Sermon Transcript
It feels like it was just a week or two ago. But thank God for moms. I’m so grateful for mine— my mom. I’m grateful for my mother. I’m sure you’re grateful for your mother.
I’m especially grateful for her forbearance, for her patience, for all that she put up with when she had David Gudgel in the home, because David Gudgel was more interested in me, myself, and I than I was pleasing Mom. Mom, of course, was a lot different than that. She was more interested in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and pleasing the Holy Spirit, and praying that David Gudgel would ultimately come to live for the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that actually paid off, obviously, but it didn’t happen when it should have happened in the home. And so, the home life could have been better than it was.
We’ll just say it that way. I was not the ideal or perfect child. So when I think about Mother’s Day, I’m grateful. Are you kidding? I am really thankful for mothers and for all that mothers give and the many things that they do and the way that they endure with children like I was in the home who need a lot of extra patience and a lot of extra forbearance because our interest was more in living for ourselves than it was for living for God.
You know, the Bible puts a premium on living for the Lord, of course, and pleasing Him. You may be familiar with the fact that Jesus Himself said, I always do, John 8:29, I always do what pleases Him. His focus was on pleasing His heavenly Father. The Apostle Paul had the same kind of focus in his life. In 2 Corinthians 5:9, it says, Therefore we have as our ambition whether at home or absent, whether, you know, alive or dead or alive, to be pleasing to Him.
Wherever we are, Paul said, my desire is to please God. So in other words, Paul adopted the same ambition, we could say, as it says there, that Jesus had. It was to live for God’s pleasure. You probably know that at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus was baptized. And the Father spoke at Jesus’ baptism.
Matthew 3:17 says, a voice came from heaven, a voice from heaven said, this is my Son whom I love. With him I am well pleased. So, Jesus lived for the pleasure of God. And actually, even at the outset of his ministry, his start to the ministry in that he was baptized and that he did what it was the Father wanted him to do, brought God pleasure. I’d just like to insert right there that we bring God pleasure when we follow the Lord in baptism, when we publicly proclaim our faith, even as Jesus did, just through the act of baptism.
Now that we’re back in the building, we’re going to get back into doing baptisms in the building. In 2 weeks from today, we’re going to have our first baptism. You want to please the Lord? You’ve never been baptized since salvation? That’s one of the ways that you can bring pleasure to God by doing what it is that He asks you to do.
Well, here at the outset of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus is baptized because that would bring the Father pleasure, and the Father was pleased with His baptism. We’re also told near the end of Jesus’ ministry after His transfiguration, this is said, Matthew 17:5, while He was still speaking, this is Jesus speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, And a voice from the cloud said, this is my Son whom I love; with him I am well pleased; listen to him. I mean, why is the Father pleased with the Son now? Well, no doubt for many, many different reasons at this moment where they are seeing Jesus in his preincarnate glory when he was transfigured in their midst. But he was pleased, the Father was pleased because this is near the end of Jesus’ life and ministry, and Jesus has lived a life of bringing pleasure to God.
No doubt there are many ways that he brought pleasure to God, but certainly he brought pleasure to God through the key way we’re going to focus on this morning that a child brings pleasure to one’s parents. We’re looking today at Colossians chapter 3 and verse 20. If you have your Bible, I invite you to turn there with me. If you didn’t bring your Bible, you can follow along on the message note sheet. One primary passage we’re looking at is we’ve been continuing a series in the book of Colossians, and on this Mother’s Day, why not focus on a passage that actually would ultimately bring a lot of joy for mothers, a passage that connects to children, but also a passage that connects in many ways even to all of us?
But the passage we come to today, we’ve been looking at the family, is Colossians 3:20, and it says, children, Obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. If you’re a child and you want to please the Lord, that passage just says it simply. It’s not complicated. Obey your parents. Obey your parents not in a few things, but obey your parents in everything.
The question you should ask yourself right away is, well, what children is he talking about? What age is he talking about here? What children specifically? Well, specifically, it’s the children that are under parental control, those that are under parental authority. We raised 3 children.
This is a picture of our 3 children: Brent, Katie, and Brian. Brent and Brian at this point were out of the home. They were in college, and Katie was still in the home. This is when we lived in Phoenix, Arizona. So Katie, in a sense, was still under our parental authority.
