Parents and Children

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The last few weeks we’ve been on a marriage or a series called Once Upon a Marriage. It’s obviously a marriage series, a actually a family series, looking into what God has for us in marriage and establishing what God has set up as the ideal in marriage, and then dealing with the reality that the ideal that God has for us in marriage is often far off. That the reality of our marriage is are far from sometimes and often far from the ideal of what God desires. And so these last few weeks, we’ve been going and diving into Ephesians chapter five and six. If you have a Bible with you this morning, I encourage you to open up your word to Ephesians five and of five. And we’re going to be into chapter six today. We also will have the verses on the screen for you if you desire to do that as well. But here there is where Paul, the apostle Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus, and he, um, declares under the submission the Christian Living section of that letter, he starts delving into the family and marriage and children and what that’s supposed to look like, what God’s ideal is for that. And he calls us to that. And so the last few weeks, we’ve covered husbands love your wives. That’s what God is calling us to do have self-sacrificial love or selfless, sacrificial love to our wives and lay down our lives for them in serving them and and nurturing them, and providing an atmosphere in our homes in which the Lord and the Holy Spirit is welcome and and people can thrive.

Our family members, our children, and our wives can thrive, um, in the gospel, in the midst of our homes. And then secondly, Nathaniel touched on last week, wives, submit to your husbands the importance of the roles that God has established in marriage and how, just as God is a triune God and they’re co-equal, all three persons are co-equal with one another. There’s a role that each one plays, and submission is part of that. And so that is a key and instrumental in the institution of marriage that God has established for us to understand the roles that are being played and understand that submission is not the ugly word that society has redefined it to be today. But yet it’s a beautiful thing in light of the gospel and of God. And then this morning, we’re going to cover the last two points here. Children, obey your parents. I teach the ten and 11 year olds, and I emailed Richie, he’s the leader over the Sunday school. And I said, hey, can we keep the ten and 11 year olds in second service? I want to teach to them here. And so I can tell him, you need to obey your parents. Right. And we’re going to be touching on that today. And we’re also touching on parents. Don’t crush your kids.

And that’s all found in Scripture. And we’re going to be delving into those things. And before we do, I just want to touch on this thing here, this kind of a recap of what Paul’s doing. We’re diving into Ephesians chapter five, and he declares in verse 25, husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. And a couple of weeks ago we went over what the church is. There’s lots of definitions of what the church is. And so we went back and defined the terms that Paul was using, which is the called out ones, those who hear the gospel message that Christ died for them. And if they turn from whatever they’re placing their faith in to get them to a relationship with their creator, if they turn from that and just trust in Jesus Christ accomplished vicarious, sacrificial work alone, they will be saved. And that’s the gospel message, and that’s what it’s all about. And those who believe and trust in that message are added to the body, which is the the word church is the ecclesia, the called out ones that are called out from the world because they’ve heard the gospel message. In Christ comes vicarious work that allows them to be called out from the world, out, as Ephesians two says, becoming out of the children of wrath and into the gospel of light. They are adopted into God’s family and all those every tribe, nation, and tongue who hear that gospel message and turn from what they’re practicing and cling to the cross of Christ, are added to the church.

And that’s the church that Christ has died for. And that’s what Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is calling husbands to do for their families to lay their lives down, for their wives and for their children. He goes on to say, for no one ever hates his own flesh, but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, since we are members of his body. And then he quotes this Old Testament verse back in Genesis 224. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. I just want to touch on this briefly. Nathaniel brought up a great point last week about, uh, what the society and the culture in which Paul was speaking to about how, even as today, society would call submission to husbands as an ugly thing. It was the same back in those days. It was a time in which women had no rights. And I have this commentary here by James Montgomery Boice. I just want to read a few of the passages. He’s talking about the what it was like for those people, those of that society at that time. And he first he talks about the Jewish people. Remember where he’s quoting the Old Testament here.

