And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

This is a global phenomenon – the majority of young people who attend church in their childhood and youth end up abandoning the faith altogether when they are in their twenties.

In this series, we’ve tried to look at the words of Deuteronomy 6 as the solution, and the opposite of them as the problem. In other words, if we do not teach loving God wholeheartedly when we rise up and when we lie down, when we come and when we go, if we do not allow loving God to be as prominent as if it were something tied to our hands, in sticking out on our foreheads between our eyes, if loving God is not something inscribed into our family lives, then we have practically secular homes. Whatever we might say once a week at church, our lives say that God does not matter. Our routines, priorities, conversations all say that God rests lightly upon our consciousness. Children growing up in these homes learn that we ought to take education seriously, we ought to take getting a great quality of life seriously, but we do not need to take God seriously.

On the other hand, if we pay attention to all the ways that we communicate love for God, the message is different. If we teach love for God formally and informally, if we show love for God by what we prioritise, by what we take pleasure in, by the very routines in our lives, by the rituals in which we symbolise what is important to us, it may be that the Spirit of God will bless our efforts, and show the beauty of Christ, the power of the gospel and the glory of living a life of love for God to our children. They will not only know they ought to love God, but they will desire that themselves.

We also saw from the New Testament’s clearest parenting passage that a vital aspect of teaching our children to love God is to rightly portray His authority and His grace. His greatness and His goodness. Last week we took the time to consider how to communicate God’s greatness by teaching children to obey and honour parental authority in the home. We saw that God’s primary instruction to parents is to make God’s authority visible to children by teaching first time, cheerful obedience, and by teaching honour and respect.

But if all we knew was God’s greatness, we might fear and reverence Him, but it might be nothing but dread. God’s greatness exists fully with His goodness. God is a God of holiness, of righteousness, of justice, and of sovereign authority, and He is a God of mercy, patience, long-suffering, kindness and grace. So as we return to Ephesians 6, we focus on verse 4 to see now how we portray the goodness of God in our homes. We learn from Ephesians 6:4 how to have homes of grace.

Grace is a wonderfully soothing word. It refers not only to God’s attribute of unearned favour and kindness, but also to enabling power, to the enablement God gives for us to do His will. A home of grace is one where children see both the patient and kind nature of God, and learn of the hope-giving promises and power that can be theirs in Christ. So how do we have homes of grace?

Ephesians 6:4 gives us two commands: a negative and a positive. There is something we are not to do, and something we are to do.

I. Homes of Grace Do Not Destroy Hope

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath

The command is given here to fathers, not because mothers are exempt, but because fathers represent the authority of parents. If you are a parent, do not provoke your children to anger. This doesn’t mean, don’t ever do anything by which they may become angry. It can’t mean that, because a child can be angry for sinful reasons. A parent can’t stop doing the right thing just because it makes a rebellious child angry. No, the idea is expanded in a parallel Scripture, Colossians 3:21, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.”

The kind of anger here is the frustration and resentment that comes when a child loses heart, loses enthusiasm, or vigour, or vitality. When grace is absent, then children lose hope. When children lose hope they become despondent and angry. Homes of grace do not destroy hope.

What are some ways that parents remove hope and so provoke to anger? Let me suggest three very common areas.

1. Discipline That Destroys Hope

Last week we talked about the importance of discipline to teach first-time, cheerful, immediate obedience. But that discipline is supposed to be filled with grace. When it isn’t, it destroys hope.

One way to do this is to discipline in anger. God has made children to understand and accept legitimate hidings. He has not made them to understand and accept yelling, furious anger, or other forms of revenge on the child.

Discipline that is inconsistent exasperates children. Standards that are a constantly shifting target are extremely exasperating for children: “What do you want from me?” “There is a great sense of security in knowing what to expect …. What’s cruel is for their discipline to be based on the mood, energy level, or whim of the parent.” (Don’t Make Me Count to Three, 113)

Another way is to end discipline on a bitter, negative note. To end a correction with the silent treatment, with sulking, with a “Don’t talk to me, I’m still angry at you” treatment—that disheartens a child. Discipline should end with a hug, an affirmation of love, and restored relationship.

