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The Bible's vision for parenting may be summarized as "equipping without tripping." We are to prepare our children and grandchildren to walk with God in a world that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge God's lordship. But we must do so in a way that releases their freedom and God-given creativity instead of locking them into rigid religious behaviors. Such a thing is only possible only as parents and children mutually bask in the mercy and grace of God.

 

Message Preceded by sharing from Parker Peterson and Emma McRoberts

Nobody has any doubt that being a parent is the hardest job in the world. It just so happens that that same job brims with the potential to change the world. Every year social scientists “run the numbers” and determine how much it costs, on average, to raise an American child from birth through adolescence. The current figure – and it’s no doubt rising even as we speak – exceeds $250,000.

But a quarter of a million dollars is a bargain when you consider the immeasurable opportunity of being a mentor, spiritual guide, coach, friend, camp director, nurse, driving instructor, and primary influencer of a living person who bears the image of the Creator; who has one-of-a-kind DNA; who has unique spiritual gifts and call; and who is destined to live forever.

As we continue to examine what the Apostle Paul has to say about human relationships, we need to pause here and acknowledge that a number of you have never been moms or dads. Or perhaps your parenting days are far behind you. Or the very mention of children is painful beyond words because you have lost a child, or God has not yet answered your prayers to have kids of your own.

But parenting in fact turns out to be a communal effort, especially within the body of Christ. It is not a trivial thing whenever we raise our hands on the occasion of a baptism or dedication and make a promise that we will be there as part of the future of that little boy or girl. God calls each of us to help love and guide and nurture far more children than could ever be part of our own family. With confidence, then, that these words have God-provided meaning for every one of us, let’s turn to Ephesians 6:1-4.

We live in a world that is overwhelmed by constant communication. Every day more text messages are sent than the number of people who live on Earth. If those who access Facebook on a daily basis were to be gathered into a separate country, it would be the world’s fourth largest nation – right between the United States and Indonesia. With the passing of every 24 hours, all of that communication comes and goes. But God’s words to us are timeless. That’s why they are worth committing to memory! Whether reading from your own copy of Scripture, or looking up here at the screens, or reciting them by heart, let’s stand together and speak aloud these words that will never go out of date:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ – which is the first commandment with a promise – ‘that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

As we look back over the last few weeks of our study of Ephesians, we remember that Paul has already set down some non-negotiables when it comes to relationships. Anger and self-centeredness are always out. Caring, nurture, and submission are always in. Don’t believe it whenever someone tries to tell you that submission is a one-way street – that a certain group of Christians is specifically obligated to submit to another group, and that’s the end of the story. Submission is universal. Ephesians 5:21 is Paul’s reminder that every follower of Jesus is called to submit to every other follower of Jesus.

By the way, just a few days before the 33 miners were rescued down in Chile, they had a protracted argument amongst themselves. The issue was the order in which they would climb into the capsule and be lifted to the surface. According to reports, all the miners wanted to be the last person rescued – so their brothers could reach safety first. That is the spirit of submission. And that is the backdrop for these instructions to parents and children.

We also need to remember that the Greco-Roman culture of the first century and American culture of the 21^st century are radically different. To our own unchurched neighbors, this morning’s text might come across as rigidly conservative. But to non-Christians who were living in the time of Paul, these words were dangerously liberal. In their minds these sentences were intended to undermine basic family values and to destroy the very fabric of ancient society. How could that be possible?

What worried the non-Christians in the city of Ephesus is that Paul was calling fathers to be accountable as to how they raised their children. This was a radical suggestion, for no one in the ancient world ever told a father what to do. The Roman father, who was known as the paterfamilias, had absolute and unlimited power over his own household. It was he who determined whether a newborn baby would be welcomed into the family or would be tossed into the city dump. The common surname Esposito is a reminder of those days. A little boy or girl who had been left “exposed” to the elements, yet somehow survived, was often given the Latin name Exposito, which became Esposito in Spanish.

A Roman father also had the right to sell his own children into slavery – something that was more likely to happen if his household ended up with too many little girls. He had veto power over whatever choices his children might make with regard to their education, work, and marriage partners. And he could even kill his own children when they disobeyed him – an extreme measure that was nevertheless backed up by Roman law.

