The Best Gift You Can Give on Father's Day--Ephesians 6:1-3

            Today, on this Father’s Day, I’m going to preach on every father’s favorite verse, Ephesians 6:1 – “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” I say that half-jokingly of course, because we have some other good candidates for a father’s favorite verse, like Proverbs 18:22 – “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” Or how about Romans 14:2 – “One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.”

            Ephesians 6:1 is a very unique verse because it contains perhaps the only command in the Bible that we actually grow out of. When we become adults, the relationship of authority that we’ve had with our parents changes so that we no longer have to obey what they tell us to do, although we are still called to honor them and support them as needs arise.

            So as we actually take a look at Ephesians 6:1-3, there is something for all of us to learn. Certainly, however, I’d like for all of you children and teenagers to give me your very best attention today because we’re going to talk about a message from God that is specifically for you. I’m sure there are times when you sit here and think that I’m not really talking to you, but trust me—today I am!

So let’s see what God has to say in these verses.

“In the Lord…”

            Verse 1 says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” We see a very clear command to obey your parents, but this phrase “in the Lord” reminds us of a couple of very important thoughts. First, it reminds us that you should obey your parents not because they always deserve it, but because it’s what God asks you to do. So your decision to obey or not obey is mostly a question of whether you will obey God – even more so than whether you will obey your parents.

            So, for example, if your parents ask you to clean your room, you should obey because it’s what God wants you to do. And so, you should obey even if your parents don’t ask very politely, or even if they promised to play with you the night before but never got around to it, or even if they’ve not set a very good example and they never even clean their own room! You should obey because it’s what God wants you to do.

            Second, that little phrase reminds us that God is really in charge of your life – even more so than your parents – so you should continue to obey him even if your parents ask you to do something that’s wrong. Perhaps your parents are divorced and one parent wants you to be mean to the other parent. That’s something you shouldn’t do, because that would be sinful, wouldn’t it? Or perhaps your parents ask you to lie about something for them. This can be very tricky, but you need to think about how you can continue to obey God in those situations rather than do something that’s sinful. If that happens to you a lot, you might talk to your Sunday School teacher about that or your AWANA leader, and see what they can do to help.

            Now, I know many of you have heard this command for years—“obey your parents, obey your parents!” You know it’s a command for you from God, but maybe you don’t know how seriously God takes this matter. After all, some of your friends might not be very obedient to their parents. Is it really that big of a deal?

            Let me tell you about a few verses from 2 Timothy 3. In these verses, the Apostle Paul talks about how our world is going to have some big problems before Jesus returns. You may not understand all of these words—and that’s okay—but I bet one thing will jump out at you as I read [READ 2 Tim. 3:1-5]. Did you hear “disobedient to their parents” in that list? That was a list of some bad attitudes and actions, and God told Paul to put “disobedient to their parents” right in the middle of it.

            Paul also said that we need to avoid people who act in those ways. So as you’re deciding who your friends are going to be, you may have to decide that you can’t be best friends with someone who disobeys their parents a lot. You probably shouldn’t make that person the kind of friend you share secrets with, or the kind of friend that you ask for advice. That doesn’t mean you can’t play basketball with them or swim at the pool with them, but you will have to be careful how much influence you let them have over your heart.

            And for you teenagers, when you get older and start to think about dating, if you’re trying to decide whether a person is good dating material, ask yourself how they treat their parents. If that guy is disrespectful toward his parents or that girl is always mouthing off to her parents, you better run like you did when you still thought the opposite sex had cooties! The way that person treats his or her parents is exactly the way that he or she will eventually treat you. I know they don’t treat you that way in the beginning because you’re “in love,” but you just wait—its only a matter of time! So you find a person who treats his or her parents well.

“The first commandment with a promise…”

            [READ vv. 2-3] Here, Paul was quoting from the Ten Commandments back in the Old Testament. He points out something interesting about this command to honor your father and mother—even though it was the fifth commandment in that list of 10, it was the first commandment on the list that had a promise attached to it. Paul recorded the promise right there in verse 3—“that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” In other words, the promise to those Jewish children was that life would be better for them if they honored their parents, and they would get to stay on the property that God was giving their people—the Promised Land.

            Now, the first part of that promise definitely still applies to you—that’s why Paul included it here. Generally speaking, life will go better for you if you honor your parents. Not only will your home life be more peaceful, but you will keep yourself out of a lot of trouble if you will honor and obey your parents.

            Now, obeying and honoring are two slightly different things. Obedience talks more about your actions, and honoring talks more about your attitude—although your attitude certainly spills over into the way you act. But let’s ask ourselves here…

What does it mean, in practical terms, to honor your father and mother?

1. Treat them like very significant and important people

            To help you understand what I’m getting at here, think about an adult other than your parents whom you greatly admire – someone that you might consider a mentor, or at the very least, someone that you want to be like. This person might be your teacher, your youth group leader, or maybe your coach.

            Think about how you treat that person. You wouldn’t dream of talking back to them because you admire them and respect them too much for that. If they give you advice, you would really take it to heart because you value their opinion. You might even go out of your way to be helpful to them because you’re thankful for them and grateful to have them in your life.

            The way that you treat that person should be the very same way that you choose to treat your parents. That’s easier said than done, of course, but at least having that comparison in mind will give you a handy way to remember what it looks like to treat someone with honor and respect.

2. Let their approval carry significant weight in your decisions

            When I was a teenager, my parents gave me almost no rules that I had to follow. I had no curfew, so I was often out at times when nothing good was going on. I had no rules about dating, which was a really bad situation. From the time I was able to drive, I was able to go out on dates with girls all alone. Quite often, my parents didn’t even know who these girls were because I wasn’t required to introduce them to my parents first or get my parents input or anything. Let’s be honest – that was not a good situation!

            Despite this lack of rules, the one thing that kept me at least close to the straight and narrow – other than the Holy Spirit of course – was that I didn’t want to disappoint my parents. They raised me with such affection that I never wanted to let them down. Besides that, I am the youngest child in my family, so I got to see firsthand how my parents’ hearts would break when my older siblings did something that they didn’t approve of.

            That desire to make them proud of my choices kept me out of trouble many times. I remember a time around Halloween when some of my buddies thought it would be fun to go steal some pumpkins from the local Walmart and smash them in the driveways of people around town. Now, I knew that if I got caught doing that, my parents would die! So I stayed behind with just one or two friends at the house where we were hanging out that night.

            Well, after a while, our buddies didn’t come back and they didn’t come back, and we eventually figured that they were just out doing their thing, so we all went home. I found out the next day that my friends hadn’t even made it 20 yards out of the Walmart parking lot before they got pulled over! When they cruised by to steal those pumpkins, there was a cop sitting in the shadows across the parking lot, and they never even saw him! They were sitting ducks!

            The manager of the store chose not to press charges, but the officer took all of my friends to the police station and made their parents come pick them up before they could leave. As you can imagine, those guys weren’t able to hang out for a while after that.

            So to all of you kids and teenagers, let your parents’ approval carry significant weight as you’re making your choices. Decide for yourself that the last thing you would want to do is disappoint these dear people who have loved you and sacrificed so much to raise you and give you everything you need.

