May 17, 2015 Ephesians 6:1-4 House Rules Pt. 3 Well, we survived the past week! Since all of you were here and listening, I am confident that our homes were more peaceful places this past week. Right? Wives were more submissive and respectful, husbands were more giving and loving. Right? Husbands were lifted up in their leadership, wives were lifted up as they were on their wedding day. Right? There, now that we have that one done, we can move on to the next household relationship in the Christian family: children and parents. So, I begin this morning by addressing children. I contemplated actually having a children s sermon today, but it would have to be open to ALL children, so there would be no one left in the pews. You see, all of us are children. All of us have parents. Now, some of us have parents who have died. Some of us are out of relationship with our parents. But all of us have parents. None of us was conceived and born in a test tube, in a lab, on a petri dish. Right? And then, in light of the structure of the passage, we d have to have a parents sermon. We d have to bring up all of the parents. And many of us, perhaps most of us are parents. How would that work? Actually, I think I would get more push back in the sermon to parents than the sermon to children. Oh yes, just wait and see. This text has some strong things to say to parents. Instead, I m just going to preach the whole sermon to everyone. Many of us will need to hear both halves, as children and as parents. And the basic point is the same as that which we have seen in the past two weeks. The key to peace and harmony in the Christian home is for children to submit to the leadership of their parents and parents to not use their positions of power to put down their children. Sounds simple, doesn t it? It is a short passage, only the first 4 verses of Ephesians 6. Some of it is among the most common and quoted in all of Scripture. But I am convinced that thinking it through in the context of the whole passage will once again help us understand and apply the text. READ Ephesians 6:1-4. Main Point: Harmony in the Christian home comes from honoring and not abusing God s authority structure.
Just as we saw in the husband/wife relationship, so it is here. Authority is the issue, and the basic charge is to respect the authority from both sides. Or, put another way, simply live your Christian life respecting the authority your Lord has over you and your home will be filled with harmony. (2 parts)
I. Children are to respect their parents authority by obeying them. vv. 1-3 Once more, I begin this section by asking, Is there anyone here who did not know until just now that God expected them to obey their parents? Well, if we all knew it, then I should be able to move on. But I can t. Why? Because knowing and doing are two different things. Because it is natural for us to have struggles in this area. Because we all want to know the limits to such obedience. Right? We re all looking for escape clauses, loopholes, sunset provisions. We all want to justify our behavior. v.1- Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. There, this verse seems to be clear and straightforward. Now, does this come to us as a law? Actually, I am not convinced that it does come to us as a law. If it were a law, we could claim that as Christians we are not under law but under grace. Ahh! A loophole. The truth is that this comes to us as an expectation of the outcome of our Christian faith. Indeed, the fact that children are addressed here in this way shows me that it is not law. Let me explain. The whole point of this passage is predicated on the principle of freedom and equality in Christ. As Christians, we are free from condemnation under the law, right? And so, as a Christian wife, as a Christian child, as a Christian slave, we are set free, we are lifted up, we are declared to have equal status before God as those whose authority we are under. In other words, a Christian wife is equal before God to her husband. She is not under obligation to follow him. A Christian child is equal to his parents before God. He is not under obligation to obey them. And yet, in order for there to be peace and harmony within the home, in order to display the fruit of the gospel to an unbelieving world, our Lord asks us to set aside our rights out of respect for Him. We are to voluntarily do that which we are not required to do to His honor and glory. And so it is here. I find it instructive that children are addressed in this context at all. They are not adults. They have no status. No, actually in Christ they do have status. They are equal in every regard to the most prominent of adults. And so Paul addresses them just as he does all the others in the list. He honors them by addressing them.
So, the first thing I notice in the passage is that children are shown equal honor by Paul. They are to be shown equal honor in the church. As Joan and I have said for years, children are NOT the future of the church, they ARE the church! They ought to be granted equal status, equal regard, equal honor in the church. Now, this doesn t mean they should be put in leadership, allowed to vote, or whatever. Instead, it means they are valuable and precious to the church. The Church ought to orient itself in the direction of children, not make children endure what is designed for adults. Make sense? More on this in a bit. The next thing I notice here is the word, obey. The sense here is listen to and heed the counsel of. Children are called by God to listen to and heed the counsel of their parents, both fathers and mothers as we will see in v.2. Can you see already the strain this causes for parent/child relationships as children move toward and into adulthood? As children, I know we have all tuned out, ignored, resisted, and rebelled against the counsel of our parents. Okay, there might be one person among us this morning who did not, but I haven t met you yet and you have not looked in the mirror too closely. The truth is that in our natural state, we all resist and rebel against the authority of our parents. Some of us started earlier, some of us were more blatant, some of us have done so with more pride, some of us are still doing so. But this is a problem we all have. Agreed? The next thing I notice is the same qualifier, or rationale as in the other pairs, in the Lord. Once more, it points us in the direction of our relationship with Christ. We are to listen to and heed the counsel of our parents, not because we have to, not because they are always right, wise, know all, but because we are Christians. It is the outgrowth of our faith. We do it out of our faith. This phrase, in the Lord also sets a parameter to such obedience. I cannot sin in the Lord. I will not forsake my relationship with my Lord out of obedience to my parents. My commitment to Him has authority over my commitment to them. Make sense? Then we notice for this is right. And this is followed by v.2. 2 Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise 3 that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.
