Parenting Precious Sinners Part II

, it's just, how many people know, remember Bob and Benny, boy, it's, we're gonna turn over folks. But anyway, Bob and Betty Bell have been, actually, Bob was an elder here for, for several years, and, they were, they are involved in a ministry which coordinates the, getting missionaries to the field. And, they're in retirement age now, so tapering off on that, but are still somewhat involved in it. And I talked to them yesterday and they're, they're doing well and have some, some of the, the common health issues of, of, advancing years and so on.

Bob has, has two fake knees. And he really loves those quite a lot and it has enabled him to walk around quite, quite a bit more easily but anyway, I just wanna encourage you to be in prayer for them as they just continue their ministry to to just organization and, and getting missionaries to the field and so on and so just remember them during the week and there we go, happy day hand it over to Milton. Oh, good morning. As we begin this morning, I I want to have you parents imagine.

Yourself receiving this following letter from your college-aged daughter, OK? Imagine that your daughter is away at college, out of, out of the city, out of state, you haven't heard from her, from her for 2 or 3 months. And then you receive a letter in the mail from your daughter and it goes like this. Dear Mom and dad, since I left for college, I have been remiss in writing and I am sorry about my thoughtlessness and not having written sooner.

I'll bring you up to date, but before I do, please sit down. Are you sitting down? It is very important that you sit down before you continue reading this letter. I am getting along pretty well now that the skull fracture and concussion I suffered recently is pretty well healed.

I received a skull fracture and concussion when I jumped out of my dormitory window when my dormitory caught on fire shortly after my arrival. I only get those sick headaches a couple of times a day now. Fortunately, the fire in my dormitory and my jump was witnessed by an attendant at a gas station. He ran over and took me to the hospital and continued to visit me there.

When I got out of the hospital, I had nowhere to live because of the burned out condition of my room, so he was kind enough to invite me to share his basement bedroom apartment with him. It's small but very cute. He's a very fine young man and we have fallen deeply in love. We are planning to get married.

We haven't set the exact date of the wedding yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show. Yes, mom and dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you look forward to being grandparents, and I know that you will welcome the baby and give him the same tender care and devotion that you gave me. When I was a child.

Imagine receiving that correspondence from your daughter. The letter concludes with this final paragraph. In conclusion, Mom and Dad, now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire. I did not have a concussion.

Nor a skull fracture. I was not in a hospital. I am not pregnant. And there is no boyfriend in my life.

However, I am getting an F in history. And an F in science. And I just wanted you to see those failures in the proper perspective. Yes.

Well, we are continuing to talk about the subject of parenting, and we as parents do crave the proper perspective with regard to our children. We're titling this two message study of Ephesians 6:4, Parenting precious sinners. Our children are precious, are they not? the Bible depicts them as gifts from God to us.

They are a blessing from the Lord. All of us as parents would look at our children and say they are some of the greatest things that have happened to us, the greatest gifts from God that we have ever received. They indeed are precious. They are eternal souls that will live forever.

but our children, as precious as they are, are also sinners. The Bible tells us that they were brought forth in iniquity and in sin. Their mother conceived them. And also that foolishness is bound up in their heart.

They were born an original sin, and that defect of sin contaminates every single aspect of their being, and not a day goes by. that our children do not manifest that defect of sin through their words, their attitudes, their actions, or their inactions. It is displayed every day, and because of that sin that is within our children, it makes parenting one of the single most challenging tasks that we ever have to engage in in this life. And what makes it even more challenging is the fact that we as parents were born in original sin.

And we have sin issues that we have to deal with. We came into parenting with so much baggage ourselves, and we still have a million miles to go before we're everything that God wants us to be. And nonetheless, here are children given to us by God who are sinful, foolishness in their hearts, and we are called by God to parent them. It is a massive undertaking that we are not equipped for in our own wisdom.

We dare not trust our own instincts and our own wisdom. And so we must look to God and His wisdom found in his words so that we know how to parent our children, and we are blessed to have verses like Ephesians 6:4, where God speaks to us as moms and dads and says, here, here is some clear instructions on what you need to do as a mom and dad and parenting your children. And so let's read this wisdom and then we'll begin to break it down again. Ephesians 6:4, fathers.

Do not provoke your children to anger. But bring them up in the discipline. And the instruction of the Lord. He says fathers, clearly including mothers, fathers bear the weight of this though.

They are to not only do these things but provide leadership for their wives who are the mothers of their children, that they are engaging in this as well. So fathers, and by extension, fathers and mothers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. There's two commands here, very simple. The first is negative, it's a prohibition, and the second is a positive command.

The way we worded the first command last week is to parents to be careful so as not to provoke your children to anger and so what we learned last week just to sum it up is that we as parents need to be careful in the way that we speak to our children, the way that we respond to them, the way that we live before them and act around them, that we do not ever. Unduly provoke them to anger. And if you were to say to Paul, well, I've done that. I've provoked my children to anger, what do I do?

Paul would say, Run to the cross, and then he would say, Run to your children, go where the anger is and through humble confession, confess your sin to your children, seek their forgiveness. And seek to purge the anger from the heart of your child through humble confession to them so that that anger can be addressed. Because we saw that if anger finds a harbor in the heart of your child, they're gonna show that either actively or passively, but only evil can come of that anger and it will nullify many of the positive things that you try to do as a parent towards your children if they are angry against you.

You may look at this command and say, well, man, I don't, I don't know if I have provoked my children to anger or not.

I don't know if there is any anger that is in my child as a result of something that I myself have done. What I encouraged you guys to do last week, and I know a number of you parents did this, and I commend you for this because I know it's one of the hardest things that you've ever done. I encourage you to go to your children and to inquire of them. Is there anything that I have done in the past or that I do in the normal manner of things, the course of things that provokes you inappropriately to anger?

Ask your children that. And let them answer, promise them I won't defend myself. I won't get defensive. You're not gonna get in trouble for anything that you say.

Just speak respectfully, gracefully, but share your heart with me. Do I make you angry in ways that I need to hear about as your mom or dad? I did this, as I mentioned with my two teenagers last week, but my two younger children, I approached them this week to ask them if there's anything that their dad does that. That provokes them to anger.

And it, I, it was very enlightening for me because the two of them said, well, Dad, when, when you yell at us. And it surprised me when they said that because I didn't think I yelled at them. And I even told them that. I said, this is good for me to know because I didn't think I yelled at you.

And they were like, but Dad, you're, you're so big, and, and when you raise your voice, you're scary to us. And I began to realize, what, what I think is just raising my voice a little bit or being passionate to them is magnified by 10, and I am certainly better off as a parent knowing about that. it reminded me of something that happened about 2 or 3 months ago. I was homeschooling my 10-year-old son Benjamin, and I was having a difficult morning for some reason, and I was on edge and just easily provoked anger and, and coming down on him, being short with him.

And so finally I just, I just stopped and I said, Benjamin, your dad's having a rough morning. I'm being short with you and I'm being, edgy with you and I shouldn't be this way and. Can we stop right now and can you pray for your dad that God will help him to have the attitude that he should have. Well, Benjamin said, Yeah, I'll pray, and then he began to pray.

And what, what was enlightening to me is he didn't say, God, my dad's a little on edge today. A little over the top, he's a little short, he didn't use the words that I had used. He used bigger words that as I listened to him pray, I was like, oh my goodness, that's what I look like to him. And so not only was I blessed that he prayed for me and sought God's help for me, but even hearing how he was describing how I was coming across to him was very helpful and enlightening for me.

And so, as a parent, even if you don't know if you've done anything that's provoked your kids to anger, don't just think about it for a minute and say, well, I guess I haven't, I can't think of anything. Go to your children and ask them. And there are very likely things that they will share with you that will be extremely helpful to you. This is very important that we do this as a parent.

I have to throw in two qualifications though. The first I'm just gonna read to you because we talked about this last week. The second is something in addition to what we talked about last week. and this is for the children.

Children, even though God tells your parents not to provoke you to anger, do not take that to mean. That every time you get angry with your parents, that they must have sinned in some way. There are times they're gonna do the right thing, and you're just gonna be sinful, sinfully angry against them. But then also, secondly, this command does not mean that you have to get angry whenever your parents wrong you.

You can't say, well, my parents have wronged me and they made me angry. Nobody ever makes you angry. Please understand that and learn that now. When your parents wrong you or anyone else in your life ever wrongs you, they don't make you angry.

You have a choice to make over how you're going to respond to that wrong thing. That your parents or somebody else has rendered against you. You have a choice, and that is, am I going to be angry and hold this against my parents and show it actively, aggressively or passively by just blowing them off and showing disregard to them, or will I forgive them for what they have done and choose not to hold their wrong against against them. And you're thinking as a child needs to be that yeah, my parents, it seems like they're having a wrong attitude towards me and it does hurt me a lot because they're not listening to me or they're being angry with me, they're not understanding me.

Whatever the offense might be, your thinking needs to be, what, my parents have never done anything against me that is nearly as bad as my sins against my God. And yet God has lavished his grace upon me through Christ, and I will give to my, my parents the same grace that I myself have received from God. And so even though your parents sin, probably every day in ways that are evident to you. Give them grace, give them forgiveness.

Look at them through the eyes of grace, with the same eyes of grace that God looks at you with, and with the same eyes of grace that I know for sure, you're gonna wish your children will look at you with 2030 years from now. And so let's be filled with grace, both as parents towards our children, and as children towards our parents. And children, even when your parents do wrong you, that does not mean that you have to get angry. With them, that is a choice that you will be held responsible for.

So make the right choice. Nonetheless, Paul is not talking to children in verse 4. He's speaking to parents, and as parents we do need to assume some responsibility for our children if they are inappropriately provoked to anger, we need to look at the way that we relate to them, live before them, and be extremely cautious and careful to not provoke them to anger. And if we ever do.

Run to that anger with humility and confession. We seek to minister healing and seek forgiveness for that so that we can then parent them, not across some chasm of anger and grievances, but that in close relationship with our children without all of this anger stuff cluttering the path between us and our children, we can then parent our children and see the positive things we do have enormous impact upon them. And so let's move beyond this first prohibition. Do not provoke your children to anger, and now get into the positive action that Paul is commanding dads and moms to render on behalf of their children.

