Ephesians 6:4
You may be seated. Let me extend a happy Father’s
Day to all the fathers in the room, grandfathers, great-grandfathers.
It’s a joy and privilege to serve the Lord in that way. As we’ll
see in just a few moments, you have one of the most important
tasks in the entire world. It may not pay well from the
world standards, it may be difficult and time consuming, but as you’ll
see, God says, this is the way, walk in it and you will see great
joy and blessing. So let us give our attention
to the reading of God’s holy word in the New Testament book
of Ephesians. I will read Ephesians 5 verses
22 through chapter 6 verse 4. Let us hear God’s word together.
This is the Apostle Paul speaking to the Ephesian church and he
says, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For
the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is head of
the church, his body and is himself its savior. Now as the church
submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to
their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her,
having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that
he might present the church to himself in splendor, without
spot, without wrinkle, or without any such thing, that she might
be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should
love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife
loves himself. For no one ever hated his own
flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church.
Because we are members of his body, therefore a man shall leave
his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two
shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and
I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However,
let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife
see that she respects her husband. Children, obey your parents in
the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother.
This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go
well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers,
do not provoke your children to anger. but bring them up in
the discipline and in the instruction of the Lord. This is God’s holy
and inspired word written for our instruction and edification. Let’s look to God for his help
and grace. Pray with me. Our gracious God, we thank you
that you speak to us by your word and that you show us who
we are and who you are. You reveal to us your sin, our
sin. You reveal to us your grace.
And you show us the Savior, Jesus, the one who has fulfilled your
holy law. The righteous demands of it have
been met by him. And we who by faith rest in him
alone for our salvation, we have his perfect obedience. We have
his wonderful righteousness. And when you look upon us, you
do not see us as if we have sinned, but you see us as if we have
always obeyed. And you see the righteousness
of Christ, which has been given to us by His grace. We thank
you that your word shows us this, but it also shows us how we are
to live. So help us to take these things
today that pertain to the family and to put them into practice
in our lives so that the world will see order and beauty as
you have designed it to be. We can’t accomplish this, though,
without your help, without your blessing, without your grace.
So give it, we do pray in Jesus name. Amen. Several weeks back
on Mother’s Day we looked at the question of what children
owe their parents. We looked at that from the fifth
commandment, honor your father and your mother. And today we
want to look at a different angle, what parents owe their children. And so we’ll focus a bit from
Deuteronomy chapter 6, but more so from the last verse which
we’ve just read from Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4. And so let
us consider God’s word together in this way. In the last eight
weeks or so, I bet many of you have made trips to your local
nurseries, your home improvement store, to the garden centers
of your choice. And I have a feeling that many
of you have brought home ferns and flowers and vegetables and
all sorts of wonderful plants to adorn your houses and your
porches and even to plant in your gardens that you might enjoy
their flowers and their beauty and that you might enjoy the
wonderful beauty of the season that God has given to us. Now,
in most of the cases, I’m sure that you bought a plant that
was a little bit farther along than just a seed. Maybe some
of you planted gardens, you popped in the seeds and all the rest,
but I would imagine that most of you bought something that
was already a little bit far along. This is something that
had been in a greenhouse, something that had been planted by seed
in the dirt where there was heat and there was water, there was
light, fertilizer, all the necessary things to bring growth. you bought
something that had been in an environment, something that had
been in an environment that provided for its growth and nurture, so
that when the right moment came, when the nursery buyers and the
home improvement store purchasers came, they bought already growing
flowers to sell to you in their stores. And so that when you
brought this plant home, you brought not home a little tiny
seed, but you brought home a potted plant, flowering, exploding in
growth and already well on its way to providing enjoyment. I
want you to think of that analogy related to the family. Children
need a place, a safe place, a safe place to grow, to be fed, and
to be helped in being made ready for life in the world. Before
we put them on stage, before we send them out to serve the
Lord and the world, God provides for them a greenhouse, if you
will. And that greenhouse is your home. That greenhouse is
a mom and a dad. That greenhouse is the nurture
and the admonition of the Lord. That greenhouse is discipline. That greenhouse is a place of
grace so that you will have a place of growth. Now, we know well
that sin has disrupted the world God made. Because of Adam and
Eve’s sin, there’s hardship in marriage. Because of Adam and
Eve’s sin, there’s sinfulness and idolatry and all the rest
in our own hearts. We have seen murder in families. We have seen separations and
divorce and fighting and all these sorts of things. We recognize
that all those things are true. But we are also people of Christ.
