CCC Livestream - The Gospel Shaped Family - Ephesians 6:1-4
Live Worship Gathering: 5/17/2026
Preaching: Jason Purdy
I invite you to turn with me to the book of Ephesians.
Our text today is Ephesians 6:1-4.
This is our second week in our summer series called “The Gospel Shaped Family.”
This summer, we are walking through some key passages on marriage, on singleness, on parenting, and on children, as well as some passages addressing key issues that we all deal with in family life - both in our biological families and in our church family.
My prayer is that God would continue to make us and shape us by His grace and through His gospel into a godly church family that is made up of godly gospel shaped families.
One of the covenant commitments we make in our church membership covenant is a commitment to gospel centered families.
It reads:
“We will endeavor to build Gospel-centered homes. Husbands will seek to love and lead their wives and children sacrificially as Christ loves and leads the church, meaning husbands are ready to lay down their lives for their families. Wives will seek to submit to their husbands, as the church does to Christ. As parents, we will raise the children under our care in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and by a pure and loving example to seek the salvation of our family and friends.”
I realize that the topic of family can be the source of some of our greatest joys in life and also sometimes the source of our greatest pains,
But I want to encourage you that it is the truth of God’s word rightly understood and rightly applied along with the redeeming power of God’s gospel that redeems, heals, and gives us eternal hope.
Last week, we walked through Ephesians 5:22-33, and I told you that while that passage lays out the roles of wives to their husbands and husbands to their wives, it does so in a God-centered context leading us to understand that it applies to all who are in Christ, because through salvation in the gospel, Christ is our head and our husband, who loves us, nourishes and cherishes us, and lays down his life for us, and we are his bride who submits to him, honors and respects Him as Savior and Lord.
And now, we are going to pick up in the passage right where we left off last week, so let me remind us where we are in the book.
In this section of Ephesians, Paul has just shared three ways that being filled with the Spirit of God will evidence itself in a person’s life:
singing songs of praise to God and in the presence of one another,
giving thanks always and for everything to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and finally, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
And now, he highlights three key relationships where submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ fleshes out in daily life:
Wives to husbands, children to parents, and bondservants to earthly masters (that would be applied like employee to employer relationships today).
We walked through wives to husbands last week, and now we pick it up in chapter 6 verse one considering children to parents.
Would you follow along as I read aloud:
Ephesians 6:1–4 ESV
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
1. Children, Obey Your Parents In The Lord
I love how the apostle Paul addresses children in this verse.
To all you kids in the room, I wonder if you ever feel like what we are doing here in church is not really for you.
I mean, maybe you are tempted to think that the prayers, and the songs, and especially the sermon are really for the adults not really for you.
But that is simply not true.
All that we are doing here is as much for you children as it is for everyone else.
Did you know that even Jesus’ disciples were tempted at one time to think that what they were doing wasn’t really for children?
One time, while they were with Jesus, this group of children was brought to Jesus, and the disciples tried to keep the kids from coming to Jesus, because they thought Jesus was too busy for them.
Matthew 19:14 ESV
14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
God’s church is for children. God’s gospel is for children. God’s love is for children. God’s commands are for children.
And while Paul addresses you children directly in this passage, the whole Bible is as much for you as it is for anyone else!
So, listen to what God has to say to you this morning!
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Let me share a quick grammar lesson with you here.
When Paul tells wives to submit to their own husbands in 5:22, he uses what is known as the middle voice.
The middle voice is the kind of voice you use to express a voluntary obedience.
God, through Paul is telling wives to voluntarily submit to their husbands.
Husbands are not to walk around demanding submission and obedience from their wives.
Instead, it is the husbands’ role to lay his life down in servant leadership and care for his wife.
But, when Paul writes, children, obey your parents in the Lord, Paul uses the active voice, which is the kind of voice you use to express an absolute obedience.
That means that it is right and good for parents to expect obedience from their children and to directly tell their child that they must obey.
When our children were little, we must have said this same phrase thousands of times: obey right away with a happy heart.
It is right, good, and necessary for you to obey your parents.
Kids, it is sometimes right and necessary for your parents to simply say, “Do this, because I said so.”
God has given that authority to them for your good and for His glory.
Now, just like last week, the authority a human has over another human is a derived authority.
It is given by God.
It is not ultimate.
So the parent’s authority over their children is given by God and must be submitted to the ultimate authority of King Jesus.
That is why, once again, it reads, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord.”
Obeying your parents in the Lord means as they follow the Lord, you follow them.
As they submit to the Lord, you submit to them.
