Proverbs - Wisdom for families

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Thanks so much. Jason, add my welcome to that of Kolett's and Dylan's. My name's Dave, one of the pastors here, and it is a joy to bring God's word to you this morning. If you've got your Bible there, you'll need that. We're going to be continuing in our Old Testament book of Proverbs as we look at our series God's Wisdom for Living as Disciples of Jesus. So far we've had a couple of weeks in, we've just kind of covered the introduction to the series, and so far what we've discovered is that true wisdom begins with this healthy fear of the Lord. That's where wisdom and knowledge begin with this fear of the Lord. And now Pastor Dylan gave us that really helpful definition of fear of the Lord. We've defined it as a profound reverence and awe towards God, coupled with a healthy awareness of the danger brought about by our sin. That's what it means to fear the Lord. We saw in our introduction to this this book of Proverbs that there are these two main voices that kind of speak throughout the Proverbs. There's this voice of wisdom, often taking the shape of a father teaching his son. And then we have the voice of folly, or foolishness, which seeks to call us away from the good path that God desires us to walk. What we're trying to discover as we journey through these Proverbs over the coming weeks is we want to unpack God's wisdom for what it means for us to live as disciples of Jesus. This morning we're going to shift gears a little bit. We're going to focus in on a few of the Proverbs that speak to us about God's wisdom for families, for parents and children. My prayer is this morning for parents that this is something that's going to challenge and help us as parents to focus our attention, our energy around what God says is important for us. And also for those that aren't parents this morning, I hope that this will challenge you too, even as we've seen with the infant dedication of a little Oliver there, that as a faith community, even if we're not parents, we have a role that we can play in helping to encourage and support other parents in our church or parents that you might know in your own circles. Help to support these parents in the important role God has given to them. So that's where we're going. So if you've got your Bible there, we'll need to open up to Proverbs. We'll be jumping backwards and forward a little bit some of these Proverbs. We'll put the Bible references up on the screen and the PowerPoint slides will go up on our website like normal later in the week. So don't feel rushed if you're taking notes, if you don't quite get the reference, the slides will go up on the web. You can email us in the office if you need them before they get posted to the website. But let's bear in prayer first, shall we? Father God, we do just want to thank you for your wisdom to us, the fact that you are a God who speaks. And Father, it's our heart's desire this morning as we dig in again to these Proverbs that we might discover in this ancient wisdom some guiding principles that you have ordained for families, specifically for parents and for children. Father, help those of us who are parents to hear what it is that you would say to us this morning. Those of us who are children, Lord, to be attentive to your voice. And Lord, for those who are not parents, Lord, help us to see how we might encourage and support the parents that we know that you've placed in our lives. Lord, we want to learn from you and grow as wise disciples, as wise families this morning. And we ask your spirit to lead us as we open your word together. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. As I've been reading the Proverbs these last few weeks, I came across this helpful image that helps us to understand how we might read the Proverbs. Sometimes it can be a bit tricky. Some of the language is a bit weird and that can be a little bit tricky to know how to read them. But I found this image of a piece of wood. And if you've ever worked with wood before, you've done any wood carving or building anything with wood, you'll know that wood has a grain to it. It has a way that the fibers line up. It's just the way that wood is. It's kind of like this hard reality of wood. And if you're trying to work with wood, if you're trying to create something out of it, maybe trying to split it with an axe to get some firewood, it's helpful to pay attention to the grain, to the way that those fibers are lining up. If you're carving something out of wood, if you're trying to get something beautiful, trying to fashion something intricate and beautiful out of it, I'm told on the woodcarvers, you don't carve against the grain. You've got to learn where the grain is and go with it and not against it. If you try and go against the grain, it's likely to fracture and splinter, especially if you're trying to create something that is delicate. Wisdom, as it's described for us in the Proverbs, can be a little bit like that. As Christians, we believe that God made the world. He created the universe, everything in it. He made you and He made me. And in making this world, there's kind of a grain to it in the way in which God has fashioned it, the way in which He's ordered the world to work in the way it's put together. Because God made us, it means that there's a grain to our lives. There's an order and a way in which God has marked out our lives and the way in which the good way in which we should live. And so looking at the Proverbs for God's wisdom, it means trying to understand what that good path is, trying to find out where the grain is, trying to commit ourselves to line up with this God ordained reality. That's what it means to live as wise disciples of Jesus in God's world. It's trying to orient our lives towards the path that He's marked out for us