Open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3, and we're reading
from verse 20 because we did 18 and 19 on Sunday.
And I pray for you to follow the devotions because I'm finishing
off Colossians in our devotion. So tomorrow's devotion is about
bond servants from it's from verse 22 on to chapter 4, verse
one. And then we'll follow on and
finish Colossians. And on Sunday morning we begin
the Book of Revelation raising God's children.
We live in a world today where kids seem lost, don't they?
Kids are violent, kids are lost, kids are taking their own lives,
families are breaking down, and for many a young, young child,
they live without hope. The first institution God
founded on earth was the home in Genesis 127 it says so God
created man in his own image in the image of God created he him
male and female created he then and God bless them.
God said to them, be fruitful, multiply.
And then in chapter 2 of Genesis verse 24 it says therefore shall
a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto
his wife, and they shall be 1 flesh, the creation of a family.
Children need their dads and mums.
They need their mum and dad to love them and to protect them
and they need their dad and their mum to help them and they
need the father and the mother to spend time with them.
But above all that, they need you, if you're a parent here
tonight, to help them to know God, that's the most important
thing. You as a mother or a father,
that's your most important role. Matters not if they get to the
end of their life and they won an Olympic medals, or they're
the best at this, or they've achieved that because the world
doesn't satisfy and neither would I be satisfied unless our
children and our grandchildren know Jesus Christ as their Lord
and Saviour. They need to learn how to live
for God, They need to learn to love His Word, and they need to
grow and have a passion to serve Him.
And they need mom and dad to show them.
And God has given dads and moms this amazing responsibility.
It's their responsibility. It's not the schools, it's not
the church, not the government. It's the role of a mother and a
father. Your children have rights as
well as responsibilities, have the right to be born.
Isn't that something that's just tragic today?
The right to be born into a dedicated Christian home.
That's that's what they should have, where they'll be raised in
the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4 says that I have the right to have
godly parents who will teach them the word of God and and
discipline them in love. In Colossians 3 verse 17, it
says whatever you do, it's the foundation.
Whatever you do in Word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus. Nothing, nothing all covers
everything. Giving thanks to God.
That's how you should do it. That's the attitude we're to
have the Father through him, through Jesus Christ.
And you know, Eminem says his famous song One Shot.
Mom and dad have one go at this. They have one shot.
And time can be your most wondrous treasure, or it can be
your most ruthless of enemies. But this time and how it will be
spent in your life as a mother or father will depend entirely
on how you treat it. You runtime.
You seize time, what you do with it, how you use it and how you
lose it and how you abuse it. And tonight in God's Word, God
teaches men and women how to be mothers and fathers and
children, how to be obedient. Because God wants us to raise
his children, He's loaned them to us his way.
Colossians 3 verse 20 says children obey your parents in
all things. Why?
But this is well pleasing to the Lord.
What does a child here? What age do we stop well and you
know you're no longer a child little in the courts of the
land. It's the age of 18.
You go through children's court and then after that you go into
the adult section. But how far do we go before you
stop being a child? In the Bible, Paul uses the
Greek word teknon for children here, and it's a general year
word used for a child and offspring, and it can be any
age. Actually.
What it basically means in this context is that it's a general
word for anybody who is still under parental guidance.
They're still in the home and your parents are still
responsible for you. So what's God's word for
children? This is you know, kids need to
know this is this is the verse. We have the verse for husbands.
We have the verse for for wives for what's God say to kids?
You know, God speaks to children.
He says children obey your parents.
How in all things. Why for this is well pleasing
unto the Lord. Yes, children have rights, but
they also have responsibilities even as a child, and that
foremost responsibility is to obey mother and father.
There is only one command in the entire Bible given to children
or young people living in their home with their parents that
says obey your parents and everything.
The very fall of humanity and we see Australia collapsing in this
way. Society as we know it is when
the family falls apart right in the middle of some of the most
tragic of all scriptures contained in the Bible is this
very matter, that of when a society has been given over by
God to its own wicked desires and thinking.
The book of Romans, let me read God's word to you and wait for
the most tragic of words in relation to family, the home.
In this passage, Romans chapter one verse 28 says since they
thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned
them. God says, OK, that's a terrible
thing. He gave them over.
The old King James says he gave them over to their reprobate
minds. He said OK, we're done.
Wow. He abandoned them to their
foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be
done. Their lives became full of every
kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarrelling,
deception, malicious behaviour and gossip.
They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud and
boastful. They invent new ways of sinning
and then it says this and they disobey their parents.
Wow, it's kind of like you have this grand, grand scene and it
says and also they don't obey their mum and dad.
That's I find that fascinating. God says it is well pleasing to
obey your parents. The word obey means to hear when
under authority. It means to listen to a command.
It means to be obedient, to submit to well.
Pleasing means acceptable. It is the first commandment in
the Bible with a promise. Ephesians 6 Three, that it may
be well with you and you may live long on the earth.
There's an attachment to it, to obeying your mother and father.
That being, it will affect how well and how long a child may
live well. How can that be well?
A child who obeys their parents will regularly be warned from
harm's way. Don't do this.
Be be careful of that. Who are you going with?
Where are you staying? What's going on there?
Who? Who's, who's running it?
An obedient child will be spared the bad habits and bad company
that could bring danger and harm upon them.
The child who does not learn to obey his or her parents is not
likely to grow up obeying any authority.
He or she will defy their teacher, the police, their
employers, and anyone else who tries to exercise authority over
them. Proverbs 410 says, Hear my son
and receive my sayings, and the years of your life will be many.
Wow. Proverbs 1027 says the fear of
the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be
shortened. Proverbs 30 verse 17.
The eye that mocks his father and scorns obedience to his
mother. The Ravens of the valley will
pick it out, and the young eagles will eat it.
Whilst we may outgrow the call to obey our parents, we never
outgrow the obligation. Here's the other part to honour
them. That's what the Bible says, it's
a command. Honour your father and mother.
So God speaks to parents, verse 21, he says fathers.
Now some people say yes, it's mother's as well and it is.
But I, I want to note you to note here particularly who is
ultimately responsible when you go to a store or something's
gone wrong and the person that's serving you says, well, I, I
can't fix that. What do you say?
I want to speak to the manager and if that doesn't sort out,
what do you say? I want to speak to the owner.
Well, God right from the get go in the raising of the family,
says Fathers. Fathers spotlight, Do not
provoke your children unless they become discouraged.
God holds fathers responsible. Man's way of raising children is
not God's way. You may think your child is the
exception. Every parent or every school
teacher that's in our church and every police officer and anyone
that's had children go against their authority will have had
face. That parent says not mine, no,
my son, my daughter. And you may think your child is
an exception. I know the Bible says, but my
son, my daughter, it doesn't fit her.
Listen, your child is not the exception.
God's rule doesn't go. God's word doesn't go.
Oh, except for you, except for your son, except for your
daughter, no child is an exception to the Word of God.
The last century. Listen for a moment to the
different and diverse ways the world has sought and directed us
to try and raise their children. Fellow called John Watson came
out very famous and child teaching and people followed
him. He taught rigid authoritarian
parenting. He espoused that the child is
not to be cuddled or loved for fear of creating dependency upon
the parents. So the worst thing you could do
was to hug your kids and love them because they will become
too dependent upon you. This produced outward conformity
and inward hostility. It was the 1950s and 60s.
Then came Benjamin Spock, not from Lost in Space or Star Trek.
Benjamin Spock, he said the number one thing and he was
famous. I remember listening over and
over and over. His name's espoused.
You have to love your kids. Just love them.
That's it. Make sure above all that you
don't let your kids get frustrated.
Don't make them do anything they don't want to do.
That was disastrous and produce a generation of self control
demanding people and that's you and I here today.
And if a following in Spock's tracks came a fellow called Eric
Byrne. He said, look, just settle
everybody. He's the I'm OK, you're OK
approach friends. Just make your mind up on the
spot. Do what seems best at the time.
It's called situational ethics. What's true for me now is not
true for you. You know, it's just where we're
at. There's no absolute standard.
There are no absolutes of what's right or wrong.