Withholding parental love from a child in some kind of extended punishment crushes a child’s spirit.

We also discipline in a way that removes hope when our correction is simply unfair and unjust. For example giving all your children a spanking before a long road trip is unfair and unjust. Or to correct everyone because you can’t tell who is lying and who is telling the truth.

A child loses hope when a parent never allows any genuine discussion or appeal. Yes, small children need to learn to obey without arguing, debating, delaying, and so on. However, as children grow, they do have thoughts and ideas of their own—that’s good. They need to be respectful in how, when, and how often they share their ideas or alternative plans, but as they grow they should be given freedom to engage their parents in genuine discussion and appeal.

Think about how God disciplines us. When God trains us through circumstances, through consequences, does He ever over-discipline or under-discipline? Does He treat us with a lingering sense of disapproval? If we think so, it’s in our heads, not in the Bible, and not in His heart. Does God discipline us in uncontrolled, raging, vengeful anger? If He did, we’d never stand a chance. Does God keep changing the rules? Does God prevent us from praying, asking, appealing, discussing things with Him?

No, God’s gracious training of us does not destroy hope. Parents, we must not either if we want to teach the grace of God in our homes.

2. Expectations That Destroy Hope

Parents are supposed to have expectations for their children. They are supposed to have a goal in mind, a standard they are striving for. That standard, however, needs to be a biblical one, not a selfish one. When parents communicate expectations not from the Word, they destroy hope. What are some of these?

One is a relentless pressure to succeed. The child’s success, academic talents, or athletic abilities become a tool of the parents’ ego, something to be used for the parents’ glory. Pushing children to be the sportsman you never were, or the academic who gets full scholarships, or better than everyone else at everything destroys hope.

Another is perfectionistic expectations. Some parents are never pleased. Their standards of success for their children are unobtainably high. What? You got a 99%? How could you miss one? There is no mercy, no grace, no room for failure or improvement in that parent’s attitude. That’s a love failure, and it discourages and exasperates his or her children.

A third kind of expectation that destroys hope is double standard or hypocrisy. The parent expects a child to live a certain way, but they themselves don’t live by that standard. Children soon lose hope: why should I live better than my parents? What gives them the right to be selfish and fleshly and yet demand that I be different?

Think again of God’s parenting of us. God expects us to be perfect, but He supplies the grace for us to grow steadily into that image. God does not ask us to do anything that Christ Himself did not live by, and that the Holy Spirit will not enable us to do. God does not pressure us to succeed in trivial, foolish ways. He desires our ultimate joy by becoming like Christ. God’s expectations of us do not destroy hope, because they are full of grace.

Our homes lack grace when our discipline destroys hope, Our homes lack grace when our expectations destroy hope. These exasperate and discourage our children.

3. Inconsistency That Destroys Hope

Now every parent struggles to be consistent. But I don’t mean your every day battle to be consistent. There are some very obvious and severe inconsistencies that provoke children to anger.

Not keeping promises is a big one. It’s easy to get your kids off their backs for another hour or another day by making promises that you know they probably won’t keep: I’ll play Lego™ with you a little later. In its extreme, that kind of put off is actually a form of lying, and kids pick up on it pretty quickly. Dad said he’ll play with me, but I know from the last seven times he said that there is no chance it will happen.

Another inconsistency is treating the children in vastly different ways. Parents dishonour and disrespect their children when they play favourites among their children, exalting some and ignoring or despising the others. John MacArthur: Don’t … compare your children with one [an]other. Don’t say things like, “Why can’t you be like your brother?” Don’t use one child’s virtues or talents as the standard against which to measure another’s performance. (Successful Christian Parenting, 138)

A third kind of inconsistency is when Dad and Mom have different rules and different methods of discipline. Dad spanks; Mom talks. Mom says don’t jump on the couch; Dad does it with them. The rules Mom has been labouring to enforce all day long suddenly get thrown out the window when Dad gets home. Dad believes a hiding needs to be administered for some sinful act or attitude; Mom intervenes and argues on behalf of the child, and the parents have a knock-down, drag-out fight in front of the kid about it. That kind of divided authority exasperates children and tempts them to manipulate their parents.