rather than trying to go against it. I found that to be helpful. And the Proverbs are indeed helpful in helping us to see some of these guiding principles that God has given to us and establish these good paths for us. We need to remember, though, that God has given us a free choice to choose. We get that choice. He's given that freely to us. We can choose to listen to wisdom's voice and walk the path of wisdom, or we can listen to that voice of foolishness and sin and follow after that path instead. And so what we find in the Proverbs is a bit of a tension between the way God has designed the world to be, the grain that he's kind of placed in the world and the way the world actually is right now. Can sometimes make reading the Proverbs a little bit tricky. For instance, if we look at our first proverb or guiding principle for families this morning from Proverbs 22, verse six, we read these words. Says, start children off on the way they should go. And even when they're old, they'll not turn from it. Proverbs 22, six. In many ways, this is the guiding principle for parenting in the Proverbs. It's how God has set up the world. It's the grain that runs through his wisdom for families. Parents are to teach and train their children. And I mean, that makes sense when we think about it. We can kind of see that grain there. Parents have more experience than their kids. I don't claim to be wiser than my kids, but I have lived longer than they have. At least two and a half times as long as one of them. I've got more years experience on the earth than they do. So it makes sense that I could train them in the way that they should live and that when they're old, they could continue to live that way. That's how the world should be. But don't we know, friends, that this is not how the world actually is. Many of us here today can think of kids who've been trained in the way they should go, who have yet exercised their God-given freedom and they've run off in a complete opposite direction. I personally know of parents who are grieving kids who seem to abandon their faith and turn their backs on Jesus, even though they've grown up hearing about him as a child. I've got two brothers that are walking that path right now. They grew up in the same house, hearing the same gospel. We keep praying for God to have mercy on those kids and bring them back. But we kind of feel that tension in the proverbs of how God intends it to be and how it is in a world that's marred by sin. That's the rub, right? That's the problem. It's our sin. The Bible says we're born with it. We were singing about that before. The fact that our debt has been paid. To praise God that that has, because we were born into sin. I'm pretty sure my parents never taught us to lie. But as kids, we figured that out pretty quickly. As we unpack these proverbs that God has given us, this wisdom for families, for parents and for children, we want to kind of keep in mind that these aren't really guarantees but rather guiding principles. It's the kind of grain that God has woven into the fabric of families as he intends them to be. And it's up to us to choose whether we'll walk in step with him, if we'll follow that grain, or if we'll walk against the grain and try and make our own wisdom and do it our own way. That's kind of the tension that we find here. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at three guiding principles for both parents and children, and we're going to try and apply them to family life. So firstly, some proverbs for wise parents. Three principles that we find. The first principle is taken from that proverb we read before, Proverbs 22-6. This is that parents are to teach their kids. We have a responsibility before God to teach and train our children. We can see that also in Proverbs chapter 6, if you want to turn there. Proverbs 6, Verses 20-23. We read, My son, keep your father's command. Do not forsake your mother's teaching. Bind them always on your heart. Fasten them around your neck. When you walk, they'll guide you. When you sleep, they'll watch over you. When you awake, they will speak to you. For this command is a lamp. This teaching is a light. And correction and instruction are the way to life. Here we find the father urging his son to keep his command, to not reject his mother's teaching. And so right there, we see it assumes that teaching and training is going on in the home. It's implied in this command. Both the mother and the father are involved in instructing the child about what it means to live the wise life. Notice too that in verse 21, the father urges the son to bind the teaching to his heart. It's an instruction to internalize what he's being taught, to memorize it, to imprint it on his heart so that it shapes the way that he lives. When I was a teenager in high school, I had a friend whose dad worked night shift and worked on Saturdays and the weekends. And it meant the dad slept during the day most of the time. They'd blacked out a room. They'd got some good blinds and stuff, but he slept in the day. So my friend had to watch how we moved about the house, how we closed the cupboard doors, how he was careful to interact with us on the weekends, when we were around playing Nintendo or swimming in the pool or whatever. We had to be careful about how much noise we made so that his dad could get a good sleep. I remember visiting my friend a little later on as an adult some years after we'd finished school. And I noticed that he still caught himself being quiet around the house. He shut cupboard doors very carefully, and yeah, he was still pretty quiet. That teaching was ingrained in him as a child. And so he was doing it later in life as an adult without even thinking about it, because it had become a way of life for him. Friends, that's the power of an internalized command. You see that in verse 22. When