And we know that as we sing every year at Christmas, that Christ
has come to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found,
even in homes, even in marriage, even with children. And so Christ,
our Savior, is redeeming. Christ, our Savior, is commanding. He’s restoring back to its original
condition, what has been broken. And so I want us to see from
the Word of God how he is at work restoring the family. There’s
a joke that kids come, but they come with no instruction manual.
There’s nothing tied around their ankle. There’s no downloadable
instruction manual from the manufacturer. But we have common grace. Some
of you probably raised your children as I was raised on Dr. Spock.
And now it’s baby-wise. And those are helpful things.
But God has given us a special grace in His Word. And it shows
us very clearly how to raise our children in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord. And so from the Word of God today,
we want to consider what parents owe their children. what parents
owe their children. Now, as you make your way through
Ephesians chapter 5, you see what children owe their parents.
There’s obedience. We talked about that on Mother’s
Day. There’s honor your father and mother. We spoke of that
then as well. But I want to encourage you,
mothers and fathers, and grandparents even, and those of the older
generation, this is what will save our world. This is what
will undo the chaos that we are witnessing. And that is this,
the right environment is needed for the growth of our children
and their launch into the world. What’s the first thing the Apostle
Paul tells the Ephesian fathers. What’s the first thing he tells
you and I, men in the room, and us Christians and parents? He
says, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. That’s
what we find in verse 4. That’s the first thing we want
to consider. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. Now why does he not say this
to mothers? Dad, you know why he says this to us. We get aggravated. We get agitated. We want our
recliner time. We want our peace of mind. We’ve
been at work all day. We’ve been dealing with the foolishness
of those we work with and we want to come home to some peace
and quiet. Well, why does he speak to men? Because men need
to hear this message. Our wives, the mothers, are usually
more tender. They’re more understanding. They
want their children to succeed. They’re not as grouchy as we
are. Now, there’s a little this way and that way. We understand
people are made differently. But God is speaking to fathers
because maybe we’re prone to that. Well, there’s a better
reason. He’s speaking to fathers because
from the beginning of time, God has put fathers in the place
of leadership. He has put fathers in the place
of leadership in the home. And so a father is to love the
wife of the home like Christ loved the church, but he’s not
to provoke his children to wrath. Literally, that means he’s supposed
to make it possible for them to succeed. He is supposed to
encourage them and not discourage them. But fathers, why is it
that this admonition might be given to us? Well, sometimes
we act like the lawyer of the home. You’re doing this. You’re
breaking this rule. We act like the judge and we
issue sentences. We’re absent. We flip-flop. One
day it’s this. The other way it’s that. And
you see what he’s saying to us, fathers, is you can provide chaos
for your children if you’re not careful. And you go back to this
idea of the home being a greenhouse where your children can grow
and have the opportunity to succeed in the world. And the apostle
is saying, in that greenhouse, provoke not your children. And
he adds a little phrase to the same verse in Colossians, lest
they be discouraged. And so simply put, this This
command to fathers is this. Don’t provoke your children.
Don’t discourage them. Do what it takes. Do what is
necessary to encourage them. There’s a second thing that Paul
says to the fathers of the Ephesian church. He says to us, if we’re
going to give what our children what is owed them, if we’re going
to provide the right environment for them, we don’t need to provoke
them to anger. But secondly, he says we need to nurture them.
Notice how he says it in verse 4. He says, do not provoke your
children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and
instruction of the Lord. Literally, bringing them up is
the word nurture. Your job as a father, your job
as a parent is to nurture your children. It’s to provide for
them every necessary thing in order that they may grow physically,
spiritually, emotionally in the Lord. The apostle has just said
something to the fathers about how they love their wives. How
does a man love his wife? His wife is to be loved like
Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church?
Well, he died for her. How does Christ love the church? He nourishes
her. And in the same way a father
or a husband nourishes his wife, he should nourish his children
in such a way that they are treated as they really are. They are
holy. It’s interesting to note in our culture and society that
children are not treated as holy. But that’s our covenant way.
If your children are born into your house, we set them apart
with the mark of baptism. We declare that they are the
Lord’s child and that the Lord will safely bring them to heaven.
But we also understand that God has given parents to children
in order to help that happen, to facilitate it. God always
uses means, and He uses parents. and we’re to nurture our children.
We’re literally to bring them up in the Lord. Yes, we give
them a house. Yes, there’s clothing and food
and health care and education. And these days it may be a few
technological gadgets. But you know what the one thing
missing is from a lot of homes in our culture and society? We’re
not bringing our children up in the nurture and the admonition
of the Lord. Everything else is so important
that we fail by the time the weekend comes to make it to church.
