In the sermon titled 'Spirit-Filled Children and Parents,' Jason Dohm examines the biblical expectations for parents and children, focusing on Ephesians 6:1-4. Dohm emphasizes that only spirit-filled individuals can genuinely fulfill these roles, referencing Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians 5. He explains that children are commanded to obey and honor their parents, as their obedience is ultimately directed towards God. This reflects God's perfect righteousness, as illustrated by Jesus' obedience to His earthly parents. Dohm warns against disobedience, highlighting its serious implications. He also discusses the responsibilities of parents, particularly fathers, who must not provoke their children to anger but instead nurture them in the Lord's ways. The sermon draws parallels between these New Testament teachings and Old Testament principles, stressing the importance of both nurturing and disciplining children as part of their spiritual upbringing.

The title of the sermon this morning is Spirit-Filled Children and Parents. Children and parents who are filled with the Spirit. I'm not saying that This applies to believing children and parents only. God is King over all His creatures, the ones who recognize and trust Him, and the ones who don't recognize and trust Him. God is King, period, end of sentence.

But I am saying that only children and parents who are filled with the Holy Spirit have any hope at all of honoring the Lord by actually functioning this way. You can approximate a fake version of these things outside of the Lord, but really you have to be born again. You have to have the Spirit of God activated in your life to really, in a genuine way, function in the ways that Paul sets before us in Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 4. That means we're in Ephesians chapter 6. I can't believe it.

We're already in Ephesians chapter 6 and after today we have plans to only be in Ephesians for six more weeks. We're supposed to have the wrap-up sermon on Ephesians on October 3rd. So we really are at the end. It's gone so fast. Paul has brought us to a consideration of three relationships.

We've already studied the relationship of husband and wife, the marriage relationship. Today we'll be studying the child-parent relationship, and then next week we'll be studying the bond-servant-master relationship. And all of this is in the shadow of the exhortation by Paul in Ephesians 5 to be filled with the spirit. So these are relationships that are close relationships, important relationships. And we have inclinations that make them inherently tricky relationships because of the close quarters in which we live.

And So we really do need to be born again. We need new hearts and we need the filling of the spirit. As we go to our text, let's ask the Lord to help us. Oh God, there are so many parents and children in the room and outside of the room who are considering this text today and we pray for your help. We join our hearts together to ask you that your spirit would be moving in us among us to help us in the parent-child relationship, to be the things that you're calling us to in your Word.

We want our homes to reflect the things that you're calling us to. We know we need help for that. We ask for the help in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're going to begin with what God requires of children. So as we subdivide the text, we'll do it this way, we'll take verses one through three together.

So hopefully your finger is still in Ephesians chapter 6, follow along as I reread Ephesians 6 verses 1 through 3 where Paul writes, children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth." So if you're taking notes on the handout by filling in blanks, children fills in the blank. What God requires of children. Verse 1 is very simple. I'm not saying it's easy, but it is simple.

Children are to obey their parents. That is what God requires. When a father or a mother, parents, either parent, requires something of one of their children, God requires that child to obey. Is this totally without any boundaries? No.

If a parent requires what the Word of God clearly forbids, or if a parent forbids what the Word of God clearly forbids, or if a parent forbids what the Word of God clearly requires, then a child is actually not even at liberty to obey. This is what the Bible teaches about all kinds of human authority and it applies here too. Son, go steal that thing from me. No, dad, I'm not even at liberty to, because the Word of God clearly forbids me. Daughter, go lie for me.

No, dad, I'm not even at liberty to lie for you." But those instances are so rare and really ridiculous to say that they're barely worth mentioning. Children in their lifetime are rarely or never going to encounter that. And 99.9 something percent of the things that your parents will be requiring of you, you will be bound by the commandment to obey. Children, when the parents that God gave you require something, God requires you to obey them. That is why Paul says, in the Lord.

It isn't that you have to obey parents only if they are in the Lord, only if they are believing parents, but the point of in the Lord is that they are your parents in the Lord. It is the Lord who made them your parents and He commands you to obey them. And so when you obey your parents, you're actually obeying God. Your obedience is going beyond the parents that you're obeying to God who gave you them as your parents and commanded you to obey them. The termination point for your obedience is not your parents.

It's God who gave you those parents and commanded you to obey them. And when you disobey them, your disobedience doesn't terminate with your mom and dad either. Your disobedience goes beyond them to be disobedience even more fundamentally to God who gave you those parents and commanded you to obey them. Why should children obey their God-given parents? Paul tells us because this is right.