you walk, they guide you. When you sleep, they watch over you. When you wake, they'll speak to you. Parents, we've got this important role in teaching and training our kids about the wise life. And it's our role to help them internalize that teaching, to bind it to their hearts. If as parents we neglect responsibility that God has given to us, well, then what's going to take root in their hearts instead? It'll be whatever they learn from any other place. It'll be the way of life that they learn from their peers, from their school or their childcare. It'll be what they learn at TAFE or universities, from the media, the things they watch or read or listen to. Some of that stuff might be okay. Some of it might align with the grain God has woven into the fabric of the world, but a great lot of it may be foolish. So parents, we've got this key role to play in teaching and training our children in the way of wisdom. We can't shy away from that, especially if we claim to follow Jesus, because we know, don't we, that we are disciples of Jesus who have been called to intentionally disciple others, to make disciples. And so what that means is that the home, for us as disciples of Jesus, the home is the primary engine room of discipleship. It starts there. We have this privilege and this responsibility to disciple our kids. It's primarily the parents' role. It's not something that we should outsource. It's not the church's role. It's not the Sunday school teachers. It's not Pastor Dylan's primary responsibility to teach and train our kids to follow Jesus. That's our role as parents. The church does play a part. It's wonderful that we've got such a great group of Sunday school volunteers, kids church volunteers, and Pastor Dylan is doing a fantastic job pointing our young people to Jesus. The parents, let's not forget that this is our primary responsibility. It's our job to teach and train our kids so that when they're old, they won't depart from it. How could we do that? How do we help the children in our lives, in our families, in our church communities, to bind this kind of right teaching to their hearts? Well, God gave us some helpful instruction and Dylan read that for us earlier in Deuteronomy chapter six, from verses six to nine. As Dylan read that this morning, it made sense, didn't it? That it's a natural and normal way for God's people to be speaking about His Word. It wasn't something that was just reserved for one day of the week. It wasn't just left for the priests. It wasn't just for the Sunday school teachers. It was meant to be a normal part of everyday life. It was meant to be in the hearts and on the lips of the parents. They were to teach and talk about it with their kids all the time, every day, as they sat at home, as they walk on the road, as they lay down to sleep, as they get up in the morning. They were to talk about the Word of God frequently as a family. This is how God's Word can be internalized, how it can get into the heart of our kids. By everyday talk in the home. There's a great wisdom there. And this wisdom is not just for ancient Israel. It's for all of us who are believers. We know, don't we, that all Scripture is God-breathed. It's useful for teaching, correcting, training and righteousness, so that the servant of God might be equipped for every good work. God's Word needs to be on our heart and lips as well, so that we can repeat it to the kids in our lives every day. Wonder, parents, if that's a part of your normal routine at home. Is it a part of your home life? Speaking to your kids about the Word of God. Maybe you want it to be. Maybe it's hard for you to see how that could be the case. Some parents haven't had this modelled well for them. Maybe you didn't grow up in a Christian home. Your parents didn't know the Lord. And so you didn't see what this looked like growing up. Maybe you did. Maybe your parents believed in God, but they didn't talk too much about Christian things at home because maybe at that time they didn't talk to kids much at all. It was adults talk to adults and kids did kids things. Maybe your family right now might want to do this, but you kind of feel like you're caught up in patterns of business or patterns of life that make you feel stuck focusing on other things and it feels hard to change. How do you get started if this isn't your pattern already, I guess, is the question. And I think what you can do, a simple easy thing to do to make speaking about God's Word more normal in your family rhythm and in your family routine is to attach a time of Bible reading or prayer to another habit that you do each day. If you've got young kids, you could make reading a Bible story and praying together part of a bedtime routine as you tuck them in at night when they're little. That can be a way of getting God's Word into the natural rhythm of your family life. If you've got older kids, maybe you could around the breakfast table or the dinner table or before school or on the way to school, they could be good times to talk about God, to open his Word, to pray together. The key is whatever we do, it should be a natural part of our family rhythm so that it becomes a habit. That's the goal. We want it to be so normal that it just becomes a natural part of what we do as a family. So that's the first thing, we've got to teach them. But we don't just have to teach them, we also have to show them. Children watch and learn by the lived example of their parents. Look at Proverbs 23 verse 26. My son, give me your heart. Let your eyes observe my ways. Wisdom says in this proverb, watch how I live. It's talking to the children. Watch how I live. Let your eyes observe or delight in my ways. Parents, we've got to live this out. We've got to show our kids what the good path looks like. We've got to show them by our example of what it means to live as disciples of