God’s authority does not have inconsistency. God does not destroy our hope by breaking His promises. God does not destroy our hope by having favourites and showing partiality. God’s expectations of us are grounded in grace.

Discipline, expectations, inconsistencies are very common areas where we fail to show the grace of God. Here the Lord calls on parents to repent of these areas, to turn away from the sort of actions that discourage and destroy hope.

But if that’s what we put off, there is then something positive we put on. We repent, but then we replace the hope-destroying actions with the positive that brings grace.

II. Homes of Grace Raise Children With Gracious Nourishment

4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

Bring them up this is one word in the original and it means to nourish, to bring to maturity. Grow them up, mature them, raise them. This is an active verb. Children don’t mature by themselves. Yes, they get older and bigger if you keep feeding them, but they don’t get wiser and godlier without active grace-filled parenting. By the way, that means parents give focused attention to their children. One study has found that the average father spends thirty-seven seconds a day interacting with his children (cited in MacArthur, Parenting for Life, Lesson 8). Children know that time plus attention equal love. They also know that indifference, distraction, and neglect don’t. Father mothers, get off your phone, stop being permanently attached to WhatsApp and addicted to updates, to endless scrolling on X, or Instagram, or Facebook.

So Paul qualifies this raising with two phrases. Bring them up in the training of the Lord and bring them up in the admonition of the Lord. Training is the idea of providing guidance for responsible living, training, instruction. It’s teaching with firmness and fairness. It is instruction that bites if you don’t pay attention. The second word is very close in meaning. It means to teach or warn, to point out the dangers and keep someone from harm.

Now we’ve already spent time in this series talking about the importance of having God’s Word in your heart, then teaching the Word through direct instruction and by observed example. So what makes training and admonition be “in the Lord”? What does it look like when God’s grace is shining alongside the authority, when the greatness and the goodness mingle?

First, grace-filled training includes encouraging words. God’s example: This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. (Matt 3:17; 17:5) If God’s example is to be followed, verbal expressions of love (beloved Son) and praise (in whom I am well pleased) are normal in a parent-child relationship. Parents who are reluctant or stingy in their verbal expressions of love, thanks, and encouragement to their children are being ungodly and will exasperate their kids because of it.

MacArthur: “Parents provoke their children to anger when they constantly criticize them but never reward them, never praise their accomplishments, and never allow them to enjoy their own successes. A child who feels he can never get his parents’ approval will soon give up trying to earn it at all….This is easy to do. Always focus on what they do wrong, and never notice what they do right. Always notice their faults, but never say anything about their positive qualities. Ignore their natural gifts and talents, and harp on the things they don’t do well. (Successful Christian Parenting, 140-1).

God does not use exaggeration with us. “You always do the wrong thing. You never do anything right.” God does not resort to mocking or name-calling with us. “Fool! Idiot! Failure, failure, failure—you’ve always been a failure and you’ll always be a failure!”

I think we should add to the idea of encouraging words, within the family, physical affection is an important way of showing godly love. Parents who never hug their children are failing to communicate love in a normal way—a way their children probably crave, and it exasperates the children. Grace-filled homes encourage through encouraging talk and encouraging touch.

Alongside that, grace-filled training assumes the best, and not the worst. In Paul’s description of love in 1 Corinthians 13, one of the descriptions is

“bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7)

This doesn’t mean that grace is gullible, or zoned-out and cannot see the sin, the deceptiveness, the depravity. But love wants to believe the best, and treats the beloved not like someone guilty until proven innocent, but as innocent until proven guilty.

He is not hard to please, though He may be hard to satisfy. He expects of us only what He has Himself first supplied. He is quick to mark every simple effort to please Him, and just as quick to overlook imperfections when He knows we meant to do His will…He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this He does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is.