If your son wants to do it, that's that's OK for him to do
it. And schools developed out of
that where kids could go there and just they don't, they don't,
they just please themselves and produce a generation of
confusion and apathy. Also with us today in our
generation and more recently following on in the 80s and the
90's, the new age self esteem philosophy of teaching your
child to listen to the, to the God within who you are.
The key to 1's future is high self esteem.
And that seems to be the the magic bullet for everything,
isn't it? It's self esteem that's the
problem. And so these children are to
never hear any negative messages.
And so, you know, we have football teams playing and they
don't keep the scores. The kids do.
But officially there's no scores.
You run in a race and you come 48th, you get a ribbon just like
the kid that come forth first. But there's no, well, no, we
don't have, it's not, you know, there's no competition, there's
no scores, there's no winners, there's no losers.
It's participation. They give your child any
negative feedback whatsoever. Just build them up over and
over. Man's way of raising children is
not God's way. Haggai chapter one, verse 5 says
now Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your
ways tonight as we opened God's Word.
Will you consider your ways If you're a parent?
Will you allow God's Word to shine and wash over the way in
which you are currently raising your children?
Will you be open to the possibility you may be raising
your children your way and not God's way?
Because every mum and dad says they know best?
In Psalm 119, verse 59 says I thought about my ways, David
says, and then I turn my feet to your testimonies.
God's way of raising children is in His word.
Actually that's what the Bible is all about, God raising his
children, God raising you and I, God raising me.
When we look at God's way of raising children, we get a a
solid idea of how we supposed to be raising our children.
And God has a family as well. He calls it his church.
In Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse one, the Lord spoke to the
children of Israel. He says now this is the
commandment. No suggestions.
And these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your
God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the
land which you're crossing over to possess.
That you may fear the Lord your God first to give you all His
statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and
your son and your grandson all the days of your life.
Notice he's spoken about the fear of the Lord.
This is the commandments. And then he brings in the
family, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of
your life, that your days may be prolonged.
There's that. There's that added same
happening here in Deuteronomy 6/1, as in Colossians, as in
Ephesians. The first foundation in raising
your children God's way is fear. You go fear.
Come on, How archaic, how wrong is that?
That's not true. I'm sorry.
We're just thinking what the Bible says.
Fear. There are a lot of people today
who would tell you that the foundation to raising your
children is love. Sounds good, doesn't it?
That's why the world is in such a mess.
Sounds good, but don't work. That's the place you have to
start. You have to love your children.
They say they need to know that they love.
Yes. Hear me carefully tonight as I
tell you that that is not what the Bible teaches is the
foundation of raising children. It comes.
The Bible says that fear is the foundation of raising, raising
children, God's way. How's that for what God does to
establish his role as a parent? He starts with fear.
It's because we had this bad image of God.
We think of the God of the Old Testament as, don't we?
Well, the God of the Old Testament, he was so harsh.
Thankfully, Jesus came. It's the same one, same grace is
in the Old Testament. Think of Noah.
Don't start getting your cultural thinking and your way
saying no that don't work that way.
Listen to what the Bible says. Change your mind and hear what
the Bible says. The Bible says that fear is the
foundation of raising God's children.
God starts with fear and the Lord your God commanded
Deuteronomy verse 2 that you might fear. 6 verse 2, the Lord
your God, first thing he said, what is this fear?
That's what we need to define. What is the fear of God?
It's to Revere. It's to respect.
It's to and as you think about a godly father and mother, it's to
Revere and to respect. It means the fear of God.
The problem is we find that concept uncomfortable, so we
have sought to redefine it. We got to help God out.
God, we know what you said here, but you know, world's changed.
We're different now. No, you're not.
Bible doesn't change. God hasn't changed.
Neither has his ways for raising children.
Psalm 111 verse 10 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning
wisdom. Proverbs 17 the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and
instruction. The fear of the Lord and the
fear of mum and dad is the beginning of wisdom.
Proverbs 910 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One understanding.
And I see it all too often today.
Kids have No Fear, no awe, no respect of mother and father.
