10 November 2024
SCRIPTURAL APPLICATION: Ephesians 6:1-9
SERMON REVIEW:
The Believer in the Family
The Christian Child
Obeys their parents
Honors their father and mother
Is blessed for it!
The Christian Father
Is not abusive
Encourages and builds up
Disciplines and instructs
The Believer in the Workplace
The Christian Slave
Obeys his master
Considers his identity
Serves with the right attitude
The Christian Master
Imitate your master
QUESTIONS:
Life Application:
After watching a television presentation about rebellious youth, a husband said to his wife, “What a mess! Where did our generation go wrong?” The wife calmly answered, “We had children.”
It seems no matter where we look in modern society, we see antagonism, division, and rebellion. Husbands and wives are divorcing each other; children are rebelling against their parents; and employers and employees are seeking for new ways to avoid strikes and keep the machinery of industry running productively. We have tried education, legislation, and every other approach, but nothing seems to work. Paul’s solution to the antagonisms in the home and in society was regeneration—a new heart from God and a new submission to Christ and to one another. God’s great program is to “gather together in one all things in Christ” (Eph. 1:10). Paul indicated that this spiritual harmony begins in the lives of Christians who are submitted to the lordship of Christ.
In this section Paul admonished four groups of Christians about how they could have harmony in Christ.[1]
Digging Deeper:
A. Provoking children to anger (v. 4)
Verse 4 instructs us not to “exasperate your children.” The Bible does not tell us what this means. Both wrath and exasperate come from the root word anger. A study of human and family behavior can shed some insight on how we might exasperate our children and provoke them to anger. The following examples will give us a good starting point for understanding this instruction.
1. Overprotecting children: Parents who do everything for their children and do not let them gain any degree of independence or self-determination.
2. Overdisciplining children: Parents who overly restrict where children can go and what they can do, who never trust them to do things on their own, and who continually question
their judgment. Certainly, a proper amount of this is necessary. We are talking about overdoing it.
3. Expecting more than the child can ever perform: Perfectionistic parents for whom the child’s performance is never good enough.
4. Expecting less of them than they can perform: Parents who discourage the child’s decisions and dreams—never approving, affirming, or encouraging.
5. Failing to sacrifice for their children: Parents who make the children feel as though they are an intrusion and burden.
6. Verbal and/or physical abuse: Parents who abuse their children, either by actions, negligence, words, or attitudes.
7. Legalism: Parents who use the Bible, religion, or God to browbeat the children into behavior that is not required by scriptural teachings.
8. Imbalance: Parents who fail to balance affirmation and discipline, who affirm without discipline, who discipline without affirmation, or who do neither.
These eight things will provoke a child to anger; they will exasperate a child, and we would be well-advised to avoid them.
B. Nurturing children (v. 4)
Proverbs 22:6, a parallel passage to Ephesians 6:4, gives us additional insight on what it means to bring children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it.” This is often a misunderstood verse. Many have understood it to mean something like what Chuck Swindoll wrote in You and Your Child:
Be sure your child is in Sunday school and church regularly. Cement into his mind a few memorized verses from the Bible plus some hymns and prayers. Send him to a Christian camp during the summer during his formative years, and he can be educated by people whose teaching is based in the Bible. Because after all, someday he will sow his wild oats. For sure, he will have his fling. But when he gets old enough to get over his fling, he will come back to God.
This is a breakdown in understanding because of the limitations of translations. To train up comes from a root word which means “the palate, the roof of the mouth, the gums.” The verb form of the word is used for breaking a horse and bringing it into submission. The term was used of a midwife who would rub the mouth and gums of a newborn to stimulate the child to begin nursing. It is the word used to describe “developing a thirst.”
Referring to the phrase, “in the way,” again, Swindoll writes:
“In” means “in keeping with, in cooperation with, in accordance to” the way he should go. That is altogether different from your way. God is not saying, “Bring up a child as you see him.” Instead, He says, “If you want your training to be godly and wise, observe your child, be sensitive and alert, so as to discover his way, and adapt your training accordingly.” In Proverbs 30:18–19, the same word for “way” is used as in Proverbs 22:6. WAY is a Hebrew word that suggests the idea of “characteristic, manner, mode.”
“There are three things which are too wonderful for me, four which I do not understand: the WAY of an eagle in the sky, the WAY of a serpent on a rock, the WAY of a ship in the middle of the sea, and the WAY of a man with a maid” (Proverbs 30:18–19).