3. Let their advice carry significant weight in your thinking

            In the lead up to Father’s Day this week, I saw a short video about kids asking their fathers for advice. It quoted a statistic – and you all know that you have to take statistics on the Internet with a grain of salt – which said that 94% of teenagers would search Google for advice about something before they would ask their own father. I can’t say how they came up with that number, but the basic claim has a ring of truth to it in my opinion.

            Look – I know it’s so tempting to think that your parents are out of touch with reality because they may not know much about pop culture or technology. I know your parents might think the X-Men are the people who make X-Boxes, but trust me – your parents know a whole lot more about life than you will ever realize until you’re older. They can certainly give you far better advice than Google!

            So choose to talk to your parents and get their advice about the questions you have and the things that confuse you. Once you hear what they have to say, don’t take it lightly, and don’t just brush it off as if they have no idea what they’re talking about. That would be a terrible mistake for you to make. Consider long and hard what they have to say, and allow their advice to shape the way that you think about the world.

            For 16 years now, my father has been battling Parkinson’s disease. That disease really affects a person’s mobility among other things. I hate to see such a routine task as walking become so difficult for my dad, and I hate it for him that he won’t be able to play with my children the way that I know he would love to.

            But what really gets to me more than anything is the fact that I can’t talk things over with my dad anymore. The medications that he takes allow him to have a greater mobility, but they keep him from thinking very clearly, so much so that it’s hard for him to follow a conversation or put more than a couple of coherent sentences together at the same time.

            If I had known earlier in my life that my dad would suffer like this from Parkinson’s disease, I don’t think I would’ve told you that the thing I’d miss the most would be his advice. But that is what I would tell you today, and so I want to tell you kids and teenagers, don’t waste your opportunity to get advice from your parents. And when they offer it or when you ask for it, don’t fall into the foolish trap of thinking that you know better than they do. One of their God-given tasks is to teach you about life and how to make wise decisions, and I know that every parent I see in this room today takes that job seriously. So be thankful for them, and let their advice sink down deep into your souls, so that you might come to know how to make wise decisions.

Restoring the "Forgotten Middle" to Christ's Resurrection Power--Ephesians 1:19-20 (Easter message)

            There’s a song that’s been going around Christian radio lately that reminds us of an important truth regarding Christ’s resurrection. It’s the song, “Same Power,” by Jeremy Camp, and the basic message of the song is captured in the line at the beginning of the chorus: the same power that rose Jesus from the grave lives in us. We have that same power at work within our lives through the Holy Spirit.

            That’s an important truth for us to remember, lest we start to think about Christ’s resurrection only in terms of the past and the future and lose sight of its implications for the present. We can sometimes find ourselves thinking about Christ’s resurrection the same way that we think about a retirement account – it’s good that I started one in the past, and I’ll sure enjoy it in the future when I can begin to draw from it, but it doesn’t really help me right here, right now, on a daily basis.

            We might have that same kind of thought about Christ’s resurrection. Sure – we know it’s great that he rose from the grave all those many years ago, and we know that we too will be resurrected one day because of it. But in the meantime – well, what difference does it make?

            That song reminds us that God’s resurrection power is still active in the world today – and in fact, it’s active within you and me. That truth is expressed in a handful of different passages in the New Testament, but today I’d like to point you specifically to Ephesians 1:19-20. I’m going to start reading in verse 15 to give you the context, and let me ever so briefly give you a summary of verses 1-14.

            In those first 14 verses, Paul gives us a rundown of God’s plan of salvation and how he has worked it out in our lives. If you could master the message of just of those 14 verses, you would have a great handle on the vast majority of New Testament theology. You might want to make those 14 verses the subject of some careful, personal study in your daily Bible reading before long.

            Beginning in verse 15 then, Paul describes why and how he prays for the Ephesian believers. Let’s read his description down through verse 20 [READ].

            The phrase “according to” in v. 19 might seem a bit unclear to you, so let me read for you how verses 19 and 20 are translated in the NIV: “his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.”

            So God’s incomparably great power for us who believe is indeed the same power that rose Jesus from the grave. From this point forward in the book of Ephesians, we could view it as a description of what God can accomplish in us and through us through the immeasurable greatness of his power. So I want to take you today on a quick tour through the book of Ephesians. You’ll get a glimpse of how God’s resurrection power can transform your daily life right now and make a difference for you in the present day, not just in the past and the future.

1. His power gave us spiritual life to walk in His path of good works--2:1-10

            In this section, Paul describes how we were spiritually dead without Christ, unwittingly following Satan, and living for little more than satisfying our own lusts. But through Jesus Christ, God saved us from that situation and gave us new spiritual life, through which we can accomplish good things for him in this world. All of this is summed up in the familiar words of 2:8-10 [READ].

            God has saved us from our sins and molded us to do good works – actions that will bear his fruit in this world and do good for mankind. As we look around our world today, we see problems that leave us staggering because of their size and complexity. But the history of Christianity can be seen from one angle as a story of dismantling difficult problems. Christians in the Roman Empire successfully ended practices like infanticide and the systematic neglect of the sick and handicapped. Christians in the New World effectively put an end to the legal slave trade among English-speaking countries. Christian missionaries have taught jungle tribes how to escape the cycle of revenge killings, and they’ve challenged pagan cultures to put an end to practices like human sacrifice.

            God can work through us to effect lasting change in this world. The immeasurable greatness of his power can accomplish incredible things through his people – and not just on a societal level, but in your homes and in our schools and in our communities.

2. His power allows us to overcome prejudice in order to walk in unity with other believers--2:11-3:13

            In the next section of Ephesians, Paul describes how Christ brought together Jews and Gentiles as one body and one family within the church. That was no small feat when you consider the prejudice that existed between those groups. It would be like Blacks and Whites in the Jim Crow South joining together in true peace and harmony.

            God’s great power can overcome the prejudices that we might harbor against each other, which is highly significant given how deeply held our prejudices often are. These attitudes are often lodged in our hearts rather than our minds, which makes them all the more difficult to change. If you discover that you’ve simply been thinking about something incorrectly, it might not take too much for you to change your mind. But when your feelings and values are tied up in it, watch out! Attitudes like that require an adjustment that can be life altering.

            But God can do it in his power! He can make friends out of lifelong enemies and fellow worshipers out of former antagonists.

3. His power allows us to comprehend the love of Christ and be filled with all the fullness of God--3:14-21

            This section is so beautiful that I just want to read it to you rather than comment on it [READ]. Isn’t a passage like that a feast for your soul? I especially love the notion that it takes strength to comprehend the love of Christ. It’s a love that blows us away, so we have to have God-given strength just to be able to comprehend it!

4. His power equips us to help each other mature in Christ--4:1-16

            In the next two sections, Paul really builds upon the image of walking to describe the way we move through life with our decisions and actions. In 4:1 he writes, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” When you think about how high our calling is as believers, it’s almost stunning sometimes to think that we actually can live up to it – that through God’s power we can live in such a way that the name “Christian” or “little Christ” actually suits us well!

            God’s power can accomplish that in us, and he can also use us to help each other mature in Christ. Notice what Paul writes in 4:15-16 [READ].