And look at what it says in the second half of verse 4. Don't provoke them to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Now, translations handle this. In different ways.

Some say bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Some say discipline and instruction of the Lord. There's a lot of different translations that are represented here in this congregation. What I have on the screen behind me is my suggested translation of this last, clause in chapter 6, verse 4.

the way I'm gonna suggest that we understand this is that Paul is commanding parents to nourish them or to nourish your children with the training and the admonition of the Lord. This is a command to nourish your children. And what we nourish them with is with the training and the admonition that ultimately comes from the Lord. Now, what I wanna do with the time we have is break this instruction down and see what help and direction is provided for us in it.

First of all, the command, the verb that is translated bring them up, in the new American standard. The Greek word underneath that is the Greek word ek trefo, ek trefo. Which is the word trefo that means to feed. It's used in the gospels to speak of God feeding the birds of the air, the ravens of the field.

So trefo means to feed, and then ek means out, but when you attach it to the beginning of a verb like trefo, what happens is it intensifies the meaning. And so ek trefo means to nourish out or to richly nourish. So we as parents in this. are being commanded to richly feed or richly nourish our children.

This command is in the present tense denoting that this is to be something that we are always to be about the task of doing continuously, daily. This is something that we are to be diligent and conscientious about, continuously seeking to nourish or to feed our children. And by the way, you'll be interested to know that this verb e trefo is used in Ephesians 5:29. where Paul says no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.

And in that case, he's talking about physically nourishing our bodies and he uses act refo, the same verb that he uses in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4. So the picture is of us feeding our bodies, and Paul. Uses the same verb in Ephesians 6:4 to tell us that we need to be feeding our children. We are to be nourishing them.

Now, along with the idea of nourishing, let me share this with you guys. it doesn't simply just mean to feed, like just throwing food before animals. You're feeding those animals, but what, there's no relationship there. but this word refo that is used in a context like this denotes an atmosphere of relationship.

In fact, John Calvin suggests translating this fondly cherish your children. And the amplified Bible suggests translating this, rear them tenderly, and they attach the notion of tenderness to this particular verb. And so understand that it's talking about feeding, but it's a feeding, a nourishing that occurs within an environment of tenderness and gentleness and friendliness. That is the atmosphere between you and your children.

In fact, the verb refo is used sometimes to speak of a mother nursing her infant child. And think of the warmth and the tenderness that is there where the mother draws the child close to her and then in the warmth and the tenderness of that moment and that relationship that's being enjoyed, the child is being nourished. That is the picture we nourish our children within the environment of a relationship that is characterized by tenderness and gentleness and friendliness with regard to them.

Now there are some parents that.

Are distant from their children. The only times they really relate to their children is when they're correcting them. There are other parents who just in the normal course of the normal day, they tend to just be downbeat and angry with regard to their children, very stern, and there's no tenderness there. But what?

I want you guys to understand this is if as a parent we are careful to cultivate an atmosphere of friendliness and gentleness and tenderness and warmth in our relationship with our children. And then our children do something wrong and suddenly our countenance falls, and we need to speak to them. In a way governed by love, but maybe more stern. Our children will notice that.

They will long to have that tenderness restored once again. But if you're normally angry with them and they're used to you being short and angry with them, and then they do something wrong, and then you're short and angry with them again, they're gonna be like, well, that's the way my parent always is. But if you cultivate an attitude, an atmosphere of tenderness and gentleness and friendliness with your children, in those moments where correction and sternness is required. It's going to register with them more powerfully.

So when Paul says bring them up, summing up, he's saying nourish them, feed them within an atmosphere of relationship enjoyed between you and them, characterized by an atmosphere of tenderness and gentleness and friendliness with regard to them. So he's saying feed them. In this environment that you are careful to cultivate in relationship with them. We are being commanded in this passage to feed our children.

Now, obviously Paul is not talking about physically feeding our children, even though we know we're supposed to do that as parents. He's talking about spiritually feeding our children. but even though he's talking about spiritually feeding our children, which we'll be talking about this morning. at length, I don't know that we fully really appreciate what it means to spiritually feed our children, unless we begin our train of thought by, contemplating what it means to physically feed our children.

what's, maybe we've never thought about this. In fact, most of us as parents never have because it just comes instinctive. When your children were born, every one of us as parents, we automatically knew that we were responsible for feeding our children, right? a doctor or a nurse did not sit down with us at the hospital and say, now before you go home.

I wanna let something you may not have known, and that is that you are responsible to feed this child. And you need to sign this statement here promising that you will nourish this child physically every day. No one ever talked to us about that. No one lectures us about that as parents, because we all instinctively know that this is our responsibility, right?

Not a one of you parents have ever been to a parenting seminar, and one of the sessions of the seminar, presented the shocking truth that you're responsible for the physical nourishment of your children. And you sat there and you were like, oh my goodness, I never considered that before, and I've been leaving it to everybody else, but I guess biblically it's my responsibility. This is an earth shattering moment, revelation for me, and I will begin today to physically nourish my children.

