This is an excerpt from the close of my sermon yesterday on Col 3.20-21. Paul says parents are not to provoke their children and children are to obey their parents in everything. I pray it blesses your own life and the life of your family.
Parents, are you making it easy for your children to obey you or are you discouraging them? They need to know that you’re for them and not against them. Even if you find yourself saying No more than Yes, and even if it seems that you’re correcting more than praising, you’ve got to bathe it all in such love, patience and tenderness that they know you’re for them. They need to know that you care about what’s going on in their hearts and that you understand what’s going on in their heads. They shouldn’t feel that they have to earn your love and respect. They need to know that you’re on their side, in their court, on their team, and fighting for them.
Your parenting is to be carried out with full authority. You’re the boss; you make the decisions; you command your children, they don’t command you; you shape them, they don’t shape you. That’s how the Lord arranged the family and it pleases the Lord that you should be the boss. But you’re to carry out that authority with all the love and gentleness of Christ that so far as it depends upon you, you make it the most easy and delightful thing in the world for your children to obey you in everything. And that means you need to parent them with kindness. Take the time to listen to them, to get to know them; show an interest in their concerns, their dreams, their fears, their desires.
Parents, you need to take the 5th Comm. seriously. God calls you to teach, mold, shape, and impress your children for Him. You’re not to leave them to find their own way or to choose their own religion when they’re older. God gave them to you and calls you to raise them up for Him. If He didn’t care about your children, He would’ve given them to any millions of other couples lost in the darkness of damnable religions. But instead, He gave the eternal souls of your children to you, entrusting them into your Christian care, and calling on you to shepherd their hearts and do all in your power to ensure and secure their salvation by keeping them under the means of grace at your dinner table and in His house. The outcome must be left in His hands, but the means have been placed in yours; and if you’ll but use them, He promises to bless them and accomplish His eternal purpose.
To help you in your duty let me encourage you to set the Fatherhood of God before you as your pattern. Ps 103 teaches us that our Father is compassionate, knowing our frame, that we are but dust; that He’s merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in stedfast love; that He won’t always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever; that He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve and maintains an unconditional, undying love towards us. Just think of what you can learn from Him and how sweet your parenting will be if you would imitate Him!
Would you not do well to meditate on how the Father parents you and then bring your parenting in line with His? **The next time you’re struggling as a parent, think of the kind of parent our Heavenly Father is to you; think of how He treats you; and then ask for His help to treat your children the same way, because He will help you.
And children, how about you? Are you making it easy for your parents to govern you or are you making it painful and grievous by provoking them to anger and living rebelliously under their rule?
Your obedience to your parents should be quick, cheerful, self-denying, & consistent; which means you should obey your parents all the way, right away, always, and with a happy heart; And if you do that, it’ll please the Lord and He will bless you.
Now I know that your parents won’t always be kind to you. They’ll sometimes be mean and unloving. They’ll sometimes ignore you, neglect you, and forget you. They’ll sometimes punish you for bad things you didn’t do and neglect to thank you and praise you for good things you did do. They’ll sometimes tell you to do things you don’t understand the reason for or things you don’t see the need for. And they’ll sometimes, maybe many times, command you to do things you don’t want to do and forbid you from doing things you so badly want to do.
But because they’re your parents, God commands that you obey them in everything. So pray to God and ask for His help. He promises to give you His Spirit to help you obey Him. And ask God to help you love and trust your parents Because the more you love them, the better you’ll obey them and the more you trust them, the less you’ll struggle with questioning what they tell you. God gave them to you for your good. So even if you have a hard time trusting your parents, you can trust God, can’t you?
So children, you to take the 5th Comm. seriously too. God promises you that as long as it serves His glory, He’ll give you a long and happy life if you obey your parents.
To help you in your duty as children let me encourage you to set the example of the boy Jesus before you as your pattern. We read in Lk 2 that the boy Jesus was in the Temple sitting among the teachers of the Law. He was there because He was ready to be about His Father’s business. There was such a readiness and eagerness in His young heart to do His Father’s will that He left His earthly parents’ side and was in the Temple for several days.
But for how ready His heart was, He wasn’t yet ready in other ways. He still had some things to learn. He still had some growing to do. And most importantly, He still had some things to learn about being submissive to authority. And so Lk 2.51 says, He went down with His parents and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. Just think of what you can learn from the boy Jesus! He created the whole world! He sits on the throne of heaven as King of kings! He’s greater than all things! And He was especially greater than His earthly parents. But there was a time when it was necessary for Him to be submissive to them. Just as now is the time for you to be submissive to your earthly parents.
**So the next time you think about disobeying your parents, just think of when Jesus was a boy and ask Him to help you treat your parents in the same way He treated His, because He will help you.
>>To hear the entire sermon, go to our Church’s sermon archive. May God bless you.
