HPARENTS AND

CHILDREN (13): APPEALING TO A CHILDS HEART (Ephesians 6:4)

One mother said this to a friend: I dont want to say anything against my kids, but when I go to PTA meetings, I go under an assumed name. I hope that is not your experience. It need not be if you are applying Gods principles summarized in Eph 6:4: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Weve been looking at this verse on child-rearing under the outline I. Those Responsible II. The Wrong Way and III. The Right Way. Simple outline challenging implementation. Today we introduce III. The Right Way. Listen to this story by Denis Waitley from his book Seeds of Greatness: A young couple who invited me to their home for dinner sometime ago after an all-day program at the University. This man and woman, both highly intelligent, with advanced degrees, had opted for a "child centered" home so their five-year-old son Bradford would have everything at his disposal to become a winner. . . . Entering the front door, I instantly discovered that this was Radfords place, not his parents. The furnishings, it appeared, were originally of fine quality. I thought recognized an Ethan Allen piece that had suffered "the wrath of Khan." . . . Trying to find a place to sit down was like hopping on 1 foot through a minefield, blindfolded. Bradford got to eat first, in the living room, so he would not be lonely. I nearly dropped my cup of hot tea in my lap in surprise when they brought out a high chair. He was five years old, and had to be strapped into a high chair to get through one meal! As we started our salads in the dining room, young Bradford dumped his dinner on the carpet and proceeded to pour his milk on top of it to ensure that the peas and carrots would go deep into the shag fibers. His mother entreated, "Brad, honey, dont do that. . . . Ill get you some more dinner while Daddy cleans it up." While they were occupied with their chores, Bradford had unfastened his seat belts, scrambled down from his perch, and joined me in the dining room, helping himself to my olives. "I think you should wait for your own dinner," I said politely, removing his hand from my salad bowl. He swung his leg up, to kick me in the knee, but my old ex-pilot reflexes didnt fail me and I crossed my legs so quickly that he missed, came off his feet, and came down hard on the seat of his pants. Youd have thought he was at the dentist office. He screamed and ran to his mother, sobbing, "He hit me!" When his
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parents asked what happened, I calmly informed them that he had fallen accidentally and that, besides, "Id never hit the head of a household!" I knew it was time to be on my way when they put Prince Valiant to bed by placing granola cookies on the stairs as enticers. He ate his way up to bed! "How are you ever going to motivate him to go to school?" I asked quietly. "Oh, Im sure will come up with something," they laughed. "Yes, but what if the neighborhood dogs eat what you put out? Hell lose his way just like Hansel and Gretel!" (I asked the Lord for forgiveness for not remaining silent, as I drove back to the airport). I hope that nothing in that account sounded familiar to you! It shows how easy it is, with all good intention, to have a child lose his way because the parents have lost their way. These parents were well-intentioned, but they were in violation of almost every God-centered child-rearing principle. So, lets learn what the Bible has to say about nurture, instruction and discipline. Lets do better! After all, Children are a gift from God, and how we rear them is a gift back to God. So, what is the right way? III. The Right Way God says, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The last clause gives three ways to do child-rearing right. It takes nurture (bring them up), discipline and instruction. Today, we look at the first -- bring them up. A. Bring Up Nurture Bring them up is a general statement with discipline and instruction being two specific elements of bringing up. Bring up is one word in the original text (ektrepho) literally, to feed or nourish. The word came to emphasize the result of feeding to bring up to maturity. Both senses of the word are implied in Eph 5:29, For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes (feeds physically implied) and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church. That second phrase just as Christ does the church captures the fullest sense of the word. A man nourishes his flesh with food; Christ nourishes His church on spiritual food to produce spiritual maturity. Eph 6:4, therefore, emphasizes nourishing children to physical, emotional and spiritual maturity. It speaks to providing the nurture that will produce a
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mature adult in all ways. The summary of the upbringing of Jesus in Luke 2:52 is a wonderful example of this: And Jesus increased in wisdom (intellectually) and in stature (physically) and in favor with God (spiritually) and man (socially). All of those areas of development are implied in the word (ektrepho). Thus, bring them up to full maturity. Now, verse 4 lists two sub-elements that are necessary to bring them up to maturity -- instruction and discipline in the Lord. But before we study those, lets unpack nurture. I want to do so by looking at four foundational implications of nurturing or bringing up children. 1. Agency The first implication we are agents, not owners! We are to bring them up in the Lord; not in our image. They are not for our enjoyment; they are for His glory. We parents are not the end-all; we are the middle man. We are agents of God in the rearing of children. We must never forget this fact; it has implications for every parental move we make. Nail it hard and fast to your frontal lobe for constant reference. You are an agent, not an owner. Turn with me to Psa 127. Solomon wrote it. Verse 1, Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. His point is clear. All labor to whatever end is vain useless -- unless God is in it. Solomon was a great builder, so this could be applied to a house, a temple or anything. But look at verse 3, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. The context suggests that Solomon is not primarily envisioning a physical building; he is envisioning building a family. This is supported by the words he chooses. The Hebrew word for house (beith), son (ben), daughter (bath) and children (banim) are all based on the word to build (banah). Beith, ben, bath, banim, banah -- Solomon is using a play on words here to picture building a family. And his thrust is, to build a family without the Lord is vanity, useless, hopeless rather like the couple at the beginning. The parents may do a lot of the work, but the supervisor must be the Lord. Do you see? We participate, but the Lord builds the house. He builds the family. Parents are His agents, His instruments; His helpers. But He builds. Parents have a privileged heritage and reward from God in the form of their children, but as caretakers, not as owners.