She was still under our parental care. Brent and Brian were away at college. They weren’t necessarily under our parental care or authority. One of the ways that you know that is when your children are under your parental care or authority, they ask you if they can do something. When they are no longer under your parental care or authority, they don’t ask you if they can do something; they tell you what they are going to do.
And you as a parent move from being a permission giver to a prayer warrior because of all the different things that you hear about that they are doing. So, in a sense, this passage, if Katie was sitting here this morning and was that age, this passage would be directly applicable to Katie, but not necessarily directly applicable to Brent and to Brian. They were out from under our authority. It’s fascinating that in our culture we would say that happens around 18. It happens when they move out of the home.
You know, there are a lot of factors that you can put in there. Maybe it has something to do with whether or not they’re ready, but it’s somewhere in that age range. Darrell Delhoussey, who used to be a pastor at Scottsdale Bible Church and now he He’s the president of Phoenix Seminary. This happened in his home with his 2 boys when they turned 18. When they turned 18, he as a father had a ceremony with his boys.
You know, they were actually a few years apart, so they came— these ceremonies came at different times. But the ceremony was just simply the Declaration of Independence ceremony. And so, they declared their children, you are independent now. And I want you to know that. But this specific passage is speaking to children who are still under parental care, under parental authority, under parental guidance.
They’re PG children, if you want to say it that way. And this passage says that if you’re a child, if you want to please the Lord, you must obey your parents. That’s what this passage is teaching us. If you want to please the Lord, you must obey your parents. Now, all of us should want to please the Lord, so obey Obedience is something that all of us should desire when it comes to obeying the Lord.
But this is specifically focused on children who are under their parents’ care, their parents’ authority. Now, before you check out on what we’re going to talk about here for just a minute, if you’re a child, I know at this point it would be easy to roll your eyes and say, oh boy, I came to the wrong service. But don’t do that. There are a couple things here you really want to hear, especially if you want to be a person who brings pleasure to God. God, even as Jesus did.
If you’re a parent, there’s something here that you need to know, so I’m going to speak to the children first, but let me just say that hang with me because I’ll get to the parents in just a second. Everybody else that is in this building, it would be easy right now to just say, I’m checking out. There’s nothing really here for me. But believe it or not, I think God probably puts us all in settings like this for differing reasons, but one of the reasons why we may be here this morning is because he’s going to bring somebody into our life that’s going to need to hear what it is we’re talking about this morning. They’re going to need some encouragement.
They’re going to need some counsel. They’re going to need your support. And if for no other reason than to stay in touch with what it is we’re going to talk about, this would be a great reason to stay in touch with what we’re going to talk about so that you can effectively pray for them, for those that specifically this passage is directed to this morning. And if you want to begin to pray, you don’t have anything else to do this morning, start praying right now all through this service. There are people in your life that absolutely need your prayers.
There are children and parents that need your prayers as we think about what it is we’re focused on this morning. By the way, I think that that’s a great principle for every time you come to worship and maybe you’re hearing a message that isn’t directly applicable for you. If for no other reason, that message is there for you to pray for those that it is applicable to. So there’s always application. But there are 2 matters in this passage that we want to understand.
The first one is just simply directed toward kids, and the second one is directed toward parents. The first one is simply this: children must learn obedience. Children must learn obedience. They must learn to live under their parents’ authority. They must learn to listen to their parents’ authority.
That’s what this passage is speaking about. Now, of course, in case you didn’t realize it, you don’t come into this world— nobody comes into this world as a perfect child ready to obey their parents’ authority. I know that by experience, and maybe you know that by experience as well. I was not a child that came ready to obey my parents’ authority, anything but that. We’ve raised 3 children.
We know that they were not immediately obedient. I mean, it wasn’t just something they were thinking about. They had to learn to obey. Right now we’re contributing to raising 10 grandchildren. We have 10 grandchildren, and we’re trying to do our best to be a part of helping their mothers and their fathers raise these children and teach them obedience so that they might learn to obey.
Let me show you a picture of Alden. Alden is our youngest grandson. He is 9 months old, and he has just learned to crawl, which means he is in all kinds of things. He looks perfect in this picture, but the fact of the matter is Alden is not perfect. He is disobedient.
And his parents have found this out in recent days as now he is able to crawl around and get into things. So, he loves to get into the fireplace, And they are, of course, trying to teach him to stay away from the fireplace and not touch the fireplace. He loves to check out the wall plugs, even though they try to get all of the plugs on the plugs, you know, the safety plugs and all of that. What Alden needs to learn is obedience, as any young child is going to need. They need to learn.
