A God-like Parent-Child Relationship

The point: Pray for Pastor Barker's remaining labors and preaching, and for God's blessing on the ministry in Puerto Rico and Santiago.

Pastor Martin shares an update from Pastor Barker's pastoral visit to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, highlighting the enthusiasm for the work in Santiago as an encouragement to the congregation.

And then he was also making a trip down to Santiago or over to Santiago to apprise the brethren there where Pastor Arocha labors as an elder in that assembly that we have accepted their overture to assume some level of more, more formal oversight and guidance and counsel along with Pastor Pinheiro. He has been the main point of contact and has agreed to continue to be so. And since English is, in the case of some of the brethren there, a very weak second medium of communication, we're confident that in having Pastor Pinheiro as our point man that the communication will be much more accurately ...

0:39 - 2:08 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin re-emphasizes the two core presuppositions of the series: biblical parenting duties (Colossians 3:21, Ephesians 6:4) and the necessity of righteous spanking and…

Martin quotes a review of Philip Grevin's book 'Spare the Child' from the New York Times, using it as an example of the world's increasing opposition to biblical parenting practices, specifically corporal punishment.

And I get a newspaper or two newspapers, usually on a Monday, and try to read them. And this past Monday, February the 4th, in the book section, there was a review of a recent book entitled Spare the Child by a Philip Grevin. And the subtitle is The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse. Now let me just read a couple of paragraphs.

11:01 - 11:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate a visceral, spiritual conviction that the righteous use of the rod and authoritative verbal instruction are non-negotiable duties required by God.

Martin uses the feminist movement's influence on evangelical churches in the 70s as an example of how worldly ideas infiltrate the church within five years, reinforcing his warning about the 'Spare the Child' book.

As Dr. Schaefer said, tell me what the world is saying today, and I'll tell you what the majority of the church will be saying five years from now. And proof of that is the so-called feminist movement. They were screeching and hollering and burning their bras in the middle and late 60s, and by the 70s, you had so-called evangelical feminist societies writing their books, holding their conferences, and being given, a platform at large gatherings of evangelicals.

14:48 - 15:18 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Next to your prayers, the greatest legacy you can give to your children is an ongoingly, dynamically, healthy husband-wife relationship.

The negative influences in a home are compared to radon and asbestos, emphasizing the importance of a healthy husband-wife relationship to avoid contaminating the children's atmosphere.

and then we have the children, this climate can be manifested in the husband-wife relationship, in the parent-child relationship, and the sibling-to-sibling relationship. And so we began with considering the husband-and-wife relationship, and we've established, I trust from the word of God, that that which should characterize the relationship between a husband and wife, if they are to be able to nurture their children in a healthy atmosphere, not impregnated with the radon and asbestos of negative influences, is that they themselves must have a warm, they must have a close, accepting, goodwill...

17:29 - 18:53 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Next to your prayers, the greatest legacy you can give to your children is an ongoingly, dynamically, healthy husband-wife relationship.

A healthy husband-wife relationship is described as the greatest legacy parents can give their children, sweeping away many particular failures in parenting.

and then we have the children, this climate can be manifested in the husband-wife relationship, in the parent-child relationship, and the sibling-to-sibling relationship. And so we began with considering the husband-and-wife relationship, and we've established, I trust from the word of God, that that which should characterize the relationship between a husband and wife, if they are to be able to nurture their children in a healthy atmosphere, not impregnated with the radon and asbestos of negative influences, is that they themselves must have a warm, they must have a close, accepting, goodwill...

17:29 - 18:53 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Next to your prayers, the greatest legacy you can give to your children is an ongoingly, dynamically, healthy husband-wife relationship.

The long-term impact of marital relationships is illustrated by the saying 'the chickens don't fully come home to roost until you come into your most mature years,' encouraging attention to marriage now.

of a happy, wholesome, warm, intimate, dynamically growing husband-wife relationship. Now if you don't believe that, just ask some people who've had it, and ask some people who haven't had it, who are over 40. Because the chickens don't fully come home to roost until you come into your most mature years, and then they do. So we dealt with that relationship, and now for a couple of weeks we've been dealing with the relationship of the parents to the children.

18:53 - 19:26 Read in full sermon

Driving home: That one text alone is enough to make us go out and have a burning ceremony for this educated fool. An educated fool who dares to contravene the word of God.

The challenge of maintaining warmth and closeness with children is illustrated by the experience of a colicky child, showing that natural affection is insufficient without intentional effort.

And we've seen that whatever natural affection may be there, when you hold that cuddly little ball of soft flesh that coos and goo-goos, it isn't long into their development before you realize, if you're going to make it, and keep a relationship with those children that is marked by those words of warmth, closeness, harmony, and goodwill, it ain't going to happen naturally. It isn't long before, whether it's incessant crying for no apparent reason, or a problem with a colicky child that keeps you from having a decent night's sleep for three or four months, and a host of other things, it isn't ...

19:26 - 20:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Acknowledge your utter inability to attain and maintain a God-like home climate in your own strength, recognizing dependence on God's grace.