And dont miss verse 4, Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of ones youth. These children have a purpose. They are little arrows. What does a warrior do with his arrows? Does he admire them? Hang them up for display? Show them off? Of course not! He balances, sharpens, refines and prepares those arrows for the time when he will release them as weapons against his enemies. And so children have a purpose for which parents are to sharpen and balance and prepare them. And what is that purpose? Isaiah 43:6-7, I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, 7) everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Do we think your children are ours? They are not. They are His; He distributes them to parents to nourish, bring to maturity to where they can glorify Him uniquely. We do not own those children. They are not primarily for our enjoyment or comfort or pride. That would be to make idols of them. They are a heritage for us to bring up for His glory under His authority. Tedd Tripp, in Shepherding a Childs Heart, says it this way, The purpose for your authority in the lives of your children is not to hold them under your power, but to empower them to be self-controlled people living freely under the authority of God. That means every move toward our children should be on behalf of God, not ourselves. We had six boys in our family before a girl finally came along. I can remember Mary coming out to get us in for dinner in the evening when we were playing ball or something equally exciting. She would say, Its time for dinner, and we would react as though nothing at all had happened. Her command was meaningless. But eventually she would come again and said, Mom said its time to come in, and we knew we had better get going. Similarly, we are calling our children on behalf of our Lord, not as our property but as His. We can delegate some of the responsibility to school or church, but ultimately it is us! When God says bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord He is saying we are His artisans in their lives molding them to His will. Making this point consistently with your children will change the whole dynamic of child-rearing. If it is about you and what you want, they will storm the barricades over and over as they get older. If you consistently make your rules, authority and discipline about what God wants, it raises the process to a whole other level. Representing yourself as Gods minister in the childs life makes God real to them and establishes authority outside you.
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2. Aim Point 2. Child-rearing is about changing hearts, not behavior. The aim of child-rearing is not primarily to change behavior, but to reach the heart. Think of a tree where behavior is the fruit, but the fruit is a result of the root. As a parent, you have accomplished nothing if you produce a mature adult who functions with appropriate behavior in the adult world but does it all for selfish reasons. That is mere behavior modification, and any good psychologist can accomplish that by applying cleverly devised stimuli. Our aim as Christian parents is heart modification. Only Christ can change hearts, but we can point the way. God desires changed behavior but as a result of a changed heart, not as a result of appeal to the idols of the heart. There is a vast difference. Our aim is to bring the gospel to bear on this young life, and that means we must appeal to the conscience and to the heart. We are about motive, not just behavior. All of us, including kids, do right things for wrong reasons. That was the whole problem with the Pharisees. They did right things, but their motivations were anathema. Inside they were black. Jesus says of them in Matt 23:25, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and selfindulgence. Right actions, wrong reasons. Therefore Jesus also said this in Matt 5:20, 20) For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. How do you have righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees? A changed heart, Beloved. That is the only answer. Gods goal for all His people, and our goal for children is expressed in Ezekiel 36:25-26, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26) And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Those verses should be emblazoned on the hearts of every parent; our goal is not changed behavior, but changed hearts. You can have changed behavior without a change of heart; you cannot have a changed heart without changed behavior. We must go to the root of the problem, so we must start at the youngest age to appeal to the conscience and the heart. God says in Prov 4:23, Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Its a graphic picture. The heart, the inside of a person, is a well from which all the issues of life gush forth. Behavior is an
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expression of the overflow of the heart. The phrase you want to memorize is, Heart determines behavior. Heart determines behavior. This is the constant theme of Scripture. Mark 7:21-22, 21) For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22) coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. Evil comes from within. Luke 6:45 says, 45) The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Heart determines behavior. You say, but you just said that the Pharisees had good behavior despite bad hearts. What about that? Beloved, what the Pharisees had was bad behavior stemming from a bad heart, but painted to look good. They gave money to the temple. Good thing? Yes, but they did it to appear generous, all the time robbing from what they owed their parents. Bad things painted to look good. Thats exactly why Jesus said to them in Matt 23:27: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear (not are, but appear) beautiful, but within are full of dead peoples bones and all uncleanness. Bad behavior can be made to look glorious with a good paint job. But its still bad behavior. A change in behavior that does not stem from a change of heart is not commendable; it is condemnable. One of the most important verses in the Bible is hidden away in I Sam 16 where Samuel shows up at Jesses home at Gods instruction to anoint a new king. The oldest son appears and Samuel thinks this must surely be the one. He looks the part! But God says, No. And so on all the way down the line until little David appears and God says, Thats the man. Then he gives us a keen insight in verse 7: For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart. The heart is everything to God. Our job as parents is not to produce Pharisees, but Christians; not merely good behavior, but changed hearts. Any other aim is unworthy of our Lord. Its a tough job; it takes a knowledge of Scripture and a deep commitment to know your child. We will illustrate as we go. Just one quick example. Two children are playing and a fight breaks out over a particular toy. The classic response the one I almost always used Who had it first? Were looking for justice and fairness. We may eventually set up a system of time limits or something, but we have not addressed the root problem. We have not called out the hardness of heart and selfishness on the part of both children that drove the fight in the first
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place. We have failed to elicit the confession that each is trying to have their happiness at the expense of the other. That is where we must go. Even at that young age. The aim is the heart. So, fix this permanently in your conscience in neon lights for constant reference. Heart determines behavior. We must always appeal to the heart. 3. Attentiveness A third implication of Gods command to nurture our children. It is going to take time. We are building a family under the supervision of the Master builder. He instructs in Luke 14:28, 28) For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Before you start building a family, you need to count the cost. Are you willing to pay the price? If you are already into the process, you have no choice before God but to reconsider what it will take in terms of time and energy. Children need attention and appealing to hearts takes knowledge of Gods Word and it takes time. I read of one woman who did not care much for sports, but in raising three sons, she put her own preferences aside to serve as Little League mother for several years. Then eight years after the birth of the last son, she had a fourth. As she was being wheeled back to her room after the birth, her husband rushed up. The nurse said to her, Your husband still does not know what you had. The woman replied with a drowsy smile, I had another six years of Little League thats what I had. She was counting the cost. Martyn Lloyd-Jones reminds us, The newspapers are constantly reminding us of the care and the attention which people give to rearing various types of animals. It is not an easy thing to train an animal. . . . It demands much time and attention. The diet has to be considered, the exercises have to be planned, suitable bedding has to be provided; the animal has to be protected from various hazards; and so on. People pay large sums of money, spend a good deal of time, and give much thought to the bringing up and rearing of an animal. . . . But sometimes one is given the impression that very little time and care, attention and thought, are given to the rearing of children. That is a tragedy that we would spend more time getting expertise on how to nurture our pets than we would our children. You cant be Gods executor appealing to the hearts of kids without giving your best time, thought and attention to the matter.
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4. Atmosphere Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The Greek language has more than one word for but. The one used here indicates the strongest contrast with what came before. It is as though God is saying through Paul, Fathers do not provoke your children, but, to the complete contrary, bring them up in a non-provoking, nurturing atmosphere of discipline and instruction. In other words, in rearing our children, we are to create an atmosphere of love, security, safety, trust and comfort. William Hendriksen says, Love must replace anger. The children should be reared tenderly. John Calvin translates bring them up with the words, let them be kindly cherished. Kindly cherished. I like that. Even as we discipline and instruct, children should feel kindly cherished. Our influence in molding them by the atmosphere we create can hardly be overstated. Conclusion -- Sitting down to supper one night, a young lady complained about having to eat leftovers. Her father decided she should say grace to show her appreciation. So she bowed her head and then prayed, "Thank you for this food -- again." That little story illustrates a universal truth. Our problem isnt bad behavior. Our problem is sin. We are in rebellion against our creator. Our problem is not behavior. Right behavior can be coerced, but without a change in heart, it is simply selfishness painted over to look better. Sin is the universal problem. Your children are no exception. So we must bring them to the cross of Christ over and over and over again. As Gods delegate in their lives we must appeal to the heart. We must insist their rebellion is not primarily against their siblings or even against us. It is against the Christ who died for that very sin. We must teach them true repentance, and acceptance of forgiveness. We must urge a new heart. That is our job. That is how we bring them up -- nurture them to maturity. The great pianist, Arthur Rubenstein, was once standing in the lobby of a concert hall watching a capacity crowd streaming in to hear one of his recitals. The attendant at the box office, nor recognizing him, told him that the concert was sold out. He said, Im sorry, mister, but we cant seat you. Rubenstein inquired meekly, Do you suppose I might be seated at the piano? He was saying that is where I am intended to be where I deserve to be! Dear friends, Jesus is knocking at the door of our children and grandchildrens heart. But they will do everything possible to keep self there.
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As Gods instrument in their lives, it is our job to remind them that Jesus is knocking every time they misbehave. We must knock with Him and urge repentance and submission. Appeal to the heart. Lets pray.