They don’t come into the world like ready to obey their parents, whatever their parents’ wishes are. Let me show you another picture because this picture shows you a little bit different picture of— this is Paisley, and Paisley is our youngest granddaughter. She is now 18 months old. And some of you may have seen this picture this week because Katie, our daughter, posted it on Facebook. You’ll notice that Paisley is sitting there and her daddy is rubbing her feet.
He’s giving her a foot massage, and she’s really happy about this and probably trying to figure out exactly what’s going on here. Well, what you don’t know is that just before this, Bracken was giving my daughter, Katie, a foot massage— Mommy a foot massage. And so, while he was giving Mommy a foot massage, Paisley is sitting there watching this, and she is crying, and she is pushing her daddy’s hands away from Katie so that he would no longer give Katie the foot massage. This went on for a bit. They finally said, okay, something seems to be wrong.
So they decided that Bracken would stop giving Katie the foot massage. As soon as he stopped giving Katie the foot massage, Paisley stopped crying and she stuck her foot over to Bracken, just like you see in the picture. Now that seems a little early, wouldn’t you say, to be selfish? Except that’s just the nature of children. And this passage understands that, understands that parents are an important part in teaching children how to be other-centered.
It’s not going to be easy. And so, the focus here is on the necessity of learning to obey. A couple of things I want to just bring to your attention. If you are a child and you are learning to obey, a couple of things you need to know. Number one, it is going to be difficult.
You say, why is it going to be difficult? Because we have a sinful nature. We are bent toward the world and the flesh and the devil. How difficult will it be? Well, it is going to be much more difficult than chemistry.
All right, you think chemistry is hard? This is going to be harder, a lot harder than chemistry. We just have to go back to Adam and Eve, and you can see how difficult this thing can be for children, right? God had the perfect place for His children to live. They were perfect, but even Adam and Eve found it difficult to obey their Heavenly Father, didn’t they?
God said, you can do all these other things. I mean, they had a list of things that they could do. There was one thing they could not do. God said, I forbid you to do this one thing. What was it?
Tell me, eat off the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That’s all. That’s all. God said, there’s one limitation here. There’s a consequence if you eat off of this tree, and the day you eat of it, you will surely die.
So, God said, I don’t want you eating off this tree. In other words, He expected them to be obedient. They were perfect. You think if anybody is going to get this thing right, then those children would have got it right. But they didn’t.
And if it wasn’t easy for them to get the obedience thing right, it’s certainly not going to be easy for you as a child to get the obedience thing right. Your natural tendency is going to be to disobey your parents. That’s just the natural tendency that we have within us, to whine, to complain, to backtalk, to resist, to ignore, to go back to sleep, to act like you never heard them, to run out of the room. We were over at one of our children’s homes this Friday, and so we had a chance to be with the grandkids. And just in the short time that we were sitting in the living room there, 4 different times, 4 different times, because the kids did not get what they wanted, 4 different times they ran out of the room.
One ran outside. And finally, you know, came back, but you get the idea. What is that? It’s just hard for children to obey. Some children go in their bedrooms and slam the door.
Others just stick up their foot and say, rub it for me.
And in some ways, you know, we understand that. It’s just hard for us even to obey and not live a self-centered life. That’s why we stick our feet up from time to time and act like 18-month-olds, don’t we? We just want it to be our way. It’s all about me.
But this passage says, even though it’s difficult, it’s essential that a child learns how to obey, to obey. It’s just like it was essential, or is essential, let’s say it this way, just like it’s essential for us as God’s children to obey him. Jesus even said it this way, if you love me, you will what? Keep my commandments. So if you love me, you’ll learn to be obedient.
And my commandments, Jesus said, they aren’t burdensome. They’re for your good. It’s because I love you and I want the best for you. And Father knows best. Remember that?
Well, this Heavenly Father knows best. And so this Heavenly Father says to children everywhere, obey your parents. Now, what do you think that means? It says, children, obey your parents in everything. What do you think that means?
That means everything. It doesn’t mean in some things. It doesn’t mean in a few things. It’s all-inclusive. It means in everything.
You say, are there any exceptions to this? Yes, there would be an exception to this. The exception would be when your parents ask you to disobey God. If they tell you to do something that would be disobedient to God, that’s the exception. Obey God.
