March 29, 2026 Filled in Outline
Bible Verses – Colossians 3:18-21
Colossians 3:18-21
Well, Jesus gave a great victory cry, didn’t he, on the cross on Good Friday? He cried out, Tetelestai means it is finished. And isn’t it good to know that we don’t have to do anything to add to earn our salvation? Jesus paid it all, and we just need to believe and receive the wonderful gift of eternal life. All right, we’re going to read Psalm 127, and this morning is our scripture reading.
Words are on the screen, and you can follow along as I read. Here’s what the psalmist writes. Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he grants sleep to those he loves. Children are heritage from the Lord.
Offspring a reward from him, like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.
Well, we are on our journey through the book of Colossians, if you’ve been with us for the last couple of months.
And we are in Colossians chapter 3, this letter written from Paul to Epaphras, actually the church at Colossae where Epaphras was serving as pastor. And Paul’s under house arrest. Epaphras makes a 1300-mile journey, visits Paul in Rome, tells him about what’s going on at the church at Colossae.
And Paul writes this letter to correct some doctrinal errors, but also to encourage the church. And so, we’re in the more practical section of Colossians, and we’re in Colossians chapter 3. The subtitle in my NIV Bible says, Instructions for Christian Households. And so, God ordained three institutions.
Marriage and the family is the first one. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. Marriage and the family is God’s idea.
God’s the designer, the architect. That’s why he’s giving us some instructions on how the family should operate and work. The second one is the government.
Romans 13, the powers that be are ordained of God. And so, God places leaders and disposes of leaders, and government is God’s idea. It’s instituted to protect us and to stand for truth and to punish evildoers.
That’s the purpose of government. And thirdly, the church. Jesus says in Matthew 16, I will build my church.
That’s the first mention of the word church. And the gates of hell won’t prevail against it. Acts chapter 2, the church began on the day of Pentecost.
And so, those are the three divinely ordained institutions. And this morning, we’re going to look at four directives. We looked at two last week.
We’re going to look at two more this morning about how the family should function. So, last week, we gave a couple of introductory truths. Let me just go over them really quickly.
Number one, God designed the family to function according to his design. Lots of ideas about how the family should work. The role of the husband, the role of the wife, the role of the kids.
But God designed the family, and he gives us some instructions on how it works best. So, it works best to function when each member understands their God-given role and functions according to it. And so, marriage works best when a husband understands his role, a wife understands her role, the kids understand their role in the family unit.
And that’s God’s design, and we’re going to look at that. Second introductory truth, men and women are equal before God, but function in differing roles in marriage. So, there’s equality, but there’s differing roles.
i. The role of the wife… a suitable helper
And so, we started out last week by looking at the role of the wife, and we use this word, suitable helper. It’s from Genesis 2:18. Remember the creation story, Genesis chapter 1, it’s good, it is good, it is good, it is good. That phrases you nine times.
Then finally, God says, after he creates Adam, something’s not good. What’s not good? It’s not good that man should be alone. And so, we read in Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, that Eve is created out of Adam’s rib.
And let me read 2:18, the Lord God said, it’s not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. So, we looked at this word, helper.
It can sound condescending, but it really isn’t. It means that God brings two people together, and the wife’s role is to complement her husband, C-O-M-P-L-E-M-E-N-T. Although, if you want to stick an I in there and do that, that’s good as well.
It’s not a derogatory term in any way. It’s that God realized that husbands had some deficiencies, and they needed help when all the ladies say amen, right? Right, right. And Adam and Eve, Eve was the perfect helper.
That word is used of God himself. In Psalm chapter 7, verse 5, God, you are my help and deliverer. It used to describe God’s role in our life.
ii. The role of the husband… loving leader
And so, role of the wife, suitable helper. The role of the husband, we said loving leader. And the command in Colossians is husbands, love your wives.
It’s the word agape, the highest form of love. The parallel verse in Ephesians, as Christ loved the church, sacrificial love, a willingness to die for your spouse. And so, the role of the husband, loving leader.
We talked about this nasty word in our culture today of submission. And we looked at Ephesians 5:21, that says, Paul says, submit to one another. So, in marriage, there’s a mutual submission.
