It's amazing our time has flown. We're on the fourth lesson. Biblical parenting of young adults, a.k.a. teenagers. And a word about parenting young adults. Let's pray. Father, it's a privilege to gather together with our brothers and sisters. We thank you for the holy hubbub of fellowship that we experience every Lord's Day morning. We pray that you would bless this time together. The care and nurture of our children, to your honor and glory, and in some way an impact on their eternal destinies, is of such great consequence that we don't want to waste this time. We pray for those who are in transit. You give them journey's mercies. We pray the Spirit and the Word would be our teachers this morning. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. A couple of teenagers each gave me a 20 and asked me to make a good this morning, so I'll see what I can do. They talked about sleeping in there. I'm supposed to tell you they can sleep in as late as they want. Breakfast in bed, $100 a week allowance and a new car when they're 16. Is that what you guys said? OK, so. Young adults, also known as teenagers, the second handout is praying for your children. You can read it if this class is boring. You can read it in here, but otherwise save it for when you get home. Young adults need ongoing love and instruction. I call them young adults because the Bible doesn't have a category called teenagers and until the 1940s that word had not been coined. The term teenagers and the whole idea of these are teens we have to deal with them as teens didn't come about really till the era of World War II. The reality is that in the Bible you're either a child or you're an adult. You might be a young adult. If you put them on a chair in the foyer so people will trip over them when they come in and get a copy. In the Bible, you're either a child or you're an adult. You may be a young adult or an old adult, but in the Bible, pretty much once you reach puberty, you are considered a responsible adult. Some parents wrongly see their teens as maturing to the point that they do not need to give love and training to them. That would be very, very wrong. There's some parents that go, hey, Reginald, Reginald, by the way, is my name for the fictitious child. I used to use another name, Leonard, but then we got a Leonard. My church decided to drop Leonard and pick up Reginald. So if you have a child named Reginald, let me know and I won't use that name. But anyway, Reginald's turned 16 and he's probably got it all together by now. So I'll just ease up and just let him do what he wants to do. I'll go on and focus my attention elsewhere. That would be very wrong. Some of their most important decisions in life are coming up. Have they been made clear? Do they understand who their master should be? Do they have a sense of what their mission in life should be? Do they have a sense of who their life mate should be? So they're facing master, mission, and mate, which is not original with me. I gave a high school baccalaureate address on this. If you screw up these three life decisions, your life is going to be hard, and your eternity will be worse. but they're facing those decisions and you want to help them finish their time under your care well. Making life impact decisions without proper training is very harmful. Marry in haste, repent at leisure is not a modern proverb for nothing. The idea that you can rush off into a marriage and then spend the rest of your life regretting it. People who know your teen best, that would be you dad and mom, need to help with input about mission and career. You know, you really are good at this. I can see you doing this. Who better to give your teen, your young adult input on what they're good at than you? Who knows them best? There may be a guidance counselor at school. There may be somebody else who has the input. But, you know, if your kid's, if Reginald's 5'2 and he wants to be an NBA basketball star, you might want to try to steer him in another direction. It used to be that if you were over 6'2, and you wanted to be a pilot in the military, you had to sign a waiver saying, I realize if I ejected from this plane, my legs will be cut off, because it wasn't built for people who were real tall. The pilot's whole setup to be a pilot was such that you had to sign a waiver that you'd have your legs taken off if you had to catapult out of your seat. If you knew that ahead of time, you could say that, well, your kid's 6'6", he might not want to be a pilot. Anyway. They also need help as to marriage. You know, his father has been married four times already and then left his last wife. Does your young man really know what biblical commitment is all about? In other words, you're trying to help your teen figure out some things, or your young adult, and they may need some help and discernment. You say that you love this person, but do you see the horrible background they're coming out of? Do they really have some sense of what's proper? And also they need help with the master. I love you so much, honey, and I don't want to see you ruin your life by going in alone and then ruining your eternity. You need the Lord like your mom and I needed the Lord. We wouldn't have made it without him. They need to hear those kinds of things from you. Number two, the Lord Jesus intensified his relationship with and his training of his men the last months of his life. The Lord was training adults, not simply young adults. And yet he didn't simply coast toward the end and say, well, I've spent three years with these guys. I don't need to really worry about these last six months intensifying. But what our Lord did was the last six months were the most intense of his training. Now, the deal is not once your kids turn 18, you're never going to see him again. But once they leave home, the vast majority of your time and input into their life will be behind you. Now some of you are still living at home and that's a good thing. I wouldn't want you to be 30 living in the basement playing video games, but if you're still living at home and saving money and going to college and other things, that's good. But the idea that we just let our child slip out the door and we can go on to other things is really foolish because they have major decisions in life to make. Like a father with his family, the Lord lived with his men and trained them by example. 