All right. Can open to Colossians 3. Colossians chapter 3. And tonight we will be in verse 21. And this verse addresses fathers. And I know that we don't have all our fathers here tonight. But that's OK, because the principle in the passage, I think, can apply to a lot of different relationships. And so we'll look at this passage tonight as we continue in our series. In this section, Colossians chapter 3, verses 18 through 21, for several weeks we have been looking at what the Apostle Paul says in this passage about the family and the role that each individual in the family has within the family unit. The wife, the husband, the child, and then tonight the parents. The wife is to submit, the husband is to love, the children are to obey and honor, and then tonight we're just we're going to see that the fathers are to not provoke their children to anger. This command that we're going to look at this evening is really it's more additional instruction that we see given that just adds another layer of instruction to parents. And it really is dependent on the parent carrying out all the other commands that we've seen in verses 1 through 17. So if the parent is going to be successful at fulfilling this command to not provoke their children to anger, they're going to have to be successful in carrying out all the other commands that we've looked at in verses 1 through 17. A godly parent, one who has submitted to Christ, submitted to his lordship and his preeminence, must put off all of the actions and all of the attitudes that we've seen in the first part of this chapter. And those were attitudes that characterized their lifestyle and who they were before they were saved, before they believed in Christ. And now they are to put those attitudes off and those actions off, but put on the attitudes and actions of the new man, those that are in keeping with the new self, those that come when a person is redeemed, those that come when a person is regenerated and raised up with Christ. And so the new man puts off all of those things that we see in verse 5, immorality and impurity and passion. and evil desires, and covetousness, and anger, and wrath, and slander, and abusive speech. They're to put all of that off. And then they're to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and love. And then, having the word of Christ dwelling in them richly, the godly parent is then to correct their children of the wrong behaviors and attitudes that they display while they instill into them these same virtues. And so the foundation for a parent and a father to not provoke his children to wrath is to put off all of these characteristics of the flesh and to put on the new man. Now as a parent, you are the one responsible to raise your children. You have that responsibility. It's not something that you can pass off onto someone else. Their care, their development, their education, they're your responsibility. They're the parents' sole responsibility. Now, there's other people that you can use to help you with your nurturing and raising up of your children, but you are the one who has the main responsibility. Now a manifestation of a parent being complete in Christ is that they oversee and they have a certain kind of home, the right kind of home. And we have in Christ, and we said this the last time we were together, everything that we need as husbands, as wives, as children, and as parents to manifest this completeness in all of our different family relationships. Because we, the Bible says we are complete in Him, complete in Christ. Now your ability to fulfill your role, whether it be that of a husband, a wife, a child, or a parent, your ability to fulfill that role is directly related to how well you are doing in walking with Christ, being risen with Christ. And so as you set aside the habits and the attitudes that characterize your life prior to salvation, and then you put on the habits and attitudes that belong to, really are the graces that characterize Christ himself, and that belong to the new creature that you have become in Christ, as you put all of these things on, It is no longer difficult to fulfill your role like it was before you put on Christ. The same is true for parents, which is the subject that we will address this evening. And we will look at a home. really a home that brings glory, a home that brings honor to God by revealing some necessary, essential, and important basics for parents to honor God in the raising up of children. We looked at the child's relationship the last time we were together and their responsibility, the new child and his responsibility to his parents, but tonight the roles are reversed. And we look at the new parent and his responsibility to his children. Colossians chapter 3 and verse 21. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your goodness to us. We ask that you would be honored and glorified here this evening as we look at this passage and look at your word. We pray that you'd help it to direct us and to guide us in our daily living and that we would do that which we know is right. Follow your word and that we would submit to you in whatever way that your will requires. Be honored and glorified in Jesus name. Amen. All right, so the new parent and his responsibility to his children. So we're going to look like we did with the child, the responsibility and then the reason the responsibility for the child was that they were to obey and honor. And the reason was that it's well pleasing unto the Lord. But that's only half of the relationship. The other half of the relationship is the parent to the child. Now, I know that there's probably some thoughts out there that, you know, like we've mentioned this before, I'm not a husband, or I'm not a wife, or I'm not a child, or I'm not a parent, so I don't really need this. But you might be a parent one day, or maybe you're a grandparent, or maybe you have some other kind of relationship. Really, all relationships, the principle that we're going to look tonight for parent to child can really apply in many different other kinds of relationships. It could even be teacher to student. But this relationship, primarily speaking here tonight, Paul is referring to parents and the way that they relate to their children. And the responsibility here is that fathers are to not provoke their children to anger. Now Paul's command here is really interesting and from the standpoint that it is only from the negative side. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. So it's only from the negative side. And parenting would be, I wouldn't say very easy, but it would be easy, easier, or you could say it would be, could be easy, if all we had to do was avoid this one danger. Just don't provoke your children to anger. But Paul and the rest of scripture have a lot more to say both about the negative and the positive side of parenting and their responsibility. So if you look at the parallel passage in Ephesians chapter six, and we've looked at this passage as it relates to the other relationships in the home, Paul expands in Ephesians a little further than he does in the book of Colossians. The parallel passage in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4 includes the same negative. Fathers and ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. But it also adds the positive. The positive is, but bring them up in the nurture, that is instruction or discipline, and admonition, that would be warning, So there's instruction, there's discipline, and there's warning that takes place from the positive side as a parent raises up their child, brings up their child. Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And we could spend a whole, probably many weeks of series on bringing your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We have a parenting class that does really, that does that. So we're not gonna spend our time on that. But to just mention that this is, it's more than just not provoking your children to wrath. That's part of it, but there's more than just that. And so Paul's command here in Colossians is really an additional specific instruction to parents that complements all the other commands that he has given to believers in verses 1 through 17, as we've mentioned. And so being a godly parent requires that you put off the evil of the old man and you put on good, not only in your own practice, but in also what you require of your children. So as a parent, a godly parent not only requires their children to put off and put on, but they require that of themselves as well. Your own example as a parent must match the instruction that you give unto your children. or they will see your hypocrisy and they may even reject your teaching. They may reject your instruction. In fact, your example may actually have a greater impact. Your example may have a greater effect upon your children more than anything else that you do. Luke chapter 6 and verse 40 tells us that when a disciple is fully trained, when he's fully instructed, the disciple will be like his teacher. And so as a parent, if you are characterized by walking in the flesh, if you are characterized by fleshly attitudes and actions of anger and wrath and malice and all of those things that are listed out, in chapter 3 and verse 8, then don't be surprised if your children exhibit the same kind of characteristics. And the same is true with the list in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 5. If the evil practices of the old self, the old characteristics of the old man characterize your life, then they will also characterize the lives of your children unless the Lord really intervenes to help them despite your negative influence. So put off the old man so that way you can help your children do the same. Now at the same time, if your life is characterized as walking in the new self with compassion and kindness and humility and gentleness and forbearance and forgiveness and love, then your children will also then take on a lot of those characteristics. So Paul here specifically addresses fathers in this negative command. He says, fathers, provoke not your children to anger. Now there is a question as to whether or not Paul is speaking only to fathers, or whether he is using this as more of a generic term to denote parents. The Greek word that's translated here as fathers is the Greek word pater. And it's significant that this Greek word is used over in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 23. And the King James translators translated it as parents in that, in Hebrews 11, 23, referring to Moses being hid in the river, says his parents to that. And it was actually interesting because When you look back at Exodus and you read the story, the story only tells us that his mother did it. But in Hebrews, it says parents. Now the Greek word that's used here in Colossians 321 is the same word that's translated as parents in Hebrews. So the word pater that's used here can be used to denote the father and the mother. However, why Paul would change to this word when he just used a different Greek word in the previous verse, and that's in verse 20, children obey your parents, different Greek word, why he would change to this word would seem strange. It would seem odd. If Paul wanted this translated as parents, it seems that he would just use the same Greek word, geneas, that he did in verse 20, but he doesn't do that. He uses a different Greek word. And so Paul here, and by the way, the King James translators translated it as fathers as well. So Paul directs this command directly to fathers. Fathers are the chief recipient of this command. Why? Well, because they are called by God to be the head of their home. They are called by God to be the head of their household. So why are only fathers addressed here? Well, someone might say, is God giving mothers permission to provoke their children to wrath? Is this God's way of telling parents that the father is to be the good cop and the mother is to be the bad cop? It's okay, mothers, if you provoke your children, but it's not