Find a way to show love to them and respect to them, but ultimately you’ve got to obey God. If they’re asking you to do something that’s not going to be pleasing to God, then that would be the exception. Exception, but otherwise this is just like all-inclusive. Now, why would God want children to learn to obey their parents? Well, I got a lot of feelings about this, but I think the big idea is just simply this: it’s because God put the parent there in the children’s life so that the children would ultimately— or the child would ultimately become the person that God wants this child to be.
And so you are there as a parent Your parents are there to help you become the person that God wants you to be, starting with loving him and loving others, not living a prodigal son or a prodigal daughter lifestyle, helping you not go down roads that you don’t need to go down because your parents are wiser and older than you. Yeah, they actually do have some things to contribute to your life. So God says, if you want to please me, do so by obeying your parents. And when you obey your parents, you’ll please me. So really, there are a couple questions that a child should ask.
One is, do I want to please the Lord by obeying my parents? Is that something that I really want to do? And the second question is, am I dependent upon God to help me obey my parents? Am I dependent upon God to lead me and guide me and give me the strength that I need? And yes, even the attitude to obey my parents.
Now, that’s going to be a challenge. I already said that. That’s going to be difficult. I understand that. I’ve already told you a little bit about me.
I was obedience-challenged. That’s another way to say disobedient, right? But we say it that way in these contexts today. That’s why I spent a lot of time in my room. My parents sent me to my room grounded many times, over and over and over, for things that they asked me to do and I didn’t want to do them.
David, you need to clean your room. I didn’t want to do that. Spent more time in my room. David, you need to study. David, you need to do your best.
David, you need to quit beating up on your brothers and sister. I had 2 brothers and a sister. I still do. They don’t want to come see me anymore, but anyway, you get— David, you need to mow the lawn. David, you need to, you know, clean the pool.
I mean, Like, those are so horrible, those things that they were asking me to do, right? I mean, come on, are you kidding? And why would I, you know, backtalk, or why would I fight that? Well, it’s because I have the same nature that all of us have, just this self-centered nature. It’s all about me, isn’t it?
Isn’t life all about me? Isn’t that how we were raised, that it’s all about me? And I want people to leave me alone. I just want to do what I want to do when I want to do what I want to do. I don’t want you bothering me.
I don’t want you telling me what to do. You know what I ultimately learned? This didn’t really come until second year in high school. I hate to say that, but it’s true. It wasn’t until the second year in high school, light bulb went on, and I finally made a connection between my life and the life that God wanted me to live.
And I changed in my relationship with my parents. I began to want to please them. I fought them up to my second year in high school. You want to do yourself a favor, you want to do your family a big favor, don’t make the same mistake that I made. Start obeying your parents right now.
It will be better for you. It will be better for your parents. You know, ultimately what will happen, you’ll experience probably what I experienced that second year in high school. My parents began to give me more and more freedom. I couldn’t believe it.
Instead of taking my freedoms away, when I obeyed them and did what it was they asked me to do, like clean the room and not beat up on my brothers and sister, that when I did that sort of thing, they actually gave me more freedoms. And you know what else it did? It elevated happiness. It elevated happiness in the home. That was cool.
We weren’t always walking around on eggshells. That was wonderful. But it also elevated happiness in my life. It elevated happiness in my life. Children need to learn obedience.
It’s going to be difficult, but it’s essential. Let’s talk about parents for just a minute. This passage says, children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. That tells us that parents need to teach obedience. And guess what?
It’s going to be difficult to teach obedience. You know what proof on that? Well, even the perfect parent couldn’t teach obedience, perfect obedience to perfect children. You look all the way back and you see that even God’s children disobeyed him. If God’s children disobeyed him, guess what?
There’s a good chance your children are going to disobey you, a really good chance. Have you ever seen this passage in Numbers? This is a fascinating passage. God is just trying to take his children from the Egyptian experience where they’re in bondage, and he’s trying to take them from the Egyptian experience to a promised land, to a land of milk and honey. And so all he’s asking them to do is to trust him by faith and to obey him and to follow him.
And along the way, they get the opportunity to go back, but they stubbornly refuse to follow God and trust him by faith. And so as a result of that, the Lord speaks in Numbers 14:21-23 and says this, nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert, but who disobeyed me and tested me 10 times, not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. What a strong word there. They disobeyed him.
