Sermon Title: Loving Your Children
Psalm 127:3 “Behold, children are a gift of Yahweh, The fruit of the womb is a reward.”
Psalm 128:3 “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine Within your house, Your children like olive plants Around your table.”
Psalm 127:5 “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies in the gate.”
Proverbs 23:24–25 “The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, And he who begets a wise son will be glad in him. Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her rejoice who gave birth to you.”
Well, we are continuing today in our series on love. The series is about defining what love is in relationship to all the people we are commanded to love. We started with a message about our first priority , loving God with heart, soul, mind and strength. And last week on Mother’s Day, we talked about what the Bible says about loving your parents. And as I have said from the beginning, when Scripture summarizes how we are to treat people, the word that gathers it all together is love. We are to love people.
Jesus said the second greatest command is: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Now, “Who is my neighbor?”
The Biblical definition to neighbor is the person next to you at any moment. So, as a child, your parent is your neighbor. As an adult your child is your neighbor. Your brothers and sisters in Christ in Church are your neighbors.
Today we move to the other side of that parent/child relationship: loving children. Parents are commanded to love their children. You might think this is basic and easy because from experience this is one of the deepest and strongest loves that exists in human experience. Here are some quotes about the positive experience some have had with parenting.
“There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.” — Walt Streightiff
“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.” — Angela Schwindt
“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” — C. S. Lewis
“There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.” — Henry Ward Beecher
“The soul is healed by being with children.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
“What it’s like to be a parent: It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, but in exchange it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love.” — Nicholas Sparks
“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” — George Bernard Shaw
But, that is not everyone’s experience. Not everyone has a positive take on child-rearing.
I read these quotes that give another perspective.
I’m sure you know the old proverb, “Children should be seen and not heard.” It gives having children a negative spin.
Ogden Nash once said, “Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.”
Harry S. Truman’s advice, “I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.”
It sounds more like a way to just get them out of your hair.
Monta Crane once said, “There are three ways to get something done by children: do it yourself, pay them, or forbid them to do it.”
And Erma Bombeck advised, “Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.”
And I think that the reason attitudes about parenting are all over the board is because everyone agrees that a parent should love their children, but they don’t agree on the definition of love.
There are parents who love their children selfishly. Parents who love through control. Parents who love through indulgence. Parents who love conditionally. Parents who neglect. Parents who provoke. Parents who crush the spirit of their children. Parents who make children idols. Parents who love comfort more than raising their children rightly.
So, Scripture does not merely assume parental love. It defines it.
So, here’s where we are going today. We again have three points from Scripture.
There is the command to love your children. There is the warning if you fail. But there is a huge blessing if you succeed.
prayer
I. The Command to Love Your Children
Scripture commands parents to love their children. Now last week I said that there was no passage of Scripture that explicitly commands children to love their parents. But the same cannot be said regarding commands for parents to love their children. Now, that exact word “love” is not used frequently concerning children, but there are a two verses that command it. Titus 2:3-4 says,
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior… so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children.”
“He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” — Proverbs 13:24
But most passages, instead of explicitly stating that parents should love their children, assume that they will love their children.
Isaiah 49:15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb?”
But, in addition to occasionally commanding it, or assuming it, just like with children loving their parents, Scripture defines what that love looks like.
And it does so in five major ways: Parents are to provide for your children, teach your children, discipline your children, not provoke your children, and lead your children toward God. So let’s walk through these five.
First: Provide for Your Children
Probably the most explicit verse stating that is
1 Timothy 5:8 “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
Here’s another
“For children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.” — 2 Corinthians 12:14
And another
“A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children…” — Proverbs 13:22
Now, let’s go back to 1 Timothy. “But if anyone does not provide for his own…” The word “provide” not only speaks of the ongoing day to day of food in the house, and clothes on their backs, but it carries the idea of forethought and care. Godly parents think ahead for the well-being of their children. This is the most basic and primary responsibility of parenthood.
That includes food, clothing, shelter, and protection. I think education is also part of this. It is taking care of the child’s basic needs. But what is amazing to me is how many are abdicating this most basic responsibility. At school, we have a class called advocacy as the first 20-minute class of the day. Now, why do we start each day with this class? We only started including this class less than five years ago.
Why do we have this class? Well, the official answer to that question would be that we’re trying to ground them at the beginning of the day, give them a time to do homework, teach them social skills. That’s what we are officially told. But what is the real reason? We have this class, because parents, in significant numbers, can’t seem to get kids to school on time. So, if they are 5, 10, 15, or even 30 minutes late each day to let’s say, math class, they miss instruction, and really are writing off math for a whole year.
So, we give them a buffer at the beginning of the day. This is just one example of how many parents are failing to provide basic needs.