So you would think the Jewish people had a better idea of what marriage was all about. But at the time of Paul, this is what it looked like for the Jewish woman. She was not a person, but a thing. A woman had no legal rights whatever, and a wife could be dismissed at will. Moreover, a woman had no right of divorce, and a man could divorce simply by giving his wife a bill of divorcement. That is a simple written statement that he had divorced her, so she couldn’t. But he could do it at any time. And the result of that during this society was the result was the marriage was in peril. And in Judea, in Israel, in that area, those practicing Jews in that area. And Barclay, who’s another, um, theologian, that voice is quoting from notes that Jewish girls were refusing to marry at all because of their uncertain position. Why should I get married and be subject to the whims of some man? And so that’s what it looked like for them. And then Rome. Rome, you know, society claims back in the day the Roman Empire and their, uh, great enlightenment and their, their, their, their great gains in knowledge and reason and, you know, divorcing themselves of the supernatural and the other worldly things and instead using one’s mind and all these noble things that these noble men can do to, to gain reason and, and define their presuppositions of life, who they are and what they are for and what they’re made of.

And then this great thing that history and culture declares this great, marvelous thing of the Roman culture, being able to use mind and reasoning. This is what it was like for those the women that were in that society. And what of Rome? Rome was the sewer of the ancient world. For the first 500 years of the Republic, divorce was unheard of. But at the time of Paul, women were married to be divorced and divorced to be married. Marital. Uh. Martel tells of a woman who had ten husbands. Juvenile. These are all historians of the time, uh, tells of one who had eight husbands and five years. Jerome tells of the Roman. Um. Jerome tells of the Roman matron who was married to her 23rd husband, and she was his 21st wife. Sexual perversion was rampant and widespread. Then he goes on to quote Barclay again, this theologian, he says. Barclay says it was against this background that Paul writes, When Paul wrote this most lovely passage, he was not simply restating the view that every man held. In fact, it was contrary to the view that every man held. He was calling men and women to a new fidelity and a new purity, and a new fellowship in the married life, um, because of the gospel of Christ. And Boyce goes on to say, so that’s kind of the the background, the culture in which Paul is writing this.

Boyce goes on to say his point was Berkeley was right in some ways, but he was wrong in another because it wasn’t a new fidelity that he was calling them to. It was established from the beginning. This fidelity and this high view of marriage was established at the beginning of time. Paul wasn’t calling them to a new, um, elevated relationship and marriage. He was recalling them to what God had already established co-equality and marriage submission to one another in marriage. These are the things in which God had established. And just as in Paul’s time, society can take these beautiful things that God has established and declare them and redefine them to be whatever. Children of this time were born, and the Roman husband were to come into the room and see the baby. He would inspect the baby, and if he didn’t like the baby, he would just turn his back on him and walk away. And that baby was discarded. It wasn’t God’s design for marriage. And so my point is, is that it doesn’t matter what society is doing. Just back, as in the day of Paul, society had things really massively wrong is their view and definition of what it meant to be married and have children. But he was calling the people of the way, the people of Jesus Christ, the believers, the members of the church. He was calling them back to live the higher principles of marriage that God had established, the living out, the high standard that God has established in face of what society around them was telling them.

That’s an amazing thing, and that’s what we’re called to do. The scriptures were preserved and the Holy Spirit is, you know, preserved God’s Word for us. And then we can look into that. And we could see that those who are of the way, who are following Christ, or are members of the Christ’s body, need to go back and be recalled to the higher ways of living. You know, I’m taking a world history course for my degree that I’ve yet to graduate with online, but it’s been fascinating. It’s, um, I just, I it saddens it saddens me greatly, actually. You see the history and you see just all this history of mankind fighting one another and murdering one another in the name of God and the name of progress and the name of humanity, all these different things, um, people just being incessantly mean and and callous and, you know, unfriendly and just genocide, all these things happening. And it just saddens me because we see and understand through the principles found in God’s Word that it certainly wasn’t God’s intention. And it can be overwhelming because we see today, despite our scientific progress, despite all these technology gains that society has had and the reason and all these things that we so acclaim, genocide is happening around this world. Sexual slave trade is just amazingly out of control in other parts of the of the world, all these different things.