Jesus. This can be really powerful for a child. Perhaps you're in that time of your life now. You're a child or a teenager here. I see a few of them in the auditorium this morning. If you're a child or a teenager this morning, you're in that time now. Those of us who are older, we're beyond that a bit. I'm sure we can think back to a time when we were children. And how powerful these examples would actually be. It's powerful when a mum or dad apologizes to us when they've said or done something wrong. It's powerful. It's powerful when we see mum or dad serving the Lord and serving others in a sacrificial way with gladness and joy. It's powerful. It's powerful when we see mum and dad's trusting God when finances are time. It's powerful when we see them through tears and prayer, keep trusting in Jesus through seasons of ill health, especially when serious illness hits. Seeing our parents keep on trusting in Jesus and living out their faith day by day, it can be a really powerful example to us and to our kids, especially in those difficult seasons of life. Just as we can be taught by the positive examples, we can also be taught by the foolishness of our parents. And I'm the first parent in the room. Maybe you're with me. You can relate. There's been times, hasn't there, in our parenting when we haven't got it right, when we've been foolish and our kids have observed that. Maybe they even pick up on some of those foolish habits. That can be an equally powerful lesson, one that we may wish that we hadn't ever shared with our kids. Proverbs, chapter 20, verse 7. Have a look at that one just briefly there. The righteous who walks in his integrity, blessed are his children after him. The guiding principle that goes along with showing our kids how to live is that we need to do this with consistency, with humility, with integrity, with grace. If we do the right thing, if we walk according to God's grace, according to God's grain, in the good path, with integrity, with consistency, our children will be blessed. So parents, let's not just teach our kids, but let's be role models for them as well. Let's train them in the right way to live by showing them what that looks like. The third principle for parents this morning is we need to train them, show them, and correct them. That's the third one, correct them. Proverbs 29, verse 17, have a look at that one. We need to be ready to correct them when they go astray. Proverbs 29, 17 says, discipline your children and they'll give you peace. They'll bring you the delights you desire. One of the tasks that we have as parents is to bring this correction and discipline to our kids when they step out of line. It's, again, one of these universal principles that God has woven into the fabric of families. It's not just a Christian idea. Even if you've got no faith in God, if your child is heading to a PowerPoint with a butter knife, you're going to stop him. You're not going to let him stick the knife in and get his app. If they're running towards the bonfire, as you're relaxing in the backyard in the paddock, you're going to stop them if they're getting too close to the fire. You'll correct them. When we see our kids doing something wrong, we need to correct them. It's actually part of healthy development for kids. They need to have boundaries and rules to help protect them as they mature. I don't know if you remember, some years back now we had this show, and I think it was Channel 9, Super Nanny. It was one of those shows. They had parents who had kids who were out of control. They would get this nanny who would come in and kind of fix it all up for them. And usually what happened in the episode was the nanny would use discipline. They would set boundaries in order to bring about corrective behavior in these unruly kids. And that's, again, it's a universal principle. God has wired into the fabric of family. Kids need correction. They need discipline. Have a look at Proverbs 13, 24. Who ever spares the rod hates their children, but one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. That's a pretty bold statement. If we love our kids, we'll discipline them. If we don't discipline, Proverbs says it's like we hate them. Strong language, it's confronting. And yet the reason it's so strong is because if parents don't discipline their kids, they're setting them up for that life of foolishness. Proverbs 22, 15 tells us that, that folly is bound up in the heart of a child. But the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Discipline is necessary because foolishness is bound to the hearts of our kids. In fact, it's bound to all of our hearts, if we're honest. We understand that as adults. We are sinners just like our kids. The Bible tells us that. All the fallen short of the glory of God. Foolishness is bound to our hearts. And when they're little kids, they need discipline. So to keep that foolishness in check. It helps them to see that they're sinners just like us. It helps us to help shape them and help them to understand that they need a savior like we do. It's opportunities for modeling and teaching them about grace and forgiveness as we bring discipline and correction to our kids. In verses 13 to 14 of chapter 23, Proverbs goes on and says, don't withhold discipline from a child. If you punish them with a rod, they'll not die. Punish them with the rod and save them from death. You see, that's the aim of discipline, friends. It's to help our little ones, to fear the Lord and to live for him. It's ultimately to save them from their sin by pointing them to Jesus and the right way to live. Notice if you go down in verses 15 to 16 of Proverbs chapter 23, there's a caveat here for when we discipline our kids. There's a type of heart attitude that we need to hold onto as we bring correction and discipline to our kids. Look at verses 15 to 16 of Proverbs 