newportmesa a church for the community

To Children: A Heavy-Weight Command

 

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Exodus 20:12

 

• Childhood

 

 

• Adolescence

 

 

 

• Adulthood

 

 

Children, do what your parents tell you. This is only right. “Honor your father

and mother” is the first commandment that has a promise attached to it, namely, “so you will live well and have a long life.” 

Ephesians 6:1-3

 

 

 

To Parents: A Heavy-Weight Responsibility

 

Fathers, don’t exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take them by the

hand and lead them in the way of the Master.

Ephesians 6:4

 

Point your kids in the right direction—when they’re old they won’t be lost. Proverbs 22:6

 

 

Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you,

love him with all you’ve got!  Write these commandments that I’ve given you

today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your

children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the

street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you

fall into bed at night.

Deuteronomy 6:5-9

 

 

“But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple

trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of

the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these

God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t

have to make it worse—and it’s doomsday to you if you do.

Matthew 18:6-7

 

For Families:  Heavy-Weight Opportunities

 

• Love

 

 

• Let Go

One look at him and people turned away.  He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand . . . He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn’t say a word.  Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence.  Justice miscarried, and he was led off— and did anyone really know what was happening?  He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people.  They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, even though he’d never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn’t true.

Isaiah 53:3,7-9

 

 

When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he

ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.  Luke 15:20