This sermon was preached at Ascension Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho on November 1, A.D. 2026.
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” (NKJV)
Introduction
We talk a lot about raising children in our community for perhaps two reasons.
First, it’s one of the most pressing practical matters in many of our congregants’ lives. The majority of our congregants still have children in the home, and therefore, a whole lot of life revolves around parenting those children. So it’s simply an obvious area of need for instruction in our church.
Second, we really do believe that this is the most significant work that the Lord has given you. It’s really hard to imagine what else could take that spot as most important. Tomorrow, the Lord could take away your vocation or your job. He could move you somewhere else. He could rearrange all sorts of things in your lives, changing duties and priorities… but the one thing you will always have with you is your family.
Not only that, but we need to be very clear about what we are talking about. These children that the Lord has granted you have immortal and everlasting souls, that have been entrusted to you for a time. There is a window of opportunity here. To mold them and shape them. To disciple them in Christ. And there is a weightiness here. There is a great responsibility. Which means we must turn to the Word for wisdom on how to do this right. So let’s walk through our passage this morning together before we apply it in a couple of specific ways.
Summary of the Text
In Ephesians 5 and 6, we have what is called a “household code”—ethical instructions for how households and families are to live together and treat one another, and what their roles and duties are toward one another. Our passage this morning comes after the Apostle Paul’s commands to husbands and wives, and now he turns to children and their parents.
The first command is to children, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (v. 1).
One of the very first things to note here is that the Apostle Paul is speaking directly to children. The book we call Ephesians was originally a letter sent to the church in Ephesus, then circulated to other churches, where it was read aloud together. And the Apostle Paul is expecting children to pay attention to his words. He doesn’t just tell parents, make sure your children obey you, but he speaks directly to the children in the church. This shows that the children were present in the assembly and were expected to participate, heeding the teaching.
Now notice that children are to obey, “in the Lord.” The first half of Ephesians is all about being united to Christ by faith, being “in the Lord,” incorporated into the Body of Christ. And here, Paul uses this language of union with Christ, and he applies it to the children of believers and their obedience. Your children are united to Christ, and they are to obey you as an act of ultimate obedience to God.
The Apostle Paul then repeats the fifth commandment and its attached promise. Children are to honor their father and mother, so that it may be well with them and they may live long on the earth (vv. 2–3).
The promise here is similar to the promises we find in Proverbs. Of course you know that some children die in infancy. So did the Apostle Paul, in fact, during his time, historians believe that about half of all children died before their sixth birthday. So this is not an automatic type of thing, where if a child pulls the lever of obedience, they are guaranteed the prize of long life. But rather, it is basic wisdom. It is a statement regarding what normally happens, what God’s normative blessing is for those who obey.
In general, obedient children are happy and live long lives. That is God’s blessing upon them. Whereas disobedient children often encounter many troubles. We can see this plainly in the way God has designed the world to function. Children who honor and obey their parents will avoid all sorts of harm that comes upon the foolish and disobedient. Children who obey their parents by not running into the busy street just so happen to live longer than children who disobey and run into the busy street. This shows that God’s commandments are for your good. The Lord wants you to thrive and obedience to His commandments goes hand-in-hand with joy.
Lastly, the Apostle Paul warns fathers not to provoke or exasperate their children to anger, but instead, bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord (v. 4).
Like the commands for husbands to love their wives and wives to honor and respect their husbands, this command is also repeated in the household code in Colossians 3, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (v. 21). The repetition indicates this is a common temptation for fathers (and mothers, too). While your children are to obey you, the sin you want to avoid is causing them to become angry or discouraged by either an overbearing strictness—or—a laziness that leads to confusing inconsistency. And so instead of either of those ditches, your aim as parents is to raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, which we will look at more closely in a little while.
Covenant
Before we can consider the important topics of disciplining and instructing our children, we must understand the foundation underneath those activities—God’s covenant.
We believe that there is continuity between the people of God under the Old Covenant and the people of God under the New Covenant. Old Testament Israel and the New Testament church are one. This is foundational to covenant theology—there is one people of God. While in the era of the New Covenant the gospel has been proclaimed to and received by Gentiles in a special way, there are not two separate people of God but one in Christ.
Writing to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal. 3:7–9).
What he is saying here is that all believers today, those who have faith, are true “sons of Abraham,” who himself had heard the Good News when the Lord promised him that all the peoples of the earth would be blessed in him. Abraham and the saints under the Old Covenant were saved by faith just as the Apostles and the saints under the New Covenant are. Indeed, as he writes again in Galatians, “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29).
So what we see here in these passages is not a radical discontinuity or distinction between God’s people under the Old Covenant and God’s people under the New Covenant. To use language from the Westminster Confession: There is one covenant of grace, with different covenantal administrations. Therefore there is one covenant people of God—God has always had His one people.
