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Okay, welcome this morning. Does everyone have a outline? Anyone does not? A few up here,
okay. Are we out of? No, okay. Sorry, I guess they're
all gone. Okay, we're going to read a few
verses from Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 5. And ye have forgotten the exhortation
which speaketh unto you as unto children, my son, despise not
thou the chasing of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked
of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye
endure chasing, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son
is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. Let's pray. Glorious and faithful God, tender,
loving Father, Holy, majestic Son, sanctifying, comforting
Spirit, Thou dost exercise authority over us on just grounds and for
our good. Please teach us how to exercise
authority over our children as Thou dost do it over us. that
we, with love and compassion and concerns for holiness and
integrity, may exercise authority over our children in a way that
brings thee glory and does our children much good. We ask this
in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, last week we looked
at the subject of honoring authority. And you notice on the outline,
we covered the first major section. And now we want to conclude this
outline by looking at point four on the outline, how parents are
to exercise authority. Let me say first by introduction,
there is a shift today regarding authority and how it should be
exercised. Philosophers today tell us that
we live in a postmodern era in which rules and boundaries, authorities,
should be decried as attempts of the strong to oppress the
weak. And we're told that the way to
deliver yourself from the tyranny of external authority is by becoming
self-indulgent. Live for yourself, think for
yourself, act for yourself, stand up for your own rights. The more
you live for yourself, the more enlightenment you have received. Well, the media today, of course,
glamorizes this view, glamorizes the individual who rebels against
authority. Opened the papers this very past
week. The entire movement called the
Occupy Wall Street Movement, or the OWS, has been fraught
with hundreds of examples of rebuke of authority. It's so
interesting, isn't it, that in our land today, the Tea Party
people are put on the right and decried by the media. The OWS
people, way on the left, are pretty much promoted by the media.
And 10,000 of those have been arrested. And over in the Tea
Party movement, as far as I know, zero have been arrested. There's
no comparison between these movements in terms of respect for authority.
And yet, society today just looks askance at rebellion. And often, Even teenagers who
rebel are looked upon as, oh, mature and independent and self-sufficient
people who are just totally like their brain-dead and insincere
and incompetent parents around them. And so, this teaching implicitly
rubs off on children that they are a law to themselves And thus,
we need to counter this whole movement, this whole philosophy,
with a strong, loving approach to authority. So today, our children hear 10,000
times, in one way or another, we hear it thousands of times
as older adults as well, that the only thing that matters is
your feelings, your thoughts, your needs, your personal boundaries. And that runs roughshod even
over the moral law of God. So we're told, well, if there's
two consenting adults, never mind if one is married or both
are married, as long as you're mutually agreeing parties, you
know, they can go ahead and have a relationship. And so what our
culture is doing is our culture is changing the answer to the
Westminster Shorter Catechism's first question, what is the chief
end of man? To glorify God. But the new answer is to be a
God to yourself and to enjoy yourself and to put your needs
first rather than to enjoy God and glorify Him forever. And
therefore happiness today is viewed as throwing off all external
controls or limitations. And so our children's sinful
nature and the grossly immoral culture around us show us how
important it is for Christian parents today to exercise authority
in a proper way to the glory of God and the well-being of
our children. at every turn in the road. I want to set before
you four ways to do that this morning. The first is by our
own example. You can't teach children how
to honor authority by setting a poor example for them. If you
say with your mouth, you must honor authority, but you turn
around with your actions, don't yourself honor authority, your
children will see you as a hypocrite. That's a tall order. No one expects,
your children don't expect you to be perfect parents, of course.
But our children do have a right to expect that there won't be
a disparity between our teaching of them about honoring authority
in our own actions. And be sure that if there is
a disparity, they will exploit it, particularly as they grow
older because they can see through it better. So that means for
you, our fathers, that you need to teach your children how to
honor authority by honoring the authority that's over you. They
need to hear you in the home speak very well of your boss.
If you've got complaints about your boss, you go to him. You
use the proper channels. You don't pour out your heart
in front of your children and say, what a terrible boss you
have. Well, if you're gonna do that and the boss is over you
as your authority, why can't your children go out and tell
their friends what a terrible parent you are? You see, that's
the poor example you're setting. It's the same thing with government
officials. And I think here is one of our greatest temptations
today because we are so upset, many of us, with many of the what we call immoral practices.
and the problematic positions that our president is taking,
we've got to be careful not to degrade him in front of our children.
We can talk about issues and disagreements, but we must pray
for our president. We must respect him. He is put
there by God. He's a government official who's
over us. And so, children need to see
from you, dad, a life of submission in all those
areas in which you are called to submit to the authority placed
over you. Now, that is true also of the exercising
of authority that you carry out in your own home as fathers.
You need to lead your children in a way that your children can
say, when I read the Bible, and I look at the leadership of Jesus
Christ in the Gospels and in the Epistles, and then I look
at my dad, I see a pattern, I see a similarity. As Christ exercises
leadership in terms of truