesson is to be learned.

It's always harder in the home. Because it's in the home where the instructions are given. I thought I asked you not to do that. Yes, I know, but I didn't like the idea. I didn't like the suggestion.

It wasn't a suggestion. Here's the framework. That's hard. All that I can do in this role is, if you, like, frame the discussion, frame the context. But it is within the home, it is within the framework of the warp and woof of interpersonal relationships that all of this is hammered out. The youth group can do so much. They can give instructions, they can provide videos, they can go on camps, they can reinforce this.

But it is within the home that this thing needs to be put together. The lesson is learned, ultimately, primarily there. So that's the obligation. It is clear, it is comprehensive, and it is within the context of the lordship of Jesus. Finally, what of the motivation?

Well, the motivation is, first of all, because it is right. Well, you say, it's not there in Colossians, no, but it is in Ephesians. So if you just turn once again back a couple of pages, Ephesians 6, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. This, of course, is a peculiar challenge, isn't it, in an environment in which nothing's wrong and nothing's right?

Where everything's on a sliding scale. Who's to say anything is right or anything is wrong? Anybody who introduces moral rectitude, anybody who says, This is the standard.

Someone says, Well, where did you get your standard? And that's why, you see, the distinctive nature of Christian living is increasingly countercultural. But the Bible has no such ambivalence. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Paul doesn't argue from the passing cultural norms of the first century.

That is one of the arguments that is always leveled against us. Oh yes, but Paul was in a patriarchal society. Paul was in a hierarchical society. And if he'd been in our contemporary society, he would have never said these things. Wrong!

Completely wrong! Because he argued the principle into the culture. He did not argue the principle from the culture. He argued from creation. He went back to Genesis, and he says, This is how God made it in the beginning. It is a creation ordinance, and that is why it is an abiding principle.

It may apply in different cultures and different ways, but the principle is never deviated from. Therefore, when he says, I want you to obey your parents because it's right, he's saying it is right because God says it's right. And he has written it down, and he's written it down in the Ten Commandments, and he has worked it out in the rest of the Scriptures. And he has provided the motivation for it not only in the law by nature but also in the supernatural element of Christian experience, and he has reinforced it by the instruction of the Bible. Now, that is why Jesus did what he did.

That's why I said what I said earlier. Why did he obey his parents? Because it was the right thing to do. You know, you'll save yourself, young people who are listening to me.

Trust me, I'm an old man now. You will save yourself a tremendous amount of heartache if you just do what is right. If you ask yourself, not what feels good, not what gets me out of this problem easiest, not what allows me to wiggle out of an obligation or responsibility, but what is the right thing to do? And in the answer to that question, you will be saved many, many, many sad nights. I guarantee you that any child who has been reared in the instruction of the Scriptures will, when the lights go on, when, having trained them in the way they should go, they finally settle on it, any child will honestly come and tell you, the stupidest, dumbest, biggest mistake I ever did was in just being disobedient to you, Dad. Everything flowed from that, because I learned to not look you in the eye and do what I wanted, and having failed to look you in the eye, I paid no attention to a Father in heaven who watches over me, loves me, and provides the instruction of his Word for my protection and for my correction and for my instruction and for my encouragement.

And if you doubt this, you need not stay even within the realm of Scripture. Just read history. Just read the most superficial anthropologies. In fact, every organized and stable society is built on this. Greek and Roman pagans, moralists, affirm the necessity of the obedience of children. They did it to an extent that was horrible and blameless, and instead of there being a filial, loving response to a parental jurisdiction that was kind and constrained, it was often a servile, fearful, cringing response to a brutality that was pronounced upon them. And what Paul is saying is calling into question all of those brutal elements of it. But nevertheless, the stoic philosophers were the same. They saw the obedience of a son as crucial to the structure of society. Parental jurisdiction has been regarded as absolutely fundamental and indispensable to any civilized, stable society. Now, when you lay that down as axiomatic, then you begin to understand why it is that in these lists in Romans 1 and in 2 Timothy 3, you come to the phrase, disobedient to their parents. Don't you ever look at that and say, How did disobedient to their parents get in here? I mean, I did.

I do. Maybe I just missed it completely. Paul talks about the turning of a man's back to the truth of God's Word, the exchanging of what has been known about God for that which is a fiction. And the judgment of God on that, giving them up, because they didn't feel it worthwhile to retain a knowledge of God, so he gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done.

This is Romans 1 29. They've become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. This is not a good list. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice.

How's it going? They're gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They are disobedient to their parents. Oh, come on, what are you throwing that in there for? What are you throwing at something as trivial as that in the midst of all of these biggies?

No. One of the ugly signs of a decaying culture is disobedient youth. In fact, in 2 Timothy 3—and I won't turn you to it—but in 2 Timothy 3, when Paul says that there will be perilous times in the last days, and people will be lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God and so on, right there again in that list he puts the same thing, disobedient to their parents. Why? Because a culture will testify to the topsy-turvy nature of its lifestyle, not only in extravagant and bizarre behavior but at the most endemic foundational level of interpersonal relationships, as young mothers vie for the attention of their children, are paralyzed by their children in restaurants because they have so consumed themselves with the notion that they have no jurisdiction over them, that this child has as much right to a say as they have.

They just happen to be a little taller or a little older or perhaps a little brighter, but not necessarily. And the father doesn't know what to do, and he's completely hamstrung. And the child longs for a framework, longs for direction, longs for the very things they fight against, longs for somebody to be brave enough to say, You're not doing that. You're not going there. I love you too much for that. God says it's wrong to do that. I can't let you do that. Do what's right for once, would you? I say to you again, this is not some slick methodology. You can go in there and get a book on and do five principles and three Hail Marys and run around the block, and it'll all be fine.

It's not going to happen. It may be blood, sweat, and tears and more to make these kind of discoveries. And that is why disobedience to their parents is at the very cornerstone and heart of these instructions. Disobedient children are one of the ugly and alarming signs of a crumbling society.

And that society is crumbling exponentially when the legal system puts in place legislation which undermines the parental jurisdiction and gives to children a role in society that they are neither prepared for nor able for nor were constituted to exercise. What's the motivation? First, because it's right, and finally, because it pleases the Lord.

And this is what it comes down to, doesn't it, kids, young people, teens? Do you want to please God? Do you want to please God? Obey your mom and dad.

Do you want to please God, or do you want to please yourself? Please yourself. Skulk around. Don't look them in the eye. Do whatever you want. Lie to them. Cheat. Hide.

Tell them you were over here when you were over there. So to the wind. And I guarantee you, you will reap the whirlwind. God has not put this framework in place to spoil you or to mar you or to inhibit you, but in order to make you. Isn't that what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5? He says—he's talking in a different context, albeit, but he's talking about whether we live or whether we die, whether we're in the earthly tent or whether we go to heaven—and he says, basically, no matter where we are or what's going on, we make it our goal to please him.

I think sometimes young people say to themselves, you know, I don't really know if there's anything that I can do to serve Christ or to commend Christ. Well, let me tell you, here's an area that is clear and obvious. Here's one for you.

Try this. Families are fractured, you know that, because you have friends. Parents are completely paralyzed by their failure to have any guideline or context in which to exercise their privileged responsibility. Do you realize what an impact your life can have if you'll take seriously the simple instruction of Colossians 3.20? If you'll make a commitment from your heart to be an obedient boy or an obedient girl, God being your helper, do you know that other families will have occasion to ask, What is it about that family? Not because you walk around with a thumping great Bible all the time. Not because you do ostentatious things that highlight your religious credentials. None of that will be necessary if you just obey your mom and dad. Because you will be so markedly, so radically different that you will shine like a light in a dark place.

Perhaps it doesn't need said, but I'll say it anyway. And that is that our obedience to our parents is obviously completely altered once we're married. That's another sermon altogether about cutting the apron strings between a kid and his mom, and the untold havoc that is there because parents have never let go of their children in the bonds of marriage, and play the heavy-handed role here, relying on passages such as Colossians 3. It's absolutely wrong. The relationship changes.

The husband and wife relationship takes priority over the parent- child relationship. There's no need for any lessening of affection, and there's no need for any lessening of care. We haven't been outdoors as much lately as we would like to. One of the evenings when we were out there some time ago, there was a centenarian came. I think that's what you call somebody who's a hundred years old. Is it?