I see in churches to actually be fearful of God if I don't do
what God wants me to do is this is where God starts with all of
his children from the call of Moses.
God wanted Moses to lead 2 to nearly three and a half million
people out of Egypt into the promised land.
So God, arrange to meet with Moses, remember, does he just
have a general discussion on the matter?
You know, Moses, come over here, let's a brainstorm, let's you
know how to best work this out. Now Moses is shepherding his
sheep when he comes across a Bush burning wildly in the
wilderness. Exodus 36.
Moreover, he said, I am the God of your father.
Moses speaks to God, speaks to Moses, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
What did Moses do? Hey man, cool.
Great to see you. No, it says Moses hid his face
for he was afraid to look upon God.
God is holy and righteous. And just remember what happened
to the apostle Paul. He was on the road.
He was known as Saul at that time, riding a donkey on the
road to Damascus. Acts Chapter 9, verse 6.
He's knocked off his donkey. A light appears and Jesus
reveals himself to him. And since says so, he trembling
and astonished Saul. Trembling and astonished said,
Lord, what do you want me to do? The foundation of all training
with children is fear. Every child needs to begin with
a healthy fear of mum and dad. A healthy fear of mum and dad.
The keyword is healthy, a genuine awareness that bad
choices lead to painful consequences.
It's love and action wrapped up in a beautiful Pearl called
respect. I'm going to obey because I
respect and love my mum and dad and also I know that if I slip
up then there'll be judgement. This is that fear.
When they are old enough to choose wrong, they are old
enough to Start learning that bad choices lead to painful
consequences. When a child does right, fear is
a general awareness of the need to keep doing right.
When a child does wrong, fear is a fearful sense of impending
consequence. That's missing today, isn't it?
Well, how big should the consequence be?
The consequence should be bigger than the pleasure of the sin.
A preschooler who won't pick up his or her toys, or year three
who talks back to Mum Man, that's just that should never
happen. Talk back.
Or year eight who lies about where they're going on a Friday
evening. Or year 12 who won't meet the
curfew of their parents. Every time a child comes against
your authority as a mother or a father, every time it's a test,
it's a battle, it's a challenge, it's against your authority.
And here's the deal. As a parent, it's against your
authority as a as a parent. And God has placed you as the
authority, as the parent. And then it is as they defy you,
they're defying the order of God, the authority of God that
he has put over in that family in your home every time.
It's not just here, it's it's here.
Think about that. That's where that's where we we
miss, we miss out. What's going on when your child
resists the clear established guidelines and goes against your
authority. Here's the questions I want to
ask you. Do they know what will happen or
do you just say stuff and never happens?
Doesn't happen mum. She just says it 6 * 7 times and
then she just let it go every time and without file.
Consistency is the key. Consistency between husband and
wife, mother and father. Can't have one weak, can't have
one strong. They both be got to be ruling
the same authority. Keeping your word to deal with
what is wrong is the key. If you said something and
they've gone against it and you do nothing about it, you might
as well just let them go and please themselves.
Because you are. You're not loving them, you're
mistreating them. This is the essence of biblical
philosophy of parenting in the foundation of fear.
But child rearing is incomplete with fear alone, just as a
building is incomplete just with the foundation alone.
Deuteronomy Because faith, sorry fear leads to Part 2 obedience.
Deuteronomy 6 two, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep
all his statutes and his commandments, which I command
you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your
life. Your days may be prolonged.
Therefore here, O Israel, be careful is the obedience to
observe that it may be well with you.
God is laying down the parameters.
Fear is being established as the child learns what the parent
will do if the rules are broken. All through scripture we see God
doing this. Fear leads to obedience in
Exodus 20, heading to the promised land after being freed
from Egypt. God says we're not going any
further until we get some things in writing.
It's been all verbal up to now. So Moses goes up on the top of
Mount Sinai, comes back down the mountain.
He's got 2 tablets containing the 10 commandments, the rules.
Moses lays it out what God wants and does not want.
You shall, you shall not. What happens next?
Does God speak with a soft voice and tell them, oh, hi guys.
Hope these things that Moses is bringing down to you aren't too
harsh. Hope they're they're now they're
just the guide. We'll work it out.