And it can become overwhelming because we know that’s not what God is, desire for his creation. And we can say to ourselves, well, you can’t really do anything. It just kind of seems like our sphere of influence is only so big. But we can do something. We can do something. We do have a sphere of influence. God is calling us back to living our lives out in a way that honors him. He’s calling us back in our marriages to this higher principle, to, uh, live our love, our wives, and to serve our families in a way that honors God and worships him. And that is what we can do. Our sphere of influence is large and great, and in the midst of our families, and as children or people of the way, that’s what God’s calling us to do. To start right now in whatever’s wrong with the marriage, is to turn to God and and begin to bridge the gap from the ideal to the real and allow his grace to do a work in our in the midst of our homes and of our hearts first and in our homes, so that he might be glorified. That’s what we can do. We can live for God. And it doesn’t matter what society is saying around us, we have the ideal preserved to us in the in the word, and we can attempt to live it out by the grace and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that’s ultimately what it is. Verse 32 there says, this mystery is profound, but I’m talking about Christ in the church. So a mystery, a mystery is something, a truth that has been concealed in the Old Testament times and through the progression of history and God’s progressive revelation, he starts in the creation. And revelation is the end. We we know the entire story of God’s progressive plan of salvation. For the world. It’s been completed and we see this mystery. Paul has declares five different mysteries in the New Testament in his writings, and this is one of them, a truth that has was concealed in the Old Testament times, but has now been revealed in the new. And that is this profound mystery that I’m talking about Christ and the church. And so what he’s saying is, is this marriage, that this institution of marriage is really a physical representation of what Christ and the church is to look like. Christ is the head of the church. He gave his life for the church. And as we embrace that wonderful truth that God has saved us, that we had no means to restore our relationship with God through our own works. But Jesus did it for us. And as we understand that, we go to him and we submit ourselves to him willingly. And that’s what our marriage is supposed to look like to the society around us.

As we see this view of what marriage is, as it has been established as a physical demonstration of Christ in His church, that as we look to to God to help us to lay our lives down for our wives, and we the wives, look to God and Jesus to help them submit and play the role that he’s called them to. The world around us is able to see this wonderful mystery of what Christ has done for the church, and that’s what he’s called us to. That’s what we can do. And it’s not just husband and wife from the husband and wife, the two shall become one flesh, and we have children as a result of them. And so they’re part of the family unit in such an important part. And so Paul addresses this, and this is where I’m going to be today, focusing on today. He says in Ephesians chapter six, children, are you obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise. So that’s great right? So like my default phrase for my kids is, hey, Jesus wants you to obey me. Right. Try to guilt him into it. Children, obey your parents in the Lord because it is right. Honor your father and mother. Which is the first commandment with a promise. And so he’s calling the children to play a part and play a role in this institution of marriage and family that God has established.

And he’s establishing what their role in this family is, and that is to obey their parents and to honor them. And Paul goes back again to the Old Testament and declares and reinterprets the the promise that was given when God first gave Moses these commandments. Honor your father and mother, that it may go well with you, and that you may have a long life in the land. It’s the promise, and that’s what he’s trying to emphasize to the children, um, that are in, in the church. And if you don’t know, the Old Testament, the promise was God called the people, and he the people of the Jewish people or the people of Israel. And he promised them this land, this promised land in the Old Testament. And it’s going to be full of milk and honey, and it’s a blessing. And God says, I’m going to do it, and I’ve chosen you because you are the kind of the most pitiful people, all the different civilizations. And so I’m going to use you to glorify myself and just demonstrate my power, and I’m going to give you this land of promise. And so the Old Testament chronicles the the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt to this promised land and their their disobedience, causing them to wander in the desert for 40 years. And Moses is unable to enter into the Promised Land because of his disobedience.

But it comes to Deuteronomy here. Deuteronomy is my favorite book because it talks about this time when the 40 years is up and God is actually going to fulfill his promise and let his people go across the River Jordan into the Promised Land. And so Paul’s or God’s telling Moses, okay, it’s time you got to get your people ready. And so Deuteronomy, the first few chapters, Moses is re going over what needs to happen in order for them to have blessing in the land that has been promised to him. And this is kind of where Paul is talking about here in Ephesians chapter six, about this promise of having a long life just to give you the the context and the background of what Paul’s talking about. And so before they go into the Promised Land, Moses is telling them, you need to make sure people are orienting themselves and their families towards God and press these words of mine on your hearts and souls. Bind them as a sign on your hands, and let them be a symbol on your foreheads. And then look at here. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. It’s to be just a constant thing in our lives, in our homes. Write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates, so that as long as the heavens are above the earth, your days and those of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers.