They tested God not once, not twice, not 3 times, 10 times. Over and over again, God tried to get them to do the right thing, but ultimately they treated him with contempt. We talk about that person is in contempt of the court. They don’t respect the authority of the court. They don’t— they want to live outside the rules of the court, whatever it might be.
Well, these people did not trust God. They ignored God. They flat-out disobeyed His commands. They didn’t trust His mercy and grace and His love. They thought they could do it better their ways.
In other words, what this passage is teaching us is even the Heavenly Father, even Jesus, himself in the time that he lived, but God has experienced what it’s like to raise children, and it’s tough. It’s difficult. If your kids are giving you a pain in the neck right now, welcome to it’s tough to be a parent, that club. It’s tough to be a parent. It’s not going to be apparent, but that all the more says children need to learn to obey.
It just kind of confirms the job description, doesn’t it? That parents are there to help children obey so that ultimately they experience the best that God has for their life. Let me just take you back to Alden. Alden’s the 9-month-old who’s just learned to crawl. When we were there a couple of weeks ago in Austin, Texas— this family, our family lives in Austin, Texas— when we were there a couple of weeks ago, they were having a really tough time getting Alden to sleep.
And so they several times while we were there just took him out, put him in the car seat, and drove around. You ever done this? It’s like the best babysitter in the world, you know? And so he would go to sleep and it was wonderful. And, you know, they would try to make it last for as long as they could.
But when he woke up, that was meltdown city in the car. And if you were in the car at the same time as we were on a few occasions, everybody in the car wanted to get out of the car at this point, right? You wanted to stop the car. We’re getting out. You know, this just can’t go on anymore.
See, Alden had a will and still has a will about things, even at 9 months old. His will was, I don’t want to be in this seat, and I don’t care about laws, and I don’t care about, you know, safety or anything like that. And you can talk to him all you want about it’s dangerous and we have to keep you, you know, in the seat and all of that, but there’s a huge disconnect between what you know and what Alden knows or what Alden feels or what Alden wants. And he made everybody’s life miserable there. It’s going to be difficult.
It doesn’t matter what age your children are, and it can multiply into high school years. It’s just going to be difficult. It will be a huge challenge to teach your children to be obedient. But what this passage says is it’s essential. God is going to hold you accountable as a parent for teaching your children to obey.
This is just such an important matter, so important that it is the one thing that God brings into focus when He is talking about children. He brings into focus this matter of obedience. Do you remember Eli and Eli’s 2 sons? This is what we are told about Eli and his 2 sons. 1 Samuel 2:12, Eli’s sons were wicked men.
They were wicked men. They had no regard for the Lord. You go down a few verses and it says, this sin of the young men was very great in the Lord’s sight, for they were treating the Lord’s offering with contempt. If you know the story, Eli’s a priest and these boys are growing up in this priest’s home, and they could give a rip about how ordinances were to be done and how offerings were to be offered, and they would come and take some food even though it wasn’t properly boiled and just serve themselves, like, you know, going into the kitchen and getting a taste of the turkey before it’s ready or whatever it was. But they treated all of that with contempt.
They didn’t care. They didn’t care what God wanted. They didn’t care what their dad was. They were going to do whatever it was they wanted to do. And it says in the next chapter, 1 Samuel chapter 3, verse 13, I told him, God speaking, I told him about Eli.
That I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about. His sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them. He failed to restrain them. You know what’s interesting about this is that actually these children are what we would say beyond the age of accountability or the age of authority. They’re wicked men.
We’re told they’re wicked men. But even in that regard, there still is a place for a parent to come along, if nothing else, than as a member of the family of God and do what you can to help your son or daughter walk to God and away from sin. And evidently in this particular situation, as a priest, as the leading priest in the community, he let his boys just get away with it.
He didn’t do what it was he should have done, and it led to consequences in the family. You see, parents need to teach their children to obey. It’s absolutely essential. I read about a pastor who was asked by a mother of a 14-year-old daughter what she should do about her daughter that was bent on going to a church that her mother did not approve of. She was desirous of going to this church.
In fact, she was going, and the mother didn’t know what to do about this. So she asked the pastor, what do I do? And the pastor said, well, let me ask you a question. She’s 14, right? That’s right.
Well, then that means she’s not driving, is that right? She said, that’s right. Well, then how is she getting to this church that you don’t approve of? She said, well, I drive her there.
