In this sermon titled 'The Power of the Holy Spirit in a Family,' Scott Brown emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit as the cornerstone of family life. He argues that family dynamics should not merely be governed by a moral code but should be deeply rooted in the power and life of the Holy Spirit, as outlined in Ephesians 6 and Hebrews 12. Brown differentiates between discipline and punishment, highlighting that biblical discipline is restorative and aims at producing the peaceable fruit of righteousness. He underscores the importance of grounding family commands in doctrine, particularly the doctrines of the Holy Spirit and the resurrection, to ensure a transformative family environment. The sermon emphasizes the need for families to embody the power of the resurrection and the Spirit to foster a holistic life that extends beyond mere rules. Brown calls for parents to focus on Jesus Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide their familial responsibilities and discipline, ensuring that they do not disconnect the duties from doctrinal truths.

If you would please turn to Hebrews chapter 12. We'll be reading from verse 5 through to verse 13. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?

For they indeed for a few days chastened us, as seemed best to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the power in your word. We thank you that it has the power to change us. It has the power to reprove us and to instruct us in righteousness that the man of God be complete. Lord, I pray that your word through Scott Brown today would come with power.

Lord, may it equip us as fathers and mothers, may it instruct us as children, and may we turn to you and glorify your name through your word. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Name we pray, amen. As we continue this short series on family life, I want us to recognize that it's always important to ground the commands in the doctrine, that the commands find themselves existing in the midst of. And I especially want people who are single to really listen to these messages about family life, because understanding the foundations is really critical.

If you're single, if you're a young person, I really pray that these things will be part of laying a foundation for you in terms of understanding what family life is all about. Because these passages that we're going through are really designed by God to teach us about this matter of the family. There are three institutions that God has created, the church, the family, and the state, and God has very clear commands and principles for these institutions. Now, we've been in Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 4, which exists in a context of an explanation of the power of the person and work of the Holy Spirit in a family. The commands for children to obey their parents in the Lord, to honor their father and mother, all exists in this declaration of what it means to have the Spirit of God working in your family.

And the same thing with the father where he says fathers do not exasperate or do not provoke your children to wrath But bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord He's really speaking of life in the spirit and you know these commands for children and these commands for fathers need to be carefully understood. Be careful. Be careful. Make sure that your family life is not simply all about the rules and not about the Spirit and the life and the power of the resurrection because that's really what the apostle Paul grounds all of his teaching on here. Now, this morning, there are kind of two halves to this message, and the first part of it really is a doctrinal foundation.

It'll prove to be a quick doctrinal pursual perusal of the book of Ephesians and it'll also take us to the book of Acts we've already quoted from the book of Acts this morning and this thing that Jesus said that you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Now we'll go we'll go slightly to 1st Corinthians 15. So we want to I want us to just settle in for a minute and kind of saturate ourselves in the doctrinal underpinnings for these commandments that we have for fathers and for children. But the second thing I want to do is bring an application and or an illustration, an illustration of how the doctrine works out in discipline particularly and that's where Hebrews chapter 12 verses 5 through 13 comes in where he speaks of the discipline of the Lord. Because when the apostle or the writer of Hebrews speaks of the discipline of the Lord, it still remains in this same context of the doctrine.

And so I want to bring us to a critical matter of doctrine that is applied really clearly in Hebrews chapter 12. Now in Ephesians 6, 1 through 4, we find two things. We find what things are done in a family and how they are to be done. Because the Bible gives us both. The Bible tells us what to do, but the Bible also tells us how to do it.

And in Ephesians, the how is in the power of the Holy Spirit. And this is the whole assumption of the whole book of Ephesians when it comes to these matters of family life, which really begin in Ephesians 5.18. And it's a description of a spirit-filled father and a spirit-filled child. And so the commands in Ephesians 6, 1 through 4, they tell children and parents what to do, but they also tell children and parents the way in which they are to do them. And again, we come back to this important matter that don't disconnect the commands of God with the character of God and the love of God.