If a parent is asking a child to do something that the child knows is directly against a command of the Lord Jesus,
They should obey Christ and not man.
Obeying your parents in the Lord also means you obey because of your honor and respect for God.
You do it because you know God gave you those parents for a reason and a purpose.
Your parents are not perfect, but they parent you under the perfect authority of God.
For this is right.
It is fair, right, and proper to obey your parents whom God has given you.
Kids, I want to encourage you to obey your parents.
Learn to say yes ma’am and yes sir.
This is right, good, and necessary.
Listen, one day soon, before you know it, you are going to be growing into and young adult and taking on more and more responsibilities and making more and more decisions for yourself, but do not waste these child years you have to obey your parents as they love you, care for you, discipline you, and guide you in life.
2. Children, Honor Your Father And Mother
Verse 2: “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise),
The command to honor your father and mother is not less than the command to obey, but it is more.
To honor does not only imply obeying what they command but also to respect them from your heart.
You respect them by the way you speak to them and the way you speak about them.
You respect them by understanding that you represent your parents wherever you go and whatever you do.
It means to respect the position God has given them in your lives.
This command to honor your father and mother is actually a command taken directly from the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament.
And this commandment is found right in the middle of the ten commandments bridging the gap between the first four commandments about relationship with God and the last five commandments that are about relationship with one another.
So, the honoring of one’s father and mother is an outworking of one’s honoring of God.
Another way to say it is: you cannot be honoring God while at the same time dishonoring your parents.
One of the greatest ways we are to be distinct from the world is in the way that we honor our parents.
And while obedience to parents looks a bit different once you are a grown adult, the honoring of parents should remain for a lifetime.
When Paul writes in
1 Timothy 5:8 ESV
8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
He is speaking into the context of a family with a widowed mother.
And so while honoring aging parents will receive no applause from the world, it is extremely pleasing to our Lord Jesus.
If you are in a season where you are hindered from doing some other things you would like to do in order to honor and care for an aging parent,
I want to encourage you from the Scripture that you are pleasing your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by honoring your parent in this season.
Honor your Father and Mother, this is the first commandment with a promise.
Think about it this way: all the commandments of God come with the general promise that if you obey, you will be blessed of the Lord,
and if you disobey, you will reap bad consequences.
But, God attached a specific promise to the command to honor father and mother.
Verse 3: that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
A few biblical observations help us understand this specific promise made to those who honor their father and mother.
In the Old Testament, the people of God as a nation were ruled by God under God’s laws, much like in the New Testament, Christ is the head of the church and he rules the church by His word.
So, in the Old Testament law, if a man had a continuously stubborn and rebellious son who would not obey his father and mother although they continuously disciplined him, Deuteronomy says that they were to take him before the elders of the people and the elders were to stone that son to death.
He did not honor his father and mother, so it did not go well with him and he did not live long in the land.
I know in culture and society in our day and age, the idea of children discovering for themselves who they want to be and parents honoring the child by letting them discover for themselves who they want to be and do is popular,
But think about it, in the ancient world, this was a death sentence, not only because of God’s law, but also due to the practical reality that the sons had to learn their fathers’ way of life and way of living in order to provide a living once they were of age.
There were no colleges or employment agencies helping some young man get work who didn’t want to honor his father and go into the family business.
So, in that context, the promise that honoring the father and mother will make things go well with you and live long in the land made a lot of good sense.
But, it still makes a lot of good sense today.
You think about it: There is not a person who has ever lived that is truly a self-made man or woman.
We all depended on others to survive through our infancy.
And, as we grow, if we throw off every God-given authority of parents, of church, of other people in general, if we never submit ourselves to anything or anybody, we will not have or keep a job, we will not have or keep a family, we will be completely and utterly alone in hostility toward God and others.
It will not go well with you and you will not live long in the land.
But, the honoring of your father and mother is the first human step toward a life that goes well and lives long in the land, because you are able to submit in the structures and systems of family, of church, and of work, and when you are in need, those people and structures are there to provide for you and help you.
In our sin, we are tempted to believe that to be our true authentic self, we have to cast off all structures of authority and be the true version of us.
But the truth is, the honoring of one’s parents as the first human authority structure in life prepares you to honor the authority of God, the authority of His word given to the church, and honor your future employer creating opportunities for care and support.
Children, honor your father and mother.
If you are a child or teenager in the room today, can I ask you, are you honoring your father and mother?
Do you consider what they have to say? Take their advice and counsel? Offer to help out around the house? Submit to their rules and discipline? Consider what it is like to be in their shoes?
Even if you do not believe they always deserve it, you don’t do it because they deserve it.
You do it because God deserves it, and God is worthy of it, and God created you to honor and please him.
As an adult, you may be in the situation where your father and mother are not Christians.
You may have a very difficult relationship with one or both of your parents.
And while you do not follow their way of life, I do believe God would call you to show honor and respect to them as far as you are able as a witness to God’s work in your life.
That does not mean that you never create any boundaries that are wise and necessary.
Just like Paul addresses wives first, then husbands, due to the overarching theme of being filled with the Spirit in order to submit properly,
Here, Paul has addressed children, the ones who are to submit, and now he will address parents.
3. Parents, Do Not Provoke Your Children To Anger
Verse 4: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
I told you last week that when you compare these family household codes in the Bible to the other ancient family household codes that we have from that time, all the codes commanded wives to submit to their husbands, but only the Bible commanded husbands to love their wives and lay down their lives for her.
In the same way, all the codes command the children to obey their parents, but none of them command the parents, much less the fathers to do anything necessarily toward the children.
Just like we can have a more romanticized view of marriage in our day than in the ancient world, we definitely have a more romanticized view of children in our day than they did in the ancient world.
In the ancient world, children were seen as necessary additions to the family in order to serve the family business and to help take care of their parents in old age.
No ancient family was concerned that they give their children all the right experiences and make sure they get to be involved in all the extracurriculars.
No, children were seen as a necessary drain on the life of the family and the society until they were old enough to begin working.
Most commonly, children were the responsibility of the mothers and relationship with the father only kicked in when it was time for them to learn to work.
Just as it was very surprising for God to command the husband to love his wife and lay his life down for her,
It was very surprising for God to command fathers not to provoke their children to anger but to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
No other ancient family code provided any kind of command to fathers in relation to their children.
Which shows us that just as our loving and respectful marriage relationships are a key way God distinguishes His people from the culture all around them, our loving intentional relationships with our children is a key way that God distinguishes His people from the world all around them.
Now, it seems that Paul mentions fathers as the heads of the household, but these commands certainly apply to mothers as well.
Do not provoke your children to anger.
Think about it: this passage is about submission to God-given authorities, so as children are commanded to submit to their parents,
Parents are commanded not to provoke your children to anger by a misuse of their parental authority.
Just as the husband relating to the wife in any other way besides loving and laying down his life would be a misuse of spousal authority.
Parents, do not misuse your authority in ways that provokes your children to anger.
Do not hold your children to unreasonably high standards, and do not be overly harsh in your punishment and discipline.
Do not think that your position of authority is the only foundation of your relationship with your children.
It has been often said: rules without relationship lead to rebellion.
I reminded us last week that all the relationship commands of the new testament and all of the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit apply to our relationships as husbands and wives.
So, loving and submitting doesn’t mean that we never gently correct or admonish or whatever else.
All the one another passages and all the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit apply to the marriage relationship.
And now, I want to say the same thing about the relationship between parents and children.
All the one another commands and all the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit apply to the relationship between parents and children.
So, how do you not provoke your children to anger?
You relate with them with a spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
We love one another, care for one another, serve one another, show compassion toward one another, bear one another’s burdens, forgive one another, teach one another, admonish one another, encourage one another, pray for one another, confess sins to one another, and every other thing the New Testament commands.
There are two main ditches we as parents can fall into, each of which would provoke our children toward anger.
The first ditch is the ditch of authoritarianism.
It is rules without relationship. It is demanding and domineering.
It is harsh. It is high expectation and low encouragement.
It is nagging and cutting down and never considering the difference between rebellious disobedience and simple childishness and immaturity.
You know one thing I really try to do even though it sounds backwards to some people?
I try to honor and respect children. I try to listen to them and understand them. I try to always speak to them the way I desire to be spoken to.
I don’t mean that I don’t discipline or speak with a tone of seriousness and authority sometimes, I am not saying that I have never said you will do this and not do that because I said so, but I do believe that all the relationship commands of the New Testament apply to the way we relate to our children.
The way we communicate with our children.
The words that we say, and the tone that we use.
Do not withhold affection, care, comfort, and compassion from your child.
Just like with your spouse, do not worry that commending and complimenting your child in one area is going to make them think they have nothing they still need to work on.
Make sure your child knows that you love them and your feelings toward them are based on the fact that God made them and gave them to you,
And they are not contingent on how well they play in the game or how good their grades are in school.
Fathers, your job goes beyond providing a roof over their head and food on their plate.
