This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day one of our look through Ephesians chapter 6 in
Daily Drive Time Devotions. We're going to be looking at verses 1 to 3 today and
really taking up where we left off last week. You might remember last week we
talked about the fact that spirit-filled living is unselfish living and it
impacts us.

It impacts the way we talk to each other, it impacts the way that we thank God.
It also impacts our relationships and we began to look at what it means to be
unselfish in our relationships. The Bible calls us being submitted to one
another in our relationships.

Last week we looked at marriage. Husbands make the unselfish choice to
sacrifice. Wives make the unselfish choice to respect.

That's what it means to love and that all grows out of being filled with God's
Spirit. To try to make these unselfish choices selfishly based on my own energy
and strength, that's not going to get me anywhere. But depending on God's Spirit
in me, God's strength through me, I can do things that only Christ could do in
me.

As we start this week, we're going to look at a couple of other relationships
the first few days that have to do with unselfishness. Paul also paints the
picture of what it means for parents and children to be unselfish and then the
picture of what it means for slaves and owners to be unselfish and in our day
we're going to talk about what it means for workers and bosses to be unselfish
in their relationship with one another. But at the beginning, today, verses 1 to
3, we're going to focus on parenting.

The truth of the matter is everybody has an opinion about parenting, especially
grandparents have opinions about parenting. Now you're going to do it too when
you become a grandparent, even if you're really young now, there's that day
coming. We all have opinions, but the truth is, what we want to know is, what
does God have to say about it?

What does the Bible have to say about parenting? What clear directions does the
Bible give us? There are a lot of choices that I might have as a parent.

Am I going to give my child a bologna sandwich or a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich for lunch? The Bible doesn't say anything about those kinds of choices.
What about the most important things?

What does the Bible have to say about what it means to be a parent who is
unselfish and a child who responds to a parent in the right kind of way? Our
goal these next couple of days is going to be to understand the simple truth by
which we can understand everything that we need to know about parenting and also
evaluate everything we hear about parenting that's out there. There's so many
ideas.

How do I know which ones are of God? How do I know which ones are of Satan? How
do I know which ones are just human opinion?

We're going to see some evaluation points these next couple of days. We're going
to be able to, as we look at these simple scriptures, hear some things about
choices you and I can make about attitudes that will better our parenting. Or if
you're not yet a parent, how I can pray for parents.

You know, if you're not yet a parent, if you think I may never be a parent, you
can still pray for parents because you realize the importance of what they're
doing. And understanding what the Bible has to say about parenting informs your
prayers for parents. The truth of the matter is when it comes to families, a lot
of us look at our families and we see the cracks, we see the brokenness, we see
that things just aren't perfect.

A lot of our families are like what I would call antique furniture. The beauty
is still there but it's hidden, hidden underneath the dust of silence and the
cobwebs of maybe even bitterness. And many times families are in need of
restoration.

Every family needs this from time to time. What do we need to do? Well, someone
needs to strip off the old cracked finish to reveal the natural beauty, God's
beauty that's underneath.

Some oil is needed for rusty hinges, some sanding on doors that have remained
closed too long. Things can become beautiful again. Some people give you the
idea that in a relationship when things don't work, you should just get rid of
it.

When it gets old, you just junk it. But families are like valuable antique
furniture. You don't junk them, they're just too valuable, they're too
beautiful.

You restore them and you restore them by recognizing what God has to say. What
does God have to say about parenting? Well, he begins in verses one to three by
talking about what children are supposed to do.

If you're going to be a good parent, it begins by understanding what does God
have to say about being a good child in a family. Ephesians 6, one to three,
here's what the Bible says, "Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this
is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a
promise, that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the
earth.

" Here's the simple principle. I must understand how God wants my children to
respond to me. If I'm going to be a good parent, I've got to understand how God
wants my children to respond to me.

And the Bible says here, here's how they respond, "In their actions, obedience.
In their attitude, honor. In their actions, obedience.

Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. " So that means any
parenting technique that I hear out there, any book, any system that leaves out
obedience for a child is outside of the directed will of God for what it means
to be a great family. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is the
right thing to do.

" Now I love the phrase, "in the Lord. " You do it in the Lord. For children,
that means that's where the strength comes from.

To be obedient to your parents, even as a child, one of the first ways you learn
to trust Jesus as a child is in obeying your parents. And where are you going to
get the strength to do that? You ask Jesus for the strength to do that.

That's the strength that a six-year-old, an eight-year-old can ask for. The fact
that I know you're hoping that they ask for. It also notes here in this phrase,
"Obey them in the Lord," it notes that the parent isn't the Lord.

You're recognizing Jesus is the Lord of both of you. There are some parenting
systems out there that somehow feel like or have the sense of, or some parents
that even act like somehow they're the Lord. They can tell their child to do
anything they want, even if it's biblically wrong.