If not, I invented it. There was an old lady there. She was a hundred. Her family brought her. She listened to the radio program. She wanted to come.

She sat in her wheelchair in the sunshine. I knelt down beside her and spoke with her. I remember she was a kindly lady and had her faculties about her. I was so excited to meet this lady of a hundred that I rounded up my children and said, I want you to meet this lady. This lady is a hundred years old.

Come over and meet this lady. Then you'll always be able to say, I know somebody who's a hundred years old. And I remember going home in the car, and out of the silence, one of the girls announced, that lady, Dad, must have really honored her mom and dad.

Why is that? Well, you know that thing in the Bible where it says, honor your father and mother, that your days may be long upon the earth? She must have really taken that seriously. Well, the point was well made. But of course, that's not a categorical promise to an individual.

If it were, then how would we explain children that have died in infancy? But it is a general promise. Society is made up of individuals. Children who obey their parents become responsible citizens. Responsible citizens make strong communities.

Within the framework of strong communities, it's possible to live in freedom and in safety and in health. So young people, obey your mom and dad. Honor them. As you seek their guidance about your friends, they actually do know best about your schooling, about whether Brenda is a beautiful girl that you should marry, or whether she's really somebody that you ought to chase down the street, about whether you should be a brain surgeon or a disc jockey, about whether you should have twenty children or four children, about how to grow old, about how to know God, about how to face eternity.

Because you know what? Your parents have been given to you by God. They're not the best. They're not infallible. They don't get it all right. If they're honest with you, they'll tell you when they don't. And they'll ask for your forgiveness too. But in the general scheme of things, they're in charge.

We obey authority because it's right and because it pleases the Lord. That's our message today from Alistair Begg. This is Truth for Life weekend. Alistair will be back in just a minute to close this program with prayer, so please keep listening. First, I want to remind you about the book we're recommending this month. It's titled Brave by Faith, God-Sized Confidence in a Post-Christian World. We're especially excited about this book because it's written by Alistair. Brave by Faith follows the story of Daniel and his friends.

They were exiles in Babylon, a pagan world where God and his laws were viewed as countercultural, not unlike the world we find ourselves living in today. This book is about what it looks like to be a Christian in a society that has become disinterested in or even hostile toward the gospel. Alistair shows how God delivered Daniel and his friends time and again, and he reminds us that while it may be tempting to simply admire Daniel's steadfast faith, God is ultimately the hero of this story. You'll benefit greatly from the powerful message packed in this small book, and you'll be challenged to consider how you should respond when you're pressured to go along with the crowd rather than to obey God. Find out more about the book Brave by Faith when you visit truthforlife.org.

Now here's Alistair to close with prayer. Father, as we try and work our way through these verses, we are confronted again and again and again by the joys and sorrows of our lives. Some of us make application of these things, and it stings because we know we have made a hash of things in the past, and for some of us it's painful because the evil one comes and he's the accuser of us, and he just digs around and tries to rummage up garbage from the past and sins that have been forgiven.

We resist him firm in the faith, Lord. But some of us are at the infancy of these things, and we're already seeing the impact of carelessness. Some of us have begun to lie to our parents.

Some of us are developing deceitfulness as a pattern. Some of us use respectful words, but it's not true from our hearts. And when we read this verse, we say, How are we supposed to do this?

And your word comes back with one resounding crescendo. By your grace. By your enabling. By the work of your Spirit in our repentant hearts.

By our submission to the truth of the Bible and by our desire to follow the example of Jesus. So I pray tonight for the families of our church. I pray specifically for young people who are bombarded from every side with the invitation to do everything but obey their parents, who are chided by their friends on the basis of the fact that they're just afraid of their parents or they're too weak-willed. They're afraid of what their parents will do to them.

And may it be that our young people are more afraid of what they will do to their parents, as it were, by their foolishness and rebellion than of any discipline that might come their way. We pray, Lord, to this end and commend each family into your custody this night. In Jesus' name. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Hope you can join us again next weekend for a timely message on Father's Day as Alistair teaches about how fathers are to love their children. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.