But as we shared last week, when you can’t come to a compromise, and you can’t come to an agreement, then there has to be somebody that makes the decision. And in God’s design for the family, that’s where the husband is the head of the household, comes in to make that decision and to be responsible before God for that decision. Well, this morning, we’re going to get to the role of the kids, the children, and then the role of the parents.
iii. The role of the children… obey and honor
So, some great verses here. Maybe we should bring all the kids back up from junior church for these next five minutes here. The role of children, two words, obey and honor.
Obey and honor. Here it is, Colossians 3:20, children. And by the way, that word Téknon means dependent children.
Okay? So, if you’re claiming them on your W-2 forms, that means they’re probably living at your home and you’re supporting for them. That’s who this is directed to. Not adult children, but dependent children.
Children, here it is. Obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. Obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord.
Ephesians 6:1 was one of my favorite verses to quote. It says, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. So, obedience.
And we’re going to talk about obedience in just a little bit, but let me just at least touch on this second word of honor. Because as we leave the home and establish our own home, when we’re out from under the umbrella of our mom and dad’s support and living on our own, whether single or married, the responsibility for scripture says you need to honor your parents, to honor your parents. It’s first command with a promise according to Exodus 20.
But here’s what John Trent and Gary Smalley, they wrote a book called The Gift of Honor. Here’s how they describe honor. Honor is the decision we make to place high value, worth, and importance on another person and granting that person a position in our lives worthy of respect, worthy of respect.
And so, we need to honor our parents. Now, sometimes this is difficult to do because some of us may have been raised in a home where it’s like, well, I don’t think my parents are worthy of honor. The question isn’t, are they worthy of honor? The Bible says you need to honor them.
And we can talk about ways in which we can do that to give them a place of value in our lives. So, in this book by Smalley and Trent, they gave a little section and asked the question to others, what could your children do or have they done to make you feel honored? So, what does this look like? They list about 25 answers here. I’ll just give a few.
These are parents saying, this is what would honor me. On a day other than mother or Father’s Day, it would mean so much to get a card or letter from our children letting us know that they’re thinking of us. Another person said, even though it’s difficult for me to do, my daughter always makes a point of hugging me when we get together.
That makes her feel honored. As a single mom, when my school-age children do chores without being asked or additional chores, I feel honored. A couple others here.
When I see my daughter seeking after God, I can’t think of anything that brings me more honor. Third John 4 says, I have no greater joy than to see my children walk in truth. This is number 17 on the list.
When my children let me spend time with the grandchildren, I feel honored. And all the parents said, amen. It’s time with the grandkids.
Here’s one more. The greatest present I ever received from my son was a cassette tape. Boy, that dates this book, doesn’t it? A cassette tape that looked back on several specific things I had done for him in the past.
It’s expressing honor and staying in touch with mom and dad and giving them a place of value in our lives. I’ve shared this many times before. I think I’ve probably now gotten to the point that I can read it without crying.
We have three adult sons. What do you do on Father’s Day when you’ve been around for lots of years? I don’t need anything. I got 50 ties.
I don’t need ties. I don’t need clothes. But my most valued Father’s Day gift came from 2008 when our youngest son simply wrote a poem and had it framed.
It was entitled, You Taught Me. Some of you have heard this before, but I’m going to read it again. This is from Andrew.
You’ve taught me everything I know and how to live my life. You’ve taught me how to love a girl and how to pick a wife. You’ve taught me how to play some sports and how to play a game.
You taught me when it comes to God to never stand in shame. You taught me how God’s our shepherd and we are God’s herd. You taught me how to follow him and how to read God’s word.
You taught me how to appreciate the things I haven’t had. You taught me all I know for that I love you, Dad. You taught me all these things and more.
So, what else can I say? I guess all that is left is happy Father’s Day. So that poem like hangs in my office and all that cost was a little creativity, but that’s the gift of honor. So back to Colossians 3, children obey your parents.
So, this is something that needs to be taught because children are born into this world as sinners. Psalm 51, David wrote, In sin my mother conceived me. He’s not saying that was an illicit relationship.
He’s saying that every person in this world is born in Adam and therefore we’re sinners. We don’t have to teach our kids to disobey. It comes naturally.
About the third word they learn, Papa, Mama, mine. That’s mine. It comes to them naturally.
So, here’s Chip Ingram, wrote a book, Effective Parenting in a Defective World. He says, A child does not learn obedience by accident. It takes intentional effort by parents and that effort requires commitment.
