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.

A Handy Guide for Discussing Our World's Problems With Your Kids

Our world is full of problems, and—as every parent knows—sooner or later our kids will be asking about them. If a child or teen is on Facebook, then they have access to all the news that’s “trending.” If they’re watching TV—even age-appropriate shows—they might see a commercial for tonight’s newscast, complete with a teaser about footage of some horrific crime.

It’s only a matter of time before we have to answer questions from our kids about our world’s problems. How might we approach conversations like this? I’d like to give you a helpful and handy outline for such conversations – an outline that is based on the grand story-arc of history, as recorded and predicted in the Bible.

According to the overall narrative of the Bible, we can divide history into four broad stages:

1. Creation: The beginning of the universe and of angelic, human, and animal life, when God brought every created thing into existence, surveyed all that he had done, and called it good (Genesis 1-2).

2. Fall: The moment when sin entered the world through Adam, with all of the resulting devastations that it brought upon humanity, animal life, and even the physical world (Genesis 3 and beyond).

3. Redemption: The work of God to undo all the effects of the Fall, culminating in the atoning death of Jesus Christ and his glorious resurrection, also leading directly to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers (The events are recorded in the four Gospels and the Book of Acts. These events were foretold in various passages of the Old Testament and are expounded upon in the New Testament Epistles.).

4. Restoration: The eventual fulfillment and accomplishment of God’s full plan of redemption, undoing all of the effects of the Fall upon mankind (Revelation 20-22).

Creation—Fall—Redemption—Restoration. There’s our basic outline. In the context of discussing our world’s problems, we might sum up the flow of the narrative like this: Though God created our world in a state of perfection, sin has disrupted everything and brought about great sorrow and trouble. But God has already enacted a plan that allows us even now to begin to see victory over these troubles, and when his plan is complete, these troubles will be no more.

I think it’s important to emphasize to our children that in the present Redemption stage, the Holy Spirit gives us power to start doing something about our world’s problems right now. Though we are not in control over these problems, neither are we powerless against them. We can do practical things to push back against the effects of sin in our world.

It is also important to stress to our children that God will not tolerate these problems forever. He is patiently putting up with them for now to give people more time to repent and trust in Christ (2 Peter 3:9), but he won’t put up with him forever. He is going to put an end to the sorrows and troubles that we face!

So what might it sound like to have a conversation with your child based on this outline? Recently, I had a conversation with a mother who had been asked by her young daughter about children in India who were starving. Let me use that topic to give an example of what your answer might sound like. This might sound a little artificial, but bear with me!

“Darling, I’m glad that this bothers you, because it bothers Mommy and Daddy, and it bothers God, too. You know that God didn’t create the world to be this way. He put Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden that had plenty of food, and their children would’ve had plenty of food, and their grandchildren and on and on. But sin has disrupted so many things that now we have to deal with problems like people not having enough food. Sin has made the ground less productive than it could’ve been; it’s led people to have false ideas, like that they shouldn’t eat certain animals for food; and it’s led people to be selfish and not share with other people when they have more than enough for themselves.

“But you also know that God sent Jesus to die for our sins, and when we trust in him to save us, he gives people like you and me the power to start doing something about these problems right now. He helps us not to be selfish, so maybe we can start to share more of what we have with people who need it. Maybe we should find some missionaries who are helping people in India right now and see if we can help them. We can also help other people know the truth about God and Jesus Christ so that they don’t have to follow false ideas anymore.

“And remember this – God has already told us in the Bible that he’s not going to let these problems stick around forever! He’s going to put an end to them and make things new again, just like he created them to be in the first place!”

Creation—Fall—Redemption—Restoration. It’s not just the storyline of the Bible—it’s a handy guide for tricky conversations with your kids as well.

Spare the Rod?--Proverbs series

Bill Cosby built a career on the humor that arises from the everyday life of the family. In some of his stand-up routines, he used to describe the way his father would discipline him, and he talked about how his dad was fond of saying, “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it!” I think that line even made it into some of the episodes of “The Cosby Show.”

Making jokes about the physical discipline of a child got a lot of laughs back then, but I suspect that the reaction would be much different today. There may have been some people who were offended by it back then—I really don’t know—but I suspect that there would be some outrage today. There would probably be a Facebook page calling for a boycott of Bill Cosby and a protest outside the offices of the network that aired his show. There might even be a congressional investigation into any potential connections between TV shows and child abuse.