Do not provoke your children to anger by withholding relationship and being emotionally unavailable to your children.
The second opposite ditch which leads to provoking our children to anger is the ditch of always trying to be their friend and making them the center of your world.
I want you to consider that all throughout the Scripture we are warned against idolatry.
Idolatry is placing more worth and value on something created than we do our Creator.
We are to image and reflect the glory of God by worshipping Him alone.
But, we can be tempted to worship the little images that we feel we have made and the little images that resemble us.
Don’t just laugh that off.
If you want to provoke a child to anger, make them the center of your universe.
Invest more into your relationship with your child than you do the relationship with your spouse.
Anytime our kids complain that Robin and I are going out and leaving them at home, we remind them that the best thing we can give our children after a healthy relationship with Jesus is a thriving healthy marriage relationship.
If you feel relationally and emotionally closer to your child than you do Jesus, you need to repent and change.
If you feel relationally and emotionally closer to your child than you do spouse, you need to repent and change.
Your child will finally crumble under the weight of the worth you have placed on them that they were never created to carry.
You are not their friend. You are their parent.
You are not cool. You are their parent.
And can I encourage you, children thrive when you give them consistent boundaries, and when they know you are their third priority after Jesus and your spouse.
Psalm tells us that children are like arrows in the hand of a warrior.
They are meant to be nurtured and taught and then launched out into the world, not kept as the center of your world.
Do not provoke your children to anger.
Finally,
4. Parents, Nurture Your Children In The Discipline and Instruction Of The Lord
Verse 4 one more time: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
The words “bring them up” can also be translated nurture.
You create an environment of God’s love, care, discipline, and instruction in your home with your children.
Make your home with your family the most important education your child will ever receive along with the church.
No matter whether you homeschool, or private school, or public school, our charge from the Lord as parents is to bring our children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, so all Christian homes are homes of learning, of instruction, and of proper discipline.
Read the Bible with your children.
Pray for and with your children.
Apply your faith to every aspect of life as you go.
Speak daily of Jesus and the gospel.
And center your life around God’s family - the church.
I told my kids when they were young that none of them were going to be pro athletes.
Because we were never going to prioritize sports over God and His church.
I’m not saying my kids never miss a Wednesday night because they are on a team,
But I am saying that the clear priority in our home is God and His church and being a faithful member of it.
You are the primary evangelist and disciple maker of your children.
Do not be the kind of family that goes to church, but does not talk about Jesus and live out a life of faith in Jesus at home.
Men, don’t be afraid to lead spiritually.
And if you are a man thinking, well, my wife knows the Bible better than I do, and she prays more than I do,
I would say two things: one, you do not have to be the one with the most knowledge in order to lead spiritually.
You bring the Bible to the dinner table, open it, read it, and let your wife jump in and share.
The second thing I would say is: if you think your wife is farther along spiritually than you are, then get to work and catch up with her!
You have a Bible, the Spirit of God, and more good biblical resources at your fingertips than any other time in history.
Our passage was nothing but commands today, four of them to be exact.
So, the sermon has centered on four commands,
But I want to remind you, especially if you are feeling any kind of shame or guilt about ways you have fallen short of any of these,
And I want to remind you, if you are feeling really good about yourself because you believe you follow these commands well,
I want to remind us all that these four commands are written in the same letter that tells us that we were all dead in our trespasses and sins in which we all once walked,
following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience -
Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you have been saved.
In other words, you cannot make yourself good enough with God by obeying and honoring your parents.
We have all failed many times at this.
Jesus was the only son who has ever perfectly obeyed and honored his father.
You cannot make yourself good enough with God by raising your kids in perfect discipline, instruction, nurture, and care.
We have all failed many times at this.
God is the only perfect Father who has always perfectly disciplined, instructed, nurtured, and cared for his children.
Our hope is not found in being perfect parents or perfect children.
Our hope is found in that while we were all children of wrath due our sin, the perfect heavenly Father sent His perfectly obedient son to die a sinners death in our place for our sin, the perfect sacrifice in order to reconcile us to a holy God and to be adopted by our Heavenly Father into His family - the church.
And while we do grow in godliness by His grace, and fight against our remaining sin by His grace, his love for us is perfect.
So, on the days we blow it, we honor God and His gospel by confessing to God, our spouse, and our children and asking forgiveness.
And on the days we get it right, at least somewhat, we point all glory and praise to God as the one who has saved us from our sin and filled us with His spirit in order to grow in loving Him and loving others, including our parents and our children.
Let’s pray.
,