This transcript was generated by whisper.ai. Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions and Day 2 of our Look Through Ephesians, Chapter 6. We're going to focus on verse 4 today, which is a verse about parenting. Yesterday we talked about children and what they're to do to be submissive, to be unselfish in a family. They're to obey and they're to honor and God's promise that comes out of those decisions. Today we're going to focus on parents and what we do is parents to be unselfish. Children are to be unselfish and parents are to be unselfish. That's what makes relationships work. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4 says this, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children, instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. " You see, yesterday we talked about the fact that we need to know what God says about how our kids should act. Once we know that, in order to be a good parent, we have to know how he wants us to act. So the simple principle yesterday was I've got to understand how God wants my children to respond to me as a parent. The simple truth today is I've got to understand how God wants me to respond to my children. Now the interesting thing in verse 4, as a parent you read, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children. " And everybody wants to know what does that mean? Does that mean that mothers never exasperate their children? Well, I hate to say this moms, but you know, we all know that that's not exactly true. Does that mean that fathers exasperate them more? That's not what these verses are talking about either. Really the idea of fathers here is going back to what we read about last week, that men need to be spiritual leaders in the home. And I love the fact that in verse 4 of the Bible says, "Fathers, you need to be involved in being part of what it means to be a parent. " It's not just left to moms to be parents. Sometimes it's like, well, dad works and mom is the parent. No, I think the Bible is very clear that we're both to be parents. And I have a sense in this verse that God says fathers knowing mothers would hear even better than dads sometime. We all need to hear this. We all have to understand how God wants us to respond to our children. And there's two simple instructions here for us as both moms and dads, I believe. One thing not to do and one thing to do. What shouldn't I do? Well, the Bible says here, don't exasperate your children. Now just to let you know, this whole idea of fathers being submissive to their child in some way, that is totally against the day that the Bible was written in. A Roman father in the day that the Bible was written had absolute control over his children. He could cast them out of the house. He could sell them as slaves. In fact, many times a newborn was placed at a father's feet to determine their future. And if he picked up that baby, it would become a member of the family. If he walked away, the baby was sold away. And the Bible says that's not how it's to be. That as a child, I'm to be unselfish in my response to my parents. But as a father, as a mother, I'm unselfish in my response to the children. Don't exasperate your children. Let's just talk about that one for a moment. What exasperates children? We could go through a list pretty quickly. Unclear boundaries exasperate children. When they don't know how far can I go, and I test it, and I don't get in trouble if I go over it, but then the next time I do get in trouble. What exasperates children? Inconsistent discipline. We all struggle with this one. We're inconsistent in our discipline because we get tired sometimes. We just say, "I don't have the emotional energy for it right now, I'll just let it go. " We're inconsistent in our discipline because, well, let's admit it, we want our kids to like us sometimes. We just don't want to hear from them because we love them. The things they're going to say when we discipline them. But the Bible says don't exasperate your children, and one of the things that exasperates anybody is inconsistent discipline. What exasperates children? Unbalanced criticism. Criticism that's not balanced with praise. All the rules of business say you need to give ten words of praise for every one word of criticism. Well, I think that's ten times as true in a family, and many times we find ourselves as parents falling into the trap of a lot of criticism. We should do this differently, why didn't you do this? Because we feel like we need to be good parents, but we don't share praise. These are the good things. One of the greatest things you can do to not exasperate your children is to balance criticism and praise. What exasperates children? Well, besides unclear boundaries and inconsistent discipline and unbalanced criticism, there are also unreasonable demands that we make. What exasperates children? Maybe more than anything, and this is why I think maybe these verses are especially attached to fathers, maybe more than anything undeserved or unresolved anger. When a child gets anger from a parent, and it can become from mom or dad both, but let's admit it, we see it oftentimes more from dads than moms. When there is anger and it's never resolved, or when there's anger and it's not deserved, you're angry with your children, but you're really taking out on them what happened at the office today. When there is undeserved or unresolved anger, there's nothing that is more exasperating. So what if that's happened? What do you do? Well, instead, the Bible says you bring them up in the training and the instruction of the Lord. It begins by saying, "I'm sorry. The instruction of the Lord is to ask for forgiveness when we wrong somebody. " It begins there. Don't exasperate your children. That's what not to do. What should I do? Do nurture your children. What does it mean to nurture? It means to bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. To nurture means you create the right environment for growth. As a parent, as a mom or a dad, and I might be talking to some of you who are single parents, and you're having to handle everything that it has to do with discipline and boundaries, and you're having to think through in your life, what does it mean to not exasperate and how do I nurture them? How do you set up the right environment for growth? As a parent, you realize I'm responsible for my child's physical growth, but these verses remind us I'm also responsible for their spiritual growth. Now, the truth of the matter is with both physical growth and spiritual growth, I am not ultimately responsible. Only