Dennis Tuuri

Wonderful song, wasn’t that we just sang. Praise God for these men who have without holding back translated all the psalms into song for us, providing us these great blessings from the historic church. Where I was sitting, I heard the voice of an angel behind me—whether it be a mother or daughter, I don’t know. Praise God for the ability he gives us to breathe forth song and to praise him in that song.

Today’s sermon scripture is found in Ephesians 6:1-4. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Ephesians 6:1-4: Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth. And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for its clearness, its sureness, its infallibility, its command to us. We thank you that it is always a sure and relevant word to us. Help us, Father, by your Holy Spirit to have this word written upon our hearts that we might be transformed and go from glory to glory in the power of the Savior. In his name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. Well, I must have some Irish blood in me doing this backward thing of talking about fathers on Mother’s Day.

But it’s an unusual Mother’s Day, is it not? It’s a Mother’s Day of guns and roses. This holiday, which I believe was started by Hallmark for commercial purposes, has now evolved into what we see in our nation where the voice of the state is the voice of God. The state is in conflict over whether we should have guns or not. So women on both sides march and the day is now marked by political activity of various dimensions.

I think what I will say today, while not directed to mothers, is probably—as I was telling one of you earlier—probably the greatest gift I could give to mothers on this day. If children and fathers fulfill this commandment, it will be a tremendous blessing to every mother in this congregation. It’s a blessing to mothers across the world when children honor their parents and when fathers take their covenantal responsibility to make sure their children walk in the way of the Lord.

Today is a day of death and resurrection. And I suppose that when we try to grab after the fruit of the cross without going through the cross, it becomes idolatry. To us to seek after Mother’s Day and to exalt it over the Lord’s day is to lose mother and the honor due to mothers. And so this country, instead of mothers being honored, has mothers on the lines in Washington DC and in Portland marching. But we believe in the resurrection and God will resurrect this day for us and make it a day of blessing as we see it as the Lord’s day first and foremost.

And the responsibilities of this day go to the children to honor their parents, and of course that means honoring their mothers. And so this day is important.

This first verse we read is a direct statement to children of the church. Listen to me now. Suppose today this roof opened up, cracks opened when the word is read, Ephesians 6 verse one to you. The Lord Jesus Christ comes down on his glory cloud of flame and fire surrounded by his ministering spirits who are a flame and a fire going forth from his throne. He comes here today and gets so close to you that you can hear him certainly and you can actually feel his sweet breath on your face. And our Savior was to tell you something directly, looking right at you, so close that as he whispers in your ear this command you feel his breath.

The scriptures say that the Bible is inspired. Scriptures are inspired by God. What that means is they are God breathed. It is as if when you hear the scriptures said to you, that very thing—that the breath of God springs forth from that word and strikes you and embraces you and brings you the breath of life, gives you life in Christ our Savior. The scriptures are God breathed, inspired by God.

And today, children, that remarkable event—that if it occurred, you would certainly walk in obedience to whatever the Savior told you at that point, face to face, the flaming eyes, his countenance shining brighter than the sun. That word comes out that is God’s breath embracing it. But you know it is a sharp two-edged sword. And you know that if you disobey it, he will strike you dead. Well, that’s what God says to you today.

This verse specifically is given to the children of the church. God does speak to you today and we shall attempt in the context of this sermon to make sure you understand. Children, that this is a sermon very much based upon God’s word to you directly in the context of this church.

Now, let’s place this commandment, children, in its proper context in the book of Ephesians. Elder Mayhardt brought us a good sermon last week based on Ephesians 4. Probably many of you know that Ephesians is the book that sort of sets the tone for Credenda Agenda, the publication by the good men in Moscow, Idaho. Ephesians is structured very explicitly in two halves. Chapters 1 through 3 discuss credenda, what we are to believe, creedal formulations.

And chapters 4 through 6 apply that faith in an agenda, a list of things for us to do. In our New Testament survey class this last week, our children—the young men and women in that class—should know that the theme statement for Ephesians is body building through credenda and agenda. Paul is building up the church at Ephesus and he does it by means of this explicit structure of the book: what we are to believe and then what we are to do.

This is seen very markedly at the end of chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4. Chapter 3 ends with verses 20 and 21:

Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. To him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Ending this first half, the credenda, with this wonderful moving doxological statement: To him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus. And then immediately turning in chapter 4 verse 1 to the agenda:

I therefore, on the basis of what I have taught you in the first three chapters of this epistle, the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling which you were called with all lowliness and gentleness and longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

He addresses at the first of this list of agenda the need to walk worthy as a header for the rest of these three chapters. What are we to do on the basis of this faith, and the one who comes to us today and whispers and yet shouts in our ear to obey him? Children, what are we to do?

Well, the scriptures say we’re to keep the unity that God has purchased with his Spirit. I’ve given you here—just because Elder Mayhardt was talking about this last week—it came to me that there are seven ones here in this opening section of chapter 4. It seems like when we see a heptarous, a sevenfold structure, sometimes it’s chiastic. Sometimes it has this form, and it certainly seems like this one does.

We’ve got one body matching with one Father on your outline—the Father of that body, the God and Father of the body which is the church. We have one Spirit connecting with the one baptism, the baptism we receive. The junction of the Spirit comes to us in relationship, at least in the biblical terminology, in relationship to our baptism in the Spirit. One hope of our calling matching with one faith. And I’ve given you some scriptures there. Some of those scriptures, of course, talk about faith, hope, and love. Others talk about faith and hope being joined together in terms of the biblical truths of these great elements of the faith. And we find at the middle of this chiastic heptarous structure: one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians is about the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is about the reconciliation of all things in the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the basis of what he has accomplished on the cross. We are to see our lives transformed that we might indeed see the reformation, the transformation of authority under the one Lord Jesus Christ.

Now if we think in terms of faith, hope and love, we would see love then in the middle of this as well. And that is the basis for the means which Paul calls forth this agenda of things for us to do. It is our love for this Lord Jesus Christ who is at the center of this book and is to be at the center of the Christian home. And is to be seen explicitly now in this section of Ephesians chapter 6 in terms of relationships of children to parents, wives to husbands, servants to masters.

The restoration of all things in Christ includes the restoration of proper authority in the family and in the workplace and in all areas to the end that God the Father of all might be seen and acknowledged above all and through all and in you all.

So the context of this command that is directly to you children is the supremacy of Christ. It is him who calls to you today. It is him who breathes forth to you his God inspired word to transform you or to slay you in terms of your response to this word.

And so we come today to the Lord who is our love. And in our love, we come to a discussion of what we should do in terms of our families that will make indeed an honorable Mother’s Day being formed on the basis of this—being this Lord’s day who calls us and commands us today.

Let’s speak about seven things relative to this command to the child that we are given here in this passage of scripture. The command seems straightforward and it is, but there are implications to it that you may not have thought of.

The commandment explicitly tells children: obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the face of the earth.

**First: Children in Christian Homes are to be Nurtured, Not Evangelized**

This command to children demonstrates that our children in Christian homes are to be nurtured and not evangelized. Now, before you bring up mental reservations about what I have just said, I suppose that nurture is evangelization. When we bring the word to our children, it is the good news of the reign of the Savior who commands us in this way. But here I use a common phrase. In other words, we don’t raise our children assuming that they’re pagans, assuming that they’re outside of the bond of Christ, assuming that they need to be evangelized.

No, the scriptures here address the saints at Ephesus in a direct command to children. Children who are young enough not to be designated young men as they are in First John, but rather lumped together—children, boys and girls. Children who are young enough to where they’re obeying their parents and not simply honoring them. That’s an application of the command. Once you have come to adulthood and established your own home, you’re still a child, but you’re no longer under the obedience to your parents. Your honor takes on a different form.

So the statement here is to young children. And yet these young children are given nurture statements, not statements of evangelization.

I think the scriptures plainly tell us from one end of the scriptures to the other, from Genesis to Revelation, that our children are to be raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, assuming their place by God and his sovereignty in our homes as we bring them into the context of the church and thus address them as children of the covenant.