Attitudes about child discipline have greatly changed in our country over the last few decades, and as a result many parents are asking questions about what is and what is not an acceptable way to discipline their children. Most of the debate and discussion today revolves around the practice of spanking. Is spanking really an acceptable method of discipline, or does it actually make children more aggressive and defiant?

As Christians, our first question should always be, “What does the Bible say about child discipline?” Since we have been studying the book of Proverbs lately, we’re going to take a look this morning at what Proverbs in particular has to say about this subject.

What does Proverbs teach about child discipline?

I. Parents must exert proper discipline on their children

According to the book of Proverbs, disciplining your children is one of the most serious responsibilities that you have as a parent. In fact, Proverbs says that your willingness to discipline your child reveals whether you love them or hate them! But what does Proverbs say about how to discipline your children? That will be our main focus today.

a. Parental discipline should include appropriate physical pain when necessary (13:24, 22:15, 23:13–14, 29:15)

This is easily the most controversial point from the teaching of Proverbs, and we’ll address that controversy in a moment. But first, let’s read the verses in question [READ 13:24, 22:15, 23:13–14, 29:15]. All of these verses speak of using a rod to discipline your children, and it seems quite clear that the verses are talking about striking your children in an appropriate way to use physical pain as a means of discipline.

Now the very idea of using physical pain to discipline your children is very controversial today. A number of pediatricians and psychologists are convinced that something like spanking can only have detrimental effects on your children. In fact, if you listen to some of them, it is almost a miracle that I’m standing before you today. I was spanked as a child, and according to their predictions, I should be a very aggressive adult who is vengeful and who uses violence to impose my will on other people. It is likely that I should be using drugs to mask the pain from my childhood years, and it is far more likely that I should be in prison rather than behind a pulpit.

I ran across one article online in which the author opposed spanking, and at the end of his article he used a series of questions and answers to sum up his main points. Here are a few of his questions and answers:

Q: What do virtually all juvenile delinquents have in common?
A: They have been raised by spankers.

Q: What was a common feature of the childhoods of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Charles Manson?
A: Each one was relentlessly, severely, physically punished.

Q: What do most prisoners on death row have in common?
A: Plenty of spankings during childhood.

Q: Which child is destined never to join the company of felons?
A: One who is raised in a nurturing, attentive, supportive, non-spanking family.1

So according to that author, the case is closed—using a physical punishment like spanking will cause your child to be a juvenile delinquent and end up in prison. One pediatrician wrote, “Spanking demonstrates that it's all right for people to hit people, and especially for big people to hit little people, and stronger people to hit weaker people. Children learn that when you have a problem you solve it with a good swat.”2

Now it should be noted that many critics of spanking fail to distinguish between spanking and child abuse. Even when we consider spanking, there are correct ways to do it, and incorrect ways to do it. But many critics place all forms of physical punishment into the same category, which is not an accurate way to assess them. Now we should be very clear at this point that the Bible never condones child abuse. We are not talking about causing severe, lasting harm to your child—we’re talking about pain that is significant but moderate. That’s why Solomon could say, “If you strike your child with a rod, he will not die.” He was so confident about that because he was talking about a physical punishment that was nowhere near bringing the child to the point of death.

All in all, if we take the Bible at its word, it is clear that appropriate physical punishment should be used when necessary. According to Proverbs, this is an effective and necessary way to train our children. Now at this point, it may be tempting to think, “Okay, I understand that people spanked their children back then, but haven’t we developed better methods of discipline today—methods that are more humane? Don’t we know more today about child psychology and development?” This line of thinking really challenges us to assess what we think the Bible really is. Is it simply a collection of human wisdom and understanding, or does it really contain wisdom from God? If it is just a collection of human wisdom, then we might be justified in thinking that we have better ways of living today, but if this book is truly wisdom from God, should we not believe that He knows what He’s talking about? Are we really supposed to believe that God didn’t understand child psychology when He inspired these verses?

Friends, God knows us inside and out. He knows what we need and He knows how we work. If he says that the proper use of physical punishment is good for our children, then we should believe Him and act accordingly.