Do your children expect a smile when they approach you, or a scowl? A happy greeting, or a cold acknowledgement? For them to learn to love God is for them to see that God is able to see us in Christ, and love us for what we will be, in spite of what we are right now.

Third, grace-filled training is filled with plenty of forgiveness and patience.

How often do we expect God to forgive our sins? How often do we expect that He will be patient with us again? How quickly do we expect God to forgive us when we repent and confess?

God’s Word has taught us that God forgives infinitely. God’s mercies are new every morning. God forgives immediately when we confess.

A grace-filled home forgives quickly and often. It does not keep a record of wrongs. It does not carry resentments and nursed wounds. Sins are openly rebuked and then openly confessed and quickly forgiven. In that home, we learn that grace is a commodity that never runs out, and is always replenished.

That forgiveness and patience is a two-way street. Parents at time, also have to ask forgiveness for their own wrongs done against the children. What a change comes over resentful children, when they begin to see their parents humbling themselves, asking for forgiveness for sins and wrongs done.

Here’s one more.

Grace-filled training fills the home with rejoicing in grace. When grace is present, the home should not be gloomy. People are gloomy when they have lost hope But when grace is present, there is hope, and with hope, there should be joy. Joy in who God is and what He is like.

Again, A. W. Tozer tells us “The God of the Pharisee was not an easy God to live with, so his religion became grim and hard and loveless. It had to be so, for our notion of God must always determine the quality of our religion….Instinctively we try to be like our God, and if He is conceived to be stern and exacting, so will we ourselves be. Christian life is thought to be a glum, unrelieved cross-carrying under the eye of a stern Father who expects much and excuses nothing. He is austere, peevish, highly temperamental, and extremely hard to please…Fellowship with God is delightful beyond all telling. He communes with His redeemed ones in an easy, uninhibited fellowship that is restful and healing to the soul. He is not sensitive nor selfish nor temperamental. What He is today we shall find Him tomorrow and the next day and the next year…How good it would be if we could learn that God is easy to live with…God is the sum of all patience and the essence of kindly good will.

Are we easy to live with? Do our homes have the sweetness of joy in the Lord, or the heaviness of graceless despondency? This is not a joy based on circumstances. The book of Habakkuk closes with these words:

Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls—

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17–18)

Joy is delight in God Himself – who he is, what He has promised. And a grace-filled home chooses that joy in the good times and the bad.

C. S. Lewis pictures this for us in one of the Narnia books, when good king Lune describes what it is to lead as a king during hard times. “For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.” Wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than anyone else. What does that mean? Faking your joy? Pretending? No. It means leading in joy. Remembering the grace of God and filling your home with gratitude and gladness.

Bring your children up in the training and admonition of the Lord. The Lord is gracious, so we imitate His gracious goodness with encouraging words, with lovingly believing the best, with plenty of forgiveness, and with lots of rejoicing.

If we combine this gracious goodness with the greatness that inspires and expects obedience and reverence, our children will have a fair idea of what this perfectly good and great God is like.

If the children in our church are to grow up and be robust, persevering disciples of Jesus Christ, it will not be because we got them to pray a prayer to accept Jesus one time in their lives. It will not be because we interrupted our otherwise secular lives once a week to do church. It will not be because we had a Christian version of the youth culture in our churches. It will not be because we made church fun for the children and cool for the teenagers.

It will be because our homes and church were God-saturated. The love of God was taught from the pulpit, from the dinner table and from the couch. The love of God was taught through the home and church’s priorities and pleasures. The love of God was taught in our routines, and in our rituals. And the love of God was taught by showing God’s authority and God’s grace: that God must be obeyed and honoured, but that God’s grace will bring you hope. If we do this, then our children will see something of God when they rise up and when they lie down, when they come and when they go, on the doorposts, on their hands, on their forehead – everywhere they look. And more than that, they will see that this God is beautiful, glorious, a God to be pursued, followed, and loved.