Again, in Colossians 3, children are addressed directly. There’s a parallel statement in Colossians 3:20 and 21:

Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.

Children are to obey their parents. In Colossians, directly addressed like you’re directly addressed today. And the book of Colossians is again written to the saints. And Colossians also speaks about how they were buried with Christ in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God.

Children are addressed as those who have been baptized and by nature of their baptism have been added—which is what Ephesians says—you’re added to the roles of the church by baptism. All children in the church are to be seen as baptized. And these children are addressed as saints. They’re to come under the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They are not given the law here to drive them to Christ. They are given the law here because they have been grafted in to the visible body of Christ.

And the parents are to presuppose that these children will become regenerate in time as God works in the context of their lives. And I think this is the norm in the Christian church.

Abraham—it says in scripture in Genesis 18:19—that God has known Abraham in order that he may command his children in his household after him that they keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him.

Deuteronomy 6 tells us we’re to teach our children from their very youngest days all the commandments that God has given to us, that God our Lord is one—the great Shema. Children are to be raised in the context of Christian nurture to be seen normatively as part of the body of Christ. Now they may in their later years demonstrate that they were not regenerate, and at which point they’re to be warned and then excommunicated from the church.

But I would wager to say we’ve been having this church meet for what, 17 years. And the great majority of the children of this church have grown up faithful to the Lord. And we see the fruit now and will continue to see the fruit. And I wager to say that if we were to look over the last 2,000 years of the Christian church and we’re to take the way men’s lives turned out, whether their profession was real or not—given at Billy Graham crusades or evangelistic meetings—and weighed that proportion of men who ended up persevering to the end in the grace of God against the proportion of those children who persevere in the grace of God, I think that we would see that the profession of our children from their youngest days is indeed the normal way that God has given in his scriptures that people are to be saved.

The normal means for, I guess we could say, evangelism is the nurture of Christian children. We tend to think in terms of—because we live in a fallen state of the world at this particular point in time—that the kingdom will be manifested primarily through the preaching of the gospel to the pagans and seeing them converted. Well, there’s partly truth to that as we see in the missionary actions of Paul, etc. But it seems like the normal way that the kingdom grows is for the children of the church to be nurtured in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ from their youngest days and thus for the kingdom to be expanded by means of childbearing and faithful nurture of these children.

I believe that children normally then are to be seen in the context of the church as needing nurture and admonition, not evangelization of pagans.

It’s interesting if we look at the Psalms—the song book of the church of the Old Testament—yes, we all agree with that, right? These psalms were written to worship God in the context of the convocated host. How many songs do we have in the Psalter that are of the nature of, for instance, “And Can It Be?” that we sing on occasion? You know, John Newton—slave trader—comes to a conversion later in life and sings a song about that conversion. And we love to sing it. It’s a good song to sing. But do we find any psalms like that? No, I don’t think we find a one.

What we find instead in the Psalter is the normal worship of the church—for the people in the context of the church to sing as David did, that he had learned to trust God from upon his mother’s breast. From the earliest days of his life, before he knew who was the source of this nurture, God was bringing him to a trust and a reliance upon him. That’s the normal way, I think, that the scriptures give us in terms of childing. It is nurture, not evangelism.

Now, in context to this—to you parents—I think this radically affects the way we deal with our children.

Also in our New Testament survey class this week, we spoke about First Corinthians, the book of First Corinthians. And in this logos keyword learning system, their little theme for the book is “spanking the saints.” And we put onto that “spanking the saints through guarding the table” as a way to understand what First Corinthians is all about. It’s a correction to a church that was immoral. A man openly, braggedly sleeping with his mother-in-law. Drunkenness at the Lord’s table. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine this afternoon men swilling down so much wine that they become drunk at the table, drunk at the agape? And that they take a lot of food and a person next to them doesn’t have any food—going to go hungry?