In each case, “way” is not a specific, well-defined, narrow road or path. It is a characteristic. The one who wrote this verse is saying, “As I observe these four things, I find myself intrigued. I can’t put it all together. There is a beautiful coordination, an intriguing mystery which keeps me and captures my attention.” WAY is used in that same sense back in Proverbs 22:6—train up a child in keeping with his characteristics.
In every child God places in our arms, there is a bent, a set of characteristics already established. The bent is fixed and determined before he is given over to our care. The child is not, in fact, merely a pliable piece of clay. He has been set; he has been bent. And the parents who want to train this child correctly will discover that bent.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the instruction and training of the Lord (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1977, 27).
C. Parental modeling (v. 4)
The Scriptures make clear that “modeling” is a key ingredient in the parenting process. Perhaps the clearest and most complete passage is found in Deuteronomy 6:4–9. In this passage, we see four principles essential in passing on spiritual faith to children.
1. Belief in God: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”In his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, wrote: “About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. This can be described as the general neurosis of our time.” He went on to write that “for the most part, these people had given up on any concept of religion, and those who did not allow for the entrance of religious thought into their lives never recovered from their neuroses. It is no small thing to say you believe in God.” (Quoted in Edith Draper, Draper’s Book of Quotations for the Christian World, Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1992, 237).
Further, Moses wrote: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.”
These words shall be on your heart, Moses writes, not merely in your head. You cannot impart what you do not possess. Do not expect that your children will have a devotion to God unless you do. Do not expect that your children will walk with God unless you do. Do not expect that Christ will make a difference in your children’s lives unless he is making a difference in yours. From the time of their childhood and early adulthood, your children are likely to have less of a walk with the Lord than the parents are. If the parent’s walk is weak, the children’s are likely to be weaker. If the parent’s walk is strong, the children’s are likely to be less strong. Then, when they move into adulthood and choose their values for themselves, parental modeling will often determine if Christ is at the center of their lives.
2. Formal instruction: “Impress them on your children.”Jesus said, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:32). If you do not know the truth, you shall be in bondage to ignorance.
Children must know the Scriptures. They must know the words of God. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, each time he rebuffed Satan with Scripture. It is likely that he did not quote Scripture from his capacity as an omniscient God; rather he quoted it because as a boy receiving traditional Jewish instruction in the local synagogue and in his home he sat down and memorized it.
3. Informal Instruction: “Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up (Deut. 6:7).
Moses is saying, all the times of life should be geared to revealing how scriptural truth is lived out in everyday life. If children are to be free from bondage and ignorance, they must know truth. In order to know it, they must be taught it. That is one of the reasons children should be involved in church, but if parents are depending on the church to solve all their problems, they have misplaced hopes. The home is the dominant influence in a child’s life. A church will reinforce truth if it is upheld at home. If it is not upheld at home, the truth may be drowned in a sea of contradiction.
4. Cultivation of the environment: “Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on you gates” (Deut. 6:8–9).As you consider cultivating the environment to foster spiritual growth, you must consider two aspects. First, you must eliminate the negative, and then accentuate the positive in the home environment. What, in your home, encourages spiritual development in your children, and what discourages it? You reveal your value system to the world, and ingrain it in your children, by what you have in your home and by how you treat what you have in your home.
What pictures do you have on the walls? What books do you have on the bookshelf? What magazines do you subscribe to? What television programs do you watch? What music do you listen to? What friends do you invite in? What do you talk about? What recreation do you engage in?
All these things combine to create an environment in the home, and it is not neutral. It is making a significant impact on your child’s worldview, on his value system, on what is important to him and not important to him. If you have things in your home that influence your child in a direction other than toward Christ, you are contributing to a spiritual breakdown as the baton is passed from your generation to your child’s generation.
Each Christian home must be carefully analyzed as to the messages it sends to the children. It is building into their value system and either encouraging or discouraging Christian behavior.
There is more to this than “material” environment. A spiritual and emotional environment is created that either encourages or discourages spiritual development. What do you talk about in the home? What do you laugh at? Do you laugh? Do you affirm and encourage one another? Do you have fun together? Do you ever have people into the home and talk about spiritual things? If you do, this creates one environment. If you don’t, it creates another, and the spiritual and emotional environment has an impact on the spiritual development of the children.
D. The Christian at work (vv. 5–9)
The instructions which Paul writes for slaves and masters can form principles for the Christian in the workplace. From this passage, we learn four things. Our behavior on the job is to be obedient. Our motive on the job is to serve Christ by serving our employer. Our diligence on the job is to be for the Lord, not merely for men. Our reward for the job on earth is knowing that God will reward us in heaven for our faithfulness to him.
From these principles, and from the rest of Scripture, we can learn four lessons.
1. Work is noble before God. God works. He created work. He called Adam to work before the fall. There is nothing wrong with work. Work is good. By working, we become colaborers with God in extending his creation. God intended for man to inhabit and subdue the earth. Society is God’s plan for the advancement of mankind. If we are contributing to that process, we are in step with God.
2. We serve others by our job. We provide for needs and interests of others when we produce a product or service. We earn money to provide for our families and to give away.
3. You serve God through your work. No matter what you are doing, if you believe it is the job God has provided for you at this time, that is significant. You are in God’s will, you are doing what God wants you to do, and you are serving God by serving your employer.
We often have the feeling that God is more pleased with people if they are missionaries or pastors. That is not true. God is only pleased when we are doing what he has given us to do. If he has given us the job of working on an assembly line, then he is as pleased with us as he is when Billy Graham does what God has for Billy Graham.
This does not mean it is wrong to change jobs if our job is difficult. This passage was written to slaves, who did not have the option of mobility. If we have the option of mobility, I see nothing in Scripture that categorically prohibits changing jobs. But we must take care that we change jobs for right reasons, not merely to escape something we should see through.
When we work for unpleasant people, we must learn to look past them, to see Christ. Colossians 3:24 says of our labor at work, “It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” It is like going to war. The battle is unpleasant, but you are pleasing your commander in chief.[2]
Discussion Questions:
1. If you are a parent, what are your strengths? What are your weakness? How can you capitalize on your strengths? How can you overcome your weaknesses?
2. If you are an employer, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How can you capitalize on your strengths? How can you overcome your weaknesses? How about if you are an employee?[3]
PRAYER:
[1] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 52.
[2] Max Anders, Galatians-Colossians, vol. 8, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 195–200.
[3] Max Anders, Galatians-Colossians, vol. 8, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 201.
SERMON REVIEW:
The Believer in the Family
The Christian Child
Obeys their parents
Honors their father and mother
Is blessed for it!
The Christian Father
Is not abusive
Encourages and builds up
Disciplines and instructs
The Believer in the Workplace
The Christian Slave
Obeys his master
Considers his identity
Serves with the right attitude
The Christian Master
Imitate your master
QUESTIONS:
- What did the message teach me about God/Jesus/Holy Spirit?
- What did the message teach me about the human condition?
- Is there anything I need to confess, repent, or be grateful for, because of this passage?
- How do I need help in believing and applying this scripture to my life?
- How can I encourage others with this passage?
Life Application:
After watching a television presentation about rebellious youth, a husband said to his wife, “What a mess! Where did our generation go wrong?” The wife calmly answered, “We had children.”
It seems no matter where we look in modern society, we see antagonism, division, and rebellion. Husbands and wives are divorcing each other; children are rebelling against their parents; and employers and employees are seeking for new ways to avoid strikes and keep the machinery of industry running productively. We have tried education, legislation, and every other approach, but nothing seems to work. Paul’s solution to the antagonisms in the home and in society was regeneration—a new heart from God and a new submission to Christ and to one another. God’s great program is to “gather together in one all things in Christ” (Eph. 1:10). Paul indicated that this spiritual harmony begins in the lives of Christians who are submitted to the lordship of Christ.
In this section Paul admonished four groups of Christians about how they could have harmony in Christ.[1]
Digging Deeper:
A. Provoking children to anger (v. 4)
Verse 4 instructs us not to “exasperate your children.” The Bible does not tell us what this means. Both wrath and exasperate come from the root word anger. A study of human and family behavior can shed some insight on how we might exasperate our children and provoke them to anger. The following examples will give us a good starting point for understanding this instruction.
1. Overprotecting children: Parents who do everything for their children and do not let them gain any degree of independence or self-determination.
2. Overdisciplining children: Parents who overly restrict where children can go and what they can do, who never trust them to do things on their own, and who continually question
their judgment. Certainly, a proper amount of this is necessary. We are talking about overdoing it.
3. Expecting more than the child can ever perform: Perfectionistic parents for whom the child’s performance is never good enough.
4. Expecting less of them than they can perform: Parents who discourage the child’s decisions and dreams—never approving, affirming, or encouraging.