Because when you do, all you end up is either with rules on the one hand or feelings on the other. And so it's critical that we both recognize that we have a moral code on the one hand that must be kept, but we also have a spiritual power, life, that is the context within which these rules, this moral code, is to be carried out. And I want us to make sure that we don't miss how careful we should be in our families. Because family life is not simply about rules. It is about also spirit and life and the power of the resurrection and restoration and renewal and repentance and growth and life and all these things happen as a result of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now perhaps you have known families, nice families, even maybe unbelieving families, and Deborah and I have, we were just talking about this this morning, families that we grew up with. They had a moral code and they lived by it and they were really nice families. And they taught their children to be diligent and they taught their children to be nice and they taught their children to be disciplined and not crawl on the table and yell and scream and hit their brothers and sisters. They taught them those things. And these families, they grew up with a moral code.

And they said, please and thank you. And they looked you in the eye and they shook your hand. But all they really ended up with were rules and they really were nice families. And you know families like this produce children that actually are productive in the world. I mean, they kind of crank the gears of industry and institutions and things like that.

Well, the truth is they got their moral code from God, but they didn't have the power of the Spirit of God within them. And there's a vast difference between these two kinds of families, where there is Spirit and there's life in one family and the moral code of God, and the family where there's just the moral code of God. And this is why in Ephesians, the apostle is saying, a sleep or awake sleeper rise from the dead. And he's really calling Families here to recognize the power of the Holy Spirit Which the Apostle Paul, you know explained in Galatians chapter 5. It's love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and Self-control and so you have in a Christian family.

You have a progressive, transforming power of the Spirit. And it really makes for a happy family. And The center of a family life, while it ought to include the moral code, the center of it, the engine of it, the fire that fuels the heat and everything good in that family is the Holy Spirit. And that happens when parents are beholding the face of Jesus Christ and they're being transformed. They with all their hearts want to put to death the deeds of the flesh and lead their family.

They're mortifying the flesh. They're looking unto Jesus, the author and the perfecter of their faith. And their family life is also a spiritual life at the same time. And so when the work of the Holy Spirit is the center of your family life, then you have far more than a moral code. You have something deep.

You have something that actually changes your life and will continue to change your life. So there are things that you should do and you must do them, but there is a way that you should do them. And so in this sense, you know, family life is really a picture of the power of the gospel. It's the power of the love of God in Jesus Christ. So make sure, make sure that you don't disconnect the moral code from the spiritual backdrop, the spiritual powerhouse of a family.

And it's another way of saying it is, you know, don't disconnect family life from the great doctrines of the Bible. And we're talking about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. We really are talking about the doctrine of the resurrection. Now, I'm going to walk you through fairly quickly through the book of Ephesians to help you understand the logic of the Apostle Paul. So go to Ephesians chapter 1 and you'll see this.

Now Ephesians is divided into two sections. The first section is a doctrinal section and in that section we're really brought to the foot of the cross and we're really brought to Jesus Christ and the great doctrines of the faith, doctrines of salvation, doctrine of the resurrection, and all these things. And in these first chapters is an explanation of the power of the resurrection. And then when we get to chapter four and on, the apostle is teaching the church to walk in the spirit, to walk in love. And you find this all the way through to the end of the chapter, it's instructions about how to walk all this out.

But Ephesians is an explanation of the grace of God through the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it's how the power of the resurrection creates family life. And the risen Lord has ascended to the right hand of God and he's poured out his spirit and he's creating life in the world, in individual hearts, in families, in churches, in workplaces, to the uttermost part of the earth. And the book, and Ephesians really follows that pattern. Someone has outlined the book this way, sit, walk, stand.

You sit and you see the glory of the doctrine of salvation. You walk secondly in the power of the Spirit, and then you stand and resist the devil. And that's the Christian life. And often what you have are parents who get the cart before the horse. They get the duties, but they don't get the full doctrine that those duties are surrounded by in the Word of God.

And you know, we've probably all been like this in many ways, and we've known people like this. They want to fix their families. Maybe somebody comes over to your house and they say, well, I've never seen obedient children in my whole life. How did that happen? Would you please show me how to do it?

And they want you to help them figure out how to have a nicer family. How did you get those obedient kids anyway? And they might think that that's actually Christianity. Well, that's only a little part of Christianity. It is part, but it's not the whole of Christianity.