And somehow they are the owner of their child in that sense. Well, the Bible
doesn't teach that at all. It says that all this relationship happens in the
Lord, which means when it goes terribly bad sometimes in a child-parent
relationship, we say, "Well, in the Lord, we need to go in and get this fixed,
whatever it takes.

" If there's abuse, if there's physical abuse that's going on, that means there
might even need to be a separation that happens because of what's happening. But
99% of the time, that's not what's happening in families. What's happening is
the normal thing.

Children have a tough time obeying, because just like all of us, they're
selfish. They want what they want. But one of the ways I learned to grow closer
to God, closer to Christ, is by submitting to others in relationships.

And the way that that starts for a child is by learning to become obedient to
their parents. That means kids can't do anything they want. That means when you
ask them to obey you as a parent, you're really inviting trust in Christ in a
very real way in their lives.

You're helping them to understand what that means. In their actions, obedience.
In their attitude, honor.

Honor them. The Bible says the role of a child in a family is to honor their
parent. And they're honoring the role of their parent.

Now they're honoring an imperfect parent. They may recognize it already, but the
truth is there is no such thing as a perfect parent. But you can still honor
their role, no matter what.

You honor who they are. I can still remember when I first became a believer in
Christ, later in high school, an older teenager. Neither of my parents were
Christians at the time.

So I couldn't honor their relationship with Christ. And I was trying to figure
out, what did it mean to honor them as my parents? How could I honor them when
they didn't know Christ and I didn't know Christ?

And I have to admit, I became a little bit spiritually prideful for an amount of
time. And that was no honor at all to them. How could I honor them?

Well, I found out when I allowed Jesus to direct me and I began to vacuum the
living room, even though my mom didn't ask me, or do something out in the
backyard, even though my dad didn't say, "You need to do this. " They felt
honored in that. And they also recognized, wow, God must really be real.

I mean, if Tom is doing this, although I'm not asking him, there's something
real in this. You see, honor isn't telling somebody else what's wrong with their
life. It's honoring who they are in your life.

The Bible says you honor them because this is the first commandment with a
promise. Now, before we go into that more deeply, let me just say this catches a
lot of people. They look through the Ten Commandments and they go, "Wait a
minute, wait a minute.

This one about parents, this isn't the first commandment. It begins with
honoring God. What does this mean?

This is the first commandment. " Well, read it carefully. This is the first
commandment with a promise.

In the list of Ten Commandments, this is the first of the ten that has a promise
attached to it. That's what this is saying here. And the promise is of God's
blessing.

In fact, thinking about that promise, if you look at Ephesians 6, these first
three verses through the eyes of a parent, you can see three things that we all
need to teach our kids. We need to teach them the discipline of obedience, the
pleasure of doing the right thing, and the promise of God's blessing as we
follow Him. The discipline of obedience.

Obey your parents. All my life, there's somebody I'm going to have to obey in
some way. Somebody's orders whom I'm going to have to follow.

It may be I'm in the military and it's a sergeant. It may be that I am working
in a company and it's a CEO. It may be that I am working in a school and it's a
principal.

But there's someone that I'm going to have to follow. And the discipline of
obedience is one of the things that we learn in families. This word obey that's
used here, it literally means to hear under.

The ability to listen and to respond to another person's direction. That is an
important life skill. We also teach the pleasure of doing the right thing.

That when I do the right thing, there is joy that comes into my life. There is
honor that comes to the other person. And we're also teaching the promise of
God's blessing for following Him.

That it may go well with you and that you may live long on this earth. Quality
living, that it may go well with you. Quality living, that you may live long on
this earth.

You see, when it comes to parenting, the first thing to understand is children.
That's where it always begins. And the first place to start in prayer.

We're going to pray tomorrow for you and I who are parents. But we need to start
by praying for our kids. So let's take a few moments to do that right now.

And if you're not a parent, pray for kids that you know. And pray, "Lord, I pray
for these kids. " I pray you'd help them to understand what it means to obey.

And help me to understand that. And not to shrink from that. But instead to give
them the opportunity to obey in ways that help them to grow closer to you.

It's an important life skill, God. Help them to learn it. And Lord, I pray for
these kids also.

That you'd help them to understand what it means to honor. Even though we're not
perfect as parents, God, when honor happens, there is a blessing that goes with
that. Lord, you say that all this happens in you.

So I pray that you would give them the strength in you, whatever age they are,
to know that they can do this. They can choose this. And when it gets hard, and
when it gets hard, help them to turn to you.

In simple prayer. And to find that, God, you are one that they can trust. More
than anything, we pray, Lord, that through our parenting, you'd help our kids to
learn Jesus that you love them, and that they can trust you.

And we pray this in your name. Amen. Join us tomorrow.

We're going to focus even more on what these verses have to say about parents.