And so that’s the idea. But we need to be careful. We understand that the New Testament has revealed that God’s law and moral law, and disobeying and obeying was a means, according to the book of Galatians and elsewhere, that was a means to tell us and to show us, and to demonstrate to us that we can’t keep God’s law, that because of sin we are imperfect. And the children of Israel are the prime example for that. They couldn’t. No matter how hard they tried or how long they would do good for a while, but they would always fail in keeping the commandments of God. And so the New Testament progressively reveals that, hey, guess what the good news is that Jesus came and lived that perfect life and fulfilled the law perfectly for you on your behalf. And he did that so that he might go to the cross and be the spotless Lamb of God to die for your sins on your behalf. And because of that, you’re able to have relationship and reconciliation and restoration with our Lord and with God and eternity in heaven with him. And that’s an amazing thing. And that’s the gospel. And that’s the complete picture of what God has demonstrated in his total revelation that we can’t keep God’s law, that we are imperfect, that Christ loved us and did it for us, and that we must believe and trust in him, be added into his church, and then as a means in which we can worship our God and demonstration of Him and His power and might, we can fulfill attempt to fulfill the ideals that are given in Scripture as a means of worship towards them.

And that’s what it’s all about. And so it is the same with us. This idea of a promise is the same. It’s this idea that Paul has given us a picture of protection. Kids, I promise you, we’re not here as your parents just to be your killjoy and to make everything miserable in your life. God has given us, given the people over you as a means of protection for you. He’s giving you parents in the midst of the church that can show you the reason in which you are to orient your life towards the Lord and towards the gospel. It’s there. He’s given that to protect you, not to be the killjoy. Um, and so that’s what it’s all about, is understanding what God has done and that I’m kind of lost my train of thought here. So I’m trying to catch up. But anyway, moving on. So children don’t crush your or don’t crush your children as the next point. Ephesians six through four says, and fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

All right. So he’s called the the children to be back to the original intention and the ideal of family. Obey and honor your parents. But then he’s quick to make sure and tell us as parents that word fathers in the Greek can be is also used as parents in some times, and so some translations even use the word parents there. And parents don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. And then he has a parallel verse there in Colossians three fathers, do not exasperate your children so that you they will not lose heart. And so that’s back towards us as parents. How are we supposed to demonstrate this gospel message in our lives, how it’s supposed to be prevalent in our homes? Well, the first thing is he’s telling us to do is don’t provoke him to anger. Don’t stir them up. Don’t exasperate your children. What does that mean? Well, I can mean a number of different things depending on where you’re at and your and your families are at. What’s exasperates? My children may not exasperate yours and vice versa, but let me give you an illustration, an analogy out of my own life that I think might help. So when I was in high school, we had a river called the Kern River. It’s a renowned whitewater rafting river.

There’s 50 miles of just wonderful whitewater that you can raft on. And so growing up, my older brother, who was four years older than me, he was able to be a river guide and man, I wanted to be a river guide, too, just like my older brother. Right? And so at the age of 15, which was the youngest you could do, I started this this, uh, working for this company, uh, rafting company. And they just started me off on the small stuff and just taking my kids on a one hour run down the or taking different kids on, you know, you meet at the park a load a bunch of kids and families up, and you take them an hour up the road, and then you’d get in a raft and you’d raft down and you would just do that all day. And it was really small rapids. It was no big deal. But I wanted to get to the big stuff. Not the real Whitewater, big, big time happening rapids. I couldn’t do that until I was 16. So when I was 16 and I just poured myself into training and and how you do that, you would just jump in the back of the boat with an experienced guide, and they would show you how to get through the big class four and five rapids, how you can do that and maneuver and and so the more time I spent back there, I understood the, the, where I needed to be.

And so they got to the point and said, well, we think you’re good enough kinda to, you know, get people paying people into a boat and get them down those rapids. And so they were able to let me do those big class four and five rapids at the age of 16. And I, you know, for the most part, could get people through most times without letting them follow the boat, but not all the time. Um, but I had a problem. And that was, you’ll see here in this picture that I’m showing you the rapids were not a problem because I had to memorize a new where I needed to be. But during between those rapids, there’s these long, like, sometimes miles long, of just flat water that you had to paddle through. And we’d do a 2 or 3 day extended day trips, whitewater rafting. And there was a lot of fun, but you had all your gear and sleeping gear, and so your boats were heavy. And what I didn’t understand was as I’d get through the rapid and I’d pick everybody up, they’d fallen out or whatever, collect all the gear. But during these long flat spots, I’d look out and I’d say, well, I need to get there. And so the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So I’d orient my boat and I’d go forward, paddle and we’d start paddling and just digging.