5. Failing to sacrifice for their children: Parents who make the children feel as though they are an intrusion and burden.
6. Verbal and/or physical abuse: Parents who abuse their children, either by actions, negligence, words, or attitudes.
7. Legalism: Parents who use the Bible, religion, or God to browbeat the children into behavior that is not required by scriptural teachings.
8. Imbalance: Parents who fail to balance affirmation and discipline, who affirm without discipline, who discipline without affirmation, or who do neither.
These eight things will provoke a child to anger; they will exasperate a child, and we would be well-advised to avoid them.
B. Nurturing children (v. 4)
Proverbs 22:6, a parallel passage to Ephesians 6:4, gives us additional insight on what it means to bring children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it.” This is often a misunderstood verse. Many have understood it to mean something like what Chuck Swindoll wrote in You and Your Child:
Be sure your child is in Sunday school and church regularly. Cement into his mind a few memorized verses from the Bible plus some hymns and prayers. Send him to a Christian camp during the summer during his formative years, and he can be educated by people whose teaching is based in the Bible. Because after all, someday he will sow his wild oats. For sure, he will have his fling. But when he gets old enough to get over his fling, he will come back to God.
This is a breakdown in understanding because of the limitations of translations. To train up comes from a root word which means “the palate, the roof of the mouth, the gums.” The verb form of the word is used for breaking a horse and bringing it into submission. The term was used of a midwife who would rub the mouth and gums of a newborn to stimulate the child to begin nursing. It is the word used to describe “developing a thirst.”
Referring to the phrase, “in the way,” again, Swindoll writes:
“In” means “in keeping with, in cooperation with, in accordance to” the way he should go. That is altogether different from your way. God is not saying, “Bring up a child as you see him.” Instead, He says, “If you want your training to be godly and wise, observe your child, be sensitive and alert, so as to discover his way, and adapt your training accordingly.” In Proverbs 30:18–19, the same word for “way” is used as in Proverbs 22:6. WAY is a Hebrew word that suggests the idea of “characteristic, manner, mode.”
“There are three things which are too wonderful for me, four which I do not understand: the WAY of an eagle in the sky, the WAY of a serpent on a rock, the WAY of a ship in the middle of the sea, and the WAY of a man with a maid” (Proverbs 30:18–19).
In each case, “way” is not a specific, well-defined, narrow road or path. It is a characteristic. The one who wrote this verse is saying, “As I observe these four things, I find myself intrigued. I can’t put it all together. There is a beautiful coordination, an intriguing mystery which keeps me and captures my attention.” WAY is used in that same sense back in Proverbs 22:6—train up a child in keeping with his characteristics.
In every child God places in our arms, there is a bent, a set of characteristics already established. The bent is fixed and determined before he is given over to our care. The child is not, in fact, merely a pliable piece of clay. He has been set; he has been bent. And the parents who want to train this child correctly will discover that bent.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the instruction and training of the Lord (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1977, 27).
C. Parental modeling (v. 4)
The Scriptures make clear that “modeling” is a key ingredient in the parenting process. Perhaps the clearest and most complete passage is found in Deuteronomy 6:4–9. In this passage, we see four principles essential in passing on spiritual faith to children.
1. Belief in God: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”In his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, wrote: “About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. This can be described as the general neurosis of our time.” He went on to write that “for the most part, these people had given up on any concept of religion, and those who did not allow for the entrance of religious thought into their lives never recovered from their neuroses. It is no small thing to say you believe in God.” (Quoted in Edith Draper, Draper’s Book of Quotations for the Christian World, Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1992, 237).
Further, Moses wrote: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.”
These words shall be on your heart, Moses writes, not merely in your head. You cannot impart what you do not possess. Do not expect that your children will have a devotion to God unless you do. Do not expect that your children will walk with God unless you do. Do not expect that Christ will make a difference in your children’s lives unless he is making a difference in yours. From the time of their childhood and early adulthood, your children are likely to have less of a walk with the Lord than the parents are. If the parent’s walk is weak, the children’s are likely to be weaker. If the parent’s walk is strong, the children’s are likely to be less strong. Then, when they move into adulthood and choose their values for themselves, parental modeling will often determine if Christ is at the center of their lives.
2. Formal instruction: “Impress them on your children.”Jesus said, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:32). If you do not know the truth, you shall be in bondage to ignorance.