Can you imagine that happening in this church? Of course not. This was not a church in good state. This was a church that needed correction. But listen to the way Paul addresses them in the first chapter of this epistle. He begins with this address—of course—and he addresses it in verse 2 to the church of God, affirming that they’re part of the church:

To those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

He doesn’t start off by saying, “You turkeys.” He says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus. I thank my God always concerning you.” This is remarkable if you understand what bad things are going on. Yet he writes to them:

I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus that you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you came short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the first nine verses, you have no hint that there’s a problem—not that you can’t know the problem. You can say, “Well, he’s setting it up—the day of the Lord’s coming to them. This God breathed word is going to whisper in their mouth and in their ear, rather, and shout to them and say, ‘I have the two-edged sword, you know, straighten up.’” But he addresses them as Christians. He addresses them by calling on them to recognize their sanctification, their being set apart, having heard the gospel of Christ and how God is at work in their midst.

And then in verse 10, he says:

Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you.

And he doesn’t there say he commands them. He says, “I plead with you that there be no divisions among you.”

Now, I think this is the way Christian nurture works. And in the seven letters to the seven churches, all but one—it’s the same way. Jesus says, “This is who I am. You’ve done great things in this area, but you have real need in this area.” And he tells us who he is in relationship to the need we have. And we’re to go to our children and correct them, but we’re to correct them as Christians.

Now, there comes a point if they rebel against Christ that we go to them the way Jesus went to the single church that had no good deeds left and warn them for one last time: “Repent or you’re it’s over.” But we don’t begin there. We begin with our children by appealing to their sanctification in the Lord.

It’s the basis for their baptism. They’ve been set apart by the sovereignty of God in election. You didn’t choose to put your children there. Children, you didn’t choose to live at this particular family. The sovereign God of all creation said, “I will place that child in a Christian home. And I want those parents to believe that in my sovereignty placing them there, that child should be given the waters of baptism, should be admitted to the church, should be trained how to worship the Lord Jesus Christ, should receive the sacrament of the Lord at the table, and thus receive grace as we feed on Christ in our hearts by faith. And that these children should be nurtured in the faith of the Lord and not assumed to be outside of the body of Christ.

Not because the parents are worth anything. It’s what circumcision is a picture of. Can’t do it by natural generation. But God in his sovereignty caused you, child, to be born to a Christian parent, and thus has set you apart.

And the Christian parents should sanctify their children in their hearts and recognize and appeal to them on the basis of their calling by the Lord Jesus Christ, on the basis of their sanctification, on the basis of whatever fruit they have borne. These Corinthians bore good fruit in terms of some of the gifts, and Paul starts there by appealing to them on the basis of what God has already done in their lives, and then brings the correction in a pleading, beseeching way to this church at Corinth, even though it is awful in its actions.

I believe that if we understand that the very simple fact that this commandment is given to children, that children are assumed to be able to walk in obedience to this commandment, is important. Is Paul trying to raise hypocrites? Is Paul trying to raise legalists who think that they can keep the law and thus attain salvation? Of course not. He’s appealing to them on the basis of that context of the first three chapters—the supremacy of Christ and what he has accomplished. And therefore he beseeches them to walk worthy of this calling.

And in terms of children, he addresses their specific need. But the fact that he addresses them tells us that the normal mechanism in the context of the Christian home is nurture, not evangelization of pagans.

**Second: Implications for You Children**

The very first word here is “children.” Jesus Christ addresses you today. He comes to you. He blows his sweet breath on your face. And he says, “Children, I’m expecting you to do some things today.”

Children, you’ve been marked by God. You know, kids like Buzz Lightyear—that movie. I talked about this a little bit in Poland as I talked about this same subject with universal language and movies. You’ve got this astronaut toy. He’s under an illusion that he is self-sufficient, that he’s got his own dreams in life, that he can fly and he’s from another planet and who knows what he thinks of himself. He’s delusional. And he’s marked by the boy Andy—that’s his name, Andy. Andy writes his name on the foot of Buzz Lightyear.