And they’re just struggling, you know, to get through the, the flat waters. And the amazing thing is that there would be a boat right next to me and they’re floating. They’re probably going as fast or faster than me, but they’re not paddling. But here’s my crew paddling. Just keep paddling. And so for these multi-day trips, I had my my crew paddling like the entire time. And they were just gassed. And at the end of these multi-day trips, like they’re the technical rapids, they were just they were done. They were just exhausted and they couldn’t get through the rapids, you know, without major carnage, because they had no energy to paddle with anymore. And the cool part about it was I thought it was going to be cool, was that we had world renowned rafters that were in our company. They’d go all over the globe to raft, and they were on documentaries and, you know, first descents down the Yangzi River in China. And so I looked up to these guys almost like father like figures. They were they were the cool guys. And I, I was able to be slotted in with them. And so I thought it was going to be great to be able to hang out with these great, amazing river rafters. But as time went, as it became evident very quickly that they would start looking at me and these flatwater and they’d see me just just wasting my crew of all these different paddling, and they would just shake their head and they’d tell me, you’re doing it wrong.

What do you mean I’m doing it wrong? Forward paddle. Let’s go. And it was two months of flat water killing my people. And you know, you’d get to the end of the trip and multi-day trips, and we’re cooking for them and all this stuff. And so people would come up and give you, like, really good tips. Well, my people would come up and expect a tip from me because I’ve worked them so hard. Right? It’s like, give me, give me your money. And so it was starting to affect and we’d pull all of our tips together. And so everyone would come up with all this money and I’d say I don’t have anything. And it started to affect their bottom line. And they started you’re doing it wrong. You’re doing it wrong. You’re working your people too hard. You’re doing it wrong. Okay, well, I’ll try better. I don’t know what to do. And it got to the point where a couple of months were going into it, and it was like a little inside joke for them. You know, it’s kind of a competitive arena. And like, there’s the guy that just gasses his people and he doesn’t know what he’s doing and rolling their eyes at us. They had all the knowledge in the world to help me, but all they could do is tell me you’re doing it wrong, right, and snip at me and, you know, make me do all the dishes because I.

What I’m doing right now. Everything to give me the knowledge and instruct me to be a better river guide than those calm spots. But they didn’t do it. All they could tell me was that they were doing it wrong, and I could see it, and I could see the little smirks. And what did that do? It began to build up bitterness and anger in my heart towards them. It begin to I begin to question myself and doubt myself and all those things that kind of spin out. And honestly, I must confess to you, that’s my default way of parenting. It’s the easiest way to parent. You see your kid, hey, you’re doing it wrong. You’re doing it wrong. You’re doing it wrong. Because that’s easy. It doesn’t require inner energy for me. I just get to tell them, hey, you’re messing up again. You’re doing it wrong. And that’s what I think Paul is trying to capture for us. It’s not about just telling them you’re doing it wrong. It’s about, as this verse says, training and instructing them in the Lord and the things of the Lord. One day my manager shows up, who actually happened to be my brother’s good friend from high school. He was the manager of this rafting company. He shows up and he says, I’m going to take this trip with you, and I’m going to be in the back of the boat with you.

I’m like, oh, I’m good, man. I, you know, I got the rapids down. And he’s like, no, it’s not about the rapids. I’ve heard something’s going on. And so I want to teach you a few things here. Wicked smart guy. He had a degree in hydrology. He was he was an amazing guy. And so he sat in the back of the boat with me, and he wanted to show me. Hey, you see this flat water here? What’s going on is you can’t really see it unless you really look. But some of the currents going downstream, because that’s the water just wants to flow. You have gravity and downhill flow. The easiest, the easiest course water is going to take you is, you know, in a certain direction. But as the curve of the bend of the river turns and goes this way, the water is going to sweep to the outside most times, but then the slack water fills in behind it. And so the currents going downstream on one side of the river, but the water on the other side of the river is either stagnant, not going anywhere, or actually going upstream. And that’s called an eddy. And I’m like, oh, he goes, so what’s you’re doing is, is you’re in an eddy and you’re wanting to go downstream and you think that’s the quickest way. So you just start forward paddling and you’re going through water that is not going that direction.