But how do we make a proper use of physical punishment? Proverbs gives us some important guidelines.

b. Parental discipline should be applied in a spirit of love (13:24)

Disciplining your children is ultimately an expression of love for them, and that must be your motivation and your spirit when you carry out your discipline. Let’s look again at Prov. 13:24 [READ 13:24]. Ultimately, we discipline our children because we love them and we want them to live the right way. Now our children may not understand that when we have to spank them, but we should do all we can to communicate our love to them. We need to carry out our discipline in a manner of love. You should never spank your child just to “let off some steam” or to vent your own anger. If your temper gets the best of you, make sure you get yourself calmed down before you discipline your child. Send them to their room if you need to and get yourself under control before you discipline them. Spanking is not about getting revenge or “putting your child in his place” or humiliating your child; it is about training your child, pure and simple.

Spanking is not a way for you to release frustration; it is an expression of love for the child to help them learn right from wrong, and you must do all that you can to communicate that to them. So make sure your manner communicates love, and then express it with your words as well. Tell them that you love them, and even if they’re unhappy with you at the time, your words will stick with them.

c. Parental discipline should be applied diligently (13:24)

This lesson also comes from 13:24—“Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” According to the dictionary, diligence is behavior that is marked by persevering, painstaking effort. The Hebrew word diligent comes from the same root as the Hebrew word for “dawn,” which may mean that this word carries the idea of getting an early start on something.

Diligence in discipline is so important because it provides consistency for your children. They will know what to expect from you, because if you are diligent you won’t be a punisher one day and a push-over the next! How frustrated do you get when you don’t know what to expect from a person on any given day? Imagine if your boss let you do certain things one day without correcting you, and then the next day he was all over your case for doing the same things! You wouldn’t know what you could do, and our kids experience the same frustration when there is no diligence and consistency from us.

Diligence will also let your kids know that you mean what you say. If you tell them that you will discipline them for a certain behavior and then you diligently follow up on what you said, they will learn that you mean business when you say something. If you give them a clear guideline and consistently back it up, you should be able to eliminate the use of threats, raising your voice, and repeating the same request five or six times before your children respond.

Now I can already see that this will be easier said than done with my own little girl. I know there will be days when I won’t feel like disciplining her because it will take me away from something else or it will require me to put out some more effort when I’m tired and frustrated. So I know I’ll have to fight against this temptation, and its very important that all of us seek to be diligent in discipline.

d. Parental discipline should be accompanied by instruction (29:15)

Look with me at Prov. 29:15 [READ 29:15]. Notice the intent of discipline—it is to give wisdom. Discipline is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. It is meant to help your child learn and grow, so if there is no instruction with the discipline, the process is short-circuited.

This is one of the reasons that child abuse is so bad. Not only is the child physically harmed, but he’s never told how to avoid a beating in the future. So the child simply lives in uncertainty and fear because he doesn’t know why mom or dad was so angry in the first place.

I believe this lesson teaches us that we should never be cavalier about the way that we discipline our children. Sometimes we see parents who smack their children and then move on, or they quickly bend them over and give them a quick swat. Well, we may think that our children know what they’ve done wrong, but oftentimes they don’t—they need our instruction. And many times those reactions come from the parent’s anger or frustration rather than their love, so we need to be careful about our motives as well.

Our discipline must be accompanied by instruction or it will look much more like spite and vengeance than true discipline. We need to carefully explain things, and as you all know, oftentimes you have to be very specific with a child. They can’t necessarily apply principles to different situations, so they often need very specific instructions. And the idea of course is that as they embrace our instruction, then the need for discipline will become smaller and smaller.

There is certainly much more that could be said on this subject, and we haven’t even looked at the whole Bible—we’ve just singled out Proverbs today. But as you can see, there is much guidance and instruction in this book. If you still have some burning questions, then by all means, I would encourage you to do a full study of what the Bible says about parenting, and talk to the Christian parents here who have been through your stage of life before. Take your cues from our heavenly Father, and follow His example. You will find abundant inspiration and strength in Him.


1 From “Plain Talk About Spanking,” by Jordan Riak, http://nospank.net/pt2011.pdf Accessed 1/24/11.

2 From “Spanking: Ten Reasons Not to Hit Your Child,” by William Sears, M.D. http://www.askdrsears.com/html/6/t062100.asp Accessed 1/24/11.

"Babies: A Bonanza From the Lord"--Psalm 127

Over the last couple of years, I’ve become a casual fan of the old TV show “Bonanza.” A few years ago I ran across one of those DVD specials at Wal-Mart where I picked up a box set of 30 episodes of Bonanza for $5, and now every so often when I want to relax, I’ll put on an episode and get lost on the Ponderosa.