That's never happened to any of us.

None of us as parents ever. Go to another brother or sister and say, hey, can you hold me accountable? I'm, I, I know I need to physically nourish my children and I'm really struggling. I, I'm going days, in fact, without feeding my children at all, and I just need some accountability.

Can you ask me, like once a week how I did over this past week in terms of physically nourishing my children? None of us as parents have ever done that, have we? Because we know. Deep within us that we are responsible to physically nourish our children, and we do that.

We do that. However, Unfortunately, many parents, and including Christian parents do not automatically know. And understand that they're responsible for spiritually feeding their children. They leave it to other people.

There are parents that go days and even years without giving thought to the fact that this is my responsibility. My child will not live by bread alone. But by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, who's gonna nourish them? Who's gonna feed them that daily spiritual food, I am commanded by God to be the one who does this.

Think also about how much time we spend as parents and providing physical nourishment for our children. We again, we don't think about this because it comes automatic. But think about it, dads and moms, how many hours a week do you work to generate income to pay for the food that your child stuffs in their mouth? How many hours is that?

However many hours that is, that's how many hours you're devoting. To making sure that your children are fed. In addition to that, you take that money to, the store, to Ralph's and Stater Brothers and Costco and Winco and other places, and you, you, you go shopping, you spend hours a week doing the grocery, shopping, and some items are cheaper at Ralph's and others are cheaper at Stater Brothers, and some you can get in bulk quantities and, and so you're, you're going to different places.

Some of you ladies coupon and.

You're spending a lot of time each week finding coupons, cutting out those coupons, and then filing them in your notebook and your organization system and, and you go to certain stores where you get the best savings, and that takes a tremendous amount of time. Then you bring all that stuff home, you take the time to put it in your refrigerator and freezer, your cupboards and what have you. All of that time has been spent generating income and then shopping for that food you haven't even started cooking yet.

And you're probably already tired just thinking about all this.

But then you get all that stuff out and you measure and you mix and you stir, and you prepare and stick in the oven. You do that once or twice or 3 times a day, every week, we as moms and dads spend hours seeing to it that our children are physically nourished and fed. How many hours do we spend? How much thought do we put into?

How much work do we put into seeing to it that our children are spiritually nourished and fed? That's the question I want us all to be left with today. Paul is commanding dads and by extension moms to be continuously about the task of spiritually nourishing and feeding our children within the context of a tender relationship with them. Well, that raises the question, what do I feed them with?

I know that if I need to feed them. Physically, I need to go to the store and get apples and bananas and Pop-Tarts and whatever, and I, I, I can go to the store and I know where to find stuff to feed them with physically, but if I'm commanded to feed them spiritually, what do I feed them with? Well, God is very faithful to answer that question because in this verse, he tells us the content. He tells us the substance, he tells us what it is.

That we are to nourish and feed our children with. Look at what he says at the end of verse 4. He says, but bring them up or nourish them in the training and admonition of the Lord. And the way We're understanding this is nourish them with, here's what you feed them with or nourish them with, and that is the training and the admonition that comes from the Lord.

So whatever it is that we feed our children with spiritually, it comes from God, right? So we get it from God and then nourish our children with it. And what it is that we get from God is the training and the admonition of the Lord. Now what is the training and admonition of the Lord?

What do these words mean? Well, understand that the word for training is a word that in some cases speaks of education and scripture, and other passages, training in Hebrews 12, and elsewhere it's used to speak of discipline in the form of chastisement. But even though in Hebrews 12, it's speaking of chastisement, what is the goal of the chastisement? It's training, right?

All discipline for the moment does not seem to be joyful but sorrowful. Yet afterwards, for those who have been trained by it, it produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness, even the chastisement that we deliver in the lives of our children. introducing pain into their lives. The goal of that is ultimately that they be trained in righteousness.

And so the, I, I think the best translation of this word is training. It's the Greek word paidea, all right, and I want you to have that in your mind because I'll be, mentioning that word a couple times here, in a few moments. So, to train our children. our training of our children speaks of that which develops them into what God wants them to be.

And so think about what God wants your children to be, worshippers of God, passionate about that which is good, haters of evil, and they're committed to living their lives in obedience to God, doing righteousness. That's what we want for our children. And God is saying nourish them with this training. That comes from me that will train them to be this admonition, what does the word admonition mean?

Well, it comes from our English word admonish and unfortunately, admonish is a negative word in our language. If I were talking to you this morning and I said, yeah, I was talking to Mike Barry yesterday and I had to admonish him. That would be negative to you, right? Your first question would be, so what has he done wrong now?

because it's, it's negative to you, but guys, biblically to admonish is an extremely positive concept in the New Testament. To admonish someone, it implies that there's some defect in the person that's being admonished, but when you come to them and admonish them, you point that defect out, you help them to see that defect, and then you effectively minister to that defect to where the defect is lessened or it goes away entirely. That's what it fully means to admonish. So it's an incredibly positive word.