What complicated things even further is that many people assumed a father’s authority lasted for a lifetime. Therefore when Paul writes, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord,” he’s not just talking to toddlers. He’s addressing anyone whose parents were still alive.

It’s worth noting that during the time of Jesus and Paul a number of Roman and Greek families apparently decided that having children was simply too costly and too much of a hassle. Caesar Augustus dangled major tax breaks before potential young parents. But he didn’t get many takers. The Romans fretted that “the wrong kind of people” would end up having all the babies – like those religious fanatics who worshipped a dead Jew named Jesus. And that is exactly what happened. Christians, who believed that life was a good gift from a wonderfully good God, consistently felt led to fill the world with children who might come to know God’s love.

So what do we learn from this text? We must begin by stating that verse one is not a weapon given to Christian parents to shame and control their kids. Moms and dads are not to say to their children, “Now, don’t forget – God wants you to obey us in everything.” Fellow parents: That is not our verse. That verse belongs to our children. Riding herd on that particular instruction is like opening our kids’ mail and telling them what’s inside. God’s word to parents is instead found in verse four. It consists of one important do and one important don’t.

Ephesians 6:4 begins, “Fathers, don’t exasperate your children” – or, as the underlying Greek puts it, “don’t provoke your children to anger.” So, does this mean we should never do anything that might call out an angry response from a child? If that were so, dentists would go out of business, and not a lot of asparagus would be eaten. As Jeff Van Vonderen explains in his book Families Where Grace is in Place, Paul is not placing us in control of our children’s anger – as if such a thing were even possible. Nor is it our job to make sure our children are happy every minute of every hour. But Paul is placing us in charge of whether or not we provoke a certain kind of anger in our kids.

The word for anger that Paul uses in Ephesians 6:4 is perigismos. It means “seething hostility.” Think of a pan of spaghetti sauce that has just reached the boiling point. Suddenly the surface tension of the liquid is overcome and the marinara splatters all over your stovetop. Seething hostility is a continuing state of unaddressed anger that is boiling just beneath the surface of one’s life. Paul says, “Don’t drive your children into that condition.”

How does such a thing happen? We may refuse to allow our kids to express their own anger. “Don’t you ever let me hear you talk like that again!” or, “You are making Jesus feel very sad right now by the way you’re feeling.” Kids will scrunch their anger down inside in order to get through a moment like that, or to make sure that Jesus doesn’t end up having a bad day because of them.

When kids are angry, especially if they are young, moms and dads tend to be worried about how everyone else at Taco Bell is judging their parenting skills. So we think, “I had better make my kids obey.” What we get, over time, is an outwardly compliant child – but one who is inwardly wrestling with seething anger. This kind of latent hostility is more easily observed in teenagers. Instead of forcing kids to suppress their feelings, it is far better for us to say, “I can understand why you are so upset and disappointed right now. But slamming the door is not going to help. Let’s find a better way to deal with this issue.”  

Parents exasperate their children when they live by double standards – when they demand one thing, but personally do something else. Kids who are already struggling with the issue of going to church, for instance, can sniff out spiritual hypocrisy a mile away.

Jeff Van Vonderen recalls a time when he exploded in anger at the misbehavior of his young daughters in a furniture store. In truth, they were just being kids. But he threw them all into the car and started driving home. After several miles of silence one of his girls timidly asked, “Dad, how come when we are angry with you, you want us to say it with words? But when you’re angry with us, you can just grab us and make us sit in the car?” Listen to how Van Vonderen remembers his inner dialogue at that moment:

“Yeah, Jeff, how come? Because I’m the Dad. Bad answer. Because I’m an adult. Bad answer. Because I’m bigger, faster, stronger, louder… Bad answer. Because I don’t have to do what I say.” Another bad answer. At the end of that long, silent ride, Jeff sat down with his daughters and came clean. He hadn’t actually taken the time to explain that he was angry with them and why. In a recent survey children were asked, “What, if anything, do you wish were different about your mom?” The number one answer – which was offered up more often than the next fifty answers combined – was, “I wish my mom wouldn’t yell at me so much.”