I see these put together. Not only is this connected to our relationship with Christ, but it is the right thing to do. We all know it is the right thing to do. It is in the 10 commandments that this is the right thing to do. He quotes it here. Honor your father and mother. God expects this from you, always has, always will. And yet, as I suggested at the outset, this does not come to us as law. In fact, it comes to us with a promise. If you do this, it will benefit your life. Your life will extend and there will be increased harmony in the home. You can see how this instruction of Paul fits right in to the principle in the 10 commandments. This is the right thing to do. This is what your Lord expects you to do. Your life will improve if you do. It just makes sense: children obey your parents! Now, I can already see some of you racing in your minds to questions not answered. What if your parents are not Christians? What if they don t agree? What happens when you become an adult? How do you keep your parents from controlling your life? My parents are mean/clueless/ less than smart /overbearing/stifling/drunks/they don t understand me. What then? Obey in the Lord. Obey out of obedience to Christ. And borrowing from next week s passage Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but...do so from your heart. Yes, God expects that out of us. But what about as adults? Isn t there an end? Well, there is a changing of what it means to honor, to obey. We read last week that for the cause of marriage a man will LEAVE his father and mother. This means that once there is a new family, a husband/wife relationship, the parent/child relationship has to change. A wife obeys her husband over her parents. A husband sees his primary responsibility as to his wife, not his parents. Parents do not get to control what happens in the child s marriage. But notice I did not say that the instruction comes to an end. Adult children still and always have a responsibility to their parents. In fact, they bear the primary responsibility to care for their parents. It is not the state, not the church, but the family, the adult children who bear that responsibility. So, how many of you began this sermon thinking your days on this end of the parent/child relationship were over? You were waiting for the next section. You were hoping your children were listening. And now you find out that God
still expects you to obey your parents in the Lord. In other words, if this passage all the way through does not make you cringe, you probably haven t contemplated it enough. We may not all be husbands, or wives, but we are all children.
II. Parents are to use their authority to lift up and not put down. v.4 They are to see their basic charge as teaching, preparing, training up rather than controlling. A parent will use his authority for the benefit and not the harm of his children. 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. The first thing we notice is Fathers. Why not Parents? Does this mean that mothers can do as they please? Tell me it isn t so! It isn t so. Fathers is used here as a nod to the husband/wife instructions in the previous passage. As husband, the father has the highest authority. This does not mean that mom has no authority, but that her authority comes under his authority. This does not let mom off the hook. Then we get to the word exasperate. The sense of the word is an extreme frustration, a perpetual state of resentment. Fathers, the ones in highest authority are not to use their authority to keep their children in a perpetual state of frustration. In terms Jesus used with His disciples, they are not to lord it over their children, because I said so. Now, such use of authority in and of itself is not wrong, but can be wrong if done continually, or perhaps randomly. In other words, to not exasperate means it is clear, it is consistent, it is uplifting. I am quite aware that children will play this exasperation card when it is not. I ve seen it played even by toddlers. We called it the Buddha routine. We mocked our children using the Buddha routine. So, not all accusations of exasperation are in fact exasperation. But there is such a thing as exasperating your children and we are not to engage in it. How can you tell? When it is not clear, when it is random, when it is not to lift up. My desire was that my children would know me well enough, know how I think enough to know the answer to their question before they asked it. This helps avoid exasperation. Or, they would call with the typical question, Dad can I go to... house? And they knew the next series of questions: are parents there, who else will be there, what are you going to be doing, and when will you be home.
And they knew what answers to those questions would trigger yes, and which answers would lead to no. But all this to say that as much as I have seen rebellious children, I have seen parents abusing their authority. I have seen parents on power trips. I have seen parents trying to control adult children, parents using their wills as weapons, their blessing as weapons, their permission as weapons. I have seen parents use participation in youth group as weapons or rewards or punishment (that one makes no sense to me!). Yes, parents have as many weapons at their disposal as children do, and they use them. Now, the other side is given in the last half of the verse. The purpose of parental is to train and instruct. Train includes discipline. Scripture is clear that the father who fails to discipline does not love his son. You must discipline, you must win a battle of the wills. As hard as that is with young children, you must win or you will keep losing until you do! But discipline and punishment are two entirely different things. We do not punish our children. We discipline them. We seek to teach, to train, to instruct. Again, the context is of the Lord. Notice the appeal to a higher authority. Parents themselves are under authority. I remember a conversation with a good friend. He told me that his children would learn to obey. He was going to have obedient children. I surprised him when I told him that was not my highest priority. Yes, I wanted my children to obey, but I could force obedience. I could make them obey. But to what end? The truth is that we hope our children will someday leave our homes. And then what? If I ve taught them simply to obey, and forced them to do so, they might respond to their newfound freedom with wayward living, or obedience without discernment. Either of these would be disastrous. Rather, I would rather train them up to make godly decisions, and that comes with teaching, training, and trial and error. I d rather they make some of those mistakes when I can somewhat control their environment than when they have complete freedom. Our goal is not obedience, but Christ likeness. Agreed? If we believe this passage is the Word of God, then what should be different about our lives? 1) Our homes will enjoy harmony.
2) The patterns of authority within the home will be honored. 3) Children will be lifted up and grow in their relationship with God, prepared for adult life when they reach that stage.