Kaleo San Diego Church

INTRODUCTION

Here is the sermon handout on the Gospel and Children.

Paul continues his instruction to the church in Colossae by moving from who Christ is, what Christ has done, how we are to respond to this reality, and how our relationships should be ordered by these incredible truths.

Last week we looked at the wife and husband. I mentioned that this is the nucleus of the whole family. If the husband and wife are not submitting to and loving Christ first and foremost, a multitude of problems will ensue.

This chapter addresses three groups; wives and husbands (last week), children and parents (this week), slaves and masters (next week). This is significant since in this time when a letter was written it typically mentioned those that were considered most important (husbands, fathers, masters). But in a scandalous turn of values, Christ has made the last first. Paul now addresses the last first in each group (wives, children, slaves). It’s amazing to see how radically different our value system is compared to God’s Kingdom values. It is not mistake they are addressed in this order.

This week we continue to look at the family, but more specifically the relationship between the child and parent with a warning to fathers.

Our home is considered the “little church” and the father as the pastor of his little flock. Lewis Bayly said, "What the preacher is in the pulpit, the same the Christian householder is in his house." There is never to be a major contrast between our private home-life and our public church-life. If we really have been changed by grace, then we relate to each other in a totally different way. Hypocrisy should no longer be a common trait in our character since it is so far from who Christ.

STUDY

Children

Verse 20- Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord.

Expanded Parallel: Ephesians 6:1-3 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH.

Since this passage has no age specifically in mind (though it is probably intended for children currently living in the home of their parents), we are to honor our parents in all stages of our life. If we ignore, fail to care for, fail to show love to, fail to heed their wisdom and counsel (assuming it is biblical counsel), we have not honored them and therefore we have not obeyed God and followed His instruction for us in our closest relationship- our family.

It is easy for us as a young church to assume this passage doesn’t relate directly to us since many in this church are not married and are not parents. We fail to remember that we are children of our parents who gave us life and therefore when we hear this instruction we should be careful not to dismiss it simply because you are now “on your own.” The truth is you will always be a child of your parents, and certainly if you are a Christian you are a child of your Father in Heaven. Just because you pay your own bills (some of you), and you brush your own teeth, and you have figured out how to dress yourself, you should be cautious when you begin to believe that you no longer need your parents. If you have come to think that because you are in your late teens, twenties, thirties, forties, or whatever you might be, you no longer need to consider your father and mother as “parents” as much as they are your “friends.” It might be the case that you have grown in your relationship with your parents as you have aged and matured, but make no mistake, you are still their child and they are still your parent. This passage directly relates to each of us this morning- each of us that have parents. It also directly relates to those who never think they will have children because they have their whole lives before them. Let me tell you plainly- when you meet the one God has intended for you to marry, you quickly move from telling yourself children are far off to suddenly thinking of names for little girls and boys. This passage also teaches us what God would expect of His children.

If children are called to obedience by the Lord, there is clearly an assumption that they need to obey whatever the parents tell them that is in accord with God’s word. What are we calling them to obey? Are we calling them to satisfy our goals and rules or are we lovingly giving instruction that will lead them to Christ and follow God’s truths for our lives? Are we giving the gospel or are we showing them works based religion? This also implies that parents are an authority to children, not just buddies or friends.

Obedience is an issue of the heart

Proverbs 4:23 Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.

This is an extremely important statement- this pictures the heart as a well from which all the issues of life and behavior flow. The actions of every person are an expression of the overflow of the heart. The heart determines behavior. When we come to God’s word and it calls us to be obedient- whether that is obedience to parents or obedience to God’s way for us, we need to understand on the outset that we are talking about issues of our heart. This is most evident with children.

Children (and adults) disobey because their hearts are desperately sick

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Psalms 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

Romans 3:10-12 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."

Because the hearts of all men and women, boys and girls, are desperately sick, and we are all unrighteous, there is a need for grace. In order for children to become obedient in all things which is pleasing to the Lord, a child’s heart must be changed through the power of Gospel.

Moralism and works based religion would tell us that children just need good advice to follow. This takes away from the power of the Gospel because it assumes that our children can simply follow good advice and they will grow up to be good adults. The problem with this is that God does not see us in this way. He sees our hearts as they truly are- desperately wicked and estranged from Him. This is why he gives us His grace. He showers it upon us, and in the act of what His Son Jesus has accomplished for us, when our hearts are changed and we are given faith our sins are forgiven. Moralism teaches a works based approach to God in following advice. Our job is to shepherd our children in the Gospel so that they see their need of God’s grace, their sin as real and serious, and their disobedience as unto God and not just mom and dad.