24-7 and verbal instruction on so many teachable moments. Are you also going to leave? Think of all the times the Lord asked our disciples questions. There's a big crisis. Who do you men think that I am? And he was using, in other words, you need to be using these last months and years. It dawned on me when my son was nine that half of his life under my roof was over. That was a signal day in my life. I remember he was nine years old. Half of his life under my roof was over. Then he was 15. I've only got three years left to finish the major part of my training I want to do with him before he leaves to go to college, in his case. Your child may go into the military, they may go into a career or something else, but probably around the age of 18, unless you're fortunate to have them home for a couple more years, most of your training is done. It's wrong to let your young adult just slide out the door because you eased up at the end. He says, I'm not talking about he, that would be me. I'm abusing my own stuff here. I'm not talking about tightening the leash. I'm talking about intensifying the relationship. Young adults do not want to be over-controlled. Who does? But they do want intimacy. And all God's young adults said, Amen. Then you've got to go, wait a minute, what kind of intimacy? With which of my parents are you talking about I want intimacy with? They want intimacy on a certain, not 24-7, it's not like, hi, this is my mom, we're doubling. You know, you don't want that kind of, but you do want a sense of I want to have a relationship with my parents. And if you work at keeping communication lines open, you can have intimacy with your children. There are teachable moments as young adults. There's opportunities to draw close. Now, I'm not talking about this kind of close and micromanaging and just kind of being there. Hi, let's have a group hug every morning before you go to school. Maybe not. But I hope that you're used to expressing your affection. We'll go on to that. Young adults need frequent expressions, both verbal and nonverbal of affection and love. By the way, go back and read the Gospels and see how our Lord related to his men. You go, well, those are adult men. Well, you have young adults. They are to be treated as responsible. Now, my years of working with young adults, there's two different philosophies of working with young adults. One is The definition of an adolescent is part child, part adult. And different youth ministries have different philosophies. The one I went into was the only one that I knew of, and I don't know if it still does to this day, but they had the philosophy, because they're part child and part adult, well aim for the growing adult part and make allowances for immaturity at times. Most youth ministries have, we're going to aim at the kid and hope the adult shows up once in a while. Okay, boys and girls, we're going to have the world's biggest banana split. We're going to take a gutter and we're going to fill it up with ice cream, pour chocolate sauce on it, and then we'll have the five minute Jesus pill at the end. Excuse me, but that's 95% of youth ministry today. That's not the way I learned youth ministry, and it's not the way that's appealing to most young people, if you really ask them. They don't want to be treated like children. And so we need to learn to treat them as maturing, but because they're not totally mature, once in a while they'll blow it. But hey, would you want us to watch a videotape of your life from 18 to 22? I mean, was it always pretty? No. They're becoming adults. But they frequently lack self-confidence and assurance. That can't be true, because every time I ask them, how was school? Fine. What did you learn today? Nothing. Can I help you? No. They're kind of being pestered with questions when you come home from school, which is done out of love, but not always appreciated. Anyway, even though they may appear cocky and know-it-alls, they really lack confidence. For example, if you spend two hours in front of the mirror, kind of like, do I look casually cool? Because when you get to school, they think everybody's looking at them. But no, that's not true, because everybody else is thinking everybody's looking at me. So probably nobody's looking at you but yourself, but you're very self-conscious. The point is, they do lack a certain amount of self-confidence and self-assurance. B, what parents say to them has a big impact on who they are and what they will think about themselves. Saying exaggerated things like, now you've ruined your life, does not help. Parents can overreact. Kids blow it. They do something wrong. Hey. But to overreact and say, you've ruined your life, probably not. I mean, each of us in this room have made some real bonehead decisions in our life. Each of us in this room have done some things and go, wish I could have a do-over on that. But by the grace of God, it wasn't the end of our life. I'm not suggesting it wasn't a big thing. I wasn't suggesting it wasn't a hard thing or a bad thing. But God's the determiner of whether or not our life is ruined, not an overreactive parent. Parents need to look for each and every particle of good choices and why it was a good choice and applaud them as to why they were good choices. That's how your student learns. As you get feedback and you're keeping communications open and you're learning what's going on and you see a good decision made regarding something. You need to, without making it a to-do, a huge to-do, but let them know, well, I thought that was really great. You handled this well. I like your decision. And just give them feedback because, you know, you don't want them to get all their feedback from their peers. Christ's apostle said that he modeled his apostolic activity upon good fathers. Paul said, for you know how like a father with his children. Really? How like a father with his children. We exhorted each of you. You can do better than this. You're really a talented person. You can do better than this. And encouraged, well I believe in you. You can do this. Exhortation is to step higher. Encouragement is you can do it. And charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. Paul said, I was acting like a father should. I was both exhorting my people, and I was encouraging my people when they lacked courage, and I was charging them. Before God, you can't do this. You need to step up. And then that's from 1 Thessalonians 2, 11 and 12. And then for the next part, we're going to look at 1 Thessalonians 2, 7 and 8. Paul also said that he modeled his discipleship, a mother of young children who need patient gentleness. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. What's a nursing mother like with a newborn that she's nursing? Is she harsh and impatient? God, get with it. I mean, that's not how you do it. You have to be patient. I mean, what's the definition of a baby? They're just getting it. We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So being affectionately desirous of you, because I loved you and desired the best for you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our own selves, because you had become very dear to us." So Paul said, there's an aspect I learned from watching mothers with their newborns of how I should treat you, but there's lessons here for parents about how they should treat their children. Love, affirmation. Affirmation means attaboy. Patient teaching. And prayer should outweigh criticism and confrontation. When you get to be a young adult, parents see that you'll be leaving in a couple of years and they can, if they're not careful, just focus on the things you're doing wrong. It's like, if I'm a perfectionist parent, everything has to be 100% or it's nothing. The trouble is, in a fallen world, how much is 100%? But, you know, you bring home a 98. Why did you miss those two? I got 98 right. Yeah, but why did you miss those two? This wasn't perfect. Well, sorry, Dad. Sorry, Mom. But we need to be affirming and we need to have patient teaching. And prayer should outweigh the constant criticism and barrage. If you're a person who tends to be critical, you need to ask your spouse to help you with that so you don't just camp on the weaknesses. Because one thing that when someone's always carping and criticizing you, they're actually taking away your confidence and ability to make right decisions. Yes, young adults make wrong decisions. Hello, this is a fallen world. And you did too, if you remember back. But if someone's always on your case and always criticizing you, I once had a football coach and he never let up. It was 24, whenever you were around him, it was nonstop criticism. And you went into each play not to get yelled at. You didn't go in thinking what you're doing and playing the game. You were listening to the coach yelling and screaming and hyper-managing everything, and you couldn't focus on what you're supposed to do. And so it's important that we are not always picking on every little thing we see wrong. Stand up straight. Tuck your shirt in. Pull your pants up. Put your pants down, or whatever they need to be. Do they want to go up their armpits? Well, I don't like going up to their armpits. How about lower? Or I don't like it when it's falling off. I like them up higher. Whatever. Don't over-criticize your child. You should express your love physically in hugs and kisses. For some of us, that's like, well, that's not my comfort zone. Well, bro, what do you mean? Some things that don't come natural to us doesn't mean we get a free pass. I don't have to be loving because I came from a homo. We didn't express physical love and that's just the way I am. Grow. I moved to Indiana after living in the South for years. In the South, I grew up playing two sports. Football, football and baseball. Those are the two great sports. But if you grow up in a state like Indiana, if you don't play basketball, you're some kind of weird person. So I learned to play basketball. You know, I had a football that was shaped like this, and a baseball that's shaped like this, and then a basketball is this big thing. So then I learned to play basketball, and they said, well, you don't use your left hand. I said, well, I'm not left-handed. They said, learn. If you want to play, learn. I mean, do you know what it's like to play with it? He's going in for a layup. Oh, he lost the ball. Who knows where the ball is going? I mean, it was ugly, folks. It was ugly. How ugly was it? It was ugly. You go up for a layup like this because you didn't want to get the ball off your teeth after bouncing it off the rim. Anyway, but I learned to use my left hand. I took the ball of the court with my left hand down in the paint, down around the basket. I learned to use my left hand. And guess what? As I went on playing, I just didn't even think about it. I just used my left hand. So I used this illustration at a men's retreat, and then we had a basketball game, and I was doing things with my left hand. I go, hey, that was a real illustration. You didn't make it up. I was in the NBA, too. Anyway, the point was, I learned I can sit on the bench the rest of my life because I'm not left-handed. Or I can learn to use my left hand. There's nothing that says, well, because I'm not this way, I don't have to ever become that way. Why couldn't you? Could your life be enhanced? Could your family's life be enhanced? Would you have to do CPR on your spouse if you expressed physical affection or a hug or something? Would they be shocked? If you want to sit on the bench, don't grow, don't learn. But if you want to become a more effective adult, we need to learn. Point being, you should express your love physically in hugs and kisses, or other young adults, or even worse, other adults, will offer their illicit expressions of love