23. My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad indeed. My inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right. I don't know if you see that there, but I read that and I feel this intense warmth, this depth of love that this father has for his son. He wants and desires him to be wise, to grow in wisdom and we see how happy he will be if his son goes in that path and walks in that way. Friends, that's the kind of attitude that Proverbs expects of parents as we bring discipline and correction to our kids. It's an attitude of love and grace. Proverbs telling us to discipline our kids doesn't give us a license to be harsh or abusive to our kids, but it does point to a discipline that comes out of this context of love and affection, where parents' discipline is for the child's good so that they might grow in wisdom. It should be always exercised in love rather than in anger or frustration. That's a good reminder for us as parents because we don't always get that right. So there we go, parents. Three principles, wisdom for us in our families. We need to teach our kids, we need to show them and we need to correct them. But we just want to quickly look at for children some principles that God has given to you. So have a look at Proverbs chapter 8, verses 32 to 34. Now then, my children, listen to me. Blessed are those who keep my ways. Listen to my instruction and be wise. Do not disregard it. Blessed are those who listen to me. Again, this voice of wisdom is calling out and it reads like a person here. It reads like a personality, somebody who's calling out. The kids saying, kids, listen to me. I want to help you. I want to show you what's right and wrong, what's good and bad, what's wise and what's foolish. I find it really interesting as I read these Proverbs to kids that wisdom is not pictured as like a teacher or a professor or somebody really, really old, but like a father. It's family language. Wisdom says to those of us who are children, if you want to be wise, listen to your parents. You need to hear them if you want to be blessed. At some point, we all probably reach that particular age or stage in life when we think we know better than our parents. We think our parents don't have a clue. Maybe we think they never had a clue. Be mindful, children, teenagers, if you're in the room and that's you at this particular stage of life, just be mindful that thinking your parents don't know anything doesn't make you walk against the grain that God has placed a woven into families. His wisdom says even if you think they don't know anything, you still should probably listen to them because they do love you and they do want what's best for you. You should need to hear what they say. That's the first principle for kids. Listen to your parents, hear them. The second principle from Proverbs 15.5, not just hearing our parents, we need to heed our parents. That is, we need to obey what they say. Look at Proverbs 15.5. A fool despises his father's instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent. You can't think of that's a bit weird language. Dave, it's maybe a bit hard to unpack. Some of the Proverbs can be a bit like that. Essentially, all this is saying, if paraphrase it out, is saying you're a fool, kids. If your dad, someone who loves and cares for you deeply, if your dad gives you wisdom, instruction, and you just choose to ignore that, that's a foolish path. That's what it's saying here. Now, the Proverbs and much of the Bible, for that matter, was written some time ago. It was written from a male perspective, which is why fathers are mentioned here. But I think that this is one of those grains, one of those guiding principles that God has woven into the fabric of family life, such that this principle remains the same, whether it's your mom or your dad giving you that instruction. I don't think this is just for dad's instruction. This is for mom's as well. We saw that moms were equally involved in the teaching and training of children earlier. So regardless of which parent it is, children, mom or dad, God's wisdom for you says you should take seriously your parents' instruction. You should heed it. You should obey it if you want to live as wise. Children, whoever heeds reproof, that means stands corrected, is prudent, becomes wise. And that principle is repeated throughout the Scriptures. We see it a couple of times in the New Testament, in Ephesians 6.1, children are told to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right. And then in Colossians 3.20, it says obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Now, obeying your parents seems to be one of these kind of time-bound principles. We eventually grow up. We become adults. We develop into our independence. And eventually, we move away and form our own family units. And we eventually reach this point where we're no longer living under the authority of our parents. We then become responsible for making the decisions that affect our lives. I think, at that point, maybe we don't obey our parents as much as we used to, because we can now have conversations with them. And we might agree to disagree in different ways in which we might raise our own kids or live our lives. I think these principles for obedience matter more the younger you are, and whether you're still living at home and under the authority of your parents. But now that I'm older, now that I'm older, I think I'm going to be able to live my own life. But now that I'm older, now that I've reached that point where I've moved out and I'm living as my own family unit, I still listen to my parents. I might not always obey them now, but I still listen to them. I still think by God's kindness that they've got things that they want to teach me and share with me in love that are going to be for my good. And so I still respect their opinion. I still