Commitment to provide the necessary resources for the children to learn to obey. If submission and obedience to parents is not learned early in a child’s life, it’ll impact all of their future relationships with their teachers, with their employers, with their spouses, with their aging parents, and even with God. And so, this is crucial to teach submission and obedience.
And what are the resources that God has given us to do that? Just very quickly, first of all, God’s Word. So how do we know right from wrong? We live in a culture that is a relativistic culture and there’s your truth and my truth. But the Bible says, no, there’s absolute truth.
And so, we have to teach them there is a standard of right and wrong. There is absolute truth. Two plus two equals four, not five, six, seven, eight, or any other number.
There is absolute truth. It’s established in the character of God. John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
John 17:17, your word is truth. And so, this book, the Bible, is the guidebook for decision-making, for truth, for right and wrong. Here’s how the psalmist in Psalm 19 describes the scriptures, God’s Word.
He uses a lot of different words to describe God’s Word. But David wrote, the law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.
The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. And so, what’s the starting point? They need to learn early on God’s truth, and the standards of truth, and what the Ten Commandments are, and that ultimately, when God says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right, that ultimately disobedience is not just against mom and dad, but ultimately every sin is against the Holy God, and that sin has consequences. And so, they need to learn to obey, not just needing to know the standard of Scripture, the what, but they also need to understand the why, that it is an affront to God.
They also need to learn to defend their faith, as we all do, 1st Peter 3, verse 15, but in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
The word there, answer, is the word apologia. It means apologetics. It doesn’t mean we’re apologizing for our faith.
It means we know how to defend our faith. We know how to answer the hard questions. And so, part of the reason that I think that sometimes kids that grow up in the church, and they kind of learn the memory verses, and they go through all the motions, but they never understand the deeper things of why, and then they get out in the culture, and they begin to question things.
And so, it’s not just what, it’s why. For example, this means being ready to answer questions, how can you prove God exists? Doesn’t evolution prove there is no God? How can an intelligent person believe the Bible when it was written thousands of years ago? Isn’t the Bible full of contradictions? How can a supposedly loving God send a good person to hell? Don’t all faiths basically worship the same God, just in different ways? What makes Christianity right and all other religions wrong? If God is all powerful and all loving, why do evil and suffering exist in the world? How can someone say Jesus is the only way to God? This is from a book called Fearless Parenting. So, mom and dad, how do you think your teenager will do when a non-believer asks them one of those questions? Because if this type of questioning of their faith hasn’t happened yet, it will very soon, and your job is to make sure they’re prepared to answer such questions.
And so not just the what, but they need to understand the why. So, resources for teaching obedience. God’s Word.
Here’s another one. How about prayer? How about prayer? 1st Thessalonians 5:17, pray without ceasing. James 5:16, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
This is pictured in Job chapter 1, where Job had 10 children. Every day it’s a picture of intercessory prayer, praying for our kids. One way to improve your prayer life is to have kids and grandkids.
And so, prayer is another key resource for teaching kids’ obedience and praying that God will soften their hearts and help them to learn submission and obedience to mom and dad. All right, let’s go back to Colossians 3 then. So, the role of the children, obey, honor your parents, and then the role of the parents.
Here we are in Colossians 3, this is verse 21. It’s addressed to fathers, the footnote in my Bible says, or parents. So, fathers, parents, Colossians 3:21, do not embitter your children or they become discouraged.
I looked this verse up in lots of different translations. There’s a Holman Christian standard Bible translation that says, do not exasperate your children. The ESV says, do not provoke your children.
iv. The role of the parents…
The message, which is a paraphrase says, do not come down too hard on your children or you will crush their spirit. The New Living Translation, do not aggravate your children or they will become discouraged. Here’s the role of parents, the role of parents.
And here, Paul gives some instructions regarding the parents’ role. And we’ll look at that in just a little bit. But I want us to look, and I think it’s in your notes, a study that was done several years ago.
And here it is, case study, the Rubin Hill, Minnesota report. And so let me give you a little background on this, and then we’ll look at it and hopefully explain it a little bit, because I think it can help us in our parenting role. Here’s an article focused on the family article from 2023.
There is no responsible parent on the planet who hasn’t struggled with getting a child to obey. We’ve all been there. I’m having a flashback right now of our oldest son.
It was bedtime. And he was being rather defiant going to bed. So, I put him in bed and he’s crying and making a ruckus and getting out of bed.
That happens two or three times. And back in bed, I said, do not get out of that bed. And if your feet touch that floor, I’m going to spank you.