God can cause a child to grow physically. I'm responsible for nurturing the growth that God can cause, making sure it is healthy growth, but only God can cause them to grow. And when it comes to spiritual growth, the same thing is true. Only God can cause us to grow closer to him. So what am I responsible for as a parent? For the right environment for growth. You see, we get to be gardeners in a sense, setting up the environment for growth, and then God causes the growth. And the environment is all important. The wrong environment will not cause a child to grow. Sometimes you have a neglected environment where the growth opportunity for spiritual growth is choked with weeds, it's lacking nutrition in the soil. You never go to church, you never talk about the things of God, in fact you talk about everything but the things of God, and spiritual growth is entirely neglected. And then you think, well, it's up to them whether they want to become close to Christ or not. It's up to you to make sure you provide the right environment. And to say they didn't choose it even though I provided the wrong environment is just as foolish as saying, well, that tomato plant didn't grow, and it's the plant's fault. I didn't water it. I didn't fertilize it, but it's the plant's fault. No, it's a child. I'm responsible for providing the right environment. You can have different kinds of environments that take away from growth, neglected environments. You could also have what I would call a hothouse environment where everything's made perfect and you keep everything so safe, but whenever the child gets out in the real world, they wilt because they've never faced the fact that there is evil in this world. Now, obviously, I'm not saying that we want to put our kids in direct contact with evil and temptation, but we've got to have discussions about it. We've got to recognize that they're going to have to face it someday. And we have to not be afraid of it with them, to recognize with them that Christ is even greater than that. Sometimes you have what I would call sort of a Japanese bonsai kind of environment that happens with kids. All the roots are clipped and the growth is stunted because you want them to look just like this, maybe just like you, or just like you want them to, instead of watching them grow to be the person that God wants them to be, which might be very different from the person that you thought that they were going to be. They might be more adventurous and might be more careful than you thought they were going to be, but it's the person God wanted them to be. You see, for those of you who are parents that are listening to this, you and I are responsible for this spiritual environment for our children. And for those of you that are not parents, you have the opportunity to pray for parents in this incredibly great responsibility in their life. What does it mean to provide the right environment? Paul talks about two specific directions that this nurture is going to take. He talks about the training of the Lord and the teaching of the Lord. The training of the Lord is knowing how God wants me to live life. And that means that I have as a parent primary responsibility for showing my child how to live out God's purposes in their life, his life or her life, how to be a member of God's family, how to mature in their faith, how to minister to others, how to have a mission in the world, how to magnify God. Yes, they'll learn some of that at church. Yes, they'll learn some of that at school, maybe if they have Christians that are around them at school. Yes, they may learn some of that in a small group situation. But as a parent, I have the primary responsibility for showing that to them. I bring them up in the training of the Lord. That might mean me teaching it to them. That might mean me getting them to places where it can be taught to them. And I also bring them up in the teaching of the Lord. When you think about the teaching of the Lord, children may learn Bible stories and Bible truths and Bible verses in Sunday school, but it's at home that they learn Christ-like love and godly attitudes and Christian living. If you're like me, it's easy to get a case of feeling guilty when it comes to your kids because it's such a great responsibility. And we are so human and so imperfect. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. Well, let me remind you of where we started all of this. All of these relationships we've been talking about the last few days, they all grow out of the filling of God's Spirit. If I'm going to be unselfish in my relationships, I need God's Spirit in my life. And with God's Spirit, with God's strength, depending on him, families can change. I can change. Your family does not have to be determined by how you were raised, not if you're filled with God's Spirit. It doesn't have to be governed by how it's been, not if you are filled with God's Spirit. You can lean on him for unselfishness. Your family doesn't have to be limited to what it is now, not if you're filled with God's Spirit. Your family can be released to fulfill the God-given dreams that are in your mind when you're filled with God's Spirit. So right now, as we end this look today at children and parents, I want to pray for parents. Lord, I pray for every parent listening to this, and we together pray for parents that we know. God, give them strength. Give them strength to bring up their children in the nurture of the training and the teaching of the Lord. Lord, they need your strength. The days get long sometimes, and I pray that, Lord, as they lean on you, there would be daily encouragement in the little things. They'd be able to see that there is progress, there is growth happening. I pray that when the imperfections in their own children's lives come out, they'd remember that they're not perfect either. And I pray, Jesus Christ, that I pray that these parents would know that you love them and that leaning on your love, you'd give them the strength to be in any and every circumstance, any and every situation, to be the parent that loves as you would love, that expresses your love in that situation. I pray particularly for those who are facing heartaches right now with their children. Give them the strength to do that, Jesus, to lean on you and to love even in difficult days. And I pray for all of us as parents that, Jesus, we would take joy in you as we recognize your love for us. Pray this in your name, amen. Join us tomorrow. We're going to be looking at verses 5 to 9 and talking about how the Holy Spirit impacts your daily work life.