Now let’s go back to the verse, 1 Timothy 5:8 “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
Notice how serious this verse is. Paul says failure to provide for your family contradicts the faith itself. If you don’t do that which is most basic, and let me say this, you do so willfully, then scripture says you are worse than an infidel. There are, of course, circumstances where parents are struggling to meet the basic needs of their children. But many are neglecting willfully.
Now this does not mean parents must provide luxury. 1st Timothy 6:8 says to all Christians, parent and child alike,
“If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.”
And Proverbs 30:8 says
“Remove far from me worthlessness and lying, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion.”
That tells a parent that you can harm a child in two directions, either by not providing enough, or by providing too much.
Biblical love provides exactly what a child needs. What is the second part of the definition of love from parent to child.
Second: Teach Your Children
Deuteronomy 6: 6 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as [c]phylacteries between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. “We will not conceal them from their children, But recount to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh… that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and recount them to their children.”
Parents are commanded to actively teach their children the truth of God. And notice the order.
6 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
The Word must first be “on your heart.” You must first embrace God’s Word and commands before you can pass them on to your children.
You cannot pass down what you do not possess. You can’t teach what you don’t know. You can’t lead where you won’t go.
And you know, that has to be one of the great challenges we have faced as the church in the last generation. Parents who are willing to drop off kids for Bible clubs, activities, Vacation Bible School, but who will not follow the faith themselves. And when they do that they are teaching their kids that this is either only important in childhood. Sort of an inoculation against spiritual depravity in adulthood. Or that it is only important as free childcare, so adults can get a break. But the truth is that kids won’t usually hold on to what parents don’t value.
The greatest influence on children is not sermons, church programs, or youth groups. It is the Example of the parent in the daily atmosphere of the home. Children learn what their parents truly love. This is more than just, “get your kids to Sunday School.”
And notice how constant this instruction is to be:
“6 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.”
This is not occasional religious activity. This is life-on-life discipleship. Parents are to be constantly interpreting the world through Biblical values for their children.
Now, what does this look like? It is little things like thanking God for the food before we eat. Singing Bible songs to your child. Getting up from bed with, “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” It can be night time prayers.
It is going to the grocery store and talking about all the yummy fruit God created. It is reading Bible stories together. It is weaving Biblical values into conversations. And to be honest, I will have to say that I haven’t done all that I should have in this area. But that’s the goal.
Because if parents do not teach their children intentionally, the world will teach aggressively.
Psalm 78: And our fathers have recounted to us. 4 We will not conceal them from their children, But recount to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, And His strength and His wondrous deeds that He has done. 5 For He established a testimony in Jacob
And set a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers That they should [c]teach them to their children, 6 That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, That they may arise and recount them to their children, 7 That they should set their confidence in God And not forget the deeds of God, But observe His commandments,
The goal is not merely well-behaved children. The goal is children who know God. What is the third part of the definition of loving your children?
Third: Discipline Your Children
Now this is the part modern culture hates. But Scripture repeatedly connects love and discipline.
Proverbs 13:24 “He who holds back his rod (Metaphorical rod of Correction) hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.”
“The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.” — Proverbs 29:15
“Correct your son, and he will give you comfort; He will also delight your soul.” — Proverbs 29:17
Let’s go back to that first verse. If you withhold discipline, you hate your child. Now, this verse isn’t just about the negative side of training; punishment, it is about the positive side; correction, direction, and loving instruction. The root word for discipline is disciple. To discipline your child is to disciple them. In the modern world we would call it mentoring. And mentoring takes time and patience. ou know this.
You tell me, is it quicker to vacuum the floor yourself, or teach your child to do it? Is it quicker to cook dinner yourself, or with your helpers with you? Is it quicker to mow the lawn, and weed eat, or teach your teen? Is it easier to take away the phone, and work through missing homework because grades are low, or to just “let the school handle it?”
Why do we have to discipline? Because children are not born morally neutral. This is also contrary to the wisdom of this world. But Scripture teaches that children are born into this world as sinners. And all that means is, that if they are left to follow their own noses, to follow their hearts, their inclinations. If they are directed, and told no. If they have no consequences for negative behavior, they will become self-centered tyrants.
“Folly is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline (metaphorical for parental correction) will remove it far from him.” — Proverbs 22:15
Children need shaping. Correction. Direction.
Hebrews 12: 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the [e]Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; 6 For those whom the [f]Lord loves He disciplines, And He flogs every son whom He receives.” 7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we [g]had [h]earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of [i]spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our benefit, so that we may share His holiness. 11 And all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, but to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Discipline says: “I love you too much to let sin destroy you.” I love you too much to throw you to the world untrained.