Every covenant God has made with His people included their children. As the Lord promised to Abraham, he said, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you” (Gen. 17:7).
As we are now in the New Covenant administration of God’s covenant of grace, if this truth regarding the inclusion of children was altered, if it were changed and children were no longer members of the covenant, that is something we would expect to have been made explicit by Christ and His apostles. It would have been a radical change. But instead, we find the opposite in the first apostolic sermon of the New Covenant era, with the Apostle Peter declaring on the Day of Pentecost that this “promise is for you and for your children” (Acts 2:39). The Princeton theologian A.A. Hodge once remarked that if children were now removed from the new and better covenant, Christ would be turning children “out of their ancient birth-right in the Church.”
But thankfully, nowhere do we find our Lord doing this. Rather, He tells the disciples to let the children come to Him, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs (Mt. 19:14). Likewise, the Apostle Paul calls the children of at least one believer “holy,” that they are set apart and members of the covenant community (1 Cor. 7:14). And then again in our passage this morning we see the Apostle Paul commanding children to obey “in the Lord.” They are able to receive Christian instruction, and the command comes with the same covenantal promise that Jewish children heard in the days of Moses—“that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
Therefore, we do give our children the sign of the New Covenant, which is baptism. To be clear, this is our church’s formal teaching, and yet we welcome credobaptist families and are glad to have them with us. We do not want to break fellowship over these differences. And yet, we do believe that baptizing Christian children is biblical and important.
There are a number of ways you could defend this practice, but for me, one of the most helpful is to consider the baptisms of households in the New Testament. In the New Testament, entire households were baptized, and households, by definition, can and may, and often do, include children. So while we can’t prove from Scripture that these particular households did, we do see this principle of households together receiving baptism.
Of the eleven instances of baptism recorded in Acts and the Epistles, two were individuals—the Apostle Paul and the Ethiopian eunuch, neither of which had children. Five were of large crowds. And whenever a household was present—they too were baptized along with the head of the household.
So, for example of these houshold baptisms, with the Philippian jailer, the Apostle Paul and Silas declare to him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). Notice the similarity between that language “you and your household” and the Apostle Peter’s “you and your children.” We are told that they then spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his house… and immediately he and all his family were baptized (vv. 32, 33b).
In all of these household baptisms but one—the one I just referenced—the faith of the head of the household is mentioned, but not explicitly the faith of each member of the household. And so it seems clear from these baptisms that the New Covenant sign was being applied in the same way the Old Covenant sign was—with the faith of the head of the household representing the whole.
Discipline
If it is true then that our children are members of the people of God, then this must inform how we raise them in our homes and how we treat them in the church. In our passage this morning, the Apostle Paul gives two directions to fathers, the first being that you are to raise up your children in the training or discipline of the Lord. And so this morning, I’d like to get into the nuts and bolts of disciplining young children, with a few basic principles that you must keep in mind.
The Greek word here for training or discipline, “paedia,” includes more than just corporal discipline—it’s a comprehensive word that covers all the training they ought to receive to grow in faith and godliness.
And this is important to remember. What we are going to consider in this section is simply one tool of many that God has given parents as they raise their children. It’s not the only tool for toddlers, and as children grow, it is necessarily exchanged for others. This means that if you put the bulk of your Christian parenting into five-minute rounds of correction—but you don’t put thought or effort into what happens before and after those rounds—you will not get very far. It cannot be your only tool.
Which leads us into our first principle: All discipline should be done in the context of joy. By this, I mean your goal should be to create a family and a home marked by joy in the Lord.
Of course, this won’t be constant. Some days or weeks will be harder than others. But that must be the stated goal, and you should know that it is certainly an obtainable goal. By the grace of God, your family really can be—and must be—marked by joy. You want a home that is filled with the sounds of song and laughter, of sweet fellowship with one another. You want your family to enjoy one another.
It’s important to remember that a joy-filled family is not a sinless family. Rather, it’s a family that deals with sin. It’s a family that makes things right and forgives, so that true fellowship can be maintained.
And so parents—this starts with you. Before you think about dealing with all of your children’s sin—are you dealing with your own? Anger, selfishness, impatience, grumbling, ingratitude… have you considered what mud you might be tracking across the carpet?
Remember that—for better or worse—your children are mirrors. They are little reflections of you. They are like sponges—and they are soaking up whatever is in the water. And so the responsibility for a joyful home falls primarily upon you. You might be tempted to think sometimes that your home would have joy… if only they would stop bickering. Or complaining. Or hitting each other on the head. No—your home will be marked by joy when you take responsibility for it and lead the charge.
This includes addressing sin and disciplining as necessary. But if sin is breaking fellowship—which it is—you really want to be able to restore them to real fellowship and not release them back out into a room filled with grumpy discontentment—you being the chief of the grumblers. So you want discipline to be done in an atmosphere of joy.