okay if fathers provoke their children. Dads aren't to be the heavy hand. Moms, heavy hand. Dads can't have a heavy hand. Fathers come to their sons. Fathers come and they say, son, please, please just listen to what she has to say. She wants to kill you right now. I need you to just submit to her and just do what she says. No, that's not what he's saying here. Is it because mothers never provoke their children to wrath? No. Paul knows that mothers are just as guilty of this as fathers. The father is in view here because in that day, in the first century, among the Gentiles, the father was the head of the household. And he had the primary responsibilities for issuing orders, not only to his children, but also to his wife. Remember, we talked about this a little bit when we talked about husbands and their relationship to their wives. When Paul says, husbands, love your wives, that really elevated the wife. It elevated the woman. There's a certain aspect to that here where children actually are being elevated to a certain extent because Paul's saying it's not okay to provoke your child to anger. You can't just treat your child like garbage, okay? So there's an elevation of children here. The common practice in that day in the Roman Empire was for the father to be considered what was called the patria patestis, otherwise known as the power of the father. The father had all the power. The father had all the authority. And this was the basic assumption about the way that the Hellenistic world operated. The father was in charge, and he had all the power, and he had all the authority. And mothers did not have that same authority. And so by this Roman law, a father had complete power and complete control over his children to do with them whatever he wanted. He could expose them at birth to the point where they died. He could sell them into slavery. He could take their life. That was the amount of authority the father had over his children. Now fathers in that day often left the raising of their children to either the work of slaves or the work of the mother. So this passage would have no doubt got the attention of the fathers. That fathers are actually responsible for raising up their children in the right way. Paul is telling the fathers that they play a very important role in the raising of children. And this would have been a shock to the Roman culture. Additionally, in the Christian home, the father was the authority over both the wife and the children. and thus held the ultimate responsibility that the child or the children were raised properly. And you see that in other passages in the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 11.3, Ephesians 5.23. In other words, the buck stopped with the father, not the mother. However, although this command in Colossians 3.21 is directed at fathers, I do believe that The mothers are also in view. And you see the wife here in the passage. If you go back to Ephesians 6, the father and the mother are both in the context. And so I believe that we can apply this to mothers as well. This verse is applicable to both dads and moms. Why? Well, the latter in that day would have been at his job. He would have been at work. He would have been in the fields. He would have been doing whatever job that he had in order to provide for the family, leaving a major responsibility of raising the children to somebody else. Now, we, as a church, You know, in this culture, in this day, you know, typically the man is the head of the house. We teach that the man is the head of the household and we've been going through that. And there is a push and a stress for women to not have to be in the workplace. So, that way they can take care of the home and take care of their children. And this really is a practical reality that a large portion, if not the majority, of the teaching of children is going to be done by the mother. Now it's going to be done under the leadership of the father, but a large majority of that teaching will be done by the mother. And so it is very important that the wife is submitting to her husband's leadership, as well as the husband actually offering that leadership, offering the leadership necessary in guiding his family in the right direction, and then the wife submitting under that leadership. And so another reason why it's important that the husband-wife relationship is actually what it should be, husbands loving their wives and wives submitting themselves onto their husbands. Now, the command here, is for fathers to not provoke their children to wrath. This is a present active imperative command, just like all the other ones that we've looked at, meaning that fathers are to make it their habit and their continual pattern of living that they do not provoke their children to wrath. Now, the word provoke here means and carries with it the idea of stirring them up. irritating them, frustrating them, exasperating them, or embittering them. That's the idea behind the word provoke. And really, as a parent, you think about this word provoke. And every parent knows the hot buttons of their child. If you had enough time to think about it, you think, OK, I know how to push their buttons. The thing that will stir them up, the thing that will get them going, To provoke to anger or wrath then suggests that there is some kind of a repeated ongoing pattern of treatment that gradually builds up this deep-seated anger and resentment from the child. And if you think about this, as a parent, when we provoke our children, when we think of the word provoke, a lot of times we think of something that's going to elicit a response. When we provoke, you think of the military provocation of some sort. You think that something is done, and then that action elicits a response. But actually here, and we're gonna look at this, the provoking doesn't elicit a response, it actually elicits a lack of response. It elicits discouragement, and we're gonna get into that here in just a moment. But that's the reason as to why we're not to provoke. We're not to