to your young adult. They need physical expressions of love. And if you don't offer it to them, there's some boy at school who will. There's some older man. There's some older woman. Young adults who have been seduced by the opposite sex. I know people from both sides who have been seduced because someone offered them all kinds of physical expressions of love and their home was like a refrigerator. Instead of camping on your child's weaknesses and constantly criticizing, look for the obvious or not so obvious expressions of good character and judgment and praise them. How do you learn to make good decisions except by trial and error and then get positive feedback when you made a good decision to go, I think I should do this again because I got feedback that that's the right thing to do and I can do this. You should be your child's biggest cheerleader. Remember the circle of love. You go, let's see, that was in the Lion King, Akuna Matata. No, that's the circle of life. And that's not what this is about. We're not going to sing Akuna Matata in Sunday school today. The Circle of Love. If you have a pen and you should have a handout, turn your handout over and draw a circle. Or as close as you can come to a circle. Seriously, I want you to draw a circle. I've watched this physically work. Physically, I've seen this work. You're talking to your teenager between the ages of 14 and 16, but most people who are new and young at things are very insecure what they're doing. So they start getting feedback, which is negative. It doesn't have to be constantly carving criticism. It can just be negative feedback. And this person becomes real defensive and real shut down, and they don't want to have any input from you. And so one day, as I was praying about how to do this, I took this child aside that I was working with, and I said, see this circle here? This is you. We love you. We didn't want anybody else but you. We're thankful the Lord gave you to me. And we love you. Period. No discussion. Then I took my pen and I did some little dots. Like this. And I said, see these black dots? People are looking at it. It's not this child. I had 37 children. You'll have to guess which one it was. Anyway. And these dots are areas of your life that we're trying to address right now. Mom and I would be derelict in our duty. We would be unfaithful parents if we didn't address those black dots. But think about it. How much of the whole circle is covered by those black dots? Just a little bit. Because teens, young adults hear criticism, but think rejection. Because they're very insecure, their life is on the line every day at school. And so they hear criticism of the black dots and they think the whole circle is being rejected. And I said, it's not. We're just helping you deal with these black spots. We love you. We're committed to you. You do so many things well. But these things have to be addressed. And I physically saw this person's shoulders relax. They weren't uptight. And the importance of working at communicating that negative feedback on something doesn't mean rejection, but if you're an insecure person, it can feel like rejection. And most of our young adults are because they're still trying to figure out life. Young adults need intense training with debriefing and discussion. Ongoing training involves teaching, explaining, and role-playing how to deal with life situations. Teach your young men how to deal with aggressive girls. It begins as early as sixth grade in the public schools. Your young man, if he's in the public school, starts getting phone calls from girls who are taught by our culture that they should be forward. Or girls start getting phone calls from guys. Well, how are they going to conduct themselves? Who's there to help them learn how to receive phone calls like that or to get in the way. The movie, the last Sherwood Pictures movie was Courageous. That would be a good movie for dads to watch to show the importance of dads being actively involved in their kids' lives and not just passive observers and stepping in and helping them deal with The opposite sex, you know, the dad who steps in and says, well, you know, to have a relationship with my daughter, even have a date with her, you need to go through me and we have certain ground rules and this is what they are. So you're just going to have to live with that. And then communicating very strongly to the daughter that we love you. I know no parents, I've talked to all the parents, young adults, I know of no parents that want to bind your feet like the Chinese emperors used to bind their daughter's feet so they're about this big. You go, hey, cool, tiny feet. Well, actually, there's a reason why they bound their feet. If your feet are this big, I mean, they would bind them so they wouldn't grow. Well, what happens if your feet are this big? The pounds per square inch is excruciating. If you think women wearing these high heels this tall looks painful, imagine having only this much square inches to put all that weight on, and they couldn't leave. They were trapped in the emperor's palace, which was the whole point. They would bind the princess's feet so they could never leave the palace. They were cripples for life. No parent here wants cripples as a child. They want to see you become successful adults, but they don't want you to be harmed along the way. Teach them how to conduct themselves when tempted by drugs, drink, sex, breaking the law, etc. In other words, have discussions, have role-playing. Young adults are often in high-risk situations. I mean, that could even be taking your child out and learning to drive. That could be a high-risk situation. Or driving with you could be high-risk. Don't laugh too quick. And so they need to be thoroughly trained how to respond. Think of it. Think of occupations where adults are in high-risk situations. Does the boss say, well, there's these dangerous things coming up. We'll help you guys wing it well. you know, do firemen just kind of hope to wing it well, or policemen, or soldiers, or anybody who's in a situation. I was watching the Georgia game yesterday and, sorry for you Tennessee fans, but anyway, they had lost a number of starting players. They were down to their number three and four and five running back. And the sports commentator was saying, you do the drill all the time, So you know what to do when you're in a crisis situation. You don't wait until you're there to learn how to do it. You do the drill and so it's second nature. Well, have you helped your young adult work through, somebody offers you drugs, somebody offers you sex, somebody offers you drink, somebody offers, hey, let's go do something illegal or illicit. Well, how do you respond to that? Young adults should be expected to ask questions about how to do this. I mean, they're just learning, and we should give them answers. Now, rebellion, which is expressed in insubordinate why questions, is another matter. Why? Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to do it this way? That's another matter. But, in the Bible, this discerns between the difference. You think of two people who were given revelations from God by an angel, Mary and her cousin, Elizabeth's husband, Zacharias. They both were told by an angel that this miraculous thing was going to happen. One of them was struck dumb, and one of them was encouraged. Does God like girls better and didn't strike Mary dumb? Does God play favorites? Well, you could go back and read the text. Mary's question was more of a how-to question. Since I'm going to bear the future Son of God by the Holy Spirit, I'd be kind of interested to know how this is going to happen since I've never been with a man. Fair question. Zacharias' question was unbelief expressed in a why, or insubordination expressed as a why question, and he was struck with dumbness until the baby was born. He wrote on a tablet, he shall be called John, which he was instructed to do, and then God took away the being struck dumb. The point is that we should expect questions. We need to help them think it through. Now if the questions are just 35 why's after another, that shows I don't want to do it, not that I like information. Training of young adults involves more thoughtful discussions than with younger children. Our Lord taught his disciples most of the night before he was betrayed. You know, I was a Christian many years before it dawned on me. If you're reading John's Gospel, my personal favorite, John 13, 14, 15, and 16, all that is all teaching. That's our Lord's last night with his men. Jesus didn't hang Lucid at the end. He intensified his training because the training was going to come to an end. I've got so much time to finish this. I'm going to make sure that I do a thorough job. Our Lord prayed with his men intensely the night before he was betrayed. So you can tack John 17 onto there. Everything need not be a big discussion because wise parents will plan and choose when to take advantage of the teachable moment or when appropriate, create their own teachable moment. Everything doesn't have to be United Nations gathering. That would just be too much. Too many words ends up ruining some situations. Wise parents will give their young adults assignments that may mean failure. And this is on the non-life-harming issue. Here's a sawed-off 12-gauge. Go play with your sister and brother." Well, that wouldn't be a wise thing to do. But if you're going to teach your children how to use a gun, you're going to teach your children gun safety. You're going to teach them to put them in situations. You may start with something earlier than a 12-gauge sawed-off. You may start with something more appropriate. It's interesting with our Lord. He sent them on simple missions and then He debriefed them. He sent them on simple missions. I want you guys to go into town and get some food. Okay, what do you want? I like Big Mac, no fries. And, you know, they went into town to get some food and that's when he and John were talking to the woman at the well. Can you go to town and get food and bring it back and do it right? I want you to go into town and get a donkey. That's a step up from getting food. Going into town and getting a donkey. Can you get a donkey? Can you do it right? Can you follow my instructions? He gave them things to do that were not of ultimate significance before he gave them the Great Commission. Because if you're, what, unfaithful in little things, you'll be unfaithful in much. But if you're faithful in little things, you'll be faithful in much. I knew men who wanted to be a deacon, but when they found out that in this makeshift situation that meant setting up chairs in the Lord's Day, they go, I'm not going to be deacon because I'm more important than setting up chairs. I said, well, you're obviously more important. You don't need to be a deacon. You should probably need to be a king or a prince or something. I didn't say that. But they had a problem with pride, and they didn't want to serve, but they wanted to be somebody. If you can't serve in little things with a good attitude, then we shouldn't give you big things. Our Lord let nine disciples fail while he was on the Mount of Transfiguration with the three. They're down there putzing around, trying to cast a demon out of a kid, and he's up there giving three disciples a vision of what he looked like in glory, so to speak, with a resurrection body. So then it comes down and this man says, your disciples couldn't cast the demon out of my son and they're upset and the disciples are frustrated and Jesus is obviously unhappy with the whole situation. Our Lord returned and saved the day so that the weakness and failure of the nine did not harm others." Sometimes you might give your students, your young people, an assignment and they don't do well. If it's fairly important, you need to step in and make sure that other people don't suffer from the immaturity expressed in this one situation. And you need to let your young adult know that their life isn't ruined, that we all fail at things. In fact, some of your best lessons have been the times when you