One thing you can always count on when you watch an episode of “Bonanza” is that no matter what kind of fights the Cartwrights have with each other during the course of the show, they will always be fighting for each other by the end. Ben and his sons has their disagreements, but they could always count on each other in a gun fight, or when the cattle got loose. They always pulled together to protect each other and to help each other out.

I think that aspect of “Bonanza” captures what King Solomon was trying to say in Psalm 127. In this Psalm, he describes how children are a precious gift that God gives for the success and protection of the family [READ Psalm 127].

Now at first glance, this psalm appears to have two halves that have very little to do with each other. Solomon starts out the psalm talking about building a house and guarding a city, and then he wraps it up by talking about children. How does all of this fit together?

Well, to put it simply, we can trace the main idea like this: Solomon starts out by talking about the necessity of God’s blessing for our well-being and protection. Then, in the last part of the psalm, Solomon states that children are one such blessing that the Lord gives for the well-being and protection of the family.

He begins talking about the blessing of children in v. 3 when he writes [READ v. 3]. Then in vv. 4–5, he gives a simile and an illustration of how children provide protection for the family. In verse 4 we find the simile—he writes [READ v. 4]. Here he pictures children as being a weapon of defense for their parents. We have to keep in mind that Solomon was writing in a time in which there was no Social Security or Medicare, there were no retirement communities or anything like that. So who would take care of people in their old age to make sure that they were cared for and not taken advantage of? Their children would—and of course we still see a lot of that today, even if the circumstances are a little different.

Then Solomon goes on in v. 5 to offer an illustration of how that protection might play out. He continues the archery imagery in the first part of the verse as he writes [READ v. 5] Now what is he talking about with the “gate” here? Well at that time, cities were all built with walls around them for protection against invasion, and there was a main gate in the wall where people could enter and exit the city. That meant that the gate was a high-traffic area; it was a public place, and because of that, in most towns legal proceedings and court cases were held in an area right by the city gate so that they would be open to the public.

So what Solomon is talking about here is a situation where the family has some kind of legal dispute with some enemies, and it seems that what Solomon is saying is that the family can band together to see to it that they don’t become the victims of injustice. He may again be thinking of parents in their old age—elderly people could have been taken advantage of if they were all alone, but their children could ensure that they received justice.

Overall, I think we can take a lesson from this psalm that we desperately need to hear in our society today, and the lesson is simply this—children are a blessing, not a burden. Ever since the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and the legalization of abortion in 1973, children have been increasingly viewed as something of an optional accessory in life, which we can take or leave according to our whim. Our society has correctly observed that raising children requires parents to make personal sacrifices, but rather than affirm the inherent goodness of those sacrifices, people have increasingly concluded that such sacrifices are a burden, and our birthrate has plummeted accordingly.

But Christians must never view children as a burden when the Bible so clearly calls them a blessing. Let me briefly spell out a few of the implications of the Bible’s view of children.

First, I think this tells us that every Christian couple should desire to have children. When two Christians get married, there should be no question about whether or not they will try to have children. Now we know that God, for His own reasons, does not always allow that to happen, but that should be the desire of every Christian couple.

Second, we should never downplay the importance of our role as parents. God has made us caretakers of His blessings, and we should take that very seriously. That means we should never shove our kids into second or third place behind our careers or our personal hobbies or anything else. We need to place our role as parents ahead of those things. Dads, we shouldn’t think that raising children is “women’s work” and thus neglect our responsibilities. Moms, you shouldn’t think that dads are optional either, like many people sadly seem to think today. Nor should we as Christians ever be guilty of suggesting that a stay-at-home mom isn’t really doing anything important. We need to elevate our role as parents to a position of primary importance in our lives.

Third, we as Christians should be at the forefront of protecting and caring for all children—including the unborn and the orphan. This has been a hallmark of Christianity since its earliest days. Who do you think have been the first to build orphanages in countries around the world? Who do you think cares for AIDS orphans in Africa and children in China who have been abandoned because of that country’s policies? Christians have always made this a priority, and we must keep that alive. This means that we need to stand up for the lives of unborn children and live in compassion toward the needy children around us. We need to be supportive of families in our church who might adopt children, and in all honestly this probably means that many of us should consider adoption as a way to express God’s love for orphans.

Children are a blessing, not a burden, and that lesson should influence every aspect of the way that we think about children in this world—from desiring to have our own to loving those whom no one else wants. Let’s ask God to help us love these little blessings that He sends into our world.