Parents can exasperate their children, or drive them to seething anger, by violating their boundaries. Or by continually turning a deaf ear to their questions and needs. Or by making a habit of being absent from their lives. Or by wearing them out with the overt or implied expectation that they have to measure up if they ever want to receive our love. Driving our kids’ anger into hiding, where it is sure to re-emerge in a painful way at some point in the future, is not what healthy parenting is all about. That’s the don’t of Ephesians 6:4

So let’s turn to what parents – and, by extension, grandparents – are called to do: “Do bring your children up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Training and instruction may sound a bit like Bible Boot Camp. But the part of this verse that tends to get overlooked is the verb: “Bring up.” Bringing up a child in the way of the Lord has powerful connotations of nurturing and encouraging.

The basic mission of parenting is actually simple and straightforward. We must prepare our children to know and follow the rules – that is, the appropriate boundaries that God has placed on human life – and we must prepare our children to love and be loved. Here’s another way to put it: We must show our children how to hang on to Jesus no matter what – even when there is immense societal pressure to do otherwise.

The good news is that there is no statute of limitations on effective parenting. Back in high school I remember seeing an anti-teen pregnancy poster that showed an expectant female student. Just above her appeared the words, “It’s like being grounded for 18 years.” The implication is that on your child’s 18^th birthday he or she will take off down the road and your work as a parent is finally wrapped up. Now that our children are all in their 20s and 30s, we’ve come to realize that they need their mom and their dad just as much as they did when they were in preschool, or elementary school, or middle school, or high school. Their specific needs have changed and the depth of our mutual dialogue has ramped up considerably, but they are still looking to us as spiritual directors, financial advisors, and living examples of how to face life’s challenges. At some level, children of all ages are always paying attention to what their moms and dads are modeling.

If bringing up a child in the training and instruction of the Lord is a lifetime proposition, what specifically is God calling us to do? Let’s look at four identities that every parent should claim.

First, we must be true disciples. We cannot give away what we ourselves do not have. We cannot model what we have personally failed to embrace because of our own selfishness or fear. A disciple is a lifelong learner of Jesus Christ – an intentional imitator of everything that God’s Son thinks, and says, and does. Discipleship is not an academic exercise or a commitment that is only Sunday School-deep. A disciple is a follower of Jesus who eagerly pursues him in every area of life, bar none.

Last week Don Paterson talked about the tragedy of so many men abdicating their God-given assignment of spiritual leadership in their own homes. As parents we cannot abdicate the task of discipleship to the church! While it may be wonderful for a child or a teenager to invest two hours or more each week in church, we are blind and clueless if we think that two hours of Treasure Island or a youth group event will somehow shape our children into the ways of Jesus and allow them to stand against the pervasive and destructive influences of our culture. The Bible could not be clearer: Parents are called to be the primary disciplers of their own children. It is not somebody else’s job to bring up our children or grandchildren in the ways of the Lord. The family is almost always where real discipleship happens…or fails to happen.

It may be frightening to hear, but moms and dads, more than anyone else, are the ones who set up their kids for a lifetime either of knowing and loving God, or hiding from and hating God. Our first impressions of our Father in heaven tend to be shaped by our experience of our own fathers on earth. From our earliest moments we form relationships because we need someone stronger and wiser to protect us from a dangerous world. Parents can either be a secure base for children, or the source of lifelong anxiety and fear. Fear of abandonment is the fundamental human fear. If for some reason we make it difficult for our children to trust us, it will also be difficult for them to place trust in God – the one whom we proclaim to be the strongest and wisest of all.

As parents we are continually being told what we should never have done. We should never have let our kids go outdoors without sunscreen. We should never have let our kids watch so much TV. We should never have let our kids eat more than one hot dog per year. Sorry: It’s too late for all that. But if you feel grieved about the spiritual legacy that you have either left or failed to leave with the little ones under your care, it’s never too late. Choose today to be a disciple of Jesus. Pray for your children and grandchildren. Ask God to provide opportunities to demonstrate to them, through your own life, that Jesus can be trusted above all. And remember that you’re not alone: Join with other Christian parents in creatively pursuing this quest. What is at stake? Nothing less than eternity is at stake.

Second, we must be faithful to our own moms and dads. Not all of us are called to be parents. But every one of us is here because God gave us life through parents of our own. Therefore the first three verses of Ephesians 6 are for everybody. We must honor our father and our mother, even if they are no longer alive. One of the most powerful ways to model grace and truth to the generation that is following us is to model grace and truth to the generation that preceded us.