It's right for you too. How do we know that it's right? Well, it's right there in the text in verses 2 and 3. We see that it's right because God commands it, and God's commandments reflect His perfect righteousness. He only commands things of us, gives us commandments that reflect the perfect righteousness.

So the commands of the Bible are not simply do this, don't do that, about anything behind them. They're actually a reflection of the perfections of God. When God commands something, you know it's right. When He forbids it, you know it's evil. When He commands it, you know it's good.

It's as simple as that. His commandments reflect His perfections, His perfect righteousness. And we know it's right because Jesus did it in obedience to his heavenly father. Please turn to Luke chapter 2. Jesus proved that it's right by doing it in obedience to his heavenly father.

Jesus himself obeyed his earthly mother and father out of obedience to his heavenly father. We see this in Luke chapter 2. I'm going to read a lengthy section, Luke chapter 2 verses 41 through 52. Please follow along as I read Luke 2 41 through 52. His, Jesus's parents, went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.

And when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem, according to the custom of the feast. They had finished the days as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem. And Joseph and his mother did not know it. But supposing him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances. So when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him.

So it was that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. So when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, Son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously.

And he said to them, why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business? But they did not understand the statement which he spoke to them. Then he, then Jesus, went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with God and men.

Now this is a really helpful example. Why is that? Because you have a child who is superior in every way to his parents. Who's smarter? Jesus.

Who's more godly? Jesus. Who has more insight into the mind of God? Jesus. Who was subject to who?

Jesus was subject to Joseph and Mary. Why? Because it's right. Because it reflects the perfect righteousness of God for children to obey their parents. Jesus went home, he subjected himself to his parents and this is right after he said, didn't you know I have to be about my father's business?

It is the father's business for children to submit themselves to their parents. It was not more important that Jesus stay in Jerusalem questioning and answering religious towering religious figures. It was his father's business that he would go home with his parents and subject himself to them, though he was God and man. So if there were ever a child who wouldn't need to render obedience to his parents, it was Jesus, and yet he happily did render obedience to his parents. It means every other case is a slam dunk.

It's a slam dunk. If it is required of Jesus, it is required of every child. Before we move on, I'd like you to consider a note in the ESV study Bible. It's not on the surface in the text, but it really is an implication of what you see across the whole council of God, across scripture, the ESV study bible has this note, the mosaic law prescribed death for a child who struck or cursed a parent. Exodus 21, Leviticus 20.

So far in the note here's where we are. If you struck a parent, or if you cursed a parent, Exodus 21 or Leviticus 20 says that you should die for that. That's punishable by death, worthy of death. So the note continues, and Paul lists such disobedience as one of many grave sins. Romans 1, 2nd Timothy 3.

Now if you go look at those lists, it's disorienting in this way. You find disobedience to parents mixed in with murder and adultery and extortion. And to our sensibilities you would say one of these things is not like the other. But there's something that doesn't belong in the list. Disobedience to parents doesn't belong besides murder and adultery and extortion, but Paul says it is.

Paul says it does belong. So you have to consider is what Paul is bringing us to in Ephesians 6, 1-4, a big deal or a little deal. And all we can say is it's a big deal to God. So it has to be then a big deal to us. It must be a big deal to us.

It is no small matter whether a child obeys or disobeys the parents that God has given to him or to her. In verses 2 and 3, Paul quotes the fifth commandment. He began with honor, excuse me, he began with obey in verse 1 and now in verses 2 & 3 it is about honor. This great command to honor the fifth commandment. There's only ten.

It's only ten. One of them is given for children to honor father and mother, And it applies to both father and mother. So it's just a continuation. In verse 1, it's parents, plural, both parents. And in verses 2 and 3, as he quotes the fifth commandment, that also is to parents, to father and mother.

So this much is crystal clear. It isn't that the husband and the father is the head of the household and so then everyone else in the household is a peer on the same footing. That is not the teaching of Scripture. The husband and the wife are one in the marriage relationship. Paul just said that in chapter 5 verse 31 as he's quoting Genesis 2, the creation account.

Man and woman marry and become one, and therefore mothers are placed by God in authority over their children in exactly the same state as the husband with whom the wife is one. Obedience and honor are owed in exactly the same way to a father and a mother. Now obedience and honor are similar but they're not exactly the same. Obedience is outward. Obedience is external.

Obedience has to do with what you do. It can be observed. I required you to fill in the blank. You either did it or you didn't do it. It can be known.

It was something was required and then you outwardly externally did or didn't do it. Honor is an attitude. It is a disposition. It's not nearly as easily seen, although this attitude or disposition, if it's real, should work its way out in things that can be seen. I honor you.

It's an attitude of respect, an attitude of deference. I defer to you as the authority that God has placed in my life. So it's not my sense of things that ought to receive the weight, it's your sense of things because God put you in authority in my life so I defer to you, I respect you. God requires that children render both obedience and honor to both of their parents. God wants children to obey with the disposition of honor, to do the outward external actions the doing with the internal attitude and disposition of respect and and deferring and to honor with the evidence of obeying.

He wants these things to be joined together. Is lip honor a thing? You better believe it's a thing. In other words, can honor be just talk with nothing but talk? You better believe it.

Is teeth gritting obedience a thing? You better believe it's a thing. I'll do it, but I don't have to like it. And I don't have to respect you in it. This is most of what separates the genuine version of each of these things from the fake version.

God always intends for obedience to be offered in the disposition of honor and for honor to actually have the evidence of obedience. They're like this. They're the real versions of both obedience and honor are knit together with with one another. Then Paul points out something about the kindness of God. He has greatly sweetened this commandment with the promise of blessing.

God in His kindness has sweetened the commandment. He's taken many of the natural prickles out of the commandment by offering a promise of a blessing you for obeying it. Children, listen carefully to me. This command comes with a promise of blessing and God was under absolutely no obligation to sweeten the commandment with the promise of blessing. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

You're His creature. You're at His beck and call and He doesn't have to promise. It's enough for him to just tell you to do right, to do what's right. That's enough. But he hasn't left it at that.

He does sweeten the commandment with the promise of blessing in his kindness. That it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. So we have two sweeteners to the commandment, that it may be well, the Greek word, go to the lexicon you see, to be well off, to fare well, to prosper. So it's a broad promise of good and blessing from God to you for obedience. Two, that you may live long.

Now, is this a guarantee that all of life's challenges will forever evaporate and you'll live to 120 with a lot of money if you obey and honor? No. I think we view this like many things that we encounter in the Proverbs. God tells us how things were normally made to function in His world. It's really sowing and reaping.

And how He Himself, as God, responds to certain ways we can obey him with with blessing we should consider it a lot like what we see in first Peter 3 verse 10 listen to first Peter 3 verse 10 For he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. This is really similar. Peter says, if you can bite your tongue so you don't speak evil or lie, you'll have a life worth loving and you'll see good days. And you see this work out. People who can muzzle themselves so that they don't speak the evil that flashes across their mind.

If you can make it not make it out of your mouth or same with lying then it's good for you. It makes your life more lovely. It makes your days better. It really is sowing and reaping. When you sow obedience and honor, You reap the favor of God in your life.

It's simply saying that. And children, this much I can say, I've been alive for five decades now and I've seen that all things considered, God blesses the obedience and honor of children in very real, very practical ways. It adds sweetness to your life, and it diminishes the bitterness of life when you reap the fruit of sowing obedience and honor towards your parents. Let's give Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones the last word in this section.

Lloyd-Jones says this, grace raises the commandment to the highest level. And we are to obey our parents and to honor them and to respect them in order to please the our Lord and Savior who is looking down upon us. Show that the Spirit of God is in you. Show that you belong to Christ. You have a wonderful opportunity and it will give him great joy and great pleasure.

Think of what Lloyd-Jones is saying here. He's saying that grace raises the commandment to the highest level. The commandment on its own is right and it doesn't need grace. But in grace, under grace, having been born again and filled with the Spirit, now you are... The commandment is elevated to a privilege, a way to honor God by doing the things that please Him.

Grace really does raise this commandment, it really does raise all of the commandments from something that is right to a privilege that can be done as an act of worship. Obedience is love. Obedience is an expression of love that's all over the New Testament. If you love me keep my commandments. It's a practical way that we can express love for a God who sent his son to save us and we can express our love for him in a practical ways.

This fits perfectly with Colossians 3 verse 20, where Paul's undertaking the same topics, the marriage relationship, the parent-child relationship, the bond servant-master relationship. Here's what he says in Colossians 3.20, children obey your parents in all things. So we have this sweeping scope of a call for a broad obedience. Children obey your parents in all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord. This is well pleasing to the Lord, and He'll bless you for it.

It pleases Him, and He'll bless you for it. Okay, we'll move from the children to the parents. So back to Ephesians chapter 6 and let's consider verse 4. Follow along as I reread verse 4. And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

In verse 4 we get what God requires of parents. If you're filling in blanks on the handout taking minutes that way parents fills in the blanks what God requires of parents. Not only are those who are under authority given commandments, those who are in authority are also given commandments here. Paul addresses fathers. So God through Paul explicitly includes mothers in receiving obedience and honor from their children, but God singles out the head of the household in the command not to provoke children.

Why is that? Why do mothers get to partake in receiving obedience and honor, but the head of household, dad, is singled out in the command not to provoke because he is responsible. He is accountable. When the wife is provoking the children to wrath, it's not to say that God smiles on that, but he's still responsible. This is part of headship.

This is part of what it means to be the head of a wife, the head of a household. It means that you're responsible for all of those things. So she does partake in the obedience and honor that is to be rendered, but he is singled out as responsible for not provoking children to anger. It's really an amazing commentary on the meaning of headship. If more men understood it, less men would seek it.

If more men understood headship, less men would be giddy about headship and be much more so reminded about headship. Fathers, we are given a don't and a do. Don't provoke, do bring them up in the Lord. Paul says do not provoke your children to wrath. Don't tempt them to anger by the way you exercise your God-given authority.

Fathers can exercise their God-given authorities in ways that tempt their children to sin. Does it mean that the children Aren't responsible for their sin? No, but it means you get to participate in the sin. You, in a sense, lured them into the sin. It's really unkind of fathers to do this to their children, to tempt their children to anger, to sinful anger by the way we exercise our God-given authority.

Don't exasperate them. That's how the NIV translates it. Don't exasperate them and make it more difficult for them to obey and more easy for them to resist what God is requiring of them. When you provoke them to anger that's what you're doing. You're making it more difficult for them to honor and obey you and you're making it more easy for them to resist the thing that God has called them to and commanded them to.

Let's think of ways fathers can provoke their children to anger in the exercise of their God-given authority. They can provoke their children to anger by being needlessly heavy-handed. We're not drill sergeants. This isn't boot camp, although we've had periods of time in our home that we labeled boot camp, But it isn't boot camp. It's a different kind of relationship.

We're not drill sergeants. And it is possible, in the exercise of our God-given authority, to be needlessly heavy-handed, to be virtually impossible to please dads and moms and moms this exhortation is to you too. A father is ultimately responsible for this in his home as the head of the household But of course it applies to mom too, who spends the bulk of her hours being mother, being mom to her children. So it applies. Have you ever been impossible to please?

Sometimes it seems to our children like there's nothing I can do to please this parent. That can be provoking. How about what I'll call micro prescription or over regulation? How do you like it when the human authorities in your life micro prescribe? Down to the nth degree or over regulate that can provoke to anger.

Not counterbalancing with tenderness and love. Everything's in one direction. Don't, don't, don't stop. You always, you never and it's There's no counterbalance. You've got to put something on the other side of the scales.

And there are times when your children need lots of corrections. They're not doing well. They're off track. And you need to bear down on them to bring them into track and bring them back on track and that might provoke them to anger and that's just their tough luck and their problem because you are not the source of that. They're not wanting to being governed and they're not doing well as the source of that.

That can also be true. But even during those times where they need much, much more you bearing down on them, you've got to put something on the other side of the scale to counterbalance that. All of our parenting needs to be wrapped up in tenderness and affection and love and when you have to really ramp up on this side of the scale because they need it to get them back on track, you've got to add more weight and counterbalance on the tenderness, affection, love side of the scale either. Or your parenting is getting out of balance and that really does provoke children to anger, even children who are needing a lot of bearing down on. Here's the point.

Children have natural inclinations against obedience and honor. Isn't that true? Isn't that part of our nature since the fall? Natural inclinations against what God is commanding, obedience and honor. It's already hard.

And so what really what Paul is saying is don't make it harder. They already have natural inclinations that make it hard for them to obey and honor, that would take them in the other direction. Don't exercise your God-given authority. It is God-given authority, but don't exercise it in a way that makes it even harder. They've got their own internal problems.

Don't pile on with your own sinfulness. Again, Paul's speaking about the same topic in Colossians 3. Listen to what he says in Colossians 3.21. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. All this is together, provoking to anger these things, like being needlessly heavy-handed, being virtually impossible to please, micro-prescription, or over-regulation, not counterbalancing with tenderness and affection and love, it does provoke them, but it's also very discouraging.