failed, and you learn from those. And if properly worked out, then some of the best things for your young adult will be to try things that they fail at. It's not going to ruin their life, usually, probably, but it will be a huge teaching lesson. Young adults still need discipline and correction. Young adults must learn to faithfully live under authority or else suffer the consequences. Why? Because everybody lives under authority. And if you never learn to live under authority, your life is screwed up. The way of the transgressor is hard. If you're an habitual hardhead that doesn't want to submit to any authority, kind of plan to visit prison, plan to cycle through relationships, plan to cycle through jobs because you have a rebel streak that needs to be changed. As they mature, young adults may be tempted to think that they don't need parental authority. They wrongly think their parents want them to be under their thumb their whole lives. Man, I don't know any parents that think that. Some parents are like, you're 12, you want to take off now? I mean, you know, it's like some parents are a little too eager. Biblical parents want their children to grow up to be independently dependent on Christ. There's nothing sweeter than sitting around the kitchen table with young adults that you can have a conversation with, and if the Lord's converted them, great, you can have fellowship with them. If they're not converted, but they're well-trained and not rebellious, you can still have good family times and communication. I wasn't converted until I was 20. I was in my third year in college. I still had a good relationship with my parents. I loved them. It got even better after I was converted and had some of the stuffing taken out of me. But it doesn't mean that because your child isn't yet a Christian while in your home that has to be World War III to be together. See, it says, remember the umbilical cord. What does that mean? Well, this is an illustration I like to use. Can you imagine being out in the foyer and this person comes up and says, oh, this is my child Reginald. He's standing there holding his umbilical cord, looking for somebody to plug into because he's such a dependent adult. You go, that is gross. Plus how old is that umbilical cord anyway? That's nasty. You go, that's really graphic illustration. What's the point? No parents want their kids to be holding on to their apron strings or their own umbilical cord their whole life. They want you to be independently dependent on Christ. They want you to be your own man, your own woman. But they don't want you to be a man or woman who makes constantly wrong choices and screws up your lives. So they work with you till the very end of the time that they have you. No parent, no parent wants their kids to be slavishly dependent on them. Young adults who have not learned to submit to authority with a good attitude while still at home can expect a life of failed marriages, being fired from work, being in jail, or worse. Everybody's under authority. Employees are under the authority of their employers. Wives are under the authority of their husbands. Citizens are under the authority of the government and its agent, policemen. Students are under their teachers. Players are under their coaches. Everybody has an authority above them. And it's like, if I just have a constant attitude of rebellion toward authority, well, I need to pray that God would have mercy and change my heart because my life's going to be so messed up if I don't deal with this and get some help. And when you see that you can't change yourself, the Bible says, can a leopard change his spots? Can the Ethiopian man change his skin? No. Neither can you who are accustomed to do evil do good, which is why we need the supernatural rebirth. We need God to do this work in our lives to change us so we don't constantly have this chip on our shoulder. Parental authority, as expressed to young adults, is different than what is expressed to children. When the children are small, it's black and white directions. Don't cross the street. And corporal punishment. But this is given away to persuasion and penalties. We want them to learn to think, to think, to think in line with God and His Word. We don't want to have to look at a 20-year-old and say, now don't cross the street because there's a lot of cars coming. Okay, well, that's really sad if you're a 20-year-old still kind of figuring that out. Here, hold my hand. We don't want to do that. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 says, All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Teaching, that means general instruction, what to do and how to do it. Rebuke means showing where they are wrong, where they didn't meet the standard. You were wrong here. This is why it was wrong. Correction means showing them how to do it right. This is what you should have done. This is how to do it right. Helping them to get it. And finally, training in righteousness means showing how this pleases God and what it means in a life that's pleasing to God. Now, in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, it says that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped. In 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, the phrase a man of God is a code word for a pastor, for Timothy or for Titus. But the Bible frequently reasons from the greater to the lesser. The Bible, for example, says that the heart of the king is in God's hands. Why does it say that? Because the king is the most powerful person in the country that has a monarchy or kingship. Here's the reason this way. If God holds the king's heart in his hands, then he has everybody else's heart in his hands. If the man of God, the pastor, the gift of God to this congregation, God says he will instruct him and equip him for this, how much more will it help us to be instructed to have this kind of training? Parental authority still has clout, but it's not physical. Again, chastening is for disobedience and rebellion, not ignorance, confusion, or immaturity. James 