The second principle is that discipline should be calm and judicious.
One reason that unbelievers and some Christians object to corporal discipline is that they do not understand what it looks like. They picture a father or mother who has lost control, lost their temper, and is now striking their child in anger. To be clear—this is not biblical discipline. That is not what we are talking about this morning, and you must not treat your children like that. It is evil to hit your children in anger.
You should view the discipline of your children not merely or primarily as punishment, but correction. It is meant to be a temporal consequence to help instruct them in the way they should go.
In Galatians 6:1 we read, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness…” Applying this to parenting and discipline, this means that when you correct your children, in order to be qualified according this passage, you must be calm and in control. Even discipline should be done in a spirit of gentleness.
If you think back to the importance of joy and fellowship in the home—you want to think of yourself as the leader and ambassador of that fellowship. They have placed themselves outside of it, and so you are correcting and disciplining them in order to bring them back. But if you are angry or upset—then you don’t have much fellowship to offer.
Additionally, discipline must be done judiciously—meaning with good judgment, wisdom, and care. And so, to make this as practical as I can this morning, here is a picture and an example of what we are talking about when we speak of disciplining young children.
You tell little Johnny to pick up his toy cars, he looks at you, and says, “No.”
You pick Johnny up, take him by the hand, or instruct him to go into a private room away from everyone else.
You tell him why he is being disciplined—what the sin was—and how many swats he will receive (or whatever you call them).
You calmly administer the discipline to their bottom, counting the swats. The counting demonstrates that you are in control and that they are limited. Additionally, it is best to use a tool like a designated spanking spoon, rather than your hand. Scripture speaks of using a “rod,” which helps distinguish striking in anger from intentional discipline.
And then lastly, you comfort him and lead him in prayer, or have them pray depending on their age, confessing their sin to God. You have them ask you for forgiveness. And then you joyfully tell them again the Good News—that Jesus loves them, died for their sin and has taken it away, and that they are forgiven in Him. As we say in our home, you are “all clean.” Discipline is not complete until you lead them to restored fellowship and joy in the Lord.
That, in general, is what we are talking about. Of course, not every detail needs to be exact, but those are the basic building blocks of calm and judicious discipline.
The third principle is that discipline must be consistent.
Proverbs 29:15 reads, “The rod and rebuke give wisdom: but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.” Likewise, Proverbs 23:13 reads, “Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.”
So often, parents are tempted to withhold discipline out of a mistaken sense of mercy. But it is actually not merciful. Lazy or passive parents who exercise very little discipline or inconsistent discipline frustrate and discourage their children. It causes confusion in the home because your children receive mixed signals about their behavior and what you will do in response. When discipline is not practiced consistently in a home, it creates an atmosphere of constant tension until something big happens, when both parents and child become exasperated.
Everybody knows what happens in the home when, instead of dealing with a child’s sin right away, you ignore it, excuse it, or simply verbally correct it but never walk through corporal discipline. Excuses are often made both for the parents and the children. Laziness in the father is called “patience,” and the sin of the children can always be blamed on missing a nap or the terrible two’s. But when sin is not dealt with, it causes a snowball effect until it is too big to ignore.
God’s standards do not change with your energy or mood, and therefore your application of discipline must not change either. Consistent discipline provides children with stability. It gives them clear boundaries and clear consequences—removing all ambiguity. And so for discipline to be effective and true, it must be consistent.
The last principle is that discipline is to be done with and in love.
Hebrews 12:6 says, “The Lord disciplines the one He loves.” Likewise, Proverbs 13:24 reads, “He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.”
By saying that discipline must be done with love, I mean two things. First, if you love your children, you will discipline them. Abandoning this responsibility is not loving them as you are called to. It is leading them astray. The sort of discipline we are talking about today is meant for young children, so that, when they grow older and bigger they have learned basic self-control over their emotions and desires. If you do not discipline your two-year-old for hitting Mom, what makes you think you will have an easier time teaching your five-year-old or ten-year-old not to hit Mom? It simply is not loving to neglect your children by failing to restrain their sin and to instruct them in the way they should go.
The second point I want to make under this category of disciplining with love is this: you must remember that you represent God in your dealings with your children.
He has put you in a position of authority over them, a position of nurture and care, and you must be faithful in that. Which means, you want to endeavor to be the smile of God to your children.
This goes back to the home filled with joy… God disciplines those He loves. He loves you and He loves your children. And you want that love to be tangible and real to them. If the only intentional attention your children get from you is when they are being disciplined for disobedience—you can expect more disobedience. This is because they want you. They want your attention. So give it to them. Be interested them. Be excited about what excites them. Take the time to enjoy them, so that you can be like your Father in heaven who says, “This is My Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
Instruction
The second instruction that the Apostle Paul gives is that your children are to be raised in the admonition or instruction of the Lord. If they are part of the people of God, then they need to hear the Word of God.