If children are born spiritually, ethically and morally neutral, then they don’t need correction, they need direction. They don’t need discipline, they need instruction.

Children are not born neutral, the verses we just read demonstrate that children are born with a heart that is not oriented towards God, but oriented towards self. The problem is not a lack of information. The problem is that our cute little kids are sinners. There are things within the heart of a child that if allowed to blossom and grow to fruition, will bring about physical and spiritual destruction in full disobedience to God and to their parents.

What your children say and do is a reflection of their hearts. Therefore, behavior is not the basic issue. The basic issue is always what is going on in the heart. If the heart is the control center of life, then we should pay close attention to it primarily and behavior secondarily.

Most children and parents, most Christians, get sidetracked with behavior. If your goal is to teach your children or yourself obedience so that your behavior will be changed you are still relating to God based primarily upon your righteousness and your works. With that said, behavior is great litmus test of the heart, but if you think by changing behavior you’ll change you or your child’s heart, you will find yourself blowing out a match in the middle of a forest fire. Externally you or your child might “act” righteous, but inwardly you are just as far from God as you were when you “acted” disobediently.

If we are to really go after the problem of disobedience in our children’s hearts, we must deal with ourselves and our children at a more profound level. If it is true that our behavior doesn’t just spring up without a cause, and that the cause really is our heart, we can only help our children and ourselves by questioning and dealing with the attitudes of our hearts.

A change in your child’s behavior that doesn’t come from a changed heart is not commendable before God, it is actually condemnable. Why? Because it is the type of hypocrisy that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees. In Matthew 15, Jesus rails on the Pharisees who have honored Him with their lips but their hearts were far from Him. Jesus likens them to a people that wash the outside of the cup while the inside is still unclean. This is often what we do with our children because it is how we relate to God ourselves. Changed behavior never addresses the heart that drives that behavior.

Now this doesn’t mean that you don’t require obedience and that you never correct. You should require obedience since the verse we are considering along with Ephesians 6 and the rest of Scripture demand it as well. God requires obedience to His law. But how is the law of God kept? Is it kept by our strength? Can we be perfectly obedient to it? No. We see the need, hear instruction from God, and realize that we are not able to keep His law perfectly. This is the entry point of understanding the Gospel. Only then will we see the true value of Jesus and our need for His righteousness. Because HE kept the Law perfectly, because HE forgave our sins of breaking God’s standard, because HE is the only sacrifice God appointed to stand in our place that would be pleasing to the Him. God commands obedience, we can only obey because Christ obeyed. God desires we please Him, but we can only please God through Christ and the pleasure Christ brings God. By the Gospel we are free from our sin and our hearts are fundamentally changed. Therefore, we now have peace with God and are given Christ’s righteous standing before God and treated by God as if we had lived the life His Son had lived. This only comes through Christ taking our sin upon Himself. Because of the Father’s great love for us and for His glory, He treats His Son as if He lived the life of sin we lived.

If our children are to obey they must see their disobedience as the result of a straying heart. We must show them to think about what it was in their heart that caused them to act the way they did and we must remind ourselves of this very same truth.

The goal for our children’s obedience is for God-ward orientation. Since our children are by nature religious beings (by God’s design), children are worshippers. They will either worship Jehovah or they will worship Idols. They will never be neutral. Since our children are made in the image of God, they will worship God or something other than God- namely idols of their heart. Our children will either respond in a God-ward orientation shaped by the Gospel of grace or by an idol orientation shaped by the gospel of works. They will respond to us and to God as children of faith, or they will respond to us and to God as children of works. Our goal then is to ensure that we know the Gospel well enough to be changed by it and well enough to see when it is not being lived in response to.

Parenting isn’t providing good advice. It is not just creating a constructive home with positive interaction between children and parents. The child is interacting in another dimension the entire time they are interacting with us. They child is interacting with the living Creator God of the Universe. Our child is either worshipping and serving and growing in their understanding of the gospel and of the God of the gospel, or they are seeking to make sense out of life without a relationship with God. We are given the task of shepherding our children to be a creature who worships the One true God alone and show this One true God is worthy of their entire being in worship. The question is not “will our children worship?” The question is “whom will our children worship?”

Think of the failure of King David to shepherd his children Adonijah and Absalom. Adonijah and Absalom both worshipped themselves an attempted to overthrow King David, their father, they were wicked to the core and both were ultimately killed. It is mentioned in scripture that David never disciplined Adonijah (1 Kings 1:6), and it is like he did the same with Abaslom. If we are to see our children become obedient, their hearts must be changed and they must be shepherded by the Gospel.