And, you know, so they come and they, hey, they want to get child obedience down they they want to get discipline down you know and they want to get they want to get family worship down and they they want to get church you know they say I got to get back to church you know I want to get back and I got to get back into church. That's my problem, you know, or and they say, you know, I got to start educating my children differently. This is, you know, these public schools are terrible. And so they accept a lifestyle, But they actually miss the doctrine that upholds the lifestyle. And so you can get spanking down and you can get child discipline down and you can get everything down.

But if you don't have power from on high, all you got is getting down to a few things about a moral code. And the apostle is preaching against this in the book of Ephesians and in the other places as well. And so the whole letter testifies to this because the foundation of all these things is redemption. Redemption by the power of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. And That's why in chapter one, I hope you're there, because I'm gonna just bounce through and show you some verses in these first chapters to help you understand the logic and the force of the apostle Paul's argument here.

Verse seven, in him we have redemption to his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. And what that means is that the true spiritual power in a Christian family is the power of redemption and an outpouring of grace. The riches of His grace, that's another great theme in Ephesians, riches, you receive riches and those riches of his grace come down from heaven and they flow through your life. And so the power of, the power in a family, the true power in a family, is the power of the resurrection. And that's why the apostle when he prays for the Ephesians he's praying that every part of life would be subdued under the power of the resurrection.

So there's this prayer for wisdom and enlightenment, and it's a prayer that the greatness of Christ's power would be revealed. And this is not some ethereal thing he's talking about. He's talking about the power revealed in your thinking, in your walking, in your life as a child, in your life as a husband, in your life at work, you know, in every part of your life. And so he prays, he says in verse 19, do you see that? That the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, verse 20, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come.

So the heart of life in your family is the exceeding greatness of the power of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. This is why it's so important that as fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers that you have your eyes fixed on Jesus, your eyes fixed on the resurrected Lord. That's where you get your wisdom and strength and power and understanding from. And you don't have much hope really for helping your children to obey you. And you don't have much hope to keep from falling into exasperating your children unless you're looking up to heaven to the to the lord Jesus Christ where where where Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God and he is he's praying for you and you're beholding the face of Jesus by his word.

The most important part of family life is beholding the face of Jesus Christ the resurrected Lord. And you have to get that straight. The moral code is critical and you must fulfill it. But don't think of trying to fulfill it without looking unto Jesus, who is the author and the perfecter. Go to chapter two, you see the same thing.

In verse six, well he speaks in verse five that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. He made us alive with Christ by grace. And then he says, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This is a heavenly view of life. And then he says that we are prepared for good works.

In the next verse, in verse 10, we're prepared for good works. And those good works come not by just slapping on a moral code. Those good works come because we have been raised up together with Him. And then go to chapter 3 in verse 16. We find an even more distinct principle here of where this power comes from.

Well, it comes from the heavenly man. It comes from Jesus Christ himself, and it comes because we're becoming like the heavenly man, and that comes by viewing the face of Jesus Christ. And so he says in verse 16 that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and height, to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, now read this, that you may be filled with the fullness of God." This is the heart of all family life. And then he says these remarkable words in his prayer, now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, how? According to the power that works in us.

You might be a young mother and you have a lot of kids and you're trying to think, how am I going to do this? How am I going to pull this off? You know, Somebody's crying, somebody's hitting, there are diapers, there's this, how am I going to survive? Well here it is right here. According to the power that works within us.

To Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ. And then these last words are very important. To all generations, forever and ever, amen. This power is meant to be at work in the heart of an individual so that every generation would hear the voice of Jesus Christ and they would praise Him forever. This power is actually meant to be applied from one generation to another.

And God puts parents in the midst of the generations. They're given a generation and they're given that generation for a particular purpose and that is so that the generations forever and ever would glorify God, that they would have the life of God in them. That's the whole goal and objective. Now, keep your finger in Ephesians 3. Go to Acts chapter 2.

The Lord Jesus has announced that the disciples would receive power when the Holy Spirit falls upon them and to remain in Jerusalem. And so they go to the upper room and they pray. And they're waiting for the Holy Spirit to fall upon them. Because This is the glory of the new covenant. We have a better covenant with better promises and more strength, more help from heaven.