5. His power leads us to walk in love and wisdom rather than selfishness and ignorance--4:17-5:21

            In this section, we have a number of commands that all build upon this metaphor of walking. In 4:17, Paul writes, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.” Then in 5:1-2 he writes, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

            Next, in 5:8-9 he writes, “Walk as children of light for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” Finally in 5:15-16, Paul writes, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

            Earlier, Paul had described how those who do not believe are simply led around by their own passions and desires, but through Christ we have the immeasurable greatness of God’s power that can strengthen us to live a different way. Our sinful desires are like gravity – they are always pulling us down whether we realize it or not. But God’s great power strengthens us to rise above our sinful desires and escape their pull so that we can walk a different path.

6. His power allows us to act properly in all our relationships, and for the right reasons--5:22-6:9

            In this section, Paul gives practical instructions to various groups of people to teach us how to live together. As we all know, one of the most difficult challenges we face is simply to live together with other people in ways that are healthy and beneficial and encouraging rather than dysfunctional. So Paul writes to husbands and wives, to children and parents, and to slaves and masters to tell them all how to act properly in those relationships.

            And with each piece of advice, he reminds us that our goal in these relationships is not simply to please ourselves or even other people, but to please Christ. In each of these relationships, we should live in love toward Christ, which will keep us on the right track.

7. His power strengthens us to stand against the schemes of the Devil--6:10-20 (vs. 10-12)

            We have a powerful foe in the devil who is always seeking to do us harm. The Bible describes him as powerful, intelligent, cunning, and even attractive. But his power is no match for the immeasurable greatness of the power that rose Jesus from the dead! God’s power strengthens us to stand against the schemes of the devil.

            And so, let us always remember that the same power that brought a dead man back to life is at work in our lives today to accomplish things that might also seem impossible. When we feel the powerful pull of our sinful desires, it may feel impossible to say no, but through God’s power we can walk a different path. It may feel impossible for us to live in peace with someone from “that other group” of people, but through Christ we can find unity in worshiping him.

            Wives, it may seem impossible for you to honor your husbands, or husbands, it may seem impossible for you to love your wife as you love your own body, but through Christ that can be your love story! It may seem impossible to live up to the high calling to which we have been called or to think that you could actually enhance the reputation of Jesus among the people who witness your life, but through Christ it is possible. The immeasurably great power that brought him back to life is at work within us right now, and it can do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think so that God might receive the glory for ever and ever. Amen!

Pray for One Another--Ephesians 6:18--Being the Body Series

            Her heart must have been pounding inside her chest as she stepped into that room—that room where no one was welcome without an invitation, that room where coming uninvited could get a person killed. But as the king heard her footsteps and lifted his eyes to see who had dared to come into that room, his heart was filled with compassion. When he saw the face of the one he loved, he raised his scepter to indicate that she was welcome.

            The story of Esther reminds us how difficult it has always been to get an audience with people in positions of high authority. Just imagine if you wanted to have a conversation with the President. For the average person, it would be practically impossible.

            And yet, as Christians, we have free and ready access to the highest authority of all—God himself! At any moment we choose, no matter where we are, we can simply turn our thoughts toward God and express our thoughts to Him, and He will hear us. Isn’t that amazing?

            With such an amazing privilege at our disposal, we should ask ourselves, “How am I using this opportunity?” Am I making the most of this incredible gift? Am I perhaps using it in a merely selfish way? I heard a great question recently that I think really helps put things in perspective—if all of my prayers were answered tomorrow, would only my life be different, or would the whole world be different?

            Today, we’re going to take a look at a scriptural command for us to pray for one another. It is no hollow cliché to say that the best thing we can do for each other is pray for each other. We’ll find out a bit more about how to do that in Ephesians 6:18.

            Beginning in Ephesians 6:10, the Apostle Paul uses the metaphor of warfare to discuss the battles that we face against the schemes of the devil. He makes a vital point in v. 12 when he writes, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” The titles “rulers” and “authorities” refer to the spiritual beings—the demonic beings—who are working with Satan to do battle against us.

            So our struggle is against spiritual beings and their powers, and as the old saying goes, you have to fight fire with fire. You’re not going to win a modern-day war with bows and arrows, and likewise, you’re not going to win a struggle against spiritual beings with merely human resources. This is one reason why prayer is such a vital tool in our spiritual arsenal, and it is why we need to employ it on behalf of others.

            In vv. 13-17, then, Paul calls upon us to embrace certain attitudes and behaviors, and he memorably compares them to different pieces of armor that were worn by Roman soldiers at that time. Then in v. 18, he ties it all together with this instruction about prayer—“praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.”

Let’s dig deeper into this verse with a few simple questions.

When Should We Pray?

            According to this verse, we should pray “at all times.” If we were to ask the Bible whether we should pray in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening, it would simply say, “Yes!” Every time of day is a good time for prayer!

            Recall that in John 15, Jesus said (and I paraphrase), “I am like a vine, and you are like the branches coming out of the vine. Apart from me, you can do nothing!” He meant, of course, nothing of spiritual value. We can do plenty of sinning on our own, but to do anything good, the guidance and strength of Christ are absolutely essential.

            If that’s true, then as people who need Jesus like a branch needs its vine, we should never be very far removed from our last prayer, and we should never be very far away from our next prayer. Texting conversations provide a great illustration of what that might look like. You can carry on a texting conversation with someone all day if you want, and yet at the same time, you can take care of the business you need to attend to that day. But that conversation is always in the back of your mind, and every so often you fire off another text to that person.

            That’s a great model for what it might look like to pray at all times. In the back of our minds, we should have an ongoing conversation with God about our day, and then every little bit, we bring that conversation to the front of our minds, and we pray a prayer to God.

            So think about your typical day and ask yourself, “Do I have some pretty long stretches of prayerlessness?” Or ask yourself this—“If I ate only as often as I pray, what would my physical health be like? Would I be well-fed or malnourished?” Well, if you endure long stretches without prayer, don’t you think your spiritual health suffers? So, we must pray at all times.

How Should We Pray?

1. In the Spirit

            When you hear this phrase, don’t picture yourself going into a trance or some kind of altered state of mind. The idea is to pray with the resources that the Holy Spirit provides. What kind of resources does He provide for our prayers?

            The first resource we should mention is confidence. The Holy Spirit reminds us that we are children of God, and as such, we have the right to come to God in prayer. Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Thus, we don’t have to wonder, like Esther did, whether the king is going to lower His scepter to us when we approach his throne. We can thus pray with confidence.

            That same chapter—Romans 8—mentions another activity of the Spirit to help us in prayer. Verses 26-27 state, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

            Notice how the Holy Spirit steps in for us. We don’t always know the right thing to pray for, do we? Sometimes, life is so complicated, we don’t even know what the best thing to ask for is. So as we wrestle with what to even say, the Holy Spirit assists us in the process. It may not be far off to think of Him acting like a translator—as I’m stumbling over my words, He can step in and say, “Father, what Tim really meant to say was…” And so, the Holy Spirit can give us great confidence for prayer.

            Second, He can also give us content for our prayers. Notice that Ephesians 6:17 says that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. God’s Word is a powerful tool that the Holy Spirit uses to shape our lives—to give us teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). As the Spirit teaches us the promises of God, we can use them to inform our prayers. As He convicts us of sin, we can find the remedy in Scripture, and pray over it. A Scripture-saturated prayer is a powerful prayer indeed, and the Holy Spirit can impress those Scriptures upon our hearts.