Where everything else in our day is so important that we make
it to work, we make it to our doctor’s appointments, we’re
dropped off and picked up from school, but we forget to read
the Bible together. We forget to pray together and
sing together and grow in grace together. And so the Apostle
Paul is saying to Christian fathers and to the parents of children,
provide for them spiritually, nourish them in the way that
is necessary. Now, the apostle is thinking
of Deuteronomy for sure when he writes this passage. Remember
who Paul is. He’s an apostle. He was converted by the power
of the Holy Spirit on the road to Damascus when Jesus met him
and knocked him flat down and said, why are you persecuting
me? Paul was a Jew. Paul was educated under the law. He knew the old covenant forwards
and backwards and all the jots and tittles and everything in
between. And so for sure when he comes to writing a letter
to the Ephesian church or to the Colossians when he speaks
to them about family and parenting, and raising children, where does
his mind go to? I’ve got to get up a sermon.
I’ve got to get up a message to give to this people. He goes
to Deuteronomy where God instructs through Moses the people of God
to teach your children who God is and what he has done and what
he requires so that generation after generation might follow
after God in obedience. This is a passage in Deuteronomy
that Jesus affirms. Remember the scribe, the Pharisee
that comes and says, Jesus, what’s the bottom line? You tell me,
he says, what’s to love the Lord your God with all your heart,
mind, soul and strength? What’s the second part? Love
your neighbor as yourself. Jesus affirms this. Paul affirms
this. And so, parents, let me speak
to you very boldly. This is your job. Yes, food. Yes, clothing. Maybe your kid
does need an iPhone. Who knows? But they need the
Lord. They need the Bible. They need the Scripture. They
need you to give them only what God says you can provide them.
Now, this day and age, we outsource our children, right? We outsource
everything. We outsource their care, their
education. We even put them in Sunday school
and we think when they grow up, everything’s going to be just
fine. The less we invest, my brothers and sisters, the fewer
the dividends. For sure, we need help. For sure,
we need the church. For sure, we may need the education
system. For sure, we may need the private
schools or tutors. But God has given you this task
primarily. He’s given you the task to nurture
your children in such a way that they will rise up one day and
say, the Lord is my God and Jesus is my Savior. And so there’s
the first two things we owe our children for the right environment.
Don’t provoke them. Nurture them. The third thing
is discipline. Now, this is a dirty word in
our culture. Every psychologist will tell you you’ll do irreparable
damage to your kids, that it may have been the way of the
past, but it’s not the way of now. But friends, God’s Word
teaches us that we discipline our children. God’s Word teaches
us that in order to instill holiness and righteousness in them, that
we discipline them. We teach them what is right. That’s the positive side of discipline.
You can’t disobey unless you know what’s right and wrong.
We discipline them. We teach them what is good and
right and true. And we commend them when they
do those things. But God has given the rod to
discipline our children, to punish them in a way that says, this
is not the way. This is what will lead you to
death. This is what will lead you straight to Sheol, as the
Proverbs say, or to hell, as the New Testament teaches us.
God’s Word teaches us that we discipline our children. You
know what the book of Hebrews says? It brings me great comfort. It’s in chapter 12. It says our
Heavenly Father disciplines us as well. Sometime in the past,
one of our children was saying, Daddy, do you ever get spankings?
And I said, Yeah, but they’re worse. They come with more heartache,
but they come from a loving Heavenly Father who knows how to teach
His children, who knows how to show them what is right, to show
them when they need to stop in their tracks and repent and turn
and go the other way. And so, brothers and sisters,
our Heavenly Father chastens those He loves, and so, earthly
fathers, we should also chasten lovingly. Kindly, biblically,
graciously, but necessarily chasing those whom we love. The book
of Proverbs tells us very clearly that if we spare the rod, we
will what? Spoil the child. The book of Proverbs also says
that if you want to be a partner in leading your child to shield
or to death or to hell, you go right ahead. But what you reap
is what you sow. And so the wisdom of the Bible,
the weight of the apostles’ command is that we discipline our children.
We nurture them. We do not provoke them to anger.
Fourth thing it teaches us is that we instruct them. Chapter
6, verse 4 says, We bring them up in the discipline and the
instruction of the Lord. What is the instruction of the
Lord? Well, it’s simply this. It’s speaking into their heads,
literally. It’s speaking into their minds
the Word of God. It’s verbal. Go back to our last
point on discipline. I’m not for abuse. I’m not for
Walmart-style assaults on your children. We’ve all seen it.