And Buzz Lightyear comes to a place in that movie where he realizes that he can’t fly, his dreams are shattered, his delusion of who he is are shattered. And then he looks at the mark—Andy’s name upon him. If I remember the movie correctly, he recognizes, “Oh, this is who I am. I’ve been created to serve Andy, not to fly off and be the savior of the world. No, I’ve been created in the context of authority structure. I’ve been created for Andy.”

Children, you’ve been baptized with the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Father and the Spirit. And you are marked by God. If you attempt to live your life in isolation from your Creator, your Redeemer, or your Owner, you’re going to be as foolish and delusional in your life as Buzz Lightyear, thinking you can do all kinds of things and called to save the world somehow. You’re not.

The Savior has come once and appeared to us. Now he calls you to himself. And he says, when he addresses you as children in this commandment, he says, “You are mine, children. I’m going to give you instructions.” And you know what? You will be more joyful in keeping those instructions than you ever would be as you try to fly off on your own autonomously.

You seek glory, life, knowledge apart from me, and it’s going to turn to sawdust in your mouth. The manna will rot. You’ll be turned over to darkness of mind, not to knowledge. You’ll have your face filled with shame instead of glory and weightiness. Children, the Lord Jesus Christ has marked you. He commands you today and he speaks to you as those who have been called in him to walk in terms of that profession, to do something here that’s a demonstration of what God has put in your hearts by his Spirit.

Children of the church, God has marked you with his name. That name will bring you into the joy of the Lord.

**Third: Paul Affirms the Validity of God’s Law**

Well, let’s talk a little bit about what this commandment is. The first thing we want to say is that Paul affirms with what he’s going to tell you, children, the validity of God’s law. Paul affirms the abiding or continuing validity of the law and this commandment.

Now, this is a New Testament epistle. So what’s Paul going to say to children? Is he going to say, “Well, you know, you’re under grace. Forget the law”? No. He starts at the very simplest of commands that can be given to humans, right? He’s going to give more complicated command to the fathers. But with children, you start simple—the A, B’s, and C’s. And what’s the foundation for the Christian walk that’s a proper response to the grace of Christ, his supremacy and his authority, him being the Lord we’re to love?

What’s the basic foundational block that Paul gives to you children? It’s the fifth commandment. It’s to honor your parents, to honor your father and mother.

Now, it’s phrased a little differently. It’s an application because to honor your parents is to give them honor and weight. It’s the same word for glory in the Old Testament, kabad. It means to have heaviness, to give them respect. This word for honor is specifically applied to young children here as obey.

When you’re young, living under your parents’ covenantal headship, the way you honor your parents is to obey what they say. See, it’s real simple. And Paul lays a foundation for the Christian walk. If these children were nurtured in the faith, the very first thing he addresses them with, specifically children, is to obey your parents, to honor your parents in the Lord.

Paul begins with a commandment. Parents, this means that this is what we’re supposed to teach our kids. The first thing we’re supposed to teach them as they start walking around is to obey us because we’re image bearers of God in terms of his authority, to obey us and to obey the law of God.

Our little children—five, six-year-old children here—what is the first commandment? What is the first and most important commandment? It’s to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Every child who is able to talk should know that commandment in this church. That’s the basic, the first commandment according to our Savior, the greatest commandment.

And then they should know that there’s a second like unto it: to love your neighbor as yourself, to love your brother and sister, to love your friends at church. They should know that from their earliest age that the law of God is so easily summarized in one commandment and a second like unto it.

And you children who are 8, 9, 10 years old, you should know the Ten Commandments because they flow. How do we love God and our neighbor? Well, we obey those Ten Commandments. And Paul is telling you here, children, that you obey those commandments. And the first of the application commandments is to obey your parents. You should know those Ten Commandments.

And you older children, you teenagers, you should know what I preached about this last year and a half—can’t maybe recite the law of the covenant, but you should know the flow of it. I mean, if they explain the Ten Commandments, the law of the covenant, which they do, then we should know how to meditate on those Ten Commandments, which are themselves a meditation on how to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and meditate in terms of their application.