Fathers are not to exercise their God-given authority in those ways. Here's the big one that I haven't even mentioned yet. One way, maybe the big way to provoke your children to anger or to discourage them is not doing the second part of verse 4. So let's go right to Paul says, fathers do not provoke your children to wrath but, so he's given us the counter to provoking your children to wrath or to discouraging them. What is the antidote to that poison?

But to bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. We are to bring up our children in the training and admonition of the Lord. That doesn't mean that I simply make them memorize Deuteronomy. It means that I labor to give them Jesus and all of his ways. Please don't see this.

Bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord as academic, as a sterile mechanical process. This is simply about giving them Jesus and all of his ways. That I bring them to the king and teach them all of his ways. Brothers and sisters, dads and moms in the room and dads and moms on Zoom, this is simply the Great Commission worked out under your roof. The Great Commission is that we make disciples and teach those disciples to observe everything that Jesus commanded.

That's what Paul is calling us to here. Great commission work under our own roof. Bring them to the King, teach them to obey the King's ways. Let me make four observations from this phrase, bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Number one, this is given to fathers.

I didn't see a break. Do you see a break? And you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath but fathers bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Fathers like in the first half of the verse are responsible and accountable in the second half of the verse. Fathers are responsible and accountable for bringing up their children in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Oh I leave the kids to mama. Okay I hope your faith in mama is well founded because at the end you're going to be held responsible and accountable. Now I believe it's right for a head of household to say, this is practically the most important thing to accomplish under this roof, and my wife is the single best person to dedicate full time to the accomplishment of it. That makes sense to me. I think God would have us do that.

If you would say, okay, what's the most important thing we gotta do under this roof? How many things are you gonna count up that would come ahead of raising your children in the training and ammunition of the Lord? You might think of your marriage relationship, maybe that like serving the Lord at a personal level, maybe those are things, but you're out of things, even if you allow for a few, you're out of things really fast. So you might say, hey, mom is the most valuable resource in this household for the accomplishment of this great task I think that's exactly what we should say but that doesn't mean that dad's no longer responsible and accountable he continues to be responsible and accountable so that's the first observation this is given to fathers Most homes don't function that way and that's not right. Number two, our text is simply a perfect summary of Old Testament teaching on the parent-child relationship.

Ephesians 6, 1 through 4 is simply no more than a perfect summary of Old Testament teaching on parent-child relationship. It occurs in the New Testament, but there is nothing distinctive in this text to the New Testament. Paul is teaching the Ephesians how to be the people of God. There is no new revelation here. If you superimpose Deuteronomy 5, the Ten Commandments, honor your father and mother, and Deuteronomy 6, Teach the commands diligently to your children when you walk by the way, when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, you're seeing exactly the same things as we have here.

When you go to Proverbs and superimpose you they fit together perfectly. There's perfect overlap. How have the people of God been charged to manage these household relationships since the very beginning the same way. Number three. So that's number two.

Our text is a perfect summary of Old Testament teaching. Number three. The phrase bring them up translates the exact same Greek word from chapter 5 verse 29 where it was translated nourishes. So bring them up in the training and ammunition of the Lord. That's that same word under bring them up is the same word that was translated nourishes in 529.

Look back at chapter five verse 29. I think this is really instructive. Chapter 5 verse 29, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes, there's the word, but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church, just as the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church. When You look at the Greek lexicon for what's behind that word, it's being translated, here's what you find. To nourish up to maturity.

To nourish, to nurture, to bring up. That is exactly what Christ does to his church. He nourishes up. He nourishes us up to maturity. He doesn't whip us to maturity.

He doesn't whip us to maturity. He doesn't bark out orders and we become mature. He nourishes us up to maturity. So that's how a husband thinks of his own self-care, the care of his own body. That's how he's supposed to think of how he treats his wife, like nourishing her up for growth in the Lord.

And that's how it's all rooted in Christ and how he treats us and that's how fathers and mothers are to embark on the training and bringing their children up in the training and admonition of the Lord. You're nourishing them up by training and admonition of the Lord. Number four, In these two words, training and ammunition, Paul gives us both sides of the child raising coin. Total breadth. Meaning, this is really broad what Paul is talking about.

He gives us the positive side of the child training coin, instruction, encouragement, modeling, all wrapped up in these terms and then he gives us the negative side of the coin. Discipline, warning, rebuke, so breath, training and admonition, both sides of the child training coin. Instruction, yes. Encouragement, absolutely. Modeling, like showing them the patterns in your own life.

Yes, part of it. The negative side of the coin. Discipline, you betcha. Warning, yes. Rebuke, part of it.

Parents, we will need every single tool.