Christ Church Washington D.C.

Well, a fundamental feature of being a sinner is that we are prone to see our own sins in the most charitable light. We qualify and let ourselves off the hook easy while at the very same time seeing the sins of others in the most suspicious and the most severe light. To say it plainly, we are quick to assume grace for ourselves while sluggish to extend that same grace to others.
In a letter to a friend who was wrestling with whether to forgive a family member, C.S. Lewis offered this wise counsel. He writes,
He goes on to say later in the letter,
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He writes, So, what is the foundation for a healthy, flourishing society? Obviously, the Sunday school answer is correct here, as it always is. Jesus is the answer. But I mean, more specifically,
is the power of Christ most potently, clearly manifest when a people submits to the gospel and it starts to go to work? What foundation is repaired? Answer, the family. We see this from the very beginning. When God created the world, he sovereignly ordained that the family, ordinarily, who lived under his blessing
to be the foundation for all flourishing and fruitfulness in the world. Genesis 1, 27 through 28. God made man and woman and God blessed them. And he said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Subdue it and then take dominion of it. Now, this of course does not mean that if you are single, you cannot glorify God until marriage or that everyone will be married. Of course, that’s not necessarily true.
The Apostle Paul who wrote Ephesians was unmarried, but it does mean ordinarily fruitfulness and flourishing and blessing flows downstream from families who are together living in glad obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. To paraphrase John Witherspoon, the great American founder and signer of the Declaration, he said,
And that’s why when the gospel really starts to take root in a people, when one of the most potent places that change happens is a reformation in the family. And Satan knows this as well. Therefore, he attacks the family. It’s where he can get the most bang for his buck generationally. And we’ve seen this in our country over the last century. But the inspired Apostle Paul knew this as well. And this is why after three chapters,
of laying a gospel foundation in the book of Ephesians, gospel indicative that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, through faith in the risen Christ alone, when he starts to then get practical, which is the back half of the book, how does Christ actually go to work in his redeemed people? He spends a good chunk of there on applying it to the family. Because the rightly ordered family
is so foundational to the expansion of Christ’s kingdom on earth. Last week, he focused in on the rightly ordered marriage, as this is the cornerstone of the family, with wives living in glad support and submission to their husbands, and the husband living a life of sacrificial love and leadership as a picture of Christ to her. And now today, he’s going to turn to the relationship between children to parents and parents
to children, which is the second most important dynamic in this foundational building block of healthy Christian culture. And so with that, let’s turn to the text. And in the flow of the text, he addresses the children first and then turns his gaze to the parents and specifically to the fathers. And so we’ll do the same. So what does it look like when Christ’s reign is manifest in a household? He begins by saying,
children, obey your parents. And that’s about as straightforward as you can get. Children, you are to obey your parents. You are to do what they tell you to do. And children, do you know why the Apostle Paul had to instruct the Ephesian children to obey their parents? Well, it’s because as it turns out, sometimes children don’t want to obey their parents. I know that doesn’t happen here.
In some congregations, theoretically, it did in Ephesians, apparently. But part of our sinful nature is an innate bucking against authority that God has placed over us. It is looking side-eyed and suspicious towards the authority God has put over us, thinking ourselves wiser than God and more mature than our elders. In fact, the very first sin can be seen as the first human son,
questioning and then disobeying the word of his heavenly Father. But Paul explains to the Ephesian children, and to us here as well, that as Christians we should look so different here. Christ starts to reorder this when we come into glad submission to him. We ought to obey our parents. And he also gives some reasons why. First, he says,
And this is so key for you to see, children. Yes, your parents have real authority over you. It is real. It is authentic. It actually exists objectively in the world. But like all human authority, it is borrowed authority. It has been given to them by God. That’s why the apostle says,
Obedience to parents is obedience to the Lord, most fundamentally. And by reverse, disobedience to parents is disobedience ultimately to the Lord. This is why David in one of his great penitential psalms says, Against you only have I sinned. Well, no, he had sinned against a lot of other people as well. But foundationally, all sin is a sin against the Lord. This is what Paul is getting at. He wants it to be clear in the minds of the children.
And then he points to the fifth commandment to ground this. He says, honor your father and mother. And this is a reminder to you children in this room that you aren’t the first children that had to submit to parents. He’s quoting from the Ten Commandments here, which the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai thousands of years ago. And he says, this is not an obscure second class command. This made the top ten list.
Of the most important rules ever. This is right at the center of rightness in the world. And children, notice the command is not just to obey your parents, but to honor them as well. That is, esteeming them highly in your heart as well. Because it’s possible to obey with your hands while dishonoring in your heart. Rolling your eyes.
Telling yourself or texting your friends how dumb the rules are that your boomer parents have come up with. Now again, I know no child here has ever done that. But theoretically, I hear this happens in the world. So I’m just the messenger. But what’s true, what Paul wants us to see is begrudged, eye-rolling obedience is not true obedience. Technical obedience is not the standard. Heart-level honoring is the standard.