You should know the way that, at least I’ve correctly given you, as a good summary of that law of the covenant. If you’re a citizen of America, it’s easy. You know, every man’s entitled to what? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Remember that in terms of the law of the covenant, it’s liberty first. Liberty is tied to vocation. Remember, you don’t kidnap somebody because he can’t do his job. According to Deuteronomy, you should know that liberty is in terms of vocation and calling. You teenagers—that’s what your freedom is all about, that you might work in terms of vocation under the liberty of God’s law.

And you know that you’re to expand and protect and defend and not harm life. Another central element of that law of the covenant. And then the pursuit of happiness—which you’ll remember, if you remember my sermons or if you know your American history, that Jefferson changed the phrase “pursuit of property” to “happiness.” Correctly, sounds bad, but it’s really correct because it’s property seen in the context of community that brings us blessedness or happiness.

And so there’s lots of those laws in Exodus 21-23 that had to do with property—property in the context of community, happiness, and then the context of the Christian family and then finally the festival seasons at the end of the law of the covenant.

Teenagers, you should know this stuff. You should know this central part that kind of regurgitates, remediates on the law of Christ, the Ten Commandments, and tells us what they mean in the context of our lives. You should probably read Leviticus 19 occasionally. Here, again, at the center of the Pentateuchal section, the opening of the Bible, we have the center book is Leviticus. The center of Leviticus are 70 commandments that are again a meditation, a regurgitation, a thinking through and applying the commandments of God in the context of our lives.

Now, you’ve got to recognize that there’s a particular point in redemptive history that’s being discussed there, but you’re mature enough at 16, 18, 20 years of age to understand that stuff. And God expects you to be chewing it over, meditating on the commandments of God.

Children, God expects you to know—you little ones—the first and great commandment. If you don’t know it, ask mom and dad today, “Teach it to me.” And as you get older, you should know the Ten Commandments. Ask them to teach it to you. And as you get older, you should read your scriptures and at least on a regular basis examine the law of the covenant (Exodus 21-23) and Leviticus 19 to think about how you should live your lives in relationship to this Lord who is our Savior and who is to be the love of our life.

God wants you to know that he has called you—rather, called you—to a life of blessedness and that blessedness is seen in the context of the law of God.

**Fourth: Paul Affirms the Sanctions Portions of the Law**

Third, Paul affirms the sanctions portions of the law in this commandment. He affirms the sanctions portions. What do I mean? Well, he doesn’t just tell them to obey the law. He cites the rest of the law of that fifth commandment: to honor your parents because you’ll live long on the earth if you do this thing. So he brings into the commandment—in laying this foundation for who we are in Christ, laying this foundation of law—he puts law in the context of its sanctions, its blessings and curses, right?

So he affirms God’s sovereignty in election of these children to be called Christians. He affirms God’s law in his statement of the fifth commandment. And he affirms that God’s law has temporal blessings and cursings in the context of our lives. He affirms the sanctions portion of the law, that God is in the world judging, discerning, rewarding and punishing, blessing and cursing in relationship to his law. And so the world changes in relationship to that.

Now, the implications of the sanction portion is postmillennialism. Whether you like that technical term or not, it’s an optimistic view of the future. Because if the future is determined by a sovereign God who says that we’re to obey his law, and that if you obey or disobey, sanctions happen, then the sanctions leading to death and removal from the earth will produce eventually a whole world that ends up being blessed and praising his name.

Now, that’s a logical inference, I think, from the recitation here of Paul of the sanctions portion of this command.

Parents should put in front of children then two paths. I think one of the best things you can memorize in your home is Psalm 1 and Psalm 2. It’s the introduction to the whole Psalter. And it puts right in the opening psalm two paths our children should know. There’s a path of blessedness. And you go off that path, you go to the path of curse. Blessedness, curse, rewards, punishments. Good stuff, happiness, joy. Bad stuff, despair, suffering. God says there’s two paths. The sanctions are at work.

And when we teach our children Psalm 1, we teach them that these two paths are in their life as well. And Psalm 2 tells us what man does in his rebellion against God. And that second path—not only is it a path of curse, it’s a path of hatred for the Lord Jesus Christ. The path of the ungodly in Psalm 1 becomes the path of those who conspire against Christ. But what does Christ do? He laughs at them from heaven.