And so Paul is saying, nourish your children, feed your children with something that comes from God, and what that is that comes from God is the training and the admonition of the Lord. Now, Paul uses those two words, guys, please hang with me cause it'll be satisfying in, in just a minute or two here. what is the training and the admonition of the Lord or more specifically, if I am to nourish my children with the training and admonition of the Lord, Where do I go to find the training and the admonition of the Lord?

I know if I need to feed my children physically, there is a grocery store that I can drive to and take stuff off the shelf and bring it home and feed them.

But where is located the training and the admonition of the Lord so I can go get that and then nourish my children with it. And what resource, what tangible resource can I go to, to find the training and admonition of the Lord? My answer to that question, Paul's answer to that question is this book right here. This book, all of the training and admonition that comes from God, that God wants your children to have is all in this book.

Which is really cool because as parents, some of you go to Ralph's and then Stater Brothers and then Winco and Costco, you, you, you go to all four of those places and probably even other places in addition to that, but this is a one-stop grocery store right here, a massive warehouse of absolutely everything. That your child needs all of the training, all of the admonition that your child needs to see what their defects are and to have those defects within them to be tended to and corrected, all of that is from God and it's inside of this book.

And so as parents, if you're gonna be nourishing your children, you need to go shopping yourself every day in this warehouse and taking stuff off the shelves, promises and affirmations and truths and principles, and yeah, even warnings, and then bringing those to your children and nourishing them with the word of God. With the word of God.

In fact, look at what Paul says to Timothy, and he's talking, actually in a parenting context how Timothy from childhood had known the sacred writings which are able to make one wise unto salvation. And so he's contemplating Timothy as a young man being brought up with the scriptures, and then look at what Paul says. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, and that word training is exactly the same word, Paideia, that is used here in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4.

Paul is saying that God's word, the scriptures, is profitable.

For training your child in the way of righteousness. Verse 17, in order that the man of God may be equipped, equipped out for every good work, just stacked and loaded with all of the equipment that your children need for any good work God wants them to engage in. God's word provides for them all of that, and it provides for them all of the training that they need in the way of righteousness. And so in this passage, guys, understand the dynamic here.

Paul is not so much commanding you as a parent to train your children. Although certainly there's a sense in which we do that. He's commanding you to nourish your children with God's word, which trains your children. See, you're not the only parent of your children.

You have the Holy Spirit. You have God, who's right alongside of you. You give your children in a humble context, a tender context, you feed them on God's word. God's word will be profitable for training them in righteousness.

It will do so much of the work for you in training them. And even more specifically, the scriptures, God's word is profitable for training your children in righteousness, but even more narrowly, another way of saying it is the gospel is profitable for training your children in the way of righteousness. The grace of God, the gospel of grace, if you're giving that to your children and nourishing your children with the gospel, the gospel itself will train them in righteousness. In fact, look at this in Titus 2.

Verse 11, Paul says, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. Think about the gospel of God's grace has appeared. It's bringing salvation. And what does this grace do?

Training us. That's the same word training. That is found in Ephesians 6:4, training us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope, glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus, and so forth. Parents, let me ask you something.

Is this not a great list in terms of goals for your children? Do you want your children to grow up having been trained to deny ungodliness? Do you want that? You want them to grow up having been trained to deny the worldly desires that are inside of them, to say no to their own sinful flesh, even though every fiber of their being seems to be screaming out to do wrong, they're trained to say no.

To those desires within them? Do you want your children to grow up and be trained to live sensibly and righteously and godly in this present evil age? Do you want your children not to be hung up on this world, but as they grow up to be trained, they're looking to eternal. And they are looking forward to the coming of Jesus.

They are obsessed with that, and they long for eternity. Their thoughts are about God's kingdom, more so than just the things of the here and now. Do you want your children to grow up trained to be all those things? You want that?

What will train them? It's not so much you that will train them. The grace of God. As it appears.

We'll be training them. And so as a parent, when I look at this and I see the grace of God. Appears bringing salvation training. And I'm told in Ephesians 6:4, nourish my children with the training that comes from the Lord.

My thought is, OK, so what I need to nourish my children with is the gospel. Nourish my children on God's grace, His saving grace, forgiving grace. I need to nourish my children with the word of God so that as I feed them, that's my role, I feed them, and as I feed them with the grace of God, the gospel of God, the word of God, those entities themselves will start to train them. In the way of righteousness.

there are times where as parents, Where we will need to get in our children's face and say, you are being selfish and you are wrong here. I'm not denying that at all. But one of the most thrilling things that I have found as a parent. Is that as We at times have given our children God's word.

And the gospel that our children Start voicing their own defects. And we didn't even point it out. I was Earlier this week, I was, I was walking down our stairs in our home. And as I just started down the flight of stairs, one of my children was in our schoolroom.

And They saw me walking down the stairs and they said, Dad. And I looked over and they said, I am so selfish and self-absorbed. I am nothing like what I should be. And I looked at my child and I saw that they had a book in their hands that they were reading.

Based on a particular book of the Bible. Identifying for them what they should be according to the scripture. And I realized, what, that book. Expose this defect.