This is one of the things our Lord called the Pharisees out on. They were so good at external obedience. So technical precision in following the law or their interpretations of the law. But he says, but your hearts are so far from God. God is not interested in outward obedience from a hard heart. Instead, honoring means having regard from the heart, embracing their leadership with gratitude,
as a blessing from the Lord, even when it doesn’t feel like it. It means humbly deferring to them, even where you disagree, simply because they’re your parents. And the Lord says this is right to do. But children, Paul gives another reason as well as to why you ought to obey. And this is very important. You want to lean into this because this concerns the next 70 years of your life, if the Lord wills.
He says that God has made a promise to those who honor their parents. And what is that promise? He says it right in the text. He says that it will go well with you and that you’ll live long in the land. Put simply, your life will know untold blessings from God if you honor your parents.
Know untold sorrows from God if you refuse to do so. And also note children, and this is really important, the blessings from God here are not something abstract that exists behind the clouds when you die and see Jesus. No, he says they exist in the land.
For instance, you’ll reap from God relational blessings in the land, in time and space. As you know, the joy and the laughter of table fellowship with those you love most over the years and the joy of watching it grow fuller as your children are added to the holiday table and the entire family rejoices as they get caught up in the blessing of a family who actually enjoys one another now because they have honored each other for years.
Not just relational blessings for many physical blessings as you receive if the Lord wills a harvest from the fruit of your parents labor through an inheritance. Desiring this is not greed. It could be but at the base level it’s not. This is how God built the world. It says a righteous man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children. You should desire to be caught up in that generational blessing. That is a good desire and that comes to those who will honor their parents.
By faith. Or the blessing of built-in wisdom throughout your entire life. At the touch of a button on the phone. As you have your folks as a go-to to help counsel you through every season of life that they’ve already army crawled through successfully. And on and on we could go. So many blessings that flow down from the Lord for Christian children who honor and obey their parents. And so children.
The blessings of God to be thick upon the next seven decades of your life. And it begins with honoring the Lord by honoring the parents he gave you. And you won’t do it perfectly. They’ll sin against you. You’ll sin against them by repenting quickly when that happens. So bitterness doesn’t fester. Okay. Now in verse four, the apostle moves from instructing the children to admonishing the fathers.
Two specific things that fathers ought to do. One is a thing they ought to do. One is the thing they ought not to do. And this is really significant because there are endless things he could have said. So many answers to how do you father well as a Christian dad? When he says two things out of the whole list, it means you should really pay careful attention. They’re absolutely huge. First, he says,
Do not provoke your children to anger. Do not lord over them in a way that is frustrating and angering. While father-child relationship has the potential to be one of the most affectionate on earth, Paul reminds us that it also has the potential to be the most combustible. But when Christ goes to work in the heart of a father,
he yearns to kindle affection in his children, not anger. So here’s four rapid fire ways, cheat sheet stuff that you can consider to not provoke your children to anger. One, don’t be overly severe. Don’t be overly severe. Severity from a father, whether by flying off the handle and anger yourself or by disproportionate punishments, will provoke a child towards anger
and frustration. We must never be overly severe, but always in control of our own emotions first. Fathers, in the world God created, you are the sun in the solar system of the family. And if Pluto has the ability to get the sun all revved up and wobbly, the entire solar system is in trouble. That’s true. That’s the good burden of leadership.
You must have emotional maturity, not emotional severity. And when you administer discipline, which you must do, it must be done calmly and fittingly and predictably. We take our cues from the Heavenly Father who is slow to anger towards us, who is patient with us. Our Heavenly Father who is perfect but is not a perfectionist.
He remembers our frame and so should we with our children. We should be eager to praise even where imperfect, even when it’s obvious they are very much in process, just like our Father does of us. Now this doesn’t mean we don’t have excellence as the standard. Of course we do. But it does mean that we always have an eye for finding the good thing to praise and to not being severe but remembering their frame.
Provoking and discouraging our children. Two, be warm and affectionate. Manliness is not a steeled stoicism. Manliness is not a steeled stoicism. There is a place and a time for that, for sure. It’s a part of it. But it’s not the entirety of it. And definitely not when you get home and how you deal with your wife and your kids. No.
We take our cues from the Heavenly Father, who, as the Aaronic blessing says, makes his face to shine upon us, lifts his countenance on us, turns his face towards us with great affection. The Phanias says he sings over his people with delight and silences them, quiets them with his love. So show up with a jovial gleam in your eye and let the affection spill out towards your people.
Friends, frequent tickle fights when they’re little, warm hugs and warm text messages as they grow, saying to them with your words and with your countenance what the heavenly father said to his son. This is my beloved son. This is my beloved daughter. I’m well pleased. There’s nothing more important for a child than being confirmed in the affection of a father. Do not withhold it. Third way not to provoke to anger.
Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t be a hypocrite. And this is a big one. You’ll know fathers’ children are always on the lookout for hypocrisy in parents, and rightly so. Flagrant hypocrisy undermines authority, and it is provoking. You demand that they read. You scroll more than they do. You tell them not to grumble, spend 15 minutes at dinner complaining about your work. You tell them not to disrespect their mother, as you should, but are curt and cold for you.
If so, children will see this, and it will be provoking. And the way we avoid hypocrisy, fathers, is in two ways. One, it’s by keeping the standard that we set. It’s by keeping the standard we set, but we’re sinners, and we won’t perfectly do it. We will sin against our children here. The second way we don’t become hypocrites is by repenting quickly. Quick to set the standard, quick to repent yourself with words. Get down on a knee.
Look a four-year-old in the eyes and say, I’ve sinned against you. You want a healthy culture in your home? Do things like that. Okay, moving on. So much could be said for the sake of time. We’ll move on. A final way here to not provoke your children to anger. Set clear expectations with clear consequences. Set clear expectations with clear consequences.
Expectations for technology, expectations at the dinner table, expectations for dress, and then living with a low hum of frustration when the expectations which weren’t set are being neglected. And so what happens is parents, and especially fathers, will try to enforce the unspoken expectations through passive aggressive comments or vague scoldings, which just makes the home a delightful place to live. Does it not? Of course it does not.
No. Clarity is kindness. Here are the expectations. Here are the consequences enforced every time. And this counterintuitively leads to peace, not friction, because everyone’s living in the light together. It’s not unclear. And again, this is what the Heavenly Father models for us. Clear commands, clear expectations, immediate consequences when they’re not met. Always eager to make it right through repentance.
No hum of frustration in the home. It could be because of this. Could be. Doesn’t have to be. Could be. But there’s good news. You can repent today and then lay out clear expectations and bring the kindness of clarity to your home. But, of course, in conclusion, the expectations you set aren’t something you just whip up out of your own preferences. No. As parents and specifically as fathers who set the standard here,
we model Joshua’s declaration where he says, as for me and my house. He doesn’t say we serve my whims. He says we will serve the Lord. Which brings us to the back half of verse 4. Fathers must not provoke their children to anger, but here’s what we must do. He says bring your children up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord.
The word paideia, which needs an entire sermon of its own, but no space for that. We’ll just make one brief remark. Paideia means the entire enculturation of the Lord. Christianity is not just an accessory that we add to their life. Christ is not just a seasoning that we sprinkle on our children one day a week. No, we are Christians. Jesus is Lord every day of the seven-day week.
In a thoroughly Christ-centered, word-saturated home life. As Deuteronomy says, when you walk, when you sit, when you lay down, when you get up, when you drive, when you park, after watching a movie, before they go out with friends, we bring the word to God to bear because we are Christians. And for clarity, fathers, this does not mean that we are their only teachers, obviously. Thanks be to God.
This is what Paul is saying. You are responsible for their enculturation, which means for one thing, the government schools are out. As Votie Bauckham says, you can’t send your children to Caesar and then be shocked when they come back as Romans. And we’ve seen the tragic fruit of that. But by God’s grace, there is a fresh reformation afoot happening in the land in education that many here are a part of. And it’s because by God’s grace, fathers and mothers are taking Ephesians 6.4,
seriously again. To which I say, keep going. Have a passion for cultivating by faith a Christian paideia in your home. Show your children how all things hold together in Christ, the creator of them and the creator of the world. Teach your children the word of God daily through family worship and casual conversation. Teach them to sing the loveliest songs with joyful vigor. Constantly point out
the glory of God everywhere you see it. In pink sunsets, in dark chocolate, in the crackling of leaves, in the comfort of a warm fireplace. Nourish their souls by reading good things to them. Aspire, fathers, for your children’s most comforting memories to be the voice of their father reading to them the good books. This is potent, affection-shaping stuff. And pour it in while you can. And above all, pray.
Pray, parents. Pray every night that your people would not just obey God’s word, but they would love God’s word. Because this is the goal. Those who look to the Lord will be radiant. This is the call. This is the goal. And we are totally unable to bring it about. We can’t do that. But God can. And he has promised to. He’s promised to use means as well. And Paul is saying one of the primary means.
Our Lord and our God, we do thank you for your word. And we do thank you for taking a jackhammer to the hardness in our hearts. And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would push this into the edges of each of our heart where it is needed. I pray where it is a convicting word for the fathers. They would not be tempted.
May it be, and then may they be lifted up again to take hold of what the Lord has given them. And may our children know the comfort and blessing that comes with glad submission to you through authority. And now we would pray the way our Lord taught us to pray. Well, the charge is this.
And in context, Paul is primarily talking about children, smaller children in the context of the household. However, what’s true is that we are all children and we will always be. So we never graduate from this command to honor our father and our mother. And the blessings still flow down from God.
As we actively seek to do so all throughout our lives. And so small children, honor your father and mother. Be full of gratitude for all they presently sacrifice for you. Have faith in their wisdom, even when you don’t fully understand or agree. Your obedience to them is obedience to the Lord Jesus. And middle-aged or elderly children, honor your father and mother.
Your godliness today, your pursuit of Christ today, shines honor back upwards to them. And if they’re still with us, give a call, even today, with a specific point of gratitude for them. A specific way you saw them sacrifice. In a specific way they modeled piety to you. A specific way they offered you wisdom that really did stick with you and shape you. Honor your father and mother today and
the blessings may come down to this corner of the kingdom. Amen.