2. With all prayer and supplication

            Think of this directive as a goal to make your prayers a “well-balanced diet.” The word “prayer” is a more general term that could encompass anything you might say to God—whether you’re thanking Him or praising Him or confessing sin. The word “supplication” is a more specific term that refers to making requests.

            Taken together, these terms describe a well-rounded prayer life. If anything, I’ll bet we’re tempted to go heavy on making requests, and perhaps go a bit light on everything else. Or maybe your prayers are like a form letter—you always end up saying the same things, and the only section that ever gets an update is the request section.

            This statement from Paul instructs us not to neglect any aspect of prayer. Reflecting on The Lord’s Prayer is a good way to find some balance in your prayer life, because Jesus uttered that prayer in order to teach the disciples how to pray. It can teach us, too, if we’ll reflect on it a bit and learn what the Lord was saying.

3. With alertness and perseverance

            This phrase may surprise us a bit, because I think it paints prayer in a different light than the light in which we’re used to seeing it. Paul’s language here is perfectly suited to the context, since he’s been using this metaphor of warfare. A soldier in battle must always remain alert and must persevere through difficulty.

            And remember—a soldier in battle is precisely how Paul envisions you and me in this passage. That observation puts the practice of prayer into an important context. I believe we are often tempted to think of prayer as being like a perk or a fringe benefit of being a Christian—kind of like a bonus that God tossed into the gift of salvation.

            But prayer is no fringe benefit in the Christian life—it is much more like the communication that occurs in a time of battle. If you’re a soldier, communicating with your commander isn’t a bonus or something optional—it is absolutely crucial to the success of the mission and to your own safety and well-being.

            In his book Desiring God, John Piper suggested that many of our problems in prayer and much of our weakness in prayer come from the fact that we have taken a wartime walkie-talkie and turned it in to a civilian intercom. Rather than use prayer to go on active duty for God, he says, we use it to try to call the servants to bring another cushion into the den. We’ve turned it into something like a call button for an airline stewardess—something we can just use to call for another Coke whenever we’re thirsty.

            We must never forget that we are constantly under attack by the schemes of Satan. It is in that light that we must pray—as if our very survival depended on it. We must not let Satan catch us during a season of drought in our prayer lives. If we truly are at war with the Evil One, why would we cut our own line of communication with our commander by not praying? Or why would we render it moot and useless by trying to use it for the wrong purpose?

For Whom Should We Pray?

            At the end of this verse, Paul states that we should make supplication for all the saints. At a minimum, I’m sure Paul was telling these Christians in Ephesus to pray for all the other Christians there in their local church. To that, we could add other believers with whom they had personal contact, like the Apostle Paul, and then beyond that, we could add other Christians as they came to hear about them.

            Here is where we really get to the heart of the command to pray for one another. Our prayers should not be all about ourselves and our own concerns. Other people should have the starring role in our prayers—then, we can just bring ourselves in for a cameo appearance!

            That balance may ebb and flow with different prayers. A prayer to confess sin will, of course, be intensely personal, and it will focus on yourself. In other prayers, you may have a very urgent personal need that receives most of the focus. But in the bulk of your prayers overall, other people should be blessed by being the focus of your prayers.

            I would encourage you not to simply rely on your memory to help you pray for others and their needs. Use other tools to help faithfully pray for others. We supply several different tools through our own church—our recurring prayer list that we now print once a month, our urgent prayer list that we print in the bulletin, the selected family to pray for each week. If you will make use of these tools, they will provide you with a systematic way to pray for all of your brothers and sisters in this church.

            Praying for each other is a great privilege and a necessary tool in our battle against Satan. It also reminds us of the unity that we have as a result of our Lord’s sacrifice for our sins. Whenever we celebrate The Lord’s Supper together, we are reminded that we all have a stake in the sacrificial death of Christ; we all have been washed clean by His shed blood. May we partake of it today with our unity in the forefront of our minds!

Guardrails for the Parenting Task--Parenting Series

            Many of you know that Carmen and I recently had the opportunity to minister at a Bible college in Jackson, WY. We decided to make the 15-hour drive this year rather than fly, and much of the time we were in areas that I wouldn’t exactly call “pretty.” But as we got closer to Jackson, we were driving directly through the mountains, which offered some breath-taking views. It also offered a few moments which made me think, “Man! That would have been a nice place for a guardrail!” Every so often, the road ran along the edge of a hill with a substantial drop-off, but there wasn’t a guardrail there to keep you on the road.

            Last week, as we studied the commands of Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21, we encountered a guardrail that is designed to help us safely reach our destination of biblical parenting. It was put in place to keep us from veering off into dangerous territory. This guardrail was most clearly expressed in the first phrase of Ephesians 6:4, which says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.”

            Today, we’re going to discuss some ways in which we commonly find ourselves on the wrong side of that guardrail. There are ways in which we can behave that are violations of that prohibition, and if we realize that we have veered off into dangerous territory, then we can make the changes that are necessary to correct our course.

In what ways might we violate the prohibition of Ephesians 6:4?

            As we answer this question, let’s consider a general guideline, and then we’ll talk about some specific behaviors that are more common. Our general guideline is very simple—any sin would be a violation of this prohibition. If we sin against our children, we would be tempting them to get angry and would be pushing them in that direction. So anything that the Bible calls a sin is off-limits for us in our relationships with our kids.

            This is obvious when we stop and think about it, but the problem is that we don’t always stop and think about it. We don’t tend to place biblical commands in the context of our relationship with our kids. Think about the command in Colossians 4:6, which says, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Normally when we hear a command like that, we’ll think about that in terms of speaking to our neighbors or co-workers, and maybe we’ll think about it in the context of marriage, but we rarely get around to thinking about it in the context of speaking to our children.

            In my opinion, we might fail to connect these dots because we have an incorrect view of parental authority. Its easy for us to think of ourselves like dictators in our own homes, and thus we get to play by some different set of rules. We can also embrace a bizarre pragmatism which says that as long as I get my kids to “obey,” anything I do to reach that goal is okay.

            That mindset is not what parental authority is all about. We’re much more like middle management in a corporation—our task is to take whatever comes from corporate headquarters (God) and implement it on the local level (the home). Our parental authority is set within the bounds of God’s commands, so we have no freedom to violate them just because we have some authority in our homes.

            Now on a practical level, I think we might fail to connect these dots because when we’re at home, we want to relax and let our guard down. We don’t want to keep our spiritual guard up, so we actually become easy targets for temptation because we’re not on the lookout for it.

            Certainly we do want our homes to have a relaxing atmosphere, but the way to create that atmosphere is to keep your spiritual guard up, not let it down. When we all let our spiritual guard down, that’s when we create the environment in which everyone is walking around on eggshells because someone is liable to blow up at any moment! So we must ask the Lord to help us keep our spiritual guard up at all times, even when we are at home.

Now what are some common ways in which we might provoke our children to anger? This is not a complete list by any means, but I do think we can focus on three areas.