provoke our children, not because we don't want them to blow up in anger, but because Paul says that when we provoke our children, they will become discouraged. And that's the reason, this is the reason. So the responsibility of every father is that they're not to provoke their children to wrath, not to provoke their children to anger. And the reason that we're not to do that is because we don't want them to become discouraged. And thus the verb here, to provoke, refers to provoking someone to a point of discouragement, to provoke someone to bitterness, to provoke someone to resentment, where they become disheartened or dispirited. When we provoke our children to wrath and we do the things, we're gonna look at a laundry list of things that we can do as parents in just a few minutes. When we do these things, We discourage our children. We dishearten our children. We cause our children to become dispirited. The child that is provoked here is provoked for what? You know, like I said, we think that the word provoke that it's provoking is going to stimulate to some kind of action, but it actually doesn't. It does the opposite. The child is provoked to give up. The child is provoked to just give in. And how can that be? Well, when something is prodded and poked too long, think about your hands, you work out in the field, you poke and prod, what happens? Calluses build up. So the initial provocation, there might actually be a response. But when this happens over and over and over and time and time and time again, where the child is continually provoked and provoked and provoked and provoked, this callus builds up. And then it no longer responds like a sliver embedded in the skin. At first, it's irritating. At first, it hurts. But over time, the callus builds up. And then it's no longer eventually even noticed. And so it is with children. This negative provocation at first is going to cause anger and resentment towards the parent, but eventually it will discourage and dishearten and create indifference and even despondency for the child to their parent. God wants our children to not grow up discouraged. God wants our children to grow up with hope. with confidence, with courage, not in themselves, not in the family unit, not in the church necessarily, but in God. Hope in God. Courage because of who God is and what his presence in their life means. That's what God wants for our children. He wants them to be encouraged, not discouraged. But you know, fathers, it is possible for us, and hopefully this isn't happening, but it's possible for us to create the kind of environment in our homes where our children become so overwhelmed by our own ungodly presence that they can't even focus on God, let alone believe the truths about God that we are trying to communicate to them. And so let's not be the reason for our children's discouragement. Now there are many things that a parent can do to provoke their children to an angry response or to a really a life that becomes full of anger and resentment and bitterness, which if continued will eventually lead to discouragement and giving up. So let me suggest a few things here. We'll list out a bunch of things. These things are not all inclusive. And there's going to be some specific kind of illustrations. And you can, many of these things have many different kinds of illustrations that you could put with them. So it's more than just the one illustration that I give to each of these. But I'm going to give you a few of these things that we as parents should be careful about. But first, let's think about this. As a parent, your children aren't always going to have the right response to your instruction, admonition, discipline, teaching. And just because your child doesn't have the right response doesn't necessarily mean that it's because of you. Okay, so the verse says that fathers aren't to provoke their children to anger. Just because your child gets upset about something that you say or something that you tell them, doesn't mean that you're the one that's provoking their anger. That anger could be coming from within because of whatever reason, they're not satisfied, they're not content with whatever it is that you're asking them to do. And so we need to be clear, parents, that our instruction of our children should not alter our, excuse me, the response of our children shouldn't necessarily alter our instruction or our teaching. Children can be and probably are most often angry when they don't get their way. So just because a child's upset because they didn't get their way doesn't mean that we should allow them to get their way. You do not stop what you're doing as a parent just because they get angry. Now, should we give careful consideration to why they're angry? Yeah, we should. And we should deal with it, whether it's their fault or our fault, we should give consideration to it. And then we should proceed with godly wisdom to be the parent that we should be, according to the principles of God's word. Now, how can we irritate? How can we embitter our children? to the point where they lose hope, to the point where they lose confidence. And dare I say, maybe even walk away from the faith if you do these things or do some of these things. This list is not all inclusive or in any particular order, but here we go. Number one, imposing expectations on the child that they could never meet. I said these are going to be very practical. Something like this. We all have our kids in the Christian school and we're going to be getting progress reports here probably soon. Report cards are going to come home shortly and you're going to see it. And some of you may shake your heads because you're not happy with what you see. And if you're careful, you can provoke your child. You could say something like this. You know, we're not spending all of this money for you to go to private school, for you to come home with A minuses. Come on, you need to get that up to an A plus. And you see the point there is that you're making it about your money. You make