What Children Owe Their Parents
Ephesians 6:1-3
For 3 verses God speaks directly to the kids. The first word of this chapter is direct address: "Children..."
I used to be a kid, sitting in a chair like you, swinging my legs. I'm still a kid in my heart! I'm God's child, and always will be. I feel like I'm the favorite! I went to a church like this, and I learned what I am going to teach you tonite, so you can grow up and have the best life and future that you could ever imagine!
Did you know that you won't be a kid forever? You are growing so fast and it won't be too long and you'll be a grown up and have a kid or 2 or 10 of your own! And someday some of you might be able to teach this to someone and tell them about when you were a kid!
God loves children. Sadly, many are aborted, abandoned or abused. Kids in this service, you have wonderful parents...and you've been so blessed, I want you to know.
If any of you feel like you don't have the best parents, remember that they are sinners just like all of us. They need to learn and grow just like you do, and God is a Father who loves you unconditionally no matter what your home is like. God loves you when you behave and when you are bad. When you are having a hard day He cares and wants to help you. When it's going great He is right there hoping you'll not forget Him, but thank Him for blessing you!
The way you think about your parents is how you will come to think about God. God is authority. He is in charge. And parents are authority that God has put in charge of you. And as you learn how to obey your parents you learn how to obey God.
We talk about abused children. As bad as physical and emotional abuse are in some kids, I'm really worried about social abuse. I mean this: The world and the devil are out to destroy kids. Satan wants to control your mind and change your life for the worse. He wants to ruin your future!
The sinful world wants to brainwash you and make you think that sin is ok, and that you need to be like the world and not like Jesus.
What does God want you to do?
1. Obey.
For 2 reasons:
Because it's the Christian thing to do ['in the Lord']. And because it's the right thing to do ['for this is right'].
The Bible says that disobedience is a very serious sin, that leads to many other really bad sins the devil wants to get you to do.
Romans 1:28-30
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Obeying your parents is where it all begins. Do you want to obey God? Then right now, He wants you to obey your parents!
Do you obey your parents?
If they have to tell you something twice, then you did not obey. "But I did it." Not when you were supposed to. You disobeyed first. Delayed obedience is disobedience. They shouldn't have to count down.
"Clean your room." "Ok, I'll get to it." That's premeditated disobedience!
Obedience is not obedience unless it is immediate.
Do you obey completely? If you don't fully obey, totally, 100%, then you disobey. Incomplete obedience is disobedience. If you obey halfway then you have completely disobeyed.
"Mow the lawn - for $10" If you mow half the lawn, how much do you get? $5? Not hardly. You didn't obey!
Obedience isn't obedience unless it's immediate and complete.
There's a few verses in the Bible about when Jesus was a child. And that one story teaches us that He obeyed His parents. He was subject, or submissive, to them. Jesus is perfect, and He obeyed imperfect, sinful parents that He created!
If Jesus would have disobeyed His parents even one time He could not have been perfect and died for our sins and we couldn't be saved and go to heaven!
God wants us to obey...
2. Honor.
vv. 2-3 It's possible to obey and not honor. If you obey with a bad attitude, you are not honoring your parents.
"I may be sitting down on the outside but I'm standing up on the inside!"
If you take out the trash, sneering, complaining the whole way in your heart, you may be obeying, but you certainly are not honoring. And God says that your parents deserve both obedience and honor!
If you disrespect your parents, you disrespect the God who gave them to you. If you talk back to them, or say bad things about them behind their back, or roll your eyes at them, or wish you had different parents, you are not honoring them.
If you argue, if you lie, if you steal from them, you do not have honor. If you fake it in front of them, to their face, and manipulate your parents to get your way, you do not honor them.
I'm a grown up now, and don't have to obey my parents. But should I still honor them? Yes!
And God promises you live longer if you do!
How many have parents who love you enough to tell you not to smoke? If you obey, I promise you'll live longer. [drink/be friends with bad kids/read Bible/go to church]
Are you God's child? Are you saved? Do you obey Him? Do you obey your parents?