There's a lot I can say about that. But when you get to Acts chapter two and the apostle Peter is preaching he's he really the center of his preaching is the resurrection and we can't miss the breadth and the depth and the reach of this preaching on the resurrection now he he quotes a prophet the prophet Joel when he speaks of the power of the Holy Spirit. And he's saying, This, what's happening right here is that. It's what Joel 2 spoke about. It's what Joel said in his prophecy.

And Joel, he says this, the Apostle Peter, in Acts chapter 2 verse 16. Do you see it? Acts 2 16. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. He's talking about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

And it shall come to pass in the last days says God that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall see dreams. And on my men servants and on my maids servants I will pour out my spirit in those days and they shall prophesy." And this is being fulfilled here.

What we find here are children, sons and daughters, and what are they doing? Well their hearts are toward the Lord and they are prophesying. I take that to mean they're speaking the word of God. And they're actually speaking the word of God to another generation. And You have children and they're prophesying.

It's such a wonderful thing when you have children in your home and what's on their heart is God and the word of God. And they sing and their songs affect you. Happened today in our house. Somebody was singing and it had a marvelous effect on me at least. And you know, it's a marvelous, beautiful thing when you have children who are filled with the Holy Spirit and they're speaking the word of God and they're singing and making melody in their heart to the Lord.

That comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray that God, by his Holy Spirit, would fall on your family for such a thing. And then Peter continues And he says in verse 32, this Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses, therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you see now." And then the response of the crowd was, what do we do? And Peter says, repent, this is verse 38, repent and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But Verse 39 is so remarkable and it speaks to this matter of the Holy Spirit working in a family.

Right there in Peter's sermon about the resurrection he's referring to families. For this promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off as many as the Lord our God will call." These promises of Abraham, These promises for the outpouring of the Spirit are for your children. And you know this is a picture of what the last prophet in the Old Testament, the last words of the last prophet in the Old Testament, Malachi, spoke. He said that God would send Elijah the prophet, which is John the Baptist, before the coming of the great and dreadful dreadful day of the Lord, and He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. That's a work of the Holy Spirit.

You know If you have children and their hearts aren't toward you, pray that God would pour his Spirit out upon them. Pray that they would receive the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They would believe in the risen Savior who is sitting at the right hand of God. And they would want to begin to look to him for everything and to quit looking to themselves and quit looking to this wicked and this perverse generation cry out to God that they would see it. It's a fulfillment of the promise of Abraham in Genesis chapter 17 verse 7 where God says to Abraham, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you to be God to you to be the one who's high and lifted up It's a fulfillment of many prophecies in the prophet Isaiah.

In Isaiah 44, 3 through 5, Isaiah talks about this time when he would pour, when God would pour out water on the thirsty and floods on the dry ground and he says this I will pour my spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring This is the power of the Spirit in a family. Pray that the living waters would flow around your family, that your offspring would find the refreshment that's in Jesus. And in Isaiah 54, 13, you have the same thing. It's where there he gives us illustration of the instruction that parents will bring to their children and he says all your children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children they will find the peace that comes from being taught the ways of the Lord and in in Isaiah 59 21 There's an illustration of parents opening their mouths and then their children doing the same thing. They open their mouths And they're in there and they're gonna sing forever in heaven Isaiah says as for me Says the Lord.

This is my covenant with them my spirit who is upon you my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants, says the Lord, from this time and forevermore." So what was happening here in the book of Acts at the outpouring of the Spirit, it was a fulfillment of prophecy of the different impacts that the Holy Spirit would have on a family. So you cannot disconnect the duties from the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the doctrine of the resurrection. And you know, while the whole rest of the world is celebrating the doctrine of the resurrection, so are we here too. I mean, this is such a remarkable, remarkable testimony in the book of Ephesians and really, you know, all throughout Scripture. And so, in chapter four, let's go to Ephesians 4.

This is the second to the last stop that I want to bring us to about this fundamental doctrinal underpinning of all of family life and of course this is also the doctoral underpinning of church life and work life and everything that you do but in verse 10 in in chapter 40 you see it verse 10 He who descended is also one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. So he fills all things from heaven. He fills the human heart. He fills the whole culture and life of a family. But it comes from beholding the face of Jesus Christ.

