Joshua and Judges: Crossing the Jordan - Obeying God's delegated authority, part 9. Jos 1:16-18; Eph 6:1-4.
length: 64:01 - taught on Aug, 27 2015
Class Outline:
Title: Joshua and Judges: Crossing the Jordan - Obeying God's delegated authority, part 9. JOS 1:16-18; EPH 6:1-4.
Announcementsopening prayer:
Delegated authority #3: Parents over the children.
Every parent must take the principles stated in the scripture regarding their role and the role of their children in God's order and decide for themselves how they are going to raise their children, the type of discipline, the boundaries set for the children, etc. There is no one parenting style but there is one order that is God's order. No pastor or relative or friend can impede upon the right of the parent to raise their children any more than someone can poke their nose into someone's marriage. Every child is different and many situations are different. The parent is not to exasperate their children and they are to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The child is to obey the parents. It is up to the Christian parent, through their own understanding of the way of the Lord, to fill in the details.
No believer, when standing before Jesus Christ, will be able to hide behind their pastor or their church. We all stand before Him alone and responsible for our own decisions, good or bad, in life. There will be no one to blame. The pastor will do the same. If you believe he is not teaching the truth then it's time to find one that does. We are all believer priests and we each represent ourselves before God.
EPH 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
EPH 6:2 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise),
"Honor" - tima,w[timao] = to estimate, fix the value. To honor someone therefore, is to evaluate that person accurately and honestly, and treat him with the deference, respect, reverence, kindness, courtesy, and obedience which his station in life or his character demands.
We have just seen the cognate verb to this noun in:
1PE 3:7b grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
So much of Christianity is how we treat one another. Treat one another with honor.
The wise will inherit honor,
But fools display dishonor.
Can't estimate and fix a value…
"Riches and honor are with me [wisdom],
Enduring wealth and righteousness.
The word of God believed gives us the ability to evaluate and fix a value to all things.
The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom,
And before honor comes humility.
Humility leads to wisdom whereas arrogance leads to stupidity.
He who pursues righteousness and loyalty
Finds life, righteousness and honor.
Loyalty to God's righteousness, and continual pursuance of them, leads to life, experiential righteousness, and the ability to evaluate all things and fix a value.
Like snow in summer and like rain in harvest,
So honor is not fitting for a fool.
A man's pride will bring him low,
But a humble spirit will obtain honor.
There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Honor comes to the believer who performs God's good because the value fixed to divine fruit is very high.
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.
and those members of the body, which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor
For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.
Let all who are under the yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our doctrine may not be spoken against.
Honor all men; love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.
You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
EPH 6:2 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise),
"Honor" - tima,w[timao] = to estimate, fix the value. To honor someone therefore, is to evaluate that person accurately and honestly, and treat him with the deference, respect, reverence, kindness, courtesy, and obedience which his station in life or his character demands.
So then the child must recognize the authority of his parents from understanding the value of parents. They must be taught this by the parents themselves. Many children are raised to only see their parents as meal tickets and ATM machines. It is a most terrible abuse to give a child that idea so that his evaluation of his parents contains no respect or gratitude. And while it is difficult to get a child to understand these things it is not impossible. It takes perseverance and cunning. The parent is smarter and stronger - God has given that advantage to the parent for a full 20ish years, which is unseen in the animal kingdom. At their level, whatever age that is, they can have some understanding of the importance of their parents to their own prosperity, which is the promise in verse three.
Obedience is the duty; honor is the disposition of which the obedience is born. Honor is coming to understand deference, respect, reverence, kindness, courtesy, and obedience.
There is an order to everything in God's universe. We see it in the laws of nature - beautiful harmony, movement, and consistency. What Satan has attempted to do is to pervert and dismantle this order. The Greek word for order is kosmos. God's kosmos is perfect order while Satan's kosmos is an attempt at his own order, borrowing from God's order, but perverting it to feed his own desires and by doing so he has fully infected the world with evil opposition to God's order. Yet God's order is still here and always will be. It is found in His word and Spirit, the convicter and restrainer of the world. It is found in His positive believers who love His word and in His positive churches. It is found in families that obey His word. And so there is always a remnant of it upon the earth.
In the family God's order is the husband who loves his wife as Christ loves the church, and the wife who submits to her husband as the church does to Christ, and the children who obey their parents in the Lord. This unit thrives, as do all things in God's order, and has substantial impact on their surroundings.
The present attack against children in our country is to destroy their identity. On the heels of the progressive cry that there is no truth has come the absurd declaration that there is no defined marriage of man and woman or that there is any gender, or that there is any defined order to the sexual relationship. Children are left alone to figure out their own identities and their own definition of right and wrong and this is heralded as freedom. Parents who buy into this evil nonsense are committing child abuse in a deep psychological way.
EPH 6:2 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise),
EPH 6:3 that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.
Paul quotes the fifth commandment from the Mosaic Law which will always apply in God's order, no matter which dispensation his children are in.
'Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you.
"be well with you" - soul prosperity, happiness, and virtue.
"live long" - an enriched and long life.
When children obey their parents in the Lord, they will escape a good deal of sin and danger and thus avoid the things that could threaten or shorten their lives.
This doesn't mean that they'll live to 200, but that they have a far greater chance to escape a good deal of sin and danger which makes for a short life, as in criminal activity, drug and alcohol addiction, laziness, wastefulness, psychosis, etc. Study after study is done on mortality rates in the US and there are many factors such as genetics, diet, exercise, smoking, etc. but one stat that stands out clearly is the low age expectancy of those living in crime riddled inner cities.
But life is not measured only by quantity of time. It is also measured by quality of experience. God enriches the life of the obedient child no matter how long he may live on the earth.
Sin always robs us; obedience always enriches us.
Obedience to parents is connected with virtuous habits that are conducive to long life. It will make a child industrious, temperate, sober; it will lead him to restrain and govern his wild passions; it will lead him to form habits of self-government which will in future life save him from the snares of vice and temptation.
EPH 6:4 And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
"provoke" - parorgi,zw[parorgizo] = to rouse to wrath, to provoke, exasperate, or anger. To make it hard to obey because of injustice and severity.
Like the husband can in love make it easier for his wife to follow him, so the parents can make it easier to obey through the rule of love. Ruling through severity and injustice is tyranny. While the child is still obligated before God to obey such a parent, such a parent cannot claim to love their children in the way that God love him. God rules and yet sacrifices.
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