And he’s crying. And I walk out of the room, and first thing I hear is feet on the floor. I go in, I paddle him.
That’s like the fourth time he got out. I said, stay in that bed. If your feet touch that floor, you’ll get a spanking.
That happened about three or four times. And then I’m like, I don’t know what else to do. I think he was overly tired and glassy-eyed, and we gave him a little special juice to calm him down.
Don’t report us. And he went to bed, but I was like, I don’t know what to do. He was being so defiant.
But that will has to be broken, but we don’t want to break their spirit. So, no responsible parent on the planet hasn’t struggled with getting a child to obey, and it can be an excruciating experience, as I just related. How do you get your child to mind without losing yours? That’s a great question.
And so, he goes on to say, it’s important to understand our parenting styles might contribute to this. So here it is. Sociologist Ruben Hill conducted a study of thousands of teens and parents in Minnesota.
He’ll put all his research on a grid with an x-axis and a y-axis in four quadrants that you see on the screen. The horizontal axis measures how much discipline or control parents exercise in the relationship with the children, from all the way to the right, extreme control to do whatever you want, no control. The vertical axis measures love, so lots of love, 100 on the top there, or you don’t feel any love for mom or dad.
And so, they came up with four parenting styles. Upper left-hand corner permissive, bottom left neglectful, bottom right authoritarian, and upper right authoritative. So let me just briefly comment on those.
So permissive parents are high in love, and you love your child, love them so much that maybe you don’t want to discipline them. Permissive parents tend to produce children with low self-esteem and feelings of inferiority, though the parents express a lot of love. The lack of boundaries leaves children with a high level of security.
Actually, children want boundaries. They want to know how far they can go. That gives them safety and security.
Secondly, and this is where the worst quadrant to be in, is the neglectful parent, low in love, low in discipline. These children grow up with little or no lasting relationship with mom or dad. The parents’ neglect might not be necessarily intentional.
It might be simply because they’re going through their own trauma. Maybe they got some sort of addiction in their life, and the kids end up getting neglected. These children grow up with emotional scars, and their only hope is to find Jesus and be surrounded with godly role models and good Christian counseling.
These are the kind of kids that end up at Youth Haven Ranch and Rives Junction, that wonderful ministry, where they take kids out of very difficult homes, and it doesn’t cost them a penny, and they spend a week at Youth Haven Ranch. We’ve had the Carlson family here a couple years ago, and they just love on those kids for a week. They give them breakfast in bed.
These kids have never experienced that. They just love on them, and then they try to share the love of Jesus with them. So, that’s the bottom left quadrant.
Bottom right quadrant is the authoritarian parent. High on discipline, but low on love and affirmation. Parents are more like drill sergeants, and if you ask any question, the answer is, because I said so, do it.
And so, they’re low, high on discipline, low on love. Josh McDowell’s got a saying in all his research, he says, rules without relationship leads to rebellion. You put all these restrictions and rules on kids, but don’t have this good loving relationship, guess what’s going to happen? There’s going to be rebellion.
Authoritarian parents squeeze their kids until the kids can’t wait to leave home. Well, here’s the last one, and this is where we want to be. It’s the authoritative parent.
High on love and high on discipline. Clear boundaries with clear consequences. The result is the child high in self-esteem and equipped with good coping skills.
And so, I don’t know where you are at on this chart, but what you want to do is just shoot for that upper right-hand quadrant, and that’ll help in our parenting roles. And maybe just good every now and then to have a good discussion with your spouse about discipline.
What I learned when the kids were young, my wife was more the disciplinarian and then as they became teenagers I switched into that role and that’s kind of maybe a natural flow. But the role of the parents, so let’s think about some e-words that as Paul says, parents do not discourage or embitter your children or they’ll become discouraged.
1. Be an example
So, what can we do, what is our role? Number one, lots of e-words here, be an example, be an example. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 11:1 follow me as I follow Christ. He wrote to the Philippian church, the things that you have learned and heard and received and seen in me do. So there has to be a consistency between lip and life and mom and dad, your modeling career started the day your child was born and they’re looking at you and we need to be an example.
And in Deuteronomy 6, the Shema says the truth starts with what being in our heart and then we can pass it on. You can’t pass on what you don’t possess and so we need to be an example. This is so powerful, especially in the lives of fathers.