It's the most important thing you'll ever do for your family. Don't forget the duties, but don't misunderstand how the duties are to be executed in your family. And then if you go to Ephesians 5, we have this walk in love that is explained here and he gets to verse 18 and he says do not be drunk with wine which is dissipation but be filled with the spirit And then he begins a discussion of what happens when you're filled with the Spirit. In the church you start speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. In the church you start submitting to one another, you listen to one another, you care for one another, you weep with those who weep.

And if you're a wife, you submit to your husband. If you're a husband, you love your wife, like Christ loved the church, and you give yourself up for her, and you nourish her and you cherish her. These are manifestations of the Holy Spirit. And if you're children, you obey your parents in the Lord. Your honor, your father and your mother.

If your parents... You don't cause your children to be angry. You treat them. You're a compassionate and a faithful parent, like Jesus is a compassionate and faithful high priest who sympathizes with weaknesses. And then he turns to workers and He says, you servants obey your masters, honor them.

So you have this whole picture of life in the Spirit, but the foundation of it is the power of the Holy Spirit unleashed by the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, who's sitting at His Father's right hand and interceding for us. That really is the foundation of everything. Now, you know, the Apostle Paul, when you get to 1 Corinthians 15, which is probably the classic New Testament text on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the apostle makes some pretty startling statements. He says, If Christ isn't raised, your preaching is futile. He says your faith is futile.

And what do you do? Well, you behold the heavenly man. You fix your eyes on Jesus. You pray. You fill your mind with the word of God.

You fill your home with every good thing. That is the whole foundation of family life. And what a marvelous thing it is to experience family life. When you know your sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west, When you know the wrath of God has been propitiated, he's no longer angry with you. When you've been reconciled by his death and the sentence of death has been removed, your sins have been nailed to the cross, and you can be free to look unto Jesus, and you can be free to keep the commands of God in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So that's the first deposit I wanted to make here this morning. I want us to understand how important it is that you don't disconnect the duties from the doctrine. Duties disconnected from doctrine are dead, and they're lifeless, and they're legalistic. And you might have a nice family like that family I described a few minutes ago. A nice polite family that are full of hard workers and you know they seem to be cheerful but they have but they don't have everlasting life and they don't know how to get through life really.

They don't know how to get through the hardships and the troubles of life. They don't even understand how to deal with their sins and their children's sins. And so they end up without life, even though they have a lifestyle. So don't disconnect the doctrine from the duties. They're critical to be married together.

Okay, now I want to give you an illustration. And it really is surrounding the discipline of the Lord. Because parents and children are always interested in discipline. With her children, how am I going to get discipline and how am I going to get through this? When my dad wants to spank me, I want to run.

Some of the quickest repentance you can get is when you pull out the rod. But it isn't always repentance, it's true repentance. It's just fear. And parents also want to know, how do I get through this too? Because it's difficult and how do you do it?

How do you do the discipline of the Lord? Well, I want to give an illustration here from Hebrews chapter 12. So please open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 12. Now, in Hebrews chapter 12, there are many things that we could deal with, but I want to begin just by saying we should parent the way that God parents us in particular ways. And Hebrews 12 tells us that.

He tells us how he disciplines us and that also our fathers discipline us. So he makes this parallel comparing his discipline and the discipline that we give to our children. So you have both of these together which is really really helpful. And so it's interesting verse five he makes a statement and it's kind of condemning. And you have forgotten, you've forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons My son do not despise the chastening of the Lord nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him So he's telling it they forgotten something they forgotten what it's all about they forgotten about why God does what He does.

And we often forget that too. Some of you, some of us are going through trial. I feel like there's a new trial every day in my life. You know what? I forget this almost every day.

That God is treating me like a son. He's disciplining me because He loves me. And He wants to root out pride. And He wants to do things in my life to turn my face toward Him, so I'll look to Him. So I'll find all my happiness in Him.

Because He ain't going to find it in this world. Not the way you're looking for it anyway. So you have forgotten the exhortation. I think that's a little bit too close to home. And then in verse 6, he speaks about how fathers chasten, and He is a father, he chastens us because of love.

Verse 6, For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect.

Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the father of spirits and live and then he gives the reason for the chastening well he's already given us a gigantic reason and that is love. But then he goes further, he drills down deeper, and he says, for They indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them. You know, parents chasten as best they can. It's not always perfect. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present but painful.

And that's actually probably true for both parents and children. Nevertheless, afterward, now that's the key, afterward, that's where I want us to focus, afterward, Afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees, and make straight the paths of your feet so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather heal." Now the word afterward is important for the the heart of what I want to try to communicate. And as I said before, we should chasten the way that God chastens us. And there is a reason that he chastens us, and parents must chasten for the same reason that God chastens and it's all bound up in the word afterward afterward and this really is the heart of biblical discipline now parents I want you to get this really clear in your mind We must make a very careful distinction between punishment and chastisement or discipline.

I'm saying chastisement and discipline are the same. There's a world of difference between punishment and discipline. Let me be very clear. Biblical discipline is not punishment. Punishment is retribution.

The focus of punishment is on penalties, reparations, Sanctions. Biblical discipline is not teaching your children a lesson they will never forget. In other words, when you discipline your children, you shouldn't be saying, I'm going to spank you so hard you're never going to forget this and you're never going to do that again. That's actually not biblical discipline. That's punishment.

You know, Punishment is what federal judges do. They make you smell the coffee. They throw the book at you. But biblical discipline is completely different. It isn't retribution, it's restoration.

Biblical discipline is all about afterward. It's about the objective. It's about what you're aiming for. Now, God gives us means, but there's something that we're aiming for out there. That's that you know you know if you get if you get charged you know for some crime they're just going to throw the book at you they don't really they don't work on you they just are going to do something to you.

That's punishment. But, and it's terminal. Punishment is terminal. But discipline is visionary. Punishment is an end in itself.

But biblical discipline is a means of deliverance and hope. Another way to say it is that biblical discipline is teleological. It looks out into the future. It's futuristic. It has its mind on greater things.

And biblical discipline isn't... While it will teach you a lesson, that's not its primary objective. And parents need to understand what the objective ought to be. Biblical discipline draws you to reconciliation and love and relationship and back to happiness. Biblical discipline is to bring children back to glad-hearted freedom and forgiveness.

You know, for example, when a parent disciplines his child, when the discipline is over, they're forgiven. It's all over. It's over. And in doing so, they're teaching them about the discipline of the Lord and how free a person is when they're forgiven in Jesus Christ. So parents need to be very clear about why they are doing what they are doing.

And it's important that we let the discipline of the Lord be our guide. Now in Hebrews chapter 12 we learn that the discipline of the Lord is meant to yield fruit. So the discipline isn't the end, the fruit is what we're looking for. It's teleological, it's visionary, it looks out into the future. It's not an end, it's a beginning of new things.

It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. That's what he says in verse 11. It has its prayerful aim in the peaceable fruit of righteousness and the purpose is so that you will be partakers of His holiness. That's in verse 10. You know, holiness is one of the most beautiful words to me in the Bible.

And holiness is purity. Holiness is...well Jonathan Edwards said holiness is happiness. It's every possible perfect good thing loaded in. And it's different than anything else. It's different than you.

It's different than this world. Holiness is the most important. You want holiness. You want God to be holy because he says that he will make you holy. And he'll bring you into a holy kingdom.

You know, we should never resist holiness. It's always the pathway to happiness. The discipline is training, he says, to those who have been trained by it. So it is a training mechanism. But it doesn't just train and it doesn't just give a picture of holiness and everything that's beautiful.

In other words, rescuing children from the dregs of wrath and anger and fleshly desire, but it strengthens you. That's verse 12. It strengthens. And in verse 13 it says, it straightens your path and it heals. In other words, the whole goal, the teleological objective, the mindset of discipline is to help your children so they can run free again.

But they have to understand their sin first. But it isn't the same thing as punishment. Because punishment doesn't really set you free. It has a particular effect. And it's not joyful for the moment, But it restores joy.