1. Sins of Speech

            We may sin through the words we say in several ways.

            a. In content (Matthew 5:22)

            Sometimes we just choose our words very poorly when we speak to our children. They might make a particular choice sometime, and in a moment of exasperation we may say, “How could you have been so stupid?” Obviously, that’s not a good tone of voice, but the choice of words itself is sinful. In Matthew 5:22, Jesus says, “whoever insults his brother will be liable to the [court], and whoever says, ‘you fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

            Words that are insulting and degrading have no place in our communication with our children. They violate the basic dignity that our children possess as human beings, made in the image of God. According to James 3, this is what makes sins of speech sinful—we are tearing down something to which God gave His own resemblance, so to speak. So everyone deserves a basic level of respect from us, and that includes our children.

            b. In manner (Colossians 4:6)

            Sometimes its not what you say, but how you say it—right? Our body language and tone of voice can express all kinds of sinful attitudes—anger, impatience, rudeness, arrogance. All of these are sinful attitudes that we are to put off.

            Consider the command I mentioned earlier from Colossians 4:6—“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt (that means ‘palatable’), so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Again, we are sometimes tempted to think that we have a different set of rules in the home because we as parents are the authority, but we don’t! We don’t get a pass on the way we speak to our kids just because we have authority, so we must watch the way we say things.

            c. In timing/location (Proverbs 15:23)

            We may cause our children unnecessary embarrassment by dealing with something publicly that should be dealt with in private. We may need to take our children out of a public setting to deal with something right away, but that is different from speaking to them or punishing them out in the open. Not only could we cause unnecessary embarrassment for our kids, we will probably also make them less inclined to hear what we have to say. Proverbs 15:23 says, “To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is!” Saying the right thing at the wrong time can make the right thing come across the wrong way!

2. Sins of Action

           

            a. Dealing with our children in anger (James 1:19-20)

            We can easily provoke our children to anger if we deal with them in anger because they’ll simply be taking their cues from us!  In those situations, they’re just reflecting our own behavior back to us. If its okay for you to act that way, then it must be okay for them to act that way—at least that’s how they’ll look at it.

            James 1:19-20 says, “let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Anger can be appropriate when we are angry on behalf of God. That’s why James says to be “slow to anger”—we’ve got to sort out those feelings and assess them. All other anger is the anger of man, which James says does not produce the righteousness of God.

            Its important to note that this anger does not produce God’s righteousness in us or in our children. Sometimes anger appears to work because it can force our kids to shape up out of fear, but don’t confuse that for godly character in them. Once they reach the point where they are no longer afraid of you, you will quickly discover that they have not developed godly character.

            Anger toward our children often arises from selfish goals and motivations. James 4:1-2 is very informative on this point: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder (and remember, in Matthew 5, Jesus said anger is just as serious as murder). You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.”

            So why do you snap at your kids? Because you are coveting something and their behavior keeps you from having it, so you get angry. Perhaps you want peace and quiet—no matter what anyone else wants—but the kids are making some noise, so you get angry. Perhaps you wanted other people to think you’re a perfect parent, but your kids do something that embarrasses you, so you get angry.

            If you are quick to get angry with your kids, that is a dead giveaway that their behavior is obstructing some kind of sinful goal that you want to pursue. Their behavior may be sinful, but for your heart, that is irrelevant. Remember—you are called to implement God’s standards in your home, and God says, “let all bitterness and wrath and anger…be put away from you” (Ephesians 4:30).

            b. Playing favorites between siblings (or comparing them to each other) (James 2:1; Eph. 5:1)

            You might be familiar with how poorly this behavior worked out in the book of Genesis. Isaac and Rebekah played favorites and nearly drove Esau to murder Jacob; Jacob should have known better, but he played favorites, too, and nearly got his favorite son killed! Even if you never incite homicide in your family, remember—Jesus said that anger is just as bad.

            Asking your kids why they’re not more like their siblings is also unproductive. I’ve never heard of a situation where a child said, “You know what, Mom and Dad, you’re right! I should be more like my brother. Thanks for pointing that out to me!” Besides, we’re pointing our kids toward the wrong standard when we compare them to their siblings. Ephesians 5:1 says, “be imitators of God, as beloved children.” If Johnny isn’t exactly like Timmy, that’s okay—if Johnny is imitating God. That’s the real example that he should follow.

            c. Disciplining in unjust ways

                        1) Enforcing inconsistent standards/standards that change arbitrarily

            Have you ever played a board game with a child who switches the rules all the time—just making up any old rule whenever it suits him? We play along with that behavior sometimes, but its very frustrating, isn’t it? It doesn’t make the game very enjoyable.

            Well, imagine if that’s how your child feels about your home—he never knows exactly what the rules are or whether they will be enforced on a certain day, and he gets punished for breaking rules he “should have known,” even though they were never explained to him before. That’s going to create a very frustrating situation in your home.

            When it comes to the rules of your home, the most important lesson for your children to learn is that you mean what you say. Its not even necessary to have a lot of rules—after all, you can’t anticipate everything that may come up. It is most important for your children to learn that when you announce a rule, you will enforce it fairly and consistently. That lesson will teach them to respond to your authority when you have to address other situations that come up.

                        2) Disciplining without just cause (for accidents or without establishing who deserves what)

            Sometimes as a parent, you may come into a situation where its easiest to just exercise “the nuclear option”—where everyone in a five-mile radius gets a spanking! Maybe your kids are fighting or something was broken, and when you come upon the scene, the easiest thing to do is just rain down fire from heaven on everyone.

            Well, it certainly could be true that each child involved deserves discipline, but you need to establish that fact first. After all, you can’t effectively instruct your child if you don’t know exactly what he or she did—and punishment without instruction is not biblical discipline. Proverbs 29:15 says, “The rod and reproof give wisdom.” When you punish your child, you need to make sure he knows why he is being punished and how he can avoid further punishment in the future.

            Honestly, I think it is better NOT to carry out a punishment than to punish without just cause. If your child knows he is being punished unfairly, your punishment will not have its desired effect. In his heart, your child will not yield to your authority—he will chafe under it because he knows he is being treated unfairly.

                        3) Using excessive physical force which leaves lasting physical damage

            Spanking is somewhat controversial today, but it is a decidedly biblical method of discipline for our children, and I believe parents should make use of it when they deem it necessary. But the physical force that we use must be minimal and controlled. Any level of force that leaves bruises, welts, or broken skin is almost certainly too much.

            Also, when spanking is carried out in anger, it is no longer a biblical expression of discipline. We must make sure that we are in control of our emotions before we ever begin the process of spanking. After all, we are trying to teach our children self-control through our discipline, so we must model it for them.

3.  Sins of Omission

            This phrase refers to actions that we should do, but fail to carry out. It is based on the teaching of James 4:17, which says, “whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” What examples of this category of sin may come up in our parenting?

            A. Failing to speak words of praise or words of correction

            Parents have long recognized the power that our words have to shape our children, but its not uncommon to find one of two extremes among parents. Some parents are so afraid of raising children who are “soft” or conceited that they rarely, if ever, speak words of praise to their kids. Other parents are so concerned about their child’s self-esteem that they rarely, if ever, speak words of correction.

            Both of these approaches are unnecessary extremes that do not match scriptural teaching about our speech. The book of Proverbs praises the value of correction and teaches us to offer it in a thoughtful way that will increase the likelihood that it is received well. The same book also stresses the power of kind words to nourish the soul.