God's word exposed this defect. I didn't even go to my child and say those things. God's word brought that out of them, that recognition out of them. And then also, I stood there on the steps.

In all honesty, I was heading down the stairs to go watch the last 5 minutes of the San Diego Charger New England Patriot game that we had taped the last 5 minutes. I already knew the outcome. I knew the Patriots had won, but I wanted to rewatch the last 5 minutes, and I was on my way downstairs to do that, but as I stood in the middle of. The stairway, I looked at my child and said, what?

This, this is not the moment to watch the game. This is a moment to press the claims of God's grace and the gospel. And I began to speak to them and encouraging them to beat a path to the cross with the guilt that they were feeling that there is forgiveness, there is grace, and to speak to them of God and His love. Our job as parents is to nourish our children on God's word and the gospel and the grace of God.

As we nourish them. God through those entities. will expose to their own understanding their defects of sin. God will address those defects.

God will train them in the way of righteousness. And so just understand as parents that takes a burden off of us. Yes, we do need to speak to our children and, and point things out to them, but we've also got our heavenly Father who is a parent to them, who is using his word. What a powerful resource that we have at our disposal.

We give them God's word and then God's word is so profitable on its own to just be yielding up these benefits in the lives of our children. That makes me as a parent want to. Be very careful to be giving God's word to my kids and to be pressing the claims of the gospel for them, and not just giving them the gospel through my words, but also through my attitude and my life as I live before them and relate to them. look at what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 1:5.

He says, our gospel did not come to you in word only. Now Paul is reflecting back on his time with the Thessalonians when he was among them. Parents, as Paul says this, I want you to imagine your, your children out of the home and how much you would love to be able to say this to your children, all right? to say to them, our gospel did not come to you in word only.

Yes, we spoke it to you in word, but it did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance or confidence, as what men we were among you for your sake. The gospel did not just come to you through our words, but through our attitudes, through the way that we related to you and lived before you. It came to you through the life that we imparted to you as your mom and dad. In fact, what's beautiful about First Thessalonians is that Paul uses the mothering and fathering metaphor to speak of how he ministered to the Thessalonians, thus revealing, without even intending to, Paul's view of parenting.

And 1 Thessalonians 2, he says, we proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Look at the bottom of the screen, verse 11, just as how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children. We were like a mother to you, we were like a father to you, sandwiched in between those verses, look at verse 8. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well pleased.

We were pleasured to impart to you not only the gospel of God. But also our own lives. In other words, our gospel infused lives. Because you had become very dear to us.

Parents, it's important, it's imperative that we not only speak gospel truth, but that we manifest gospel truth to our kids. If you're sitting down with your children and you're reading to them a Bible story and you're saying Jesus loves you, he died for your sins, he shed his blood so that you can have forgiveness, and there is hope for you as a sinner. If you say that with your lips, and then later that day your child does something wrong. And you fly off the handle saying, what am I gonna do with you?

You're always doing this thing, and you're harsh towards them, just the opposite of the attitude of the gospel. You are saying one message with your lips, but by your actions, you're screaming the opposite message. Parents, let's give our children the. Gospel through our words and also through our attitudes, the way that we speak to our children, relate to our children, respond to our children, the attitudes that we manifest towards them, let us impart to them the gospel not in word only but also through the lives that we lead before them and as we seek to relate ourselves to them.

Paul says, nourish your children. And here's what you nourish them with. You nourish them with the training, and with the admonition. That comes from God, that is found in the word of God, in the grace of God, in the gospel of God.

Nourish them with those things, and inside of those things, those things are so powerful that they will serve to train and admonish your children and correct the defects in your children and all of that ministry ultimately will have come from the Lord. Just, driving this home by way of application. Let's talk about a few things. This is the last slide I'm gonna show you today.

if we're called to nourish our children, then every parent in this room who has children in the home ought to be thinking, all right. I need to make sure I'm doing this. I'm nourishing my children. I need to make sure that my home is a place of spiritual nourishment and enrichment.

I'll tell you something that I started to observe as a high schooler. One of the things that happened at our, church back in Indiana, and this happens all over the place, so I'm not singling out that church, this happens in many, many churches across the country, and unfortunately, happens here. And that is that, like every summer, the youth group kids would go to camp for a week and they go to camp for a week and at those camps they would hear the word of God preach 2 or 3 times a day and people are talking about the Lord, the counselors are talking about the Lord.

There's an environment that is spiritually rich, nurturing.

the young people that went to those weekly, camps. And inevitably, in my case and in everyone else's case, near the end of the week, our hearts begin to warm and burn, for the Lord, and we're like, man, I wanna, I wanna live my life for him. At the end of every week of camp, almost every one of us were throwing a stick in the fire, saying I surrender my life to God. I wanna live for him.

I wanna be saved, I wanna dedicate my life to God, I wanna dedicate my life to full time Christian service or to missions or what have you. It seemed that 80 or so% of all of the life changing decisions that young people made, were made out of the home, at a camp. What was also observable is that those kids that made those decisions when they came back from camp, back into their homes, after 2 or 3 weeks, those decisions fizzled. And dried up Raising a question.