And that's why David, you know, after he had sinned greatly morally with Bathsheba in Psalm 51, he prays, Lord, restore to me the joy of your salvation. And he was just recognizing that only God can rescue him from the unhappy state of rebellion, the only way out is confession and repentance and reconciliation and return to obedience. And that's the objective of discipline. And There are many places where we can go to see this very same thing. Isaiah described how the Lord disciplined his people, but the reason he did is because he wanted to comfort them.

And a parent should always have first and foremost in their mind the future comfort of their children and their discipline. It's an act of love. It's a power of the Holy Spirit for love and joy and peace and patience. But Isaiah says, I have seen his ways and I will heal him. I will lead him.

And listen to this. This is so pivotal. And restore comforts to him and to his mourners. I will create the fruit of lips, peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near, says the Lord. And I will heal him, but the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked." The role of a parent is to deliver from this troubled sea, this restless rebellion. Parents must understand that they need to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit to engage this kind of activity. You know, Paul said to the Corinthians, he said, where the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. And that's what you want. That's the whole objective.

The liberty that comes from the power of the Holy Spirit. I know it's hard to remember that when you're in the midst of it, but you know we need to recognize that what's happening with our children is Satan is seeking to devour them and God gives parents to rescue them from the jaws of the devil. And, you know, unconfessed hard-heartedness is always painful for a child. And, you know, David acknowledged this. He needed relief from what he called the fever heat of summer.

Rebellion is like a desert. Disobedience is bad news that makes you parched and dry and without refreshment, and that's why you're there as parents, to deliver your children from that. Matthew Henry, commenting on Psalm 32-4, he said, What tongue can tell The happiness of that hour when the soul oppressed by sin is enabled freely to pour forth its sorrows before God and to take hold of His covenanted mercy in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. So parents are visionaries who bring their children back from the path of destruction, from Egypt, from bondage, and they carry their children into the promised land to lead their families out of the conflict and into the happinesses of the kingdom of heaven which is a kingdom of everlasting joy And discipline is meant for that purpose.

And, you know, we've spoken about the fact that godly parents are full of compassion to save. And this is the heart of their vision. And they need to take their children by the hand and lead them to the land of milk and honey, and to restore their happiness when they fall into sin. And this is why biblical discipline is an expression of love. And that's why God says, those whom I love, I discipline, I chase in them.

Now the words discipline, And get this, particularly you fathers and mothers, and children. Children, listen to this. Okay, how about this for children. Are you looking at me? These should be the sweetest words to hear.

Discipline. Chastening. Correction. Repentance. These should be the sweetest words to you because they're the gateway to joy.

They're the gateway to get unhooked from the jaws of the devil in your life. God gives you parents to get you unhooked, to pry open the mouth of the lion and let you go free. And that's the design of God's discipline. That's what God is always about, you know. So, godly parents are focused on this wonderful vision which results in the delivering of children from the pains of their sins.

Now young people who only gave their pound of flesh, And that's the only way they saw their discipline, are in danger. In other words, children who just sort of took it, sucked it up, and thought, wait till I'm out of here. They either become Pharisees who just woodenly apply every law of God, or they become licentious antinomians who say there's no law. And so it's very it's very dangerous for parents to misunderstand the difference between discipline and punishment. It's extremely dangerous and I pray that we understand that here.

So the Lord is kind to give us a way. And I think what I wanted to say this morning is that we should be very careful to make sure that our families are not just all about rules and not about the spirit of life and the power of the resurrection. Jesus said it is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life.

To say the heart and soul, the secret, the foundation, the engine, the oil, the water, the cleansing, every good thing for family life is found at the throne of God in the face of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. And my appeal to all of us, as particularly parents, is to behold the face of Jesus Christ and let everything come out of that. Look to Jesus Christ. Make Him the center of your morning and evening and everything in between. And don't say, well, you know, I pray all day long.

I just kind of pray as I go along the day. Don't say that. Say, I've dedicated myself to behold the face of Jesus Christ. And I'm giving myself to reflect His glory so that I'll know how to rescue my children from their sin. And I won't be a parent who is a punisher by the book, but I'll be a parent who is filled with the Holy Spirit, who brings the chastisement of the Lord, looking for a better country and a better heart.

Would you pray with me? Lord, I pray that you would make this so clear in all of our hearts that looking unto Jesus is the heart of everything. Amen.