So our children should know from their earliest days: Two paths. Make it clear to them. Obey, disobey. This is blessing. This is punishment and curse. First two psalms.

Additionally, this commandment teaches our children to think of the future from their earliest days. Children, God comes to you. He breathes on your face. He addresses you as Christians. He reminds you of your baptism, so to speak. He tells you that you’re to obey his law. He’s brought you out of Egypt that you would obey his law. And he tells you that if you continue in obedience of that law, you’ll be blessed. And if you don’t, you’ll be cursed.

And that is a future reference to you. He tells you what’s going to happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. And whether you’re going to live long on the face of the earth or whether you’re going to die young—covenantally, in a general sense, of course—but the future orientation. He tells you, children, don’t just think of today. Think of the future. Think that your actions will have a result in your future because God is at work in the world.

And parents—this means we’re to teach our children a future orientation. We’re to train them for instance for vocation and marriage from their very earliest days. Blessing and curse is put in front of them—not that we can attain to blessings on our own. That’s the worst thing we could teach our children. The blessings are ours—yea and amen—in Christ. That’s what we read in 2 Corinthians 1:

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me, Sylvanus and Timothy, was not yes and no, but in him was yes. For all the promises of God in him are yes. And in him, amen to the glory of God through us.

Our children are not to be somehow misled that they’re to obey the law in order to get blessed. Our children should recognize that Jesus came to fulfill all the requirements of the law. He has produced—he has put us in that path of blessing. We don’t attain to it. But he holds out there as warning to us that if we stray from fidelity to him, death awaits, cursing awaits.

So even to Christians, Paul tells the Galatians:

Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows that he will also reap. He who sows to the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. He who sows to the Spirit will the Spirit reap everlasting life.

So God promises, children. He tells you today he’s not like your father. He’s not like your mother. Your father sometimes says, “Don’t do that or I’ll do this.” And then he doesn’t do it. Your father is fallen. He won’t do that most of the time, Lord willing. But he does it sometime. God never says that. God never tells you that he will do something by way of punishing you for disobedience and then fails to follow through.

He’s not like your father that way. Children, this God says, “Don’t be deceived. Whatever you sow, you’ll reap.” And if you walk off from that path of blessing and you throw away obedience to the law of God—and we’ll see here specifically what that commandment has at its center—God says, “Don’t be deceived. Whatever you sow, you’ll reap.”

He’s not like your dad when he tells you he’ll spank you. Indeed, he will. May not take the form you think of at first. May not come in the time you think of, but he will definitely bring to pass what he says.

Children, your parents are preparing you from your earliest days for a vocation. To think in terms of this future orientation of God’s law. When they tell you to pick up your blocks and they tell you to put away your clothes and they tell you not to leave your schoolwork lying around, they’re training you for vocation. When they tell you to do that with a good attitude, they’re training you to be a good servant to your master at work—that you might exercise dominion for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ and honor him.

They’re training you from their youngest days, from your youngest days rather. And when Dad trains you, as he should today, to honor your mother, to give her weight and respect—and particularly you young boys that are prone in your Adamic flesh to not honor her, to be macho man, to be like that Lamech (the seventh generation) who brags to his multiple wives that he kills a boy for insulting him. That’s who you are in Adam. When your dad tells you put that off and put on a loving sweet disposition to your mother, he is preparing you for marriage.

And when your mothers show by their actions their submission to their fathers, they’re training you young girls to show proper submission to your future husbands. They’re training you for the future—or they should be. They do, whether they’re doing it self-consciously or not, as it may be not. We don’t know. But they are training you and should be training you according to the implications of this command for your future vocation, for your future marriages, for your future submission to God in these particular areas of authority.

Because Jesus is Lord. He has preeminence. He’s restoring all things to himself in his kingdom. He’s restoring relationship and authority in the family and in the workplace. And he’s training you, children, in that from your earliest days by telling you of his law and of telling you of the rewards and chastisements that come forth in terms of whether you obey them or not.