We see this in Moses’ instructions to parents in Deuteronomy 6,
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (6:6–9).
The picture we see here in this passage is that the Word and wisdom of God are constantly present.
Children are to hear it in the morning when they rise up, when you are hanging around the house, when you are out and about, and before you go to bed. The instruction and Word of God is not to be compartmentalized to Sunday morning, Christian school, or quiet times. Rather, you want to create a home where God’s Word informs all things, and where God’s Word has something to say about whatever is going on that day or whatever is being discussed. You want a Word-saturated home.
One way that you are called to diligently teach your children is through the practice of family worship. The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches that, “God is to be worshiped everywhere, in spirit and truth; in private families daily and in secret each one by himself” (WCF 21.6).
Regular family worship mattered so much to the Reformers and the Puritans that pastors visited homes to teach fathers and show them how to do it. And if a father persistently neglected his duty to lead his family in any sort of regular devotion, he could be subject to church discipline. And so, just like how we looked at biblical discipline, I want to again give you some basic essentials for what family worship could look like in your home, that you can then take and build upon based on your family’s particular needs and personality.
Simple family worship consists of three things:
The first is the Word of God. You should strive to consistently bring the Word to your family’s ears and hearts.
When your children are very young, sometimes a narrative book like one of the Gospels can be helpful, and particular Proverbs are always useful. You want to read as much or as little as they can handle—and so that might be a chapter, but it also could be just one passage or story. And what I have found helpful with young children is that while I am reading, I am always asking observation questions to keep their attention and to make sure they understand what is going on. So whenever you come across a word they might not understand, ask them what it means and then give them the right answer. And then when you have finished reading, try to find just one or two applications for them that can understand.
So make sure you are reading the Word together. You can also put under this category catechisms which teach the Word—whether some of the classic Reformed ones or a children’s catechism. But above all, do not neglect the Word.
The second essential for family worship is prayer.
In prayer, you want to praise God for who He is, thank Him for all the blessings that He has given you and your family, and then lay before Him your needs, along with any petitions for loved ones, friends, this congregation, or the world around you.
I do think it’s important for dads to lead in prayer, teaching your kids what prayer sounds like. But this is also a great time for your kids to take an active part in family worship, so do let them offer their own prayers.
And the last essential for family worship is song.
Psalm 22 says that God is enthroned on the praises of His people, and so you want to establish His throne in your home through singing. Whether it’s one song or a few, cheerfully sing psalms and hymns that the whole family knows or can easily learn. The easiest would be the simpler songs from church—songs like the doxology, Gloria Patri, and Erb’s Psalm 117. Or you can do your favorite psalms and hymns, even if it’s just one verse at a time until they are reading.
While there is no set order that you must follow for any of this, I once heard Joel Beeke say that the benefit of singing songs at the end is that they tend to linger in our minds longer than readings or prayers. And I think he is right. There’s also something beneficial to ending on a note of joyful praise, before you transition into whatever is next.
So those are the three essentials—Word, prayer, and song. And it’s important to keep it simple like that because one reason that so many families struggle to practice family worship is that they are trying to do too much.
If this is something new to you or something you have stopped doing, what I just laid out can be as brief as ten minutes. As your children grow older and mature, these essentials provide a foundation you can build on. But remember, this is not meant to be a long church service. You want to remember your children’s frames and try to make family worship a “get to” not a “got to.” You want it to be a time of joy together.
Of course, in every family there will be times when family worship is missed, or when the habit begins to falter. If that has happened to you, just start again. Start small. Start simple. You might feel awkward doing it at first, but it can quickly become a habit and routine in your family, with enormous blessing. So don’t let shame or discouragement keep you from obeying the Lord in this area. ////
Conclusion
In conclusion, I have one exhortation and one reminder.
The exhortation is this: if you are parents, you should take this sermon as an opportunity to take inventory. To discuss together how you feel things are going and whether there are areas in your family that need to be addressed. Fathers, if you are not leading as you should be, do not hide or be defensive. Acknowledge your failings, and then go do what the Lord is calling you to do with simple obedience.
If you are unsure or need direction, seek out counsel. One of the wonderful things about our new and small congregation is that we already have a mix of families with very young children and families with grown or nearly grown children. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or advice.
And the reminder is this: You must remember the promises of God. You are laboring to raise your children in the faith by faith, not resting or striving in your own work, but in God’s work of faithfulness. And so in all of this—you need to constantly be looking to Christ. And as you look to Christ, you will be able to point your children to Him as well. You want to obey Him in these areas, not out of fear for your children’s salvation and well-being, but with faith—trusting that He is the One who is faithful.
As we read in Psalm 103, His mercy “is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to such as keep His covenant…” (vv. 17–18).