How do we honor our parents as they grow older? At what point are we released from obeying them? Those issues alone deserve an entire sermon, and we cannot explore them in sufficient detail this morning.

What we know is that in the ancient world older people were considered treasures of wisdom and experience. The young eagerly sought the counsel of grandparents. Today, however, older people are generally considered “out of it.” They may feel paralyzed by the ever-advancing world of technology. In a dramatic reversal of which generation is perceived to be most wise and useful, grandparents these days need to consult their grandchildren just to figure out how to access their email. Instead of feeling valued and included, older people often feel alone. In the ancient world living a long life was celebrated as a personal and public blessing. But nowadays a long life may be considered a financial threat to our Social Security system.

The Bible unequivocally considers long life to be a good gift from God. Look at verses two and three: “’Honor your father and mother’” – which is the first commandment with a promise – ‘that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’” May God soften our spirits toward our own moms and dads, and grow within us a continuing expression of thanks for how God has used our parents, in one fashion or another, to shape the outcome of our lives.

Third, we must be sensitive. Anyone who has parented more than one child knows that one size does not fit all. Children are gloriously different from each other. We are not called to memorize a spiritual manual or a code of discipline and then expect each child to get with the program. Be sensitive to each child’s unique needs.

Author and counselor Tim Clinton writes, “Sensitive parents understand that their children must learn how to do just about everything: how to calm themselves when upset, how to deal with frustration, how to delay gratification, how to handle social conflict, and how to motivate themselves to do what they just don’t want to do.” Sensitive parents teach their children how to work through and overcome life’s challenges.

In the time of Paul there wasn’t much tender physical contact between parents and children – something that also turned out to be true during the first half of the 20^th century here in America. But sensitive parents are increasingly making it a priority to touch their kids. Traditionally we’ve been taught that every child needs at least 11 touches a day, but one expert thinks 100 touches a day are not too many. We don’t need to keep an exact record of our tenderness. But surely it is wise for us to be tender to a fault.

Fourth, and finally, be relentless. Stay the course. It costs a lot to be a great parent. And children are our greatest assets. The most important task of stewardship is to bring up the next generation in the ways of the Lord. Children are a priceless and irreplaceable resource, and we cannot afford to give them the leftovers of our best efforts.

What are we doing to our children when we imply to them that there are no fixed moral boundaries? When we walk out on our own marital commitments and leave them defenseless in a predatorial world? When we ridicule sacred things? When we worship celebrities but refuse to let the worship of God even receive a mention in public schools?

There really is a war on families. It looks like longer work hours, distorted values, and the suggestion that the only thing worth living for is keeping up with the Joneses. A calendar is a moral document. God may be calling us to say No to things on our schedule that we would really like to do, and to say No to things that our children’s schedules that they would really like to do, just so there is sufficient time and opportunity for what matters more than anything: bringing up our kids so they can actually know God and his ways.

Much of the time parenting is an act of faith. You don’t really feel like Mother of the Year when your 15-year-old storms out of the house and refuses to talk to you because you’ve refused to allow him or her to attend a certain party. But our real goal is the man or the woman that child is going to be 15 years from now, which means that at the present moment – even in the face of very little positive feedback – our call is to stay the course.

In the middle of the nineteenth century a stagecoach driver was carrying a woman and her young daughter over sub-zero, snow-covered terrain. The driver glanced back and noticed that this mom had taken off her coat and wrapped it around her daughter to keep her warm. They had both fallen asleep. The driver knew they would soon freeze to death. So he took action.

He stopped the horses. He leaped down and snatched the sleeping child from her mother’s arms. He threw the woman into a bank of snow. She awoke in horror to see the driver – who was tightly clutching her bewildered daughter – just as he jumped back onto the stagecoach and urged the horses into motion. She jumped up and ran after the coach screaming for the driver to stop.

After a few moments he let her catch up. “How could you do such a cruel thing?” she shouted. “Because you were dying,” he answered, “and this was the only thing I knew to do to wake you up and get you moving again.”

Do you remember Paul’s words back in Ephesians 5:14? “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” All of us have to wake up, again and again, and come to terms with the seriousness of God’s call on our lives. It is our privilege and our sacred responsibility to help raise up the next generation for the Lord. Will you do whatever it takes to make that happen?