Children, the Lord Jesus Christ whispers in your ear that you are called by the Lord Jesus Christ and placed in a Christian home. He addresses you as Christians. He tells you to keep his law and he tells you that the results of that law will be differences tomorrow and in your future. He warns you of those differences and encourages you with the positive statement.

Notice that he doesn’t put blessings and cursings explicitly. He puts blessing in front of these children because that—again—is normative for Christian children. They’ll grow up to live long lives on the earth. They’ll grow up to be that generation after generation that God shows grace to.

And so we have in the first three implications of this very simple command, really, some of the distinctives of our church, which we’ve come to love over the last 15-20 years.

We have a sovereign God who sovereignly places children in the context of our homes. And we see baptism as a statement of the sovereignty of God and his election of children. We’re to suppose that they’re going to grow up saying, “Yes, mom and dad, I believe it. You tell me.” And you know what they do? By the ages 2, 3, 4, 5—what child would say, “No, I don’t believe”? Now they get to those junior high years and, you know, their mind is developing and growing and some clouds can come in that we work through.

But you know, God says that he’s sovereign and we’re to mark our children with this sign. We don’t give them a sign of their decision for the Lord Jesus Christ. We give them a sign of the election and sovereignty of God in terms of their relationship to him. And we give them a sign and then we teach them to love the law of God.

We don’t need to go back to the Old Testament to affirm this. All we need is Ephesians 6:1-3 where Paul says the foundation block is the law of God. And then he says, and we teach our children. And we believe at this church that law and its sanctions means that the world will flourish. That the garden of the Lord will cover the earth. That the waters that go out from the church of Jesus Christ will water the whole world and all the earth will sing praises to the Lord God in time and history.

We have all these distinctives wrapped up in this seemingly very simple commandment from God to children. Praise God. There’s so much in God’s word. It all brings together.

**Fifth: The Command Cites the Law of the Second Tablet**

Okay. Fourth comment. The command cites the law—that is, the first law of the second section of commandments focusing on how to know if we’re honoring God. Okay, that’s a little wordy. What I mean is that 1 John 4:20 and 21, which I’ve said you should know—you teenage children should know this verse pretty much by heart because I’ve said it a lot:

If someone says, “I love God” and hates his brother, he’s a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

The part God—Paul—doesn’t start. God doesn’t start through Paul by citing the first commandment to the children: “You know, no other gods.” No, he starts by citing the fifth commandment. Why are the first four irrelevant? No. Because this is the first commandment that demonstrates to the child and to the parents what his relationship to God is.

You see, the second tablet of the law, no matter how we number it, is a demonstration of whether we’re really obeying the first tablet of the law. “You love your neighbor as yourself.” If you’re not doing that, you really don’t love God. That’s what First John says.

And here, children are young. They don’t really conceptually know a whole lot about God yet. We’re training them in that. And God says, “Here’s how you know if you’re going to honor me or not. If you honor your parents, you say you’re going to obey and love Jesus, but you’re not honoring your parents, you’re a liar.”

So he starts with a commandment here that’s the beginning of the application side of the Ten Commandments.

Now, we can lump chapter or commandment five with the first or second tablet. The Lutherans do four and six. It doesn’t make any difference. The point is that this commandment starts practical application of the relationship we have with God. It’s a hinge commandment—from the commandments relative to God, the first three, and then the Sabbath, to the commandments relative to our fellow neighbor.

Now, the first three commandments culminate in the fourth commandment. The first three commandments: no other gods; no idols, no icons, no worshiping God by means of icons or images. Our worship is word-based, not image-based. And then finally, that we don’t take God’s name emptily upon ourselves. If we do those things, we end up at Sabbath rest as a culture and as a people and as individuals.

And so the next commandments move in that same way: Honor your parents. Don’t kill your fellow man. Don’t commit adultery. There’s a correlation. We’ve talked about this before.

The only point I’m trying to make here and focus in is that this commandment that Paul starts with is a practical demonstration to the child and to the parents of his true spiritual state. And so that’s where Paul begins with this particular commandment.