The pastor said, okay, here’s what you need to do: stop taking her to that church. The mother said, well, you mean I can do that?
And of course, the biblical answer is, yes, of course you can do that. In fact, you need to do that because this is a daughter who is under your parental care and your parental guidance, and you are responsible. And part of your responsibility is to teach her to obey, but part of your responsibility is to teach her discernment. That’s your responsibility. It’s said that the Duke of Windsor once said, the thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
See, this passage is saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, are you kidding? It’s children obey their parents. That’s our responsibility is to teach our children to obey us. In our home, when we raised our children, we worked real hard at something we called first-time obedience. That when we ask you to do something, we don’t want you to backtalk, we don’t want you to whine, we don’t want you to complain, we don’t want you to say, I don’t want to do that.
We just want you to say yes and do it. And so we worked with this concept of first-time obedience. It wasn’t easy, it was— it didn’t always happen, but it was something that we worked with because we knew it was our responsibility as parents to teach our children to obey. To obey. We also introduced an appeal process because children realize what we realize— we’re not perfect.
I mean, no, we don’t get it always right. We’re not perfect. We’re never going to get it always right. So we wanted our children to learn how to respectfully appeal, respectfully appeal. Now, that’s something that if you’re a son or daughter, you should really talk to your parents about.
And if you’re a parent, that’s something that you should really talk to your children about. To respectfully appeal does not mean you run off to the other parent, you know, the soft one, and get the answer that you are looking for. That’s not respectfully appealing. Respectfully appealing is expressing respect to your parents. It’s saying something like this, Dad, Mom, I want you to know I will do whatever it is that you are asking me to do right now, but may I appeal?
Could we talk about this? That’s a respectful appeal. Could we talk about this? It’s to provide a way, a respectful way for the children to be able to say, is it possible for us to talk about this? Respectfully appealing is appealing with your talking voice, not your whining voice.
That whining voice drives parents crazy. I just heard this in one of the homes here a couple days ago. And the mother was so wonderful. She said, you gotta talk to me with your talking voice, not your whining voice, because that’s a sign of respect. And you’ll be surprised.
I mean, I was surprised how good my children became at persuasion. They did very well in this process, and I could think of times where I said, you know what? You’re right. I’m wrong. Let’s do it this way.
I really appreciate what it is you’re trying to say to me. You see, this is such a relevant matter that Paul brings into focus here. It’s as relevant— you know, there’s one thing that he talked to wives about, you need to learn to submit. And there was one thing he talked to husbands about, you need to learn to love. And there’s one thing that he talks to children about, and children need to learn to obey.
In fact, he says, if you want to please the Lord, you need to please your parents. You need to learn to obey your parents. That’s the significant thing that Paul— of all the things that he could be led by the Holy Spirit to talk about, that’s the significant thing that he talked about. As significant as it was for the wife to hear what she heard, as significant as it was for the husband to hear what he heard, this is as significant for the child to hear what it is that God wants that child to hear. This is the 3rd time as a pastor where I’ve stood before a congregation on a Sunday morning and preached Colossians chapter 3, verse 20, focused on Colossians chapter 3, verse 20.
First time was when we had our children in the home. They were very young. It was back in Southern California. It was about 30 years ago I taught on this passage. I can’t remember anything that I said in that message, but I’m sure I taught it with a lot of passion, with a lot of conviction because my kids were sitting in the service and I wanted to do my best.
The second time I taught this was over in Phoenix, Arizona, and I don’t remember preaching through this, but I remember studying through this, and I remember that that was when God convicted me for how I had treated my parents, how wrong I had treated my parents, how I was a disrespectful child growing up in their home. And so as a result of preaching through this a second time, I made a phone call to my father and said, the next time I’m there, Dad, I want to talk to you about the kind of kid I was in the home that you raised me in. And the next time I was with Dad, I said to him, Dad, you know, I want to apologize because I did not show you the kind of respect that you deserved. I was a disobedient child, and I want to ask you to forgive me. He said, David, I don’t remember you ever being disobedient.
That’s what he said. Now, this is years before he lost his memory, okay? Maybe it was a precursor. I have no idea. But that’s what he said, I don’t remember you ever being disobedient.