God considers the attitude of the children towards their parents as very important. So important that He mentions the honoring of your mother and father as the first of the commands which deal with how we treat one another. The first four commandments deal with how we are to relate to God, the second six deal with how we are to relate to one another. This issue was so important that if you were openly dishonoring and disobedient to your parents when relating to the things of God you were killed in the Old Testament. It is a very serious issue because the heart behind such disobedience and dishonor is the same heart that disobeys and dishonors God. This is why it is considered sin to dishonor your mom and dad. God said we are to honor them and when we don’t we are actually offending God! It is a huge issue. We can’t simply brush off the attitudes of our children and say “they are just more difficult” or “that’s just their personality- strong willed.” God doesn’t accept excuses like that from us or from our children. Our children act wickedly because their hearts are wicked and therefore we need to see their actions as an offense to God and sinning against Him. If we are courageous and loving to our children, we should be telling them the truth about their state before God and shepherding them to confessing their sins and asking for the Lord’s forgiveness. The Gospel is primary!

Fathers (parents)

Verse 21- Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

Expanded Parallel: Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

The goal of all discipline for your children should be the love of God. The purpose of discipline is to correct and instruct our children so that they see actions have consequences, we reap what we sow, and when we break God’s law and dishonor mom and dad (which is breaking God’s law) there are consequences to sin.

The goal of discipline is not punishment. It’s to instruct our kids to repent and be personally accountable for their sin. We should want our kids to be restored to us, restored to God, and this is a way for them to sense forgiveness and love from us and from God.

Hebrews 12:3-11 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; 6 FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." 7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Proverbs 13:24 He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.

Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.

Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.

Distortions in discipline are common in families where discipline is seen as a way of dealing with your parental anger, or when a parent refuses to discipline because it is inconvenient for them to do so at the time.

When Paul says not to “exasperate your children” he uses a word which means to stir up, provoke, or act in a constantly irritating way. The modern phrase would be to “stop nagging your kids.” Failure to follow Paul’s instruction can cause children to lose heart. They literally become a child “without courage, or spirit.” They become listless, sullen, discouraged, or despairing. Parents can take the very heart out of their children by failing to discipline them lovingly and instruct them in the ways of the Lord with balance as they seek to model the Gospel.

There are many ways we can “exasperate our children.”

First, parents can exasperate their children by overprotection. This is a difficult one if you love your kids and desire their well-being…I know! When children have overly strict parents who give rules about every little thing, they begin to lose trust in their ability to make decisions because nothing the do earns their parents’ trust. Children begin to despair and believe that their relationship with their father or mother is based upon their performance alone. This usually leads to rebellion when the child realizes they will never meet their parent’s standard. We are to provide biblical truths and show how a child of God is called to live through instruction, but those rules should not be become the noose that strangles them or the way they receive the reward of affection from their parents.

Second, parents exasperate their children by showing favoritism. When they compare children to classmates or siblings, this makes the child feel like the loser in the family who will never do anything right. This causes great insecurity and frustration for the child.

Third, we can exasperate our children by depreciating their worth. If they are never told they are made in God’s image and therefore are important and have worth. If they are never told that they are a blessing to you, they will begin to think they are worthless.

Fourth, parents often set unrealistic goals for their children. Parents can do this by never rewarding their children or by setting goals that are projections of our failures or personal desires. We attempt to make our children into something we never were. Nothing is ever enough to get approval. They learn to relate to those closest to them in a works based way. Love becomes conditional upon performance and this has led to many suicides.

Fifth, parents can exasperate their children by not providing for their needs. Without love, nurture, clean clothes, food, a place to study, the safety of a place to live, etc. By providing these things for them parents show their concern for their children. They know they are taken care of by their parents and they trust the will continue to take care of them. This gives the children a sense of safety and security.

Sixth, parents often fail to show affection. Parents need to verbally tell and physically show how much they love their children. Failing to do so will discourage and alienate the child.

Seventh, parents at times lack any standards. This is the opposite side of overprotection. When parents fail to discipline, or do so inconsistently, children are left on their own. They really cannot handle that kind of freedom and begin to feel insecure and unloved.

Eight, parents exasperate their children by being overly critical. A child learns what he lives. If he lives with too much criticism he does not learn responsibility. He learns to condemn himself and to find fault with others. He learns to doubt his own judgment, to disparage his own ability, and to distrust the intentions of others. Above all, he learns to live with continual expectation of impending doom. Our home should be a place where our children learn that it is o.k. to hear criticism because it helps them to grow and not a tool we use to vent our anger.

Lastly, parents can exasperate their children by excessive discipline. This is the parent who abuses his children, either physically or verbally by telling them they are worthless or stupid. When we discipline our children in an abusive way, we are demonstrating hatred, not love towards them. There is no justification for this kind of discipline. Instead we are to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). This is what honors God.

The problem we have as children and the problem we have as parents are one in the same. We are not able to follow this instruction through our own efforts and strength. If we are to understand the gospel in our parenting, we need to see our desperate need of it in our own life. If we esteem anything more than Christ, we will never be able to love our children and discipline them without exasperating them. In order for a parent to really love their children, they need to first love Jesus. When we see ourselves as incapable and unable to be the kind of parents God calls us to, we should not simply try harder. We need to realize that the problem is not our hard work, but our hearts that do not want to trust Christ. We have a problem with our own identity as children of the Father and it is manifested in our parenting. A parent that sees Christ as the one who has forgiven them, and who has given His righteousness to them, is a parent that is now freed to lovingly follow God’s word.

Our sin keeps us from trusting in God’s ways for our families. It is the ultimate problem behind every problem. We need to come to Christ in continuous faith so that our mind becomes transformed and our hearts are changed into clay for Him to form them as He wishes. Only Christ can change our nature and our child’s nature. Only by God’s grace can we follow our Lord and live in response to the great reality that we are safe in the Father’s hand to love as the Father loves.

Gospel and Children
The practice of shepherding towards and with the Gospel

WORKS BASED PARENTING		GRACE BASED PARENTING
Duty, nuisance, primarily hard work	VIEW OF CHILDREN	Blessing, Joy, Gift
Parental Authority, defined by parent	AUTHORITY	God authority, defined and given by God
Law to keep, love for law, to keep order	VIEW OF DISCIPLINE	Love for God, discipline out of love
Insecure/Works based approval, needs acceptance through performance	CHILD’S SECURITY	Secure/accepted by parents/loved by Christ, already approved
Strive for the praise, approval, and acceptance of parents/God	NEED FOR APPROVAL	Child is accepted already, grace orientation towards approval
Seek obedient children to win approval of others and God, obedience for convenience	MOTIVE FOR OBEDIENCE	Obedience that is motivated by a love for God, wants child to honor God
Overly critical, child learns to “act” right but not “be” right in heart, never satisfied with child	CRITICISM	Godly criticism produces awareness of sin and calls child to repent with confidence of forgiveness from God
“Must” be holy to have parents favor, thus increasing a sense of shame and guilt	MOTIVE FOR PURITY	“Want to” be holy; do not want anything to hinder relationship with parents and with God, God is in mind not parent
Self-rejection from comparing child to others, self-image is poor, feels like they can’t “live up” to parents expectations	CHILD’S SELF-IMAGE	Humble and courageous because the child knows they have favor with God and are loved by parents through Christ
Seek comfort in counterfeit affections: inappropriate attention, acts out, jealousy,	SOURCE OF COMFORT	Desires to be with parents, feel loved by God and parents, sense of safety
Competition, rivalry, and jealousy toward others’ possessions and achievements, has to be right all the time	PEER RELATIONSHIPS	Able to rejoice in friends blessings and success, sees differences as a blessing
Tattle tale in order to feel good by making others look bad	HANDLING OTHERS’ FAULTS	Doesn’t need to tattle tale about every fault, covers faults with love
See authority as a source of pain; distrustful toward them and obeys only to stay “out of trouble”	VIEW OF AUTHORITY	Respectful, honoring; child loves parents because they feel loved and protected
Gets feelings hurt easily and are closed off to discipline, views admonition as only painful and something to avoid	VIEW OF ADMONITION	May not enjoy it when received but demonstrates an understanding of it with a repentant heart, still feels loved
Based upon performance, child seeks love by doing something to receive it or will eventually find other avenues of feeling loved by parents or others	EXPRESSION OF LOVE	Open, patient, and affectionate, wants to see child grow in Christ and therefore grow in grace, child feels loved even when disciplined
Mean, insensitive, angry, far away	VIEW OF GOD’S PRESENCE	Loving, close, faithful, a God who is pleased
Works based slavery, empty, hollow	SPIRITUAL CONDITION	Grace based, safe, accepted by through Christ, already loved,
Feels like a performer, like a loser	IDENTITY AS CHILD	Feels like a Son/Daughter, confidence
A desire to be seen as a “better” Christian than other kids. Wants to show off their knowledge, this pleases the parents	SPIRITUAL VISION	Senses God’s love through the parents, wants to grow to honor Christ not man, desires maturity to grow closer to Jesus
Will work to maintain relationships through performance, God is a joy killer, God needs our performance, will work or give up	FUTURE	Feels accepted by parents and God through Jesus, grateful for parents and for grace, Christ is attractive

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