4.17, so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it's sin. I knew what I should have done, but I just didn't want to do it. That's disobedience. If you crank up the attitude, that's rebellion. Now, if it was, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that, or I'm confused, I used to liken that to what my football coach, because he was always hypercritical, and you're getting down your stance and you're trying to play the game, but you're kind of hearing him and you're trying to think what you're doing, it's not good if you're getting in your stance and you're still trying to figure out the play. Because things happen like this and it's like, the play's already gone by and I missed it because I was confused. Or immaturity. I know of one young adults who thought they would help their parents by washing the car. And, you know, my mom always uses Comets. Now, what was that stuff you used to clean off your pots and pans with? And she used that on the car, took all the paint off the hood and the top. And it was one of my two sisters. Anyway, My dad was not appreciative. He didn't go ballistic because it was immaturity kind of like, what were you thinking? You're in this car. Do you know how much is going to happen if you're in this car? But it was just immaturity. She didn't know any better. She was trying to be helpful. Disobedience. Rebellious attitude? You can't cop an attitude. It's unacceptable to be sitting at the table with this huge attitude that everybody in a five-state area can feel and think, well, I didn't do anything. No, the attitude is showing. And so you need to change your attitude. You need to make sure your speech is respectful. You need to deal with the attitude. Don't cop an attitude. It became prevalent in our culture. And you can't go in your bedroom and slam the door and pout for five hours. That's rebellion and sin. So it's unacceptable and you have to dive in as parents and deal with it. No one gets a pass to sin. Strong exercise of authority. Because I'm your parent and I said so. Well, I guess that settles it. Is reserved for open defiance and rebellion when listening and persuasion are trampled upon by the young adult. I told you the story early on about this young adult who Wanted to have this certain situation in relating to the opposite sex, and I won't get into the details of it, but Her dad said no, and she said well, where's there's where's their chapter and verse in the Bible that says I can't do this See all kids are lawyers until they get to be parents. They thought oh so The dad said you don't have a chapter and verse in the Bible that says she can't do that. I said yes I do because what is it again? children Obey your parents in the Lord. Shazam! The Bible is not a huge rule book. Imagine if the Bible had to have a written rule for everything in life. Pick up your room, that's on page 417, and make your bed, and by now you should be potty trained, and a whole lot of other things. Well, the Bible is not a huge rule book. It's a book about how to relate to God, and how to relate to your fellow human beings before God. And so there are some just general catch-alls and one of them is God gave you your parents because everything in life isn't a rule and your parents can help you learn to live life and so we need to obey them. Loss of privileges, car, phone, computer, going out with friends, whatever it is, but not loss of communication should follow. If my teen has copped an attitude or is rebellious or is just playing the hard head, then I don't spank them. But if you went into work tomorrow, guys, and you just messed up at some of the buses, OK, bend over, get the paddle, guys. Hey, what's going on there? Well, these are the consequences of our company. You can't beat me. I always sure can. It's in this false fine print of your contract. Where? It says right here, paddling for screwing up on the job. You go, I quit. Not before you're paddled. Anyway. The point is you kind of go, what century am I living in? What culture is this? Well, we don't do that for adults normally. But your parents can't pink slip you, as tempting as that might be on some days, but they can remove privileges. And they shouldn't remove communication. I need to stay in the battle for your love and your soul, even when you're copping an attitude. So that means you went in your room and slammed the door. Okay, I need to pray, make sure my attitude is right. And if they've locked the door, take the key and unlock the door and say, sorry, you can't slam the door and go in your bedroom and have an attitude for several hours. Now, a child may need some time to think about it. People's personalities are different. Some people are... Other people are building up to it slowly. And then slowly. And it takes them some time to process it. But you don't have the right to have a terrible attitude while you're processing. You can't be walking through the house huffing and slamming doors and, okay, we're all, I'm upset. Does everybody know what now? I slammed three doors. I've huffed and puffed through the house. I'm in my room doing this. There's no need for the drama. We just need to, if you need time to think about it, okay. But you don't have the right to cop an attitude that affects the whole family. Ongoing conversations should follow in the days ahead, but consequences may remain. One of my favorite movies is the movie Hoosiers. And in the movie, the players decided that the new coach doesn't know his stuff, so they're going to disregard his counsel and play their own game. You're supposed to pass the ball three or four times before anybody takes a shot. And they started getting behind, so they decided they weren't going to listen to the coach. They were going to do their own thing. So one of the players The coach pulls the guy out who's being the leader of the rebellion, makes him sit on the bench, makes the last sub go in, who's very incompetent. But still, one of the other kids fouls out. So they have to bring him off. He says, coach, we need a player. And he goes, my team's on the floor. And he wouldn't let the rebellious guy go back in. They played with four guys till the end of the game. They got beat. There's a big to-do in the locker room. And he says, I'm the head of this team. You play by my rules. So you don't play. You got the weekend to think about it if you want to be on this team. So they come back the next week. This guy deals with his attitude mostly, kind of. But in the game, the next game, there's having a huddle during a timeout. And this guy starts running his mouth. And the coach looks at him. He looks at the coach. He goes, sorry, coach. There's a great line right there. He goes, be sorry on the bench. You still need to have the right attitude. And you've dealt with your open rebellion, but you don't need to be counseling me and the whole team how to run the team. Be sorry on the bench. There still are consequences to rebellion. So we have a video, five minutes or so, that Robin's going to run. Do you want to pull this down? It's a woman whose father was professor of evangelism at Westminster Seminary. Her brother is a Christian leader. And she was a professing Christian while she was at home. As soon as she hit 18, she left home and was a wild Indian for years. And she's sharing her testimony. If someone would hit the light back there. I think you'll find this helpful for ministering. The things she shares about what she didn't get growing up, not so much her parents' fault, maybe a little bit of it, but what you need to pray for, for your young adults still in your home. Barb Giuliani, you were the daughter of a pastor And you had prayed the sinner's prayer as a young child, but you got to 18 and you announced one day you weren't a Christian and you left home. You became a prodigal that you had heard your father preach about for many years. How did you then become a Christian? Well, I was gone from home for seven years. And I left at the age of 18 telling my parents that I didn't believe in God, I wasn't a Christian, and I didn't want to live like a Christian. And all those things were absolutely true. And it was very devastating to my parents. And then I went on an odyssey of really attempting to find meaning and significance and joy, I would even say, in every way that I could. It was almost an Augustinian odyssey from one thing to another, trying to fill that hole in my heart. So I left home and did what kids do when they're unsupervised in college and, you know, experimented with drugs and alcohol and with different relationships. Moved in with a young man, eventually married him, then left him moved in with a drug dealer, eventually left him, and then had several other relationships, and in the end, I just began to feel sick of myself. I didn't want to become a Christian, but at the same time, I thought the way I was living was a little tacky. So, I decided I could be a productive person, even though I didn't have to be a Christian like my parents. And at the same time, my parents were just reaching out to me in any way that they could, as was my whole family. They never gave up. They never gave up on having a relationship with me. They worked very hard at being in relationship with me, and I worked very hard to stay as far away as I could from them. So I went back to school. I had dropped out of school when I got married, so I went back to college and worked really hard in school and won a fellowship to Stanford. I met a man when I was working as a waitress. He was a bartender. His name was Angelo Giuliani. And I moved in with him. So he was the third guy. And this was very disappointing to my parents because they had, you know, they saw me. I was working. I was going to school. It looked like I was getting my life together. And then I think that their hopes just took a nosedive when they saw that he had moved in with me. But they Went right on, moved right towards him. My father was writing this little booklet called the New Life Booklet at the time, which was a way to share the gospel. So he would take Angelo out for breakfast and say, you know, you're a man on the street. So how does this sound to you? Does this make sense to you? And I'm in the background going, Angelo, my father is just trying to share the gospel with you. But he thought it was fascinating. Angelo did. Then we were on our way to California, and my father, who was a pastor and who also had a work in Uganda, was on his way to Uganda. And he thought that he might die there. That was a real possibility. It was right after Edie and me had been disposed. So he said to me, I don't want to take you to heaven with me just as a beautiful memory. And I became furious and yelled at him. My father was always self-controlled and never yelled, and I was the Miller that yelled. In any case, he said to me, he said to me, I know you can't make yourself into a Christian. Can you just pray that God would reveal himself to you? And so I decided to pray that. And after I prayed that, I went to California. And the first thing, the first answer to that prayer was that God revealed myself to me. And I began to see myself as a completely self-centered girl who only cared about myself. And that was the first time I actually thought that I had any sins. I had been taught all my life that Jesus died for my sins, but I didn't think of myself as a sinner, just as somebody who had made some bad choices and was trying to work my way out of them. And when I saw that I was really a sinner and needed to be saved, then every single little thing that I did just for me began to trouble my conscience. And that's when I really knew that I needed a Savior. And that's when Jesus' death on the cross made so much sense to me. And it was everywhere I went I felt the presence of God. And one day I was walking through Stanford's campus, troubled over something very small, especially compared to all the other stuff I'd done in my life. And I just remember thinking, if Jesus really died on the cross, then you are forgiven. And I prayed that he would forgive me, and he did. And I stepped into a life as a child of God.