Let's have some discussion groups.
Let's work through these things. We can talk this through.
And no, he doesn't do that. That's why I'm not in the Bible
study where it's. What do you think this passage
means? All I think it means is that now
the Bible only has 1 meaning. People today are always learning
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
So God puts on a show, doesn't he?
What's happening on the mountain?
There's fire and Thunder and if anyone touches the man, what's
going to happen? They die.
He's putting emphasis on what I'm writing.
You better do it. I say what I mean.
God says what he means. Every parent needs to be able to
emphasise to the children. Don't mess with dad or mum.
If you see a child talking back to mum, talking back to dad,
they should be, hey, that ain't happening.
Stop. It's not happening.
It's not on. I hear kids talk to their mums
and dads terribly. I'm trying to talk to some mums
and dads at different times. Kids come in and I just take
over. I'm going, well, you run the
house. I'll just wander off and talk
over here with someone else. Then because the kid or kids are
running the family don't mess with mum and dad.
Well, we know about this. Everything went smoothly after
Moses brought down the tablets. No, they rebelled and they
rebelled. And God would repeat the
process, wouldn't he? Rules established, consequences
given, understood to establish healthy fear.
And what would happen? They'd rebel.
Judgement will come again. Rebellion occurs.
God steps in. Rules are reviewed, Consequences
are given. Things go good for a while.
It sounds a little monotonous. What happened in the Old
Testament? Don't you ever read God?
Why are the children? Isn't I just keep doing stuff
like this? Here's the deal.
If you're not up for 18 years of that, I hope you're not a
parent. This can even be sometimes on an
hourly basis. You've said something, they
break it. OK, here we go again.
I told you what to do. This was the consequences.
Do it again. Told you what to do.
Here's the consequences. Rules are established.
Consequences are explained. Things are good for a while.
Rebellion occurs. That's parenting and parenting
begins with fear and two leads to obedience.
James Dobson says this great words by James Dobson when you
encounter your child's will win and when decisively or you've
lost and that kid runs the home foundation is fear leads to
obedience and obedience leads to blessing.
When God's children do the things he has asked them to do
it leads to to blessing. God said do this that your days
may be prolonged then it may be well with you.
He went on to say verse 3 that you may multiply greatly as the
Lord has promised a land flowing of milk and honey, but you got
to do the other things first. That's a picture of blessing and
prosperity when we understand that we are really better off
following what God commands us. That at the end of every
obedience is blessing. Note that that's that's how how
it works. And we understand that at the
end of every disobedience there is heartache.
This is where families have gone wrong.
This is where churches have fallen short.
Our children need to understand that principle.
God calling his children to repent, just like a parent
admonishing their child. Come now, let us reason
together. Parents, so often you need to
just make it plain and simple for your kids.
If you do this, then this will happen.
But if you do this, then this will happen.
Obedience leaves the blessing. This is God's way.
But Keith, where's the love in all this?
That's next. Fathers, provoke not your
children to anger lest they be discouraged.
But don't get it out of order or you mess up really bad.
It's not your ways, not your thoughts, but Gods.
When your compassion for your child overrules what is right or
wrong, you are injuring your child.
You are mistreating your child. You think you're loving, but you
really aren't. Now God and Deuteronomy 6 brings
out the love part, verse 4. If you do all these things, then
you shall. Here's the next step after fear,
obedience, blessing. Here is well, the Lord our God.
The Lord is 1. You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
strength. The love of the child will
flourish and they will really love their mum and dad and
honour them. The problem is that parents want
that too soon. Too many parents take their own
insecurity and try to have their needs for love and affirmation
met from their children and to have them met, met them meet
their needs. That God's, He's the one to meet
your needs, the Lord God. God is love.
It's wrong, it's sad, and it's provoking when you have your
child meet your needs, trying to get your child who is not
equipped to do such a thing as a sure way to destroy your child.
And you're not establishing any example of how to live under
Almighty God. And a child who will not live
under the authority of their parents will not live under the
authority of God. Note that read the book of
Judges. When children lose the fear of
God and will not do what God commands and begins to do what
they think in and of themselves, trouble blessings lead to a love
relationship. When John 418 there is No Fear
in love. Well Keith, isn't that contrary?