What's wrong with the homes? What's wrong with the homes? Are the environments of the homes what they should be? Why is it that these decisions seem to be made in most cases when kids are taken out of the home for a week and why do they fizzle when they return?

I'm not against Christian camps. I think those are excellent retreats are excellent, but as parents it's a very convicting thing for us to contemplate how rich of a nourishing environment are the homes that our children. Reside in And so our thought needs to be how can I make my home a spiritually nourishing place and one way is through family devotions I know many of us in this room are not able to have family devotions every day, but it is a practice that should be heartily commended and as much as possible we need to gather the family together, read from God's word, talk about the things of God, the word of God, the grace of God, the gospel of God that can serve to train and bring admonition and correction.

To our children and there are devotional books that are out there that no doubt can highly be recommended, but one of the things that I found as a dad is that if I don't even think about getting my family together and it's like oh we need to have family devotions and I grab a devotional book and just read it and I've given no prior thought to it.

I've gotten my duty done, but there's not much depth of ministry. What I have found as a dad is if throughout the day, if I'm just thinking about it, what does my family need right now? What do my children need? What do I need right now?

And I shop, I shop, I look for something, maybe a story that I'm reading, in a book for my own sake, and I'm reading something and there's an excellent story there that seems to illustrate a point to just say, what? I'm gonna read that to my family. the next time we have family devotions. And so shop, go into this warehouse of God's word, shop for yourself, gorge yourself, and then that some of that stuff you take off the shelf, bring it home and seek to nourish your family and your children.

with those things. Another way of making our home a nourishing place is through scriptural. Conversation. It's not enough to just have family devotions as much as you can, but if you have family devotions, and then you close your Bible, and then close in prayer, and then no one ever talks about the Lord or God's word after that, well then, that's only gonna go so far.

But listen, if as parents we're walking with the Lord and enjoying God's grace and savoring, God's goodness and grace towards us, we're reading the word, we're being blessed by it, then throughout the day, like, Moses says in Deuteronomy 6, talk about these things when you sit down and when you rise up, when you lie down, when you walk by the way, throughout the day, look for those teachable moments where you can say something to your children. That might get through to them that turns their thoughts to God so let this be on your lips, the things of God and the word of God and the gospel of God and the grace of God and let it come up in conversation and in various circumstances throughout the day.

Another thing that should be heartily commended to all of us as parents is that we should be evaluating everything for its nourishing value, evaluating everything for its nourishing. value and so a lot of times we as, as parents and as Christians, we are careful to examine everything, but then there are some things that we don't even think to examine and often the entertainment choices that are made by the TV shows, that are offered, the movies that are watched and enjoyed, the music that plays in our homes or the music that our children listen to, these are areas that need to be brought under the lordship of Christ.

And they are areas that we need to examine for their nourishing content. Amen. Amen. OK, And many times we as parents dropped the ball in, in this area.

and I'm not saying, A week ago we sat down as a family and played the game Block us, that we shouldn't go, well, what's the nourishing content here? will this nourish them towards the Lord? we can get too obsessive with this, but what? Most of us, most all of us err on the side of not evaluating nearly to the degree that we should.

And so understand guys, that there are very smart people out there who hate the things of God. And they are hell bent on destroying your children and bringing their children to destruction along with them. Very smart people sitting in boardrooms who are getting paid millions of dollars to entertain your children and to entertain them with a message that is exactly the opposite of the message that God wants your children to be nourished with. And so I'm telling you, there's a lot of people out there putting a lot of thought and doing a lot of shopping for your children.

And they're offering it up every day on the TV screen and in the DVDs and the videos that your children are entertained by. A lot of shopping's going on, offering that up for your children. How much thinking and shopping are you doing? To see to it that your children are nourished the way that they should.

How careful are you? We can do the best job of nourishing our children with God's word and in the gospel of God. But then if we're allowing a lot of crud into our homes, at the same time without evaluating that, we're doing the right thing on one end and then we're allowing it to be undercut on the other end. In terms of the music that your children listen to, I would encourage you as parents, and some of you children may groan at this, but, parents read the lyrics.

Of the music that your children are listening to, read the lyrics, understand their music, and encourage them to be listening to music that is spiritually nourishing to them. Children, let yourselves be trained to do this. Your thought should be not does this make me feel good? Is this what everyone else is listening to?

I need to know the lyrics of this because it's what everyone else is singing and I wanna fit in. Your thought with regard to musical choices should be, what will nourish me spiritually. And help me to be what God wants me to be. You make your musical selections based upon that choice.

And then lastly, a final way to make our home a nourishing place spiritually is by manifesting the gospel. In our words, our attitudes, our countenance, and in the way that we go about relating with our children, relating to one another as husband and wife, where we are really working to not just convey God's word through our words but through our actions and our attitudes that our children not just hear the gospel from us but we are the gospel to them. We are displaying the gospel to them.

They see it on our countenance.

