Parents—your home is not a democracy. It’s God’s appointed training ground for you to teach your children how to honor their father and mother, “the first commandment with [a] promise” (Eph. 6:2). So, examine your home life. Is it marked by children who reject authority, whine, roll their eyes, and ignore your wishes? Are they slow to obey, which is disobedience? It really matters what you do—how you speak to your children, what you tolerate, and how quickly and effectively you deal with outbursts of dishonor. Here’s the bottom line: It’s your duty to transition your children out of being governed by their emotions to be governed by the Word of God. So, help your children understand parental authority, and make it clear to them the promises they will experience when they truly honor you.  

Sermon: https://churchandfamilylife.com/sermons/68749dd2438c838139e5b3c1

What you do in your home today will echo down through the generations. Your child's future, their habits, their heart, their faith, It'll be shaped by what you do, by what you teach, what you model, what you allow, what you tolerate. Why? Because we're not just raising kids, we are shaping souls. Romans 12 10 commands us to honor one another.

Ephesians 6, 1 through 4 picks up that same idea and says, children, obey your parents to the Lord, for this is right, honor your father and your mother. This is the divine blueprint for a home. Honor begins with honoring God. It does move to politics. It does move to the workplace.

It does move to the living room. And it shows up at your dinner table. And it shows up with the way your kids treat each other. But honor really originates with parents who train their children how to honor authority because they need to be trained. They need to learn how to submit by careful instruction.

They need to learn how to submit by careful instruction. They need to learn how to respect their siblings and one another and people in the church and all the other authorities. But Here's the truth, our culture has rejected honor as a principle in the home and in the church and in the government and everywhere else. And that's why we have child-centered homes. The Bible gives an antidote to this.

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22 verse 6. This is a responsibility and it's a warning and it's a very clear statement that your home is not a democracy. It's not a therapist office. It's a training ground and you are God's appointed trainers.

Children need to be trained How to honor. So parents examine yourselves. Have you neglected your God given authority? Do your children understand? And have they embraced that you do have authority?

And children examine your behavior. Are you honoring your parents? It may be time for families to sit down and talk together, to make a deal, to talk, to pray, to make a covenant and say, we're gonna walk in the ways of the Lord. Children need to understand and to embrace that they are under authority in their parents' house. Do they understand that?

Proverbs 22, 6 makes it very clear, it matters what you do. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.