No, you're missing the point. But perfect love casts out fear
because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been
made perfect in love. Now as an adult, I have grown in
my relationship with God, from a fear relationship to now a love
relationship. But I'm thankful that my
relationship with the Lord was built on a foundation of fear.
When I got saved, why was I saved?
I fear feared going to hell, fear damnation, feared living in
my sin. God would judge me.
The Bible said that. And if I decided to live
foolishly today, my relationship will be torn back to the very
foundation of fear. Be warned, do not tread lightly
on the grace of God. So let's wrap it up because of
time. Fear leads to obedience.
Obedience leads to blessing. Blessing to a growing love
relationship. You continue to grow the more
and more. My relationship with my father
was terrible as as a kid he was a World War 2R double AF in the
R double AF World War Two. We were years apart in age but
when I became a Christian and I saw my look my father as as as
Christ sees him. God changed my heart and I love
my dad so much so I realised how much he had tried his best
commit to God's way. So many kids today are angry.
Who at? You know who they're angry at?
At their parents. You know why?
Because they have shown them no discipline to them.
I don't care. I'm a dad, mum, they don't care
where I am. They're angry against them,
which is a sign of a lack of love.
The parents have provoked them. It's never too late to start
God's way of parenting. Consistent, age appropriate
discipline. Let me wrap it for our words,
for discipline for parents raising children God's way.
First one is the rod, ages 2 to 8.
It's only for rebellion and never for mistakes, never for
immaturity, only for rebellion. Don't miss this important
parenting. Proverbs 2215.
Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.
The rod of correction will drive it far from him.
Proverbs 1324. He who spares his rod, Bible
says, hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him
promptly. Early.
The kid won't pick up his toys as the kid who won't come home
on time as the kid who you fill in the blanks.
You don't want to be pulling your hair out over an 18 year
old because you didn't do early what you did heard today.
Second one is reproof. Ages 6 to 12.
Proverbs 2915. The writer and rebuke give
wisdom, but a child left to himself bring shame to his
mother. What's reproof?
Reproof is strong and in your face rebuke.
Hey, that's not happening. It's admonishing.
Well, I'll never speak crossly to my kids.
It's the strong don't. You're protecting your child.
Third, removal of freedom, age 10 plus you've been raising your
kids God's way. Not so tough.
But if you haven't, this is going to be World War Three for
you. You're going out tonight.
You're not going. You're not going there.
How long? As long as necessary.
Sorry you didn't do this. So you're not going to football.
Football. Forget about playing football.
It's not happening. You have to win, parents.
If you don't win, your children are going to lose.
The last one is responsibility. Back in the time of Christ,
people 15 to 18 were married and raising children of their own.
That a lot of responsibility. Today we have kids that age who
think their only deal in life is to have a good time and to test
mum and dad's boundaries. How do we deal with this?
Put your kids to work, give them responsibilities, make them
accountable, work around the house, get a job, fill their
days and hours. Don't protect your kids from
those consequences of their own choice.
They make a mistake, let them bear the consequences of that.
Otherwise you're going to be that person that turns up at
school and says, oh, I've done my son's homework, how good is
that kid going to be? Well, here, I'm sorry, officer,
I'm here. I'll pay his bail.
Adult life awaits. You'll be in court then, and not
before the principal, before the magistrate.
And communicate unconditional love.
I'll always love you. I need to hear that.
I'll always love you. I'll always be your father.
I'll always be your mother. 0 Tolerance for these things in a
Christian home is this. Can't discipline an anger, no
physical injury of any kind, no comments that belittle or shame
or provoke fear, obedience, blessing and love.
Father, I thank you for your word and I pray for the children
of this church. I pray for the mums and dads
that they will follow your word and not the ways of the world
and that they will raise up godly children who will love
them and respect them and that they also will love and respect
you. Father, I pray for Christ to be
the authority of every home and every marriage.
Lord we pray and ask this in Jesus name and everyone said
Amen and Amen.