They sin, and yes, we respond and we deal with their sins sometimes sternly, but ultimately there is healing there, there is genuine correction there. They are being ministered to for their ultimate good and there are answers and there is hope to their sin problems because of what Jesus did in dying on the cross for their sins. When our children do wrong we. Come to them and say you have done wrong and this is a sin against God and against your mom and your dad and your brother or sister or whatever wrong that you have done, but what, your dad, your mom is a sinner too, and we need God's grace and that's why Jesus came for people just like you and just like your mom and your dad and you minister the gospel to them in the midst of that correction.

I'm sure there are many other things that we could add to this list of things that we can do to make our home a nourishing place, but here's the deal, parents, be extremely careful. As you relate to your children to not provoke them to anger, but nourish them, nourish them. In the word of God, the grace of God, and the gospel of God, which has the power to train. And admonish them in righteousness.

Some of you are sitting here. Feeling really guilty. Right now Like, what, I have blown it. My children are older now.

In some cases, my children are out of the home, and frankly, this message hurts. To hear, I had one parent come up to me after the first service, and he half jokingly said, you've ruined my day. And I, I identify with that. I look back over my years of parenting, and there's so many wasted opportunities.

So much failure that is there. But guys, that's why we're here. we're all sinners. We have all failed, and that's who Jesus came for.

We have even as parents to run to the cross with all of our parental sins and failures, and experience grace and forgiveness and healing through the blood of Jesus. If you don't do that. You will continue to be bound by the guilt of those sins, and as long as you're bound by the guilt of those parental failures, you will perpetually recommit those failures. But if we can genuinely be released from the guilt of all of our past failures and sins, savor God's grace and then launch into being the parents.

God wants us to be whether our children are in the home or out of the home. God will honor that. God is in the business of forgiving and transforming, taking broken sticks and putting them together again, taking something that is broken and defiled and making it beautiful. And that's why we're here.

We're broken, messed up sinners that have come to the cross and have said, God, remake me. Forgive me. And make me new every day. And so let's make sure that we go to the cross and taste of God's grace for our failures.

That is the most critical thing that we must do if we are going to move from there to be the parents that God wants us to be. Let me ask you to bow your heads. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, and God is the ultimate friend, and sometimes from his word we do feel. The wound and the sting of it, but That's a sign of life, actually.

It's a sign of God's love. And he says, hey, It's coming from your ultimate friend. Cause I want you to grow. I want you to be humbled.

I want you to be improved. By my grace And so drink of that grace, you yourself be nourished by that training and admonition of the Lord in your own life. And then nourish your broken children. With that same Grace Let's go to the Lord and let's ask Him to help us.

To be champion parents. Who champion the spiritual nourishment of our children. And in so doing, we raise our children in homes that produce champions for Jesus. God, we bring our broken, messed up selves to you.

We confess that we have fallen so far short of this standard presented in this passage. We have fallen short every day. We deserve your wrath, but instead you say, I forgive, I forgive, I delight, I pleasure to forgive you. Parents for your failures.

It brings me great pleasure. To give to you of my mercy and grace. And so God, we, we drink that in. We thank you for it.

But we say to you that we want to be better. And to be better, you must strengthen us and change us. And so help us to be in your word and in your gospel and in your grace and be transformed by it. So that we can then bring to our children the nourishment that they need, a nourishment that will train them, correct them.

Develop them into the men and women that you want them to be. We ask these things, Lord, in the name of Jesus. And all God's people said, Amen. Let's stand together and Respond to our time and God's word.

By singing Take My Life. Let's make this our commitment to the Lord. just Holiness. This is Lord, we thank you for this time that we've had to be in your word and to be reminded.

Of these truths of the gospel, we ask the Lord that by your spirit that we be able to put these things into practice. Lord, those of us with kids outside of the home, help us by your spirit have this mindset, Lord, even with children that are grown and gone, those of us that have no children, Lord, may we think of ways that we can encourage the children in this church as we're all a family. Lord, there is a corporate responsibility that we share for one another and for each other's children.

So help us implement these things by your spirit.

And even how we operate as a church and a community. We thank you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen, I wanna take just a moment before we're dismissed to just remind you of some opportunities and announcements.

One is I just wanna encourage you guys to come back tonight for our annual meeting. This is gonna be a great time of celebration to look back at 2006 and thank the Lord for what has happened and look forward to 2007. And so I wanna encourage you guys to come out. We'll be sharing the 2000 budget, the 2007 vision, and then we'll be voting on our officers.

There is on the back table a packet for those that are interested in the finance details. Now that's not me. I'm like the big picture guy, but if you wanna know about the financial details of our church 2006 and going into 2007, there are packets in the back, but please bring those back tonight. We've had copier problems.

We had to spend 100 bucks to get those packets copied today for you. So if you leave yours at home, we will have no copy for you tonight, OK? So bring those back with you. Also, we just wanted to let that, February 18th we're gonna have a concert here in the evening.

February 18th, Majesty, a group from the Master's College is gonna be here. It's gonna be a great time. Invite, friends, family, non-Christians, and, and, put that on your calendar. And with that, let's have a great afternoon.

We'll see you guys back here at 6 o'clock, 6 o'clock, not like the website says 6:30, it's 6 o'clock.