listen to their advice. And that's one of the ways that I can obey God's command as a child to honor my parents by respecting their experience and valuing their opinion, by trusting that they've still got my best interests at heart. And that leads us, kids, to our third principle for you, and that is to honor them. Honor your parents. Proverbs chapter 20 verse 20 shows us that. Someone curses their father or mother, their lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness. Some other translations there say snuffed out in utter darkness or put out in utter darkness. It's a pretty bleak proverb. Someone curses their father or mother, their lamp is going to be snuffed out. What's going on there? Well, it's interesting to know that in ancient Israelite culture, if a child was disrespectful to their parents, it was a big deal. Such a big deal that if a son was disrespectful to his parents, the law was that they were to be taken out and killed with rocks. They were stoned to death. It was crazy. Crazy. I remember reading that as a teenager in Deuteronomy 21, thinking, why would God do this? How is that fair? I mean, kids disrespect his dad and he's gone. He's snuffed out like the proverb says here. How is that loving or fair? But as you read the Scriptures, as you understand the way God has laid out this grain, this fabric that runs through families and through redemptive history, we actually understand that how we treat our parents actually can determine our destiny. When God constituted the nation of Israel, when he gave them his commands, he said they would honor their parents in Deuteronomy 20 verse 12. And he said, if you honor your parents, it'll go well with you and you'll live well in the land that I'm giving to you. It's the same idea Paul picks up in Ephesians 6, when he says to the New Testament children there, the importance of honoring their parents. It's because God knows that the way we respond to our fathers, our mothers here on earth can impact the way in which we respond to him. There's a principle there. There's a kind of grain to it. If children can't honor and respect the father or mother that they can see, how do they honor and respect the God that they can't see? Part of our learning to honor and respect our parents helps us to relate to God, to understand what it means to give honor and to give it to him. And so children, we need to remember that how you treat your parents can reflect how you treat God, your Heavenly Father. Those of us who are kids, that's your three principles there. Hear, heed, and honor. Listen, obey, and honor your parents. How do we finish that? It could be hard being a parent. It could be hard being a child. Family is hard. It's not always easy. We live in a broken and fallen world, which is why I'm deeply thankful as we read the Proverbs to understand as we read the Scriptures, we understand that scope of salvation history. God is described in the Bible as our perfect Heavenly Father. And he does all of these things, these principles that he's laid out for us as parents. He teaches us by his word and by his Holy Spirit. He helps us to understand how to apply it to our lives. He tells us how to live in this world that he's made. He shows us what that looks like as he sent his son, Jesus, to earth, to model for us all of these things, what it means to live as a child under authority of a father. Jesus modeled what that looked like for us as kids, to listen to our parents, to obey, even to the point of laying down his life for our sin. Jesus modeled for us what it means to honor, as he honored God in the way in which he lived. More than that, Jesus is our role model as disciples, isn't he? As we look in the Proverbs over the next few weeks, as we try and figure out what it means to live as his disciples, Jesus shows us what that looks like. He never asked us to do anything that he didn't do first to show us. These Proverbs give us principles to live up to. We can aspire to that. I don't know if you're like me. Sometimes you read these Proverbs and you think, well, they do highlight at times their own sin in our shortcomings. I'm so far from being a perfect father. I'm far from being a perfect son. The Proverbs kind of bring that to light. So thanks for Jesus, that he came and he paid the price for my sin, that he gave his life so that we could be forgiven. So that we could know that even though we don't live up to these things as much as we ought, that God has welcomed us in as his sons and his daughters. We are adopted in as his children. And we get to live in freedom and in the light of that forgiveness that Jesus offers to us. That's the hope, isn't it? That we've been invited in to God's eternal family. And that's the hope that helps to drive and motivate us as we seek to live out these principles as parents and as kids. Let's pray and thank God for that. Father, we do thank you so much that you are a good father, that you've adopted us into your family. We thank you for the wonder that you help us understand your grace and Lord that out of that grace, you show us and teach us what it looks like to live as your children. Help us in that Lord as we parent those that you have entrusted to us. Give us patience and wisdom. Give us love for our kids. Help us as we teach them, as we show them. Lord, help us as we correct them to do that in ways that lead them in the good paths that you have laid out for them. Lord, for those of us that are kids, help us to be listening to our parents, to obey them when it's appropriate for us to do that. Lord, help us to honor them as you have instructed us to do. Lord, we ask and pray that in doing all of this, that we would live in a way that honors and glorifies your name, that we would truly be living as wise disciples of Jesus as you've called us to. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.