But I am for this. We simply tell our children what
is right from the Word. We give them instruction. And
we say to them when they have fallen short of God’s glory,
you’ve fallen short of God’s glory and God requires that I
must do this. But you pull that foolishness
out of them and what must you then do? You must put wisdom
in. And so we must speak the word
of God to our children in such a way that they know without
a shadow of a doubt what it means to be holy, what it means to
be righteous, what it means to be godly, what it means to live
according to God’s holy word. Some of you have the little children’s
storybook, Jesus storybook Bible. The opening of it says the Bible
is a lot of things. And one of the things it says
the Bible is, I love this phraseology, it tells us how life works best. And if you don’t want life to
go well, don’t read the Bible. But how life works best, and
friends, we’ve got to instruct our children in these things.
Who God is, what God has done, and what God requires of you.
Now think for a moment about what we read from Deuteronomy.
Teach these things to your children. Tell them about God, and Pharaoh,
and the Red Sea, and the manna, and the water from the rock.
Well, that generation raised up a generation in the wilderness. They went into the promised land,
but guess what happened to their children? Judges 2, there arose
a generation in the land who did not know the Lord their God
or what He had done for Israel. And so you see what happens when
we don’t instruct our children. You see what happens when they
don’t know who God is and what He’s done and what He requires.
There’s a generation and a generation and a generation who knows not
the Lord. They’re idolatrous. They know
not the works of redemption. They’re ignorant. And so God
is saying to us, dear fathers and parents, teach your children
the ways of God. We catechize, we give them our
theology, we give them the knowledge of the scriptures and we serve
them in this way, teaching them the ways of the faith so that
they may rise up on their own and make that faith their own,
professing. Now let me pause and ask this
question. Why does the Apostle Paul teach this? Why does he
give this instruction to the Ephesians? Well, first, it’s
the Word of God. God, the Holy Spirit, through
the Apostle Paul, is instructing the Ephesians and you and I to
live this way. He gives some of the same advice
to the Colossians, a letter written about the same time. A second
reason he’s giving this is he’s reemphasizing the Word of Deuteronomy
6. Israel loved God. Israel, do
not love all the gods of Canaan. Israel, you left Egypt where
they worship all sorts of gods. I’ve brought you here to worship
Me. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your
God is one. And you shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Well, there’s
a third reason he’s giving this message. It’s the Word of God. It’s emphasizing the message
of Deuteronomy 6. But these are new converts to
the faith. These are Romans, not Jewish
people. These are Romans who are living a pagan lifestyle.
They’ve come to faith in Jesus. And Paul is saying, here’s how
Christians live. Let’s go back to Deuteronomy.
Let me give you a new word that God has given me as I write under
the power of the Holy Spirit. And he’s saying, live this way
in light of culture. Now you say from time to time,
we all do, raising kids in this culture is the hardest it’s ever
been. Well, the Apostle Paul might beg to differ. How about
raising your kids in pagan Egypt? Or raising your kids in pagan
Babylon during the exile? Or how about raising your children
in pagan Greco-Roman culture in the New Testament era? It’s
all the same. It’s just remixed. It’s just
repackaged. It’s just microwaved and warmed
over and served to us again. It’s the same old stuff. So we
ought to be careful when we think the Bible doesn’t speak into
our culture. Culture is just as dark and rotten as it always
has been. We just have iPads now maybe. That’s the difference.
But he’s speaking to new converts. Why is Paul writing this word
to the Ephesians? Here’s a fourth thing to consider.
You think of the statistics we read in the paper, the statistics
we hear on the news of children born out of wedlock, or of absentee
parents, or abusive parents, or dropout children, or divorce,
or the children of this generation we say they have the failure
to launch. And we can We get ourselves all
downcast over stats, but the Word of God speaks into that
redemptively. And we need to say, Jesus can
fix whatever is broken. Jesus can fix bad fathers. Jesus
can fix broken childhoods. Jesus can fix those who have
been abused, those who have been ignored, those who have had not
the home that God would want. And so let me encourage you in
this way. The apostle is writing these things for all this reason,
but he wants Christians to know that in Jesus there is a remedy.
In Jesus there is redemption. In Jesus everything that is broken
is fixable. And you know what? As one of
our church members constantly says to me, Jesus gives do-overs. Now, you can’t go back in time.
Some of you have children in the home. Some of you have children
out of the home. Some of you have young children.