            Using words of praise and words of correction is a must for all parents. There is little to fear about going to extremes as long as you include both types of speech. Correct when necessary, and praise when appropriate, and your child will receive the benefits of correction and praise without facing the drawbacks of unbalanced communication.

            B. Failing to confess our sins and ask for forgiveness

            As human beings with a sinful heart, we will at times sin against our kids—we have already talked about many such scenarios today. When we do, it is vital that we confess those sins to them and ask for their forgiveness. We’re not fooling anyone when we refuse to admit when we have actually been wrong. We’re not fooling God, we’re not fooling our kids, and we’re really not fooling ourselves, either, since we normally face guilt when we refuse to confess our sins.

            Some parents seem to think that confessing their sins to their children is a sign of “weakness” that will cause their kids to think less of their parental authority. I am convinced that the opposite is true—confessing your sins is a sign of spiritual strength which will endear you to your children.

            Only parents who exercise control through fear and intimidation must maintain an aura of perfection at all costs. On the contrary, when we follow a biblical model of parenting, confessing your sins is a powerful way to teach your children that we all have to play by the same set of rules—God’s rules! No one is exempt from obeying Him—not even Mom and Dad. This lesson points our children toward their proper and ultimate authority, which is where we want to direct them anyway!

            C. Failing to show our children physical affection

            This issue may be a greater struggle for fathers. As men, we’re not so much the touchy-feely type. We’re a little less like mama cats, and a little more like male rams; we would just as soon hit someone on the football field as hug someone. But physical affection is very important. Sometimes, a simple hand on the shoulder can communicate more than our words could ever say.

            I’ve been told that physical affection is especially important between fathers and daughters as girls are entering the teenage years. Most girls are already extremely self-conscious about their body at that point in time, so if Dad stops giving her hugs or kisses, it can apparently exaggerate her confusion and insecurity. A father’s continued affection can be just the point of stability that a girl needs to deal with the changes that are taking place.

            We’ve covered almost a “dirty dozen” today as we’ve discussed some common ways in which we might provoke our children to anger. It may seem at this point that it is much easier to fail as a parent than to succeed, but please remember that these warnings today are the guardrails for the parenting task. As you’re driving down the road, its not the guardrails that deserve your focus—it’s the road and the destination. The best way to avoid the guardrails is not to focus on them, but on the road ahead. The guardrails are only there to bump us back in the right direction.

            As parents, we do not need to live in fear of failure. Rather, we can thank God for the parameters that He has put in place which help us instead to enjoy the scenery as we grow closer to Him, and bring our children along for the adventure.

The ABC's of Biblical Parenting--Parenting Series

            There is a verse in Ecclesiastes that has long been a favorite of seminary students. It is Ecclesiastes 12:12, which says, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” For some reason, this verse has never made it into the AWANA program—I’m not sure why.

            Now, this verse could be a very fitting description for the parenting section at the bookstore. Before the poor employees get one parenting book on the shelf, the next one is already on its way. By the time you could read all of them, your kids would be grown and out of the house! You would have nothing to do with all of your knowledge except write books for the next generation of parents to read!

            Is there any way to boil down this task we call “parenting” to some basic principles? I think there is, and I think the Apostle Paul has done just that for us in two short commands that we find in his letters. By the way, I think its telling that we don’t have a long discussion in the Bible about parenting. The closest thing is the book of Proverbs, but that book deals with many other subjects as well. I think this is because the basic idea about parenting in the Bible is what we saw last week—just love God yourself, then show your kids how to do what you’re doing.

            We’re going to take a look at Paul’s commands this morning, and then we’ll answer three simple questions about them: 1) What are we supposed to do as parents?; 2) How are we supposed to do it?; and 3) Why are we supposed to do it this way?

            Let’s read the commandments in question. The first is found in Ephesians 6:4—“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” The second is found in Colossians 3:21. It is very similar to the first command, but it adds an important detail to the discussion. This verse says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” That’s an important thought, and we’ll consider it more closely in just a moment.

            Let me make one observation before we jump into our questions. Both of these commands are addressed to fathers. Mothers are certainly not excluded; in fact, this Greek word sometimes refers to ancestors in general, both male and female. But fathers are emphasized in these verses because we are the leaders of the home. We bear the final responsibility of seeing that our homes are arranged according to God’s commands.

            We are just like managers in a business—we are not expected to do all of the work ourselves, but we are responsible for seeing that all of the work gets done in the right way. So it is in our homes—Mom may end up doing most of the parenting work (especially when our kids are infants and especially if Mom stays at home with the kids), but Dad is still responsible before God for all of it. So men, this means that we cannot be checked out of the parenting process. We need to be hands-on with our children when we can, and we need to communicate with Mom when we can’t. We must shoulder the responsibility!

Now let’s dive-in to the three questions that I have asked about these commands.

1. What are we supposed to do as parents?

            The first phrase of Ephesians 6:4 tells us what we are NOT supposed to do, so we’ll come back to that later. The second phrase tells us what we are supposed to do, that is, “bring [our children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Let’s think about these words “discipline” and “instruction.”

            Discipline is a perfectly good word—especially if you look it up in the dictionary—but it normally has negative connotations for us. When we hear “discipline,” we usually think of dishing out punishment after rules have been broken. Other translations use the word “training,” which is probably a better word in our language today.

            When we think of “training,” we might think of learning a new job or practicing with a sports team. When I worked at a bank several years ago, I spent my first week or so in training. They explained what I needed to do and how I would go about doing it. That’s an important combination—combining “what” with “how.” They didn’t just stick me in the teller window and say “make deposits” or “cash checks.” They explained how I would actually carry out those tasks.

            Have you ever been in a situation where someone expected you to do something but they didn’t effectively explain how you could actually accomplish the task? That’s frustrating, isn’t it? And it gets even worse if that person comes down on you for not accomplishing the task!

            There is a very important lesson here for the parenting task. As we raise our kids and tell them what they need to do, we also need to effectively explain how they can accomplish it. If we don’t, we’ll put them in that frustrating position that I just described, and we’ll make the situation even worse if we punish them while leaving the “how” question unanswered.

            Now the word “instruction” adds a third element to all of this—the element of “why.” The Greek term behind “instruction” refers to teaching that emphasizes the consequences of our choices; so it introduces the idea of warnings and incentives. When I worked at the bank, they had incentives in place to encourage us to refer our customers to our financial planning department (the folks who helped with investments and estate planning and trust funds and the like). Now I knew what the bank wanted me to do (they wanted me to make referrals), and I knew how I could accomplish that (I could arrange appointments), but my boss knew that I still might look at all of that and say, “What’s the point? Why should I bother?” So they put an incentive in place, which created an answer for my “why” question.

            So when we put all of this together, our basic answer to the first question is this: What are we supposed to do as parents? Teach our children what they should do, how they can do it, and why they should do it—all in light of God’s commands. This is fully biblical parenting—covering the bases of “what,” “how,” and “why” for our kids in light of God’s commands.

            Now I suspect we’re all pretty good at telling our kids what to do. As Christian parents, we’re probably accurate most of the time (I doubt you’ve ever told your child to do something that is just flat-out unbiblical). So we’re probably pretty good with the “what” side of things, but honestly we probably have a lot of struggles when it comes to “how” and “why.” Sometimes the “how” question is pretty simple. Think about asking your child to clean his room. That’s pretty straightforward—you can explain where they should put their toys and that sort of thing. But think about commands like “don’t talk back” or “don’t fight with your siblings.” Those are matters of the heart, aren’t they? In that case, we have to deal with questions like, “How can hold my tongue when I just want to speak my mind?” or “How can I live at peace with another person?” Now we’re talking about basic discipleship, which is more involved than just telling our kids where to put their toys.

            Or consider the “why” question. We have a fairly standard response when our kids us why they should do something—“because I said so!” That statement is true, but its not the whole truth, is it? Why should your kids obey you? Who made you so important? Well, God did, didn’t He? That’s the whole truth that we need to present to our kids.

            Now in just a couple of weeks, we’re going to devote some entire sermons to the “how” and “why” questions that are part of instructing our children, so we’ll move on for now. Just understand for the time being that fully biblical parenting must go beyond simply telling our kids what to do. We must also include the “how” and the “why.”

2. How are we supposed to do it?

            Based on these two commands, I think we can answer this question like so—in a manner that does not incite them to be angry or that will crush their spirit. In other words, we are to exercise our authority over our children with consideration for their emotions, their desires, their thoughts, and their motivation. This mindset in one sense is a protection for our children since they are called by God to obey us. I think they will have an easier time obeying us if they can tell that we are treating them in a considerate way.

            Now this idea reminds us of the God-given dignity and value that our children possess, and we as parents are responsible to take their God-given dignity into account as we raise them. This idea was revolutionary in the Roman culture of Paul’s day. Roman law operated by a principle that gave fathers absolute authority over their children. When a baby was born, the father had the right to decide if the child would live or die. If the child was the wrong gender or it was deformed in some way, the father could refuse to claim the child as his own, and if he rejected the child, it was either drowned or left somewhere to die of exposure. Even if a child was allowed to live, the father still retained absolute authority over its life. He could discipline the child however he desired—which included the option of putting the child to death.¹

            So imagine how odd it was in this culture for Paul to say “do not provoke your children to anger,” and “do not provoke [them], lest they become discouraged.” Where did this idea come from? Well, it came from God. Our children have God-given rights that we are not allowed to violate. If you’re tempted to think that you have unlimited authority over your children, you better think again. We are not allowed to sin against our children as we raise them. That rules out actions like dealing with them in anger or speaking harsh or bitter words against them.

            Now next week, we are going to talk about some ways in which parents commonly violate this command so that we can hopefully avoid this kind of behavior. But why is it so important that we act in this manner?

3. Why are we supposed to do it this way?

            Simply put, the answer is this—otherwise, we may push them toward sin or extinguish their motivation altogether. As Christian parents, pushing our children toward sin is exactly the opposite of what we hope to accomplish. Now of course, our children are always responsible before God for their own choices. They may choose a sinful path even though we have encouraged them toward a godly path.

            But it is possible for us to create an environment in our homes that actually makes sin look more desirable. What will our children learn if we deal with them in anger all the time? They will learn that anger is the way to exercise authority and control, so when they want to make themselves heard, how will they act? With anger! What will happen if we fail to give our children tender affection, and then a boyfriend or girlfriend comes along who is more than willing to give them unhealthy affection? Well, who cares if its unhealthy and its not real love at all—it still feels better and seems more promising than years of no affection at home.

            The other danger that Paul mentions is extinguishing our kids’ motivation altogether. Sometimes kids may not really choose a sinful path, but they won’t have the motivation to walk the godly path, either—so they won’t really rebel, they just won’t do much of anything! They won’t have much drive of their own at all. They won’t see the point in putting out effort to follow the godly path.

            I think this situation often comes about when we’ve told our children “what” to do for years and years, but we’ve never really told them “how” or “why.” Remember how frustrating that situation is? Let’s put this back in the context of your job—what happens when you’re in that situation for a long time? You either quit out of frustration, or you figure out how to do just enough to keep the boss of your back.

            That is not a situation that we want to create in our homes. The good news is that I think our children really do want to do what we ask them to do. They love us, and they want to have a good relationship with us. They are willing to consider what we have to say, but we’ve got to teach them how they can do it and why they should do it.

            So to sum things up for today, we are called by God to teach our children what to do, how to do it, and why to do it in a manner that will not provoke them to anger or discourage them so that we will not push them toward sin or crush their motivation. Now that’s easier said than done, right? But at least these commands give us some clarity! They put the target clearly within our sights, so that now we have something definite to shoot for. Now we can simply work to perfect our aim, so we can hit the bull’s eye in this process called parenting.

Notes:

1. William Barclay, The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 202.

Hammering Out the Dents of Life: The Importance of Forgiveness

The bumper car ride has always been a favorite at fairs and amusement parks. There we get to do things that we can only dream about on the open road—we get to go as fast as we can, and we get to drive aggressively. If someone gets in our way, we can just run into them! Of course, the whole rink quickly descends into chaos, and we spend most of the time just knocking each other silly.

Sometimes our relationships in life can be a bit like those bumper cars. As we bounce around through life, we inevitably run into each other—we get in fights with each other, we cheat each other, we lie to each other or speak hurtful words to each other. In life, this is no game. Our hearts don’t have protective bumpers around them, and so when we sin against each other, we wound each other and hurt each other, so that our hearts start to feel less like a bumper car and more like something that’s in the junkyard!

This is life in a fallen world; we commit sins against others, and they commit sins against us. These sins cut holes in our hearts and leave our relationships in tatters. Fortunately, God has laid out a path for our relationships to be repaired and the holes in our hearts to be healed. That path is called “forgiveness,” and it is the path that we should take whenever a sin is committed in one of our relationships. But it is obvious from the broken relationships that we see all around us that we rarely take this path. Perhaps we take a worldly path that looks very similar to forgiveness, but it leads to a different destination; or perhaps we see God’s path laid out for us very clearly, and we simply refuse to set foot on it.

It has been said that forgiveness is the oil that reduces friction and keeps the engine of our relationships running. And so, because forgiveness is such an important activity in our lives, we’re going to spend the next few weeks looking at what the Bible says about forgiving each other. We’ll define forgiveness, and we’ll talk about how to arrive at forgiveness from both sides of a sin—whether you have committed the sin, or whether you have been sinned against. We will also cut through some false ideas about forgiveness that often keep us from walking on God’s path to forgiveness. But this morning we’re going to start our study by answering this simple question:

Why is it so important for us to forgive each other?

There are at least four answers to this question in the Bible. It may be possible to name more, but this morning we’ll focus on four.

I. Forgiving others is the proper response to the forgiveness we have received from God—Matthew 18:21–35

Let’s read Matt. 18:21–35, and I’ll make a few comments along the way. Just before this, Jesus had been telling His disciples what to do when a Christian brother or sister sins against them. So in v. 21, Peter says [READ v. 21]. Now in the Jewish teaching of Peter’s day, the rabbis taught that you were obligated to forgive someone three times, and after that you didn’t have to forgive them anymore. It was like four strikes and you’re out, because on the fourth time you were no longer obligated to forgive. So Peter probably thought he was being very generous in suggesting seven times—he doubled the number and added one more for good measure!

But notice what Jesus said to him [READ v. 22]. That’s obviously a lot further than even Generous Peter was willing to go, but of course Jesus’ real point was that we shouldn’t put a limit on the number of times that we will forgive someone. And why is that? Because of how generously God has forgiven us, and that’s the point of the parable that starts in v. 23 [READ v. 23–24]

Now ten thousand talents is a ridiculous amount of money. ONE talent was the amount that an average laborer would earn in twenty years of work, so this man owed a debt that was worth 200,000 years of pay. If you multiply that by our year of 365 days, that’s 73 million days worth of pay!! Obviously, there would be no way that the man could pay off a debt like that, so let’s see what happens next [READ vv. 25–28].

A denarius was the amount that an average laborer would earn for one day of work, so the second servant owed the first servant an amount that was equal to 100 days worth of pay. That’s not an insignificant amount, but when compared to the debt that the first servant had just been released from, its like a drop of rain compared to the ocean! Let’s finish the parable [READ vv. 29–35].

Jesus’ point in this parable is very clear: we are like the first servant. We have been forgiven by God of an unimaginable debt of sin, so how could we refuse to forgive another person for the microscopic debt of sin that they have committed against us? Our gratitude to God should compel us to forgive each other time and time and time again, and if we refuse then we just show that we don’t comprehend how abundantly we have been forgiven by God.

Verse 35 of this parable alludes to the second answer to today’s question.

II. Refusing to forgive others hinders our fellowship with God—Matthew 6:14–15

Turn with me to Matthew 6:14–15. Just prior to these verses, we have the very familiar passage known as the Lord’s Prayer with its familiar request in v. 12—“forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Verses 14–15 then go on to expand on that thought a bit [READ vv. 14–15].

Now we need to read these verses in the proper light. Jesus is not setting this up as a standard for getting into heaven. Think through this with me—who truly has the right to call God “heavenly Father?” Only those who have been born again, right? Paul says in Romans 8:15 that believers “have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’.” So it is only those who have been born again by the Holy Spirit who can rightfully call God their Father. So in these verses, Jesus is talking about people who have already been born again, and he says that if we don’t forgive others, then God won’t forgive us. There will be distance and a lack of intimacy in our relationship with our heavenly Father.

What might that look like in our lives? It could mean that our efforts to serve God will be powerless and ineffective. It could mean that our prayers will not be answered. It could mean that we won’t enjoy the fruits of the Spirit like joy and peace. It could mean that God will discipline us in some way. All of those things are unpleasant realities that we could face if we fail to forgive others.

But I think a question comes up at this point—how do these verses fit with a verse like 1 John 1:9, which says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” How could God choose not to forgive us if we confess our sins to Him? Well, it all revolves around the meaning of the word “confess.” The Greek word is homologeo; its made up of the prefix homo-, which means “the same,” and the verb logeo which means “to say or speak.” So the idea is that in confessing your sins, you have come to the place where you say the same thing about them that God does. You are acknowledging that His assessment of your actions is correct.

Now if you think about the idea of refusing to forgive someone in light of the parable that we just read in Matthew 18, if you refuse to forgive someone else, that means that you’re not assessing your own sins correctly. You are not looking at your own sins the way God does; otherwise you would remember how much you have been forgiven and you would then be willing to forgive others. So if refuse to forgive others, we are clinging to a distorted view of our own sins that prevents us from truly confessing them. That means that our sins are still hindering our fellowship with God because we haven’t come into agreement with Him about our actions.

III. Forgiving others prevents Satan from gaining a foothold in our lives—Ephesians 4:26–27

Why don’t you turn with me to Ephesians 4:26–27? Here we have this interesting statement: “Be angry and do not sin.” That really is a command, by the way—“be angry.” Paul is clearly talking about how we should respond when someone sins against us, and his words tell us that a certain measure of anger is an appropriate response when we have been legitimately wronged. But, in the same breath he says, “do not sin,” and then he instructs us to get rid of our anger quickly when he writes, “do not let the sun go down on your anger.”

Now this doesn’t mean that if someone sins against us in the morning, we can be angry at them all day as long as we patch things up before sunset. Paul is telling us to put away our anger quickly, and that would clearly come through forgiveness. Paul was probably drawing on the Old Testament with his reference to sundown. Under the Old Testament law, if a person was working for you, you were supposed to pay them their wages every day, so as each new day dawned, you would be squared away with others.

That’s really the goal for our relationships—as each new day dawns on our relationships, we don’t want to have conflicts from yesterday putting a strain on our relationships today. We want to deal quickly with problems that are caused by sin and then choose not to dwell on them as the days go by.

Then, in v. 27, Paul mentions an important result of forgiving others and putting away our anger. He writes, “and give no opportunity to the devil.” If we choose to hold on to anger, we are actually giving Satan an opportunity to launch attacks on our lives.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Normandy region of France, where the D-Day invasion took place during World War II. That invasion was a major turning point in the war because prior to that the Allied forces had lost their foothold on the European continent. They had been driven back to England by Hitler’s army, and they launched the D-Day invasion because they needed to regain a place on the continent from which they launch attacks.

That kind of beachhead—or foothold, or place—is precisely what Paul says we are NOT to give to Satan! We are not to give him a place in our lives where he can do his dirty work. But if we fail to forgive other people, he has a whole arsenal of temptations that he can throw at us—bitterness, resentment, hatred, gossip, slander, revenge. And don’t forget—as we just learned, we will also be far from God if we refuse to forgive. So we will be right where Satan wants us if we refuse to forgive others.

IV. Refusing to forgive others hinders our witness for Christ—2 Corinthians 5:17–20

Turn with me to 2 Cor. 5:17–20, and listen for a repeated word as I read these verses [READ 2 Cor. 5:17–20]. Did you catch the word? It was “reconcile,” right? (Or “reconciliation”) Paul says that we have been reconciled to God, and He has called us to spread the message of reconciliation. The word “reconcile” means “to re-establish a friendly relationship between people.” That’s what the gospel is all about—re-establishing a friendly relationship between God and man. That’s what forgiveness is all about, too, when we choose to forgive each other.

But how can we convincingly preach a gospel of reconciliation if we refuse to be reconciled to each other after we sin against each other? Let’s say that I’m fighting with Billy Bob; some things were said 5 years ago, and now I’m holding a grudge against him and we haven’t spoken ever since. But let’s say that I talk to Billy Jean and say, “You need to come to know God, because God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. I just hope that plan doesn’t involve Billy Bob, because I really don’t get along with him. But honestly, if you accept Jesus, you can have peace and harmony in your life, just like I do—except when I’m around Billy Bob, because we just can’t get along.”

How ridiculous is that? How can we claim to offer other people peace with God if we can’t live at peace with each other? You see friends, we hinder our witness for Christ when we refuse to forgive each other. We tear down the very bridges that we are trying to build.

So for these four reasons—at the very least—it is so important that we forgive each other when we sin against each other. Perhaps at the very mention of the word “forgiveness,” you can think of someone whom you need to forgive. My friends, I urge you—don’t delay. Don’t let the sun go down on another day without making things right with whomever you might be separated because of sin. I urge you to do this as soon as possible, but if you’re not sure how to forgive someone or how to ask for forgiveness, we’re going to be talking about those things over the next few weeks. So today, at the very least, ask God to prepare your heart to learn over these next weeks and then to take the steps that you need to take as soon as they become clear to you.