The Lord's imagery of the vine and branches from John 15 is used to explain the intimate, organic connection between Christ and believers, and their utter dependence on Him for spiritual fruit.

And here He uses the imagery of the intimate connection between the main stalk or the main limb, whatever term is used, of a vine and then all of the branches that are organically united to it as my five fingers are organically united to the one and same palm of my hand. So He says that every child of God is like a branch in the vine. There is living, organic relationship. And in opening up that extended imagery, what we might call an extended metaphor, our Lord says in verse 5, I am the vine, you are the branches.

33:49 - 34:32 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second guideline is to acknowledge one's utter inability to attain and maintain such a climate in one's own strength. Martin uses John 15:5 ('apart from me, you can do…

An example of being asked to give an unexpected public testimony is used to illustrate how believers readily acknowledge their inability and pray for help in difficult tasks, but often neglect this dependence in 'ordinary' life.

For example, if some of you are utterly unaccustomed to public speaking, we are suddenly called upon by one of your elders to get up this morning and we said, look, we heard there is a whole bunch of unconverted people coming in this morning, most of them out of such and such a background and we went to one of the men. That's his field. And we say, we think it would be good if you gave a five minute testimony of how the grace of God meets you in that field. On the spur of the moment, you had to get together thoughts to say for five minutes in front of five, six hundred people, oh boy, you woul...

35:02 - 35:34 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second guideline is to acknowledge one's utter inability to attain and maintain such a climate in one's own strength. Martin uses John 15:5 ('apart from me, you can do…

The unconscious act of putting on shoes is used to highlight how believers often approach ordinary days without a conscious sense of dependence on Christ, contrasting with their prayer in difficult situations.

Huh? You say, well, Paul, I believe that verse. Without me, you can do nothing. See, when the difficult things come, but how many times when you have gotten up for an ordinary day where as far as you knew it was going to be the ordinary coffee, the ordinary strokes to get your whiskers off, the ordinary things to do first, the ordinary ritual putting your right shoe on first, to your left, and most of you don't even know which one you do first.

35:51 - 36:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Earnestly seek in prayer the needed grace stored up in Christ and conveyed by the indwelling Spirit to maintain a God-like home climate.

Paul's ability to abound and be abased is used to illustrate that his strength came not from his temperament but from Christ, applying this to the emotional and physical demands of parenting.

stored up in Christ and conveyed to us the needed grace stored up in Christ and conveyed to us the needed grace stored up in Christ and conveyed to us the needed grace stored up in Christ and conveyed to us the needed grace stored up in Christ and conveyed to us the needed grace stored up in Christ and conveyed where he wondered, is it right for me to have so much? He said, I've learned how to abound and to have plenty. And he said, I've learned how to be effaced. When I'm on one meal of bread and water a day and only one sweater on my back and one pair of sandals for my feet, and if you ask m...

42:20 - 43:28 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And frankly, I am increasingly disturbed with the way the Christian church is being psychologized to death at the denigration of the ability of God's grace.

The practice of abandoning infants in the Roman Empire is used to illustrate the gross abnormalities and psychological warping present in the first century, arguing that if the Bible's commands were sufficient then, they are sufficient now for modern 'hang-ups.'

Where you were an older sibling and you saw... a kid born in your house who was stuck out on a mat outside the door.

50:43 - 50:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Act like you believe the ordinary means of grace are adequate for addressing your struggles, rather than relying solely on psychological solutions.

The frustration of a parent with a child who is temperamentally very different from them is used to illustrate how God might engineer such differences to drive the parent to seek His grace for love beyond natural affinity.

This is dynamic and powerful and real. He said, where that colicky kid got you ready to bang your head through the wall, you can actually have a quiet, calm spirit because Christ's grace is doing something in here. And where there's that kid, when God scrambled him up in your wife's womb, he was made so different from you, you can't get inside his head. You can't understand him.

53:27 - 53:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Stop fighting your spouse and God, and instead cry out to God for His grace to love your spouse with a warm, intimate, close goodwill, even when they are difficult.

The experience of marrying someone whose true nature was veiled by God, leading to perceived incompatibility, is used to illustrate how God engineers relationships to drive spouses to seek His grace for supernatural love.

And now I've got you. And if it dawned on you that just may be the very reason. And may I suggest to some of you by just flipping up to this relationship, that may be just the reason why in prayer and in careful counsel, you didn't marry hastily, irresponsibly. You say, man, but if I knew she was this, I never would.

55:42 - 56:07 Read in full sermon

The point: Stop fighting your spouse and God, and instead cry out to God for His grace to love your spouse with a warm, intimate, close goodwill, even when they are difficult.

The transformation of a formerly contentious couple into 'two coo birds' after ten years of marriage is used as an illustration of God's manifold grace, displayed to principalities and powers.

But let's just suppose one of them says, huh, look at that couple down there. They never get along well. And in the early years of their marriage, they don't. But now after 10 years, I mean, they're just like two coo birds.

57:58 - 58:10 Read in full sermon