Some of you have grown children. Some of you have problems that
you wish you didn’t cause. And Paul speaks this word to
us to remind us that Jesus fixes, Jesus redeems. And let me assure
you of this. It is never too late to go to
your children and say, Mommy and Daddy failed you. Mommy and
Daddy have sinned against you. We didn’t maybe know better.
But I’ve heard God’s Word now and I realize what I have done
and I want you to forgive me. Forgive me for my failure. Forgive
me for my lack of provision. Forgive me for being absent.
Forgive me for being uninvolved. Forgive me for being aloof. Forgive
me for whatever I failed to do that God’s Word teaches. And
let’s start anew. That’s what the gospel is and
does. And so if you are discouraged
by God’s ideal for the family. Let me encourage you not to be,
but to run to faith in Jesus and say, I know, I know I’ve
fallen short, but would you help me, oh Lord, redeem this? I have
a good friend who maybe five, six, seven, eight years ago had
an unconverted son. This son was in his sixties.
This man grieved over how absent he was because he worked and
he worked and he worked and he worked and he took responsibility
for his child and his lack of faith. They went on a trip together. It was an attempt to be together.
It was an attempt to fill up some lost time. Well, you know
what God gave this man after all these years? He gave him
a brother in the faith. And this man thought he would
never see that day. So let me encourage you, if you
need a do-over, God gives them. But if you have a child not walking
in the faith, never stop praying for them. Because God is gracious. There’s a second question we
ought to ask. Not just why did Paul write this, but how do I
put this into practice? Because at the moment it could
just be pie in the sky in your head. How do I raise my children
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? You say you owe
them an environment, a greenhouse. You owe them a place where they
can grow and thrive and live. Well, the first thing is this.
Ask yourself, am I a Christian? Examine yourself, as Paul says,
and see if you are in the faith. Because it takes a Christian
parent to raise a Christian child. Do you see your own sin? Do you
see your own need for salvation in Jesus Christ? And do you rest
in him alone for your salvation? If so, then ask God to begin
to make the environment of your home less toxic and more conducive
to raising holy children. I’m really going to mess with
your minds now. Look at your schedule. It takes time to be
a parent. And for that matter, it takes
time to be a grandparent, a great-grandparent, but it takes time. It takes a
table. It takes meals together, riding
in the car together, the mornings and the evenings and the in-betweens.
The world has pulled us all out of our home at 6 a.m. and returns
us at 7 p.m. and we are tired. And so we need
to examine our schedules and see if we have time for those
we love and those we are supposed to be loving. Here’s an even
bigger problem. The family has enemies. Do you
know from day one when God created the world, Satan, at whatever
point he fell into sin, has hated the church. He’s hated marriage
and he hates biblical child rearing. And so if you’re striving to
be in a biblical marriage and raise godly children, Satan hates
your guts and he hates what you’re doing and he will do everything
he can to destroy and stop and break it apart. Do you remember
the promise that God made to Adam and Eve and to Satan? Satan,
your seed will try to destroy the godly seed. Eve will produce
babies, even Jesus down the line, and you’ll try to kill and destroy,
but I’ll protect. And so you need to understand,
when you’re raising little ones in the faith, you are fighting
against that evil serpent who hates godliness, and he hates
God. You’re also wrestling against
the world and all that it tries to bring into your home, all
the voices that are screaming for your attention, But here’s where you struggle
probably the most. You have remnant sin in you. The Apostle Paul
calls it the flesh. Our three enemies are the world,
the flesh, and the devil. And our flesh is that remaining
sin in us. It’s pardoned in justification. It’s subdued by the Spirit. But
it still wreaks its havoc in our lives. And you’ll be too
tired for your children. You’ll discipline them in anger.
You’ll forget to instruct them because you think you have more
important things to do. And on and on it will go. And
so there needs to be a lot of repentance in our parenting. We need to remove the weeds and
the things that will choke and kill the nurture and the growth
of our children. Children will grow up mixed up.
They will grow up with priorities all out of whack if ours are
that way. And so it may be, in order to
put this into practice, it may be you need to come to your elders
and talk. It may be that you need a lifestyle change. It may
be that you need a spiritual change. But friends, let me tell
you, it will be the best thing you ever do to love your family,
to love your children, to love your grandchildren. And those
of you who aren’t yet married, but one day children will come,
get ready for them because they come fast and they take up all
your time and energy. What is Paul saying here? He’s
saying, live with your children. Don’t provoke them. Nurture them.