And so you’re laboring your people too much. And I’m like, so that’s why the boat next to me, that’s on the other side of this, this there’s called an eddy line where the water going downstream and the slack water meets and they have friction with one another, and there’s little whirlpools that are going down. And the people that are on this line side of the line are going downstream, not even under their own power. The current’s taking them. But here I am in this eddy water, just digging my people and wasting them, gassing them. And so he began to instruct me. He began to give me the knowledge in which I needed to be able to navigate and orient my boat. And it’s a it’s a way that my people wouldn’t have to work as hard, that they could paddle and have fun through the rapids and relax and enjoy themselves. River rafting on the calm spots. Catching the sun by the current takes us along. And so he gave me the knowledge that was needed. He took the time to instruct me in those ways, and that’s what God is asking us to do. It’s not about just correcting and telling our children you’re doing it wrong, but it’s taking the time to instruct them in the ways of the Lord. And that’s, I think, a good analogy of life. We find ourselves struggling and physically just fighting to get downriver, and we’re doing it in our own power and we’re just wasting ourselves and gassing ourselves.

But the gospel and being added into Christ’s church and the whole God, the spirit, and dwelling in the heart of the believer, and the means in which he’s given the church as tools to be able to, to, to navigate. As we do that, as we orient ourselves towards those things, towards God. Right. It’s God’s feelings. Being spirit filled is what takes us along in life, his power under his power and his strength. And I just want to close with this. You know, after I got that knowledge of what it was, being able to read currents and stuff, I began to go behind those guys that knew everything. And I was able to. Now that I knew what they were doing, I was able to model what they were doing. I’d tuck in right behind them, and if they had a little stroke here or a stroke there to re-orientate themselves, right, to make sure the boat stays in the current, then I would do it. They didn’t even know I was learning from them, but I was learning from them because I had the right knowledge now. And it’s like that with us as parents as well. Your children, our children are looking towards us and they’re seeing how we navigate life. They’re seeing what we do to orientate ourselves in our lives.

Are we doing the gospel disciplines? You know, I said two weeks ago, I say it again. And people almost like have a hesitation to roll their eyes. You know, God’s word and prayer and church and, you know, doing these things are so important to our spiritual life. But those are the means in which we do those quick strokes to orientate our our lives, to keep in the current and being filled with the spirit. And if we’re doing those things on a consistent basis, we can’t just let go and let God because we just float into an eddy and go nowhere. But if we do those things that God has given us as tools and orientate ourselves towards Jesus and the gospel, uh, God’s power and God’s strength demonstrates these fruits in our lives, and it’s an amazing thing. And so our children are watching us and they’re modeling us. What are we modeling for our children? In the home. Those are just some things. And so I have an outline for you. It’s not really an outline. It’s just it has four questions and it’s about the gospel. Remember it’s all about the gospel. It’s not about rule keeping or list keeping. It’s about them showing, showing our children that they need Jesus Christ because they can’t keep the list of rules. And so it’s about constantly demonstrating to them, coming alongside them, sitting in the back of their boat and saying, this is how we orientate ourselves to keep ourselves filled with the spirit and to demonstrate Christ’s, um, work in our lives.

And so it’s about the gospel. And so these questions that I’ve given you are gospel centered. Our children need to know. And each time we have an interaction with them, it’s actually a means in which we can draw our children closer to the Lord and to Jesus. If we take the time, not just say you’re doing it wrong, but actually instruct them and show them how to orientate our lives towards him. Sin. So all these different things. I don’t have time to go through each one of them, but I hope that you’ll take these home with you and ask those questions about sin and how how well do I relate to them in their sinful struggles with your children? Do you relate to them? Do you? Do you let them know that you sin too? Or you just say you’re doing it wrong, you’re sinning right and show them the gospel in that. That’s how we orientate our families and our homes in which to keep filled with the spirit, always with the the picture of the gospel in our minds. And so these questions are here for you to hopefully take home and meditate on, and maybe come up with your own that might help you and demonstrate, um, help you to, to to bring up your children in the training and instruction of the Lord and not just make them angry and bitter because they feel like a failure and they can’t do anything right.

Ohana