it about your own things. And the point with a child is that Is the struggling child doing their best? Maybe a question to be asked is, child, how can I help you? That might take some patience as a parent to deal with your child and help them through whatever struggle that they may be going through. But how can I help you? Yes, we can all feel a little bit disappointed. We can feel disappointed, maybe a lot of it disappointed in our children and their grades. We all want our students to be above average. We all want them to excel. We all want them to do well in school. But the reality is that average is what most of us are. I mean, I remember in statistics, we did the curve. And I forget what that's called. But there's a curve that you do. And on the one end of the curve, there's the really low. And on the other side, there's the really high. And that's just a very small sample. Most of the people fall in the middle. Right? So most of us are just average. And so when we impose expectations on our children that they could never meet, you can put them on a path of hopelessness, a path towards provocation. Number two, make family policy in a reactionary fashion. All right, I'm saying don't do this. This can provoke your children to anger. I'm gonna give you an example. There's many, but you tell your teenage daughter to get off the phone. 15 minutes later, daughter is still on the phone. She finally gets off the phone and you say something to her like, you know what? I am so sick and tired of you disobeying me. You are never gonna talk on the phone again. and you make a outlandish policy in the heat of the moment, that really is a ridiculous policy. So don't make policy in your family in a reactionary fashion. No, I'm not saying that's not the same thing as pulling her aside and saying, hey, I asked you to get off the phone. I understand it takes a few minutes to get off the phone because that's how the nature of a conversation on the phone is. So I actually gave you a couple extra minutes to get off the phone. I came back in 15 minutes later. You were still talking on the phone. When I tell you to get off the phone, I expect immediate obedience. I expect happy obedience. I expect complete obedience. And because you didn't do that, you're going to lose your phone privileges for a week. That's not what I'm talking about. But what I'm talking about is this over-the-top policy in the family that we make. And then, when you do it, you feel like you have to follow through with it. Because if you don't, then it makes it look like just an unveiled threat. But you can irritate and you can exasperate your child when you make up this kind of policy in a reactionary fashion, because they made you mad. So that's number two. Number three, constantly comparing your children to other people. And as you compare them, let them know that they don't meet up to the standard. Your brother never struggled with math when he was coming through school. Or maybe in a disciplinary situation, you say something like this. And this really can be devastating for a child to hear. Something like, your older sister never gave us these kinds of problems. And you compare the child with someone else, a sibling. Now every parent realizes this, but sometimes it's hard for us to accept that all of our children are different. Whether it's academic, whether it's their behavior, they're all different. God made them all different. And with that means and comes that they all need to be handled sometimes in a different way. Some may need a heavy hand of discipline. Some may need a light touch. Some may need only a word. Some may need a lot of affection. Every child is different. And it's important for us as parents to learn our children and to understand our children and their differences and not get upset about those differences. Fourth, criticize them in public and also in private. Criticizing your children in public. And a very effective tool in this is sarcasm. You know, teens these days, all you got to do is go to the store and you see them. They all have this, the fashions are just way out. They're out of control. So your child walks in. and they just got a haircut. And you say something like, where did you get that ridiculous, idiotic haircut? And the child hears that, and they think, well, dad doesn't like me. Dad thinks I'm an idiot. Dad thinks I'm ridiculous. Now, maybe they need to go back and get another haircut. But don't belittle your children. and be careful with the use of sarcasm towards them. You don't say to your daughter, did Halloween come early or did you just get a makeover? Okay? When you belittle your children, when you are sarcastic towards your children, you wound them. You can wound them. And really, you can mark them for life. And they'll remember those things. Five, remind your children often that other people are watching, so that appearance becomes more important than the integrity of the heart. And what do they learn? They learn how to fit in. They learn how to walk the line. They learn how to get in line with the standards of the home, get in line with the standards of the school. Rather, you know, on the outside, externally, rather than getting in line inside, in their heart. We want our children to believe this in their hearts, not just to become a robot that, you know, just does it because they don't want to get smacked down by their parent. You know, it's really humiliating in public when, and we can all probably attest to this, especially when you have younger kids, they learn to know when they have you in those precarious situations. When you're in the grocery store or when you're out in public and you can't really discipline, but maybe you strike out at them. If we discipline our children in those moments because they embarrassed us, We teach them that if they just look good on the outside, get the outside act in conformity, then they're okay. They'll be okay. But the reality is, is that there's a heart underneath that God is looking at. That's what God sees. We see