Our Ephesians study today is just going to be one verse, Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4.

And I'll ask you to stand. You can follow along as I read. If not, that's all right, where you're seated.

The Apostle Paul is writing by the Holy Spirit to the church in Ephesus and says, verse 4,

Fathers, do not exasperate your children.

Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Would you pray with me and we'll ask God's blessing on our time together in this word?

Loving Heavenly Father, we're so thankful to you as our

perfect father in heaven

and need for you at this time as only you can

and as you always do to settle our hearts and enable us

by the Holy Spirit to give you our undivided attention. And Lord, as we do, would you speak into our lives?

Lord, thank you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

You can be seated.

Thank you.

I want to talk to you today about the difficulty of parenting.

And this is one of those teachings where I'm going to have to ask you to be patient with me.

I'm going to do my best to rightly divide God's word and unpack this big verse, and it is a big

verse, which is why we're only taking one verse today.

I think it's incumbent upon me before we jump into this to mention something that is very important at the onset, so much so that

if you hear nothing else that I say today under the direction of the Holy Spirit, then you

need to hear this. In and of ourselves, and by way of our own strength, skills, and ability, good parenting,

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