A Message For Children And Parents

Welcome all the fathers, Stepfathers, Grandfathers and anyone who is playing that Goldy Father figure in the lives of our children.

If ever there was a time that we needed guidance, it is now especially in the area of the family and family life. With our most older students and parents here today, we are going to get serious this morning.

We are in a time where there is a direct attack on Genesis Chapter 1 to 11. Society wants us to ignore the Genesis creation account:

Genesis 1:26–28 (The clear reference to the family)

26. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

28. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Maleness and femaleness are creational, not contractual. They are divinely instituted rather than socially defined.

This aligns with our schools statement of faith - We believe in a heterosexual relationship within the confines of marriage between a natural man and a natural woman. (Genesis 2:22-24, Matthew 19:4-6)

The family is under attack. And why? Satan knows that civilization is based on family life. Society is made up

millions of families. Male and female, children and parents. If the family is broken, then society will be broken.

Now children and parents need to understand the importance of the family, and we need to align and be in obedience to the Word of God so that we don’t give Satan a foothold into our families.

Today we are going to look at a do an exposition of Ephesians 6: 1-4: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord"

If you read through the book of Ephesians, you will notice that this passage is at the end of a section where Paul is teaching about a life led by the Holy Spirit. A life controlled by the Holy Spirit. We will require the assistance of the Holy Spirit if we are to have families that honor the Lord.

The bible teaches that when we are led by the Holy Spirit, things in the family just function correctly. A proper functioning family is where we will all be submitting to one another, husbands and wifes are loving and honouring each other, children are obeying their parents and parents are bringing oversight over the children.

If we are led by the Holy Spirit, it effects how we live at home.

Ephesians 6 begins by speaking about obedience.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord

Obedience is the fundamental building block of the home.

Obedience is what makes a family work.

For society to function properly, obedience is a necessary quality.

If we look at the book of Romans in the first chapter, we get a glimpse of a culture that is falling apart. Included in the list of things that describes that culture, is disobedience to parents.

When you get to 2 Timothy, Paul describes what things are going to be like when Jesus comes back. Guess what’s on the list – 2 Timothy 3: 2 – disobedience to parents.

Let’s not forget that even Jesus himself was once a child and he had to submit to his earthly parents Mary and Joseph. Did you ever stop to think that once the God-Man was once the God-Teenager.

If we read from Luke 2: 51 ….. He was subject to his parents.

Do you see that our Lord and Savior, who took part in the world's creation, is submitting to a human father and mother?

Now Paul gives us 4 reasons why children must obey their parents:

1. It is a moral principle

Romans 6: 1 "Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right"

What more can one say here, we must obey our parents just because it is right. I know that we are living in a time when it seems that there is no right or wrong but in our hearts, we know some things are just right and others are just wrong.