the outside. Man sees the outward appearance, but God sees the heart. And God wants pure hearts. He wants clean hearts. He wants hearts that are true. He doesn't want just merely a facade that looks good, but he wants a pure, clean heart. Number six, act and talk like a Christian in public with your children, yet talk like a devil at home. Talking like a Christian in public, but go home and talk like, a devil. Your kids will see right through that. They'll see right through it, and it'll frustrate them, and it will anger them. And as they get older, it will discourage them. You know, dads can go to church on Sunday, Sunday after Sunday, they're here. And they are singing out, raising their voice to God, praying, being a part of the worship service. Even reprimanding their children when they don't stand right or sit right or have their eyes open during prayer. Then they go home and talk and act like just a horrible person. Yelling at their children while they're getting ready to come to church. The children are expecting to be yelled at when they come home from church because they left the sock in the middle of the hallway. Or the food's not getting put on the lunch table quick enough. Is it any wonder that children who live in that kind of hypocritical environment say when they get old enough to express what's really going on on the inside, I don't want to be a part of your kind of Christianity. And this really is one of the more egregious sins that a father can commit. because it's not just you and your relationship that you compromise, but they may walk away from God and Christianity altogether. Or at least the church, because you've blasphemed his name, both in principle and in practice. You take his name on, I'm a Christian. without living the way that Christ calls you to. And there are many others. I'm not gonna go into all of these in detail for sake of time, but just to list these out. Abuse, both physical and verbal. Being unpredictable, excessive, or inconsistent with discipline. A child never knows if dad is gonna blow up over a minor infraction or let a major one slip by. Selfishness. Parent uses the child to meet their own needs without a regard for the child's needs. Favoritism. One child gets away with murder and the other is treated sternly. And you can even look at the story of Isaac and Rebecca and the favoritism and look how that turned out. Dealing with the repercussions of that even today. Failing to show affection. Not letting a child be a child. You know, chiding them for always acting childish. Constant criticism without recognition for a job well done. And then this, I mean this, we can use the report card example. The kid comes home with A's, all A's, A's, A's, comes home with a C. You know, A's, okay, keep it up. C, you know, 20 minute lecture, just crushing the child. Unreasonableness, a parent not listening to the child's explanation or considering circumstances before passing judgment. Unfairness, harsh punishments for minor matters. Insensitivity, just blowing the kid off, not listening or minimizing what to the child may seem important. And breaking promises, which teaches a child to do what? Not trust their parent. So here's a whole laundry list of things. And like I said, this is not all inclusive. We could all probably come up with a lot more, and a lot more different examples. But these are some common ways that parents can discourage their children, provoke their children to anger so that they become discouraged or disobedient. And if any of these errors, if any of these kinds of things describe our parenting, then we must make a change. We must repent and make the change. Make an effort to be different while there's still hope with our children. And if you think about this list, you'll note that none of these behaviors are characteristic of our Heavenly Father. None of them. And so as a parent, you could really state in one sentence how you should aim to raise your children. The overall principle for raising a child is that I must relate to my children in the same way that the Heavenly Father relates to me. Children, obey your parents. Parents, relate to your children as God relates to you. And Sunday, Pastor Stagger really went through this whole idea about the father and his goodness and all that he does for us. Parents relate to your children as God relates to you with sensitivity and encouragement with grace and mercy. And if we work together, both children and parents, Children fulfilling your role in the home, obeying and honoring. Parents not provoking them to wrath, not provoking them to anger, which results in despair and discouragement. If we can both do this, then we can help preserve the vital endangered species of the Christian family home. And that's what we want. We want our homes to be what God wants them to be. We want our children to have a platform to be raised up in, so that way they have a good example to follow when they raise their children. And children, if your parents aren't perfect in this area, Just remember, you're not perfect in your responsibilities either. We all have room to grow. We all have room to improve in our roles in the home. God wants us to be improving. He wants us to be growing. He wants us to be maturing as Christians. And this is just one area that if we can, as parents, really think about, just think. We tend to sometimes think about ourselves and just really focus on our own needs and our own wants and our own desires. We get impatient. We get upset. And that can impact our children negatively. We don't want to do that. Be merciful. Be gracious to our children. And let's, as a church and as families, raise our children to want to follow God's word, to want to be Christians, and to really be strong Christians for his honor and glory. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we're thankful for your goodness to us. We ask that you'd be honored and glorified in our relationships, that we would do that which is pleasing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.