Building A Relationship With Your Parents
Contributed by Bios Baptist Church
Scripture: Ephesians 6:1-4 & 1 Samuel 3:10-14
Tags: Children, Family, Parenting, Christian Love
Denomination: Baptist
Sunday, August 5, 2018

Introduction
In the beginning family has played a critical role in the working in God's purposes on earth. Family was also designed to reflect and flesh out spiritual truth. Scripture uses the imagery of family to speak of our relationship with God in Christ. Children are a gift from the Lord. They are God's possession, not ours. He has temporarily placed them under our care; We have been given the task of raising them up from a state of complete dependence to a state of complete independence so that we can release them to God by the time they reach maturity.{Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: 3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” 4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.} [Ephesians 6:1Children, obey your parents the way the Lord wants, because this is the right thing to do. 2 The command says, “You must respect your father and mother.” This is the first command that has a promise with it. 3 And this is the promise: “Then all will go well with you, and you will have a long life on the earth.” 4 Fathers, don’t make your children angry, but raise them with the kind of teaching and training you learn from the Lord. ] {1 Samuel 3:10-14 And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.”  [11] Then the Lord said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.  [12] On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end.  [13] And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.  [14] Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.} Today we will look at 3 ways we will Build A Relationship With Your Parents
I. Children, Obey Your Parents                                                                                                                      Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise: 3 that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. To begin with, it’s import for us to see that all across various cultures children are to obey their parents.  The Apostle tells us this when he says, basically across the board, this is right. It’s right on a natural level.  Virtually every culture in existence has as its foundation the family relationships between parents and children.  Across the board also, children are to obey their parents.  For a child to rebel against the parents is to even go against natural law. when a culture experiences this, it is a signal that God is in fact passing judgment. The parent teaches the child how to live and is a ordained athority of God. With out these teachings the child will shourley be lost in today's world. {Proverbs 30:17 The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.} The relationship between child and parent is a very important one to God. Leviticus 20:9 For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him. [Leviticus 20:9 Whoever curses their father or mother must be put to death. They cursed their father or mother, so they are responsible for their own death!] death Literally, “his blood is on him. (This was a law now the death is spritual) IF YOUR PARENTS SAY TO DO SOMETHING THAT IS NOT ILLEGAL OR DANGROUS DO IT!                                                                                                                                                                          II. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger                                                                                        4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath There are ways in which instruction and discipline occur that can and should be done in an encouraging way.  Like it or not, when discipline happens, it’s usually never a pleasant experience.  Anyone can be provoked to anger through discipline, children and adults alike. Paul is not saying that should discipline angers a child you should not do it.  It is suppose to anger a child.  What he is saying is that the methods you use should not be too extreme that it provokes anger. Sometimes parents can discipline to the extreme. For example using your need to express his or her own anger, rather than the need to teach the child, is what’s driving the form and style of punishment. That’s why I recommend that before punishing a child, a parent take time to cool down. Most children that come from a home in which discipline is a part of it will probably think that they’re being disciplined too excessively. A discouraged child is one who has lost heart. He is so beaten down that he has lost hope, he has lost motivation, he doesn’t care anymore. Paul does not want to see the children of Christian families disciplined to such an extent that they ‘lose heart’ and simply give up trying to please their parents.  Do not beat down, but raise up. Do not provoke with impatience and injustice, but instead shepherd with nurture and tenderness, and do this through discipline and instruction.                                                                                                                                               III. Parents, Instruct Your Children                                                                                                              4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. When raising godly kids, use the Word of God and don’t try to teach children without it, which will only lead them to rebelliousness. God knows children and He knows what you need to do to bring them up right. Parents are either going to prepare their children to follow Christ or to follow the world. {Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.} We see from this text of Scripture just how serious rebellious children are in God’s sight.  He holds parents accountable for disciplining their children.  A parent cannot determine how their children will turn out.  Here in this text God did not hold Eli accountable for what his children were doing but he did hold him accountable for not taking steps to disciplining his children. Because Eli did not restrain his sons he did not love them like he should have. As our Father, God restrains us.  He teaches us and disciplines us, most of the time we don’t like it when He does His disciplining.  But it is always for our Good. One way to tell that God is our Father is that He disciplines us when we need it.  If there is no discipline, then we should wonder if we are really God’s children.                                                                                                                                   Closing                                                                                                                                                     We must thank the Lord for the discipline He lovingly administers. Children you should also thank your parents for loving you enough to discipline you.Parents are responsible to provide for their children's material. But they have also been entrusted with the responsibility of shaping their children's character and guiding their spiritual, psychological, intellectual, emotional, and physical growth. This is not to be left by default to outside institutions. The primary spiritual and moral training of children starts in the home