Children must know the Scriptures. They must know the words of God. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, each time he rebuffed Satan with Scripture. It is likely that he did not quote Scripture from his capacity as an omniscient God; rather he quoted it because as a boy receiving traditional Jewish instruction in the local synagogue and in his home he sat down and memorized it.
3. Informal Instruction: “Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up (Deut. 6:7).
Moses is saying, all the times of life should be geared to revealing how scriptural truth is lived out in everyday life. If children are to be free from bondage and ignorance, they must know truth. In order to know it, they must be taught it. That is one of the reasons children should be involved in church, but if parents are depending on the church to solve all their problems, they have misplaced hopes. The home is the dominant influence in a child’s life. A church will reinforce truth if it is upheld at home. If it is not upheld at home, the truth may be drowned in a sea of contradiction.
4. Cultivation of the environment: “Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on you gates” (Deut. 6:8–9).As you consider cultivating the environment to foster spiritual growth, you must consider two aspects. First, you must eliminate the negative, and then accentuate the positive in the home environment. What, in your home, encourages spiritual development in your children, and what discourages it? You reveal your value system to the world, and ingrain it in your children, by what you have in your home and by how you treat what you have in your home.
What pictures do you have on the walls? What books do you have on the bookshelf? What magazines do you subscribe to? What television programs do you watch? What music do you listen to? What friends do you invite in? What do you talk about? What recreation do you engage in?
All these things combine to create an environment in the home, and it is not neutral. It is making a significant impact on your child’s worldview, on his value system, on what is important to him and not important to him. If you have things in your home that influence your child in a direction other than toward Christ, you are contributing to a spiritual breakdown as the baton is passed from your generation to your child’s generation.
Each Christian home must be carefully analyzed as to the messages it sends to the children. It is building into their value system and either encouraging or discouraging Christian behavior.
There is more to this than “material” environment. A spiritual and emotional environment is created that either encourages or discourages spiritual development. What do you talk about in the home? What do you laugh at? Do you laugh? Do you affirm and encourage one another? Do you have fun together? Do you ever have people into the home and talk about spiritual things? If you do, this creates one environment. If you don’t, it creates another, and the spiritual and emotional environment has an impact on the spiritual development of the children.
D. The Christian at work (vv. 5–9)
The instructions which Paul writes for slaves and masters can form principles for the Christian in the workplace. From this passage, we learn four things. Our behavior on the job is to be obedient. Our motive on the job is to serve Christ by serving our employer. Our diligence on the job is to be for the Lord, not merely for men. Our reward for the job on earth is knowing that God will reward us in heaven for our faithfulness to him.
From these principles, and from the rest of Scripture, we can learn four lessons.
1. Work is noble before God. God works. He created work. He called Adam to work before the fall. There is nothing wrong with work. Work is good. By working, we become colaborers with God in extending his creation. God intended for man to inhabit and subdue the earth. Society is God’s plan for the advancement of mankind. If we are contributing to that process, we are in step with God.
2. We serve others by our job. We provide for needs and interests of others when we produce a product or service. We earn money to provide for our families and to give away.
3. You serve God through your work. No matter what you are doing, if you believe it is the job God has provided for you at this time, that is significant. You are in God’s will, you are doing what God wants you to do, and you are serving God by serving your employer.
We often have the feeling that God is more pleased with people if they are missionaries or pastors. That is not true. God is only pleased when we are doing what he has given us to do. If he has given us the job of working on an assembly line, then he is as pleased with us as he is when Billy Graham does what God has for Billy Graham.
This does not mean it is wrong to change jobs if our job is difficult. This passage was written to slaves, who did not have the option of mobility. If we have the option of mobility, I see nothing in Scripture that categorically prohibits changing jobs. But we must take care that we change jobs for right reasons, not merely to escape something we should see through.
When we work for unpleasant people, we must learn to look past them, to see Christ. Colossians 3:24 says of our labor at work, “It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” It is like going to war. The battle is unpleasant, but you are pleasing your commander in chief.[2]
Discussion Questions:
1. If you are a parent, what are your strengths? What are your weakness? How can you capitalize on your strengths? How can you overcome your weaknesses?
2. If you are an employer, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How can you capitalize on your strengths? How can you overcome your weaknesses? How about if you are an employee?[3]
PRAYER:
[1] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 52.
[2] Max Anders, Galatians-Colossians, vol. 8, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 195–200.
[3] Max Anders, Galatians-Colossians, vol. 8, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 201.