What is the fourth part of the definition of parental love?
Fourth: Do Not Provoke Your Children
Ephesians 6:4 “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Now this is the other side of the coin. We want to be sure to say that children need discipline. But Scripture also teaches that discipline can absolutely become sinful. Parents can discipline in anger. Harshness. Humiliation. Abuse. But that is not biblical discipline. Biblical discipline is controlled, purposeful, loving, and aimed at restoration.
This is incredibly important. Parents are authority figures, but they are not dictators. Let’s look at that verse.
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,
The word “provoke” means to exasperate, embitter, or crush. And a parent can absolutely crush or embitter a child by their discipline. This happens for a lot of reasons, but I think a big one happens when the parent is punishing or disciplining in order to punish the attitude, not the behavior.
Your child disobeys. They defy your direct instructions. Fine. Apply a consequence to that behavior. But I don’t think it is Biblical to try and discipline their thoughts. Some parents discipline harshly because they are trying to crush a rebellious spirit. That is not Biblical, nor is it practical.
You parent with the knowledge that one day this child won’t be under your thumb. You want them to learn that what you teach is right and good so that they will believe it is right and good and so later they will choose what is right and good.
Parents can embitter through impossible expectations. Constant criticism. Favoritism. Hypocrisy. Neglect. Inconsistency.
Colossians 3:21 further elaborates on the Ephesians passage by saying: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.”
Parents can literally discourage the spirit of their children. They can come to the conclusion that they will never be good enough for their parents. And we know some adults still carry wounds from words spoken decades earlier.
So biblical love means correction with tenderness. Truth with grace. Authority with compassion. What is the fifth part of the definition of loving your children?
Fifth: Lead Your Children Toward God
This is the highest calling for the believer. You highest calling is not to make your child a sports success. It is not even to spur them on to academic achievement. It is not popularity or financial prosperity. Your primary calling is to point children toward Christ.
Look at what Paul commended in Timothy, his protégé.
“From childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” — 2 Timothy 3:15
“For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice…” — 2 Timothy 1:5
Your first job is to pass faith on to your children. Joshua said this
Joshua 24:15 “As for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”
And let’s get practical. Why is that your first job? Because you are limited. We can place a lot of pressure on ourselves. We spend a lifetime worrying about our kids. When they are younger, am I feeding them right? Are they being properly socialized? Am I protecting them? Am I training them to be self-reliant? And as they get older we struggle with our failures? Did I over discipline? Did I under discipline? Did I spoil my child? We worry. Are they going to find the right spouse? Are they driving safely? Are they paying their bills? Will they get and keep a good and fulfilling job?
But, after they are grown and out of the house, much of this is out of your control. That’s why it is the first responsibility of parents to lead your kids to Christ. Because when they are grown, God can do what you can’t. God can repair what maybe you broke.
Those are the parts of the definition of love for your children; provide, teach, discipline, do not provoke, lead to Christ.
II. The Warning: Failure to Love Children Is Serious Sin
Failure to do these things can lead to a fractured house.
Psalm 127: Unless Yahweh builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless Yahweh watches the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.
I am not going to belabor this point. I think we all know where failures in parenting can lead. But there is also a blessing for proper parenting.
III. The Blessing: Loving Children Brings Joy and Generational Blessing
God attaches blessing to faithful parenting.
Joy
3 John 4 “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.”
“The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, And he who begets a wise son will be glad in him.” — Proverbs 23:24
“Correct your son, and he will give you comfort; He will also delight your soul.” — Proverbs 29:17
Stability
Proverbs 14:26 “In the fear of Yahweh there is strong confidence, and his children will have refuge.”
Godly homes create stability and refuge.
“By wisdom a house is built, And by understanding it is established; And by knowledge the rooms are filled With all precious and pleasant riches.” — Proverbs 24:3–4
“The fear of Yahweh is a fountain of life, That one may turn aside from the snares of death. In the fear of Yahweh there is strong confidence, And his children will have refuge.” — Proverbs 14:26–27
Generational Blessing
Psalm 103:17 “But the lovingkindness of Yahweh is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children.”
Conclusion
Now I know sermons like this can bring conviction, sadness, and regret. Some parents think: “I failed.” Some children think: “I never had this.” Others may say, “I don’t know where it went wrong. Some are carrying heartbreak over prodigal children.
So let me tell you the same thing I said last week. Start where you are. Remember that the gospel is full of restoration. None of us parent perfectly. And children, even the children of godly parents do not come with guarantees. Even faithful parents in Scripture had wandering children. Scripture says that God is our Father, but He has many wandering children.
Here's a to-do list some of which you are probably already doing.