Let me just take time to read this because I think it has significance. This is from a book called Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas, chapter one, entitled Papa God, Papa God. Catch this as you think about parents as role models and especially fathers.
One day, this is Gary Thomas writing, the author, one day when our daughter Kelsey was two years old, she started pointing at every family member’s chair around the table. I happened to be gone at the time. Mommy, Allison, Graham, Kelsey.
She then pointed to my empty seat and said, God, that’s not God, Kelsey. Lisa, my wife said, that’s Papa. Kelsey replied with a smile, Jesus.
Three days later, all of us were together in a hotel room when Kelsey did it again. She started pointing to everybody and announcing his or her name. When she got to me, she said, Jesus, I’m not Jesus.
Kelsey, I’m your Papa. Kelsey replied, you’re Papa God. I was flabbergasted and earnestly tried to talk it out with her, but you parents know what a two-year-old is like.
By the time I had made my point, Kelsey had found something vastly more interesting than theology, her little toe. But these early episodes of mistaking identity truly opened my eyes as a young parent. The more time I spent with my kids as they became toddlers and then preteens and teens, the more open they seem to be to God’s presence in their life.
The less time I spent with them, the less they seem to pray. The observation both sobered and humbled me. Somehow in their minds, I helped shape their passion and hunger for God.
Wow, power of an example and kids’ first exposure to God the Father is their relationship with their own Father. That’s why some people struggle with their understanding of who God is because they’ve not had that good role model example in their life of a loving Father. They’ve had the opposite.
It has a great impact in their life. Well, example, I added a couple others here that aren’t on the screen. Certainly exhortation, that Shema in Deuteronomy chapter 6 says, these truths you shall teach them diligently to your children.
When they get up in the morning, when they walk by the wayside, when they lay down at night, you need to teach them. Parents are responsible. The church can help, but parents are responsible to teach their children God’s truth.
I’ll say evangelism. Evangelism. We need, and there’s no guarantee here, is there? I’ve seen two children raised in the same home by the same parents.
They all went to, you know, same pattern with all the kids, taught them the same thing. One follows Jesus, the other one doesn’t want anything to do with Jesus. But our first responsibility as parents is what? We want our kids and our grandkids to come to know Jesus and to come into a relationship with Him.
That’s why from the moment Dinah and I found out that we were expecting a child, we earnestly began to pray that they would come to faith in Jesus. There’s nothing more important than that. And so, an example and exhortation, teaching them and evangelizing them.
2. Be an encourager
And here’s the last one. Encouragement. Encouragement.
To be an encourager. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Ephesians 4 says, let your words be exclusive to what building each other up.
Now, this is hard for parents because we’re responsible for those kids and we want them to learn right and wrong, but we also need to encourage them. I don’t know anybody here that want to be a middle schooler in today’s culture and with the social media and where our culture is today. It is not easy for kids.
And so, we need to be their number one encourager. And a study that they did many years ago, our parents found out that, and I understand this, but parents tended to give 10 negative messages for every one positive. And so, my encouragement is to kind of balance that out.
And we have a tendency to, the report card comes home and there’s A, A, A, A, and then there’s a D. What’s the first thing we look at? What’s wrong right here? Then we need to learn to praise and be an encourager. And yes, there is time for correction. Well, let me just close with Chip Ingram’s definition of success in parenting.
If you’re not shooting it, if you don’t know what the target is, the aim is, then you’re not going to hit it. And I came across this about 20 years ago and found, oh, I think I found a definition that defines from a biblical standpoint, success in parenting. Here’s what Chip Ingram says.
Success in parenting is when my children transfer their primary love, submission, and obedience from me to Jesus Christ. You see, we have them for about 18 or 20 years. We’re not always going to be around.
And so, what we want is that transfer of their primary love, submission, and obedience to Jesus. And that’s why John writes; I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in truth. Well, instructions for the household.
It’s God’s design. It’s God’s idea. He created marriage in the family.
The wife’s to be the suitable helper. The husband, the loving leader. The children are to obey and honor.
And then the parents start to be an example, an exhorter, an encourager, and an evangelizer. We’re going to close with a hymn video. It’s called Generational Blessings.
And it’s simply a prayer that talks about the Psalm of Asaph. He writes, the things that our ancestors have told us, we will not hide them from their descendants. We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders that He has done, so the next generation would know them. That’s our kids, even the children yet to be born. And they in turn would tell their children.