Discipline them. Yes, instruct them in the Lord.
But let me give you a fifth thing. Give your children Jesus. You
can give them law. You can give them rules. You
can give them spankings. You can give them iPhones. You
can give them the world. But if you don’t give them Jesus,
they have nothing. Your children will come from
the womb into the world very fast. But they will leave the
greenhouse of your home and go into the world even faster than
you think. This year I have a 12-year-old
and I can’t believe it. I was told it would happen fast
and it comes so quickly. But before your children, you
live the Christian life. You struggle against the world,
against Satan and against your own flesh. You speak of the Word
of God. You live the Word of God. You
repent as often as necessary. And what does Deuteronomy basically
say? When you rise up, when you walk by the way, when you sit
at your tables, you show and you tell the Word of God. How do children learn? Do you
sit them at a desk and say, this is what the word of God is? Well,
maybe sometime, but they catch it. They see mommy and they see
daddy and they see grandparents and they know what they believe
and what is firm and dear to them based on how they act. Friends,
your kids will catch the ways of God or they won’t. So show
it, model it, but make sure they are hearing it. But talk to them
about the basics of the gospel in your discipline, in your instruction.
Teach them who God is and what he requires and that when we
fail, we have Jesus, we have forgiveness. They need to see
that you still fail as well and that you often run to Jesus as
often as necessary. We show, we tell, we enforce. We say, this is the way, walk
in it. We say, this is not the way,
do not walk in it. And we live together as a family
that has covenanted with Almighty God. Let me encourage you in
this way. It will be a long, hard, difficult
journey, but it is the right one. And God gives you the resources
of heaven and the church to help your kids live long and to prosper. There’s a story from the Second
World War that goes like this. Two men were walking through
a city. They’re walking through a city and bombs were flying
and landing and exploding every which way. And as these two men
walked down the street, each one noticed the other man as
they walked resolutely through chaos, through a war zone. And they passed one another,
their eyes met. And as they walked past, they both immediately turned.
They both immediately turned, they walked back to each other,
one walking up to the other, putting his finger in his chest,
and he put his finger in the chest of the other man and said,
what is man’s chief end? And the other man’s reply was,
man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
And the other one said to the other, I knew by the look in
your eye that you were a catechism boy. Friends, brothers and sisters,
fathers, if our children know the Lord and His ways, They’re
catechism boys and girls. They can walk through the hell
of this war zone we are called to live in with resolute, firm
convictions. And by God’s grace, they’ll make
it safely to heaven. And that’s what we want. That’s
what God wants. But you are the means that God
has given your children. Let’s pray together. Our God and our helper, we thank
you that you give us means to accomplish your ends. You give
us preachers to preach. You give us parents to nurture. You give us wives and husbands
as helpmates. You’ve given us governors to
have authority over us. You give us the elders of the
church to shepherd us. And you give us Jesus to save
us. May we not forget your provision. And may out of that provision,
we live with your grace and strength to do what’s before us. Help
us and our families. And may out of this little church, the
families change the world forever because of what you will do through
us. We pray it in Jesus name. Amen. Let’s stand together as
we sing the psalm that is printed in your bulletin. You’ll recognize
the tune is, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. This is from
the Psalter, Psalm 128, where it speaks of the man who fears
God and raises his little ones has a table full of delightful
children that will serve the Lord. Let’s sing together. Amen. Before the benediction,
let me invite Kelly to come forward. Kelly, as you know, will be leaving
this Friday for Honduras, where she’ll be serving the Presbyterian
Church in America through Mission to the World. And so we want
to pray for her, and then I’ll receive the benediction. Pray
with me. Our God and Heavenly Father, we thank you that you
are a gospel-preaching missionary God, and that you send Christians
to serve in faraway places, and that when we go, the bright light
of our face shines. And people say to us, who are
you and why is your face so bright in this dark world? And we say,
God, the God of grace has blessed me and kept me. He has shined
the light of his face upon me and given me his grace and peace.
And I’m here to tell you of his gospel. We pray now that you
would speed and advance the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ forward. As men and women and boys and
girls are called and set apart and sent to serve in missionary
service, we pray that the church would prosper even in Honduras.
We pray for Kelly, that you would give her safety, grow her in
grace on this trip, use her gifts mightily and show her how you
might use her in the world in the life to come as she prepares
to graduate from school and move on in life. Give her all that
she needs in order to serve. And we pray for your grace and
mercy. And it’s in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Look up now and
receive God’s benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace,
peace even unto Israel. And all God’s people said, Amen.