I was shocked and thankful for the grace of God and the loss of memory or something at that point, or the fact that he just put it aside and said, I’m not— this is not going to be a problem in our relationship from here. This is the 3rd time that I’ve preached this verse, Colossians 3:20, in front of a congregation. I never really knew the potential impact that a message like this could have on a church until a couple of months ago when I got a letter from a woman, a mother who heard this message back in 2005 when I preached on this passage in Phoenix, Arizona. And this is in part what she wrote. She said, Hi, Dave, I wanted to let you know that the kids and I listened to your 2005 message, How to Be a Great Parent, as a part of our devotions this week.
When asked what was most helpful from the message, our 12-year-old daughter said the approach you shared for what to do when she thinks something is unfair. Our 8-year-old son said he understands now that more obedience in his life will give him more freedom. And our 6-year-old daughter said she now understands that obeying Mommy and Daddy means that she’ll have a happy life.
Wow, she wrote. I just thought you might be encouraged to hear how that message is being used in our family 11 years later. You just never know, you know, how something is going to help somebody. But it really depends upon the ears that people hear it. Do we hear it with ears that are open, with a heart that’s open, with a heart that’s soft toward God as a kid, as a parent, as a friend, as somebody who could be used to help somebody else, as a person who could pray for somebody else?
What God simply wants us to know is that we please him when we do what is pleasing to him. And that’s great. Let’s pray. Lord, thanks for our time this morning to just reflect on a passage that has application in our homes. And we are so grateful for moms, and we’re grateful for dads, and we’re grateful for children.
We’re grateful that you have given us parents Parents who are there to help us and to steer us in the direction that you want us to go so that we might become the people that you made us to be. We realize as parents and as children that this is a difficult process, but it’s an essential process. And so we ask for your divine intervention and your help. We ask that you would give us your mindset. Lord, we pray that in our stubbornness, You would convict us of our sins and help us align our will with yours.
We pray for supernatural help in our homes beyond our strength, beyond our patience, beyond our forgiveness, that would bring about a dynamic in our home that would only be described as the work that you are doing. As you lead us and you change us and you conform us to your desires. And so today on this Mother’s Day, we give you thanks. We thank you, Lord, for family and for parents and for children. May we become everything you want us to be.
May there be a day where we hear you say, I’m pleased with how you’re living your life.
And how you’re expressing respect to your parents.
And may I just pause just for a minute before I say amen this morning, just as your head is bowed, ask you to just think about where’s the main application of this message to you this morning?
Why don’t you just talk to God about that? It may be the main application for you this morning is connected to just knowing God. See, God wants a personal relationship with you. He wants to be your Heavenly Father in a personal way, and he’s made that possible through Jesus Christ.
You know, often I hear people say, I want to go to heaven when I die, but they don’t have any relationship with God now.
The relationship that would be in heaven is a relationship that needs to begin now.
And if you’ve never asked God to forgive you of your sins and your self-centeredness and living life like you want to live it instead of how he designed your life to be with him at the very center of it, if you’ve, if you’ve never begun that relationship with him, you can even now. By just simply coming to believe that he is who he said he is and that he sent his Son Jesus to come into this world and die on the cross for our sins and make it possible for us to have relationship with God forever. But what begins that relationship is the act of faith. It’s receiving the gift of life. It’s coming to believe that Jesus is the one who was raised from the dead.
And provided life for all that would follow him. If you’ve never received the gift, receive it this morning. Just tell him in the quietness of your heart, Lord, save me. I’ve lived as if I have no heavenly Father. Forgive me.
I want you to be my Father from now and for all eternity. Forgive me through Jesus, your Son. God hears prayers like that. And whether that’s the greatest need of your heart this morning or some other need, just expressing to him your desire to follow his leading may be the most important decision that you could make this morning. Lord, thank you for times like this where we can honor you.
We praise you. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen. Well, friends, as we bring our service to a close this morning, Mark Chen’s going to come up and Tell us a little bit about some of the good activities that are going on in the life of the church. So much is going on here. This is just a wonderful time.
I mean, obviously we got back into the building last week and we’re thrilled about that. We’re so grateful for all the work that’s being done to make this building better and better every week. But there’s so many other things that are happening in the life of the church. I’ve had the part or been a part in just the last 45 days of leading 3 people to faith in Christ. Here in this congregation.
And you know, God is doing a brand new work. It’s fantastic to see what the Lord is doing in the lives of people. So let’s keep pushing forward. God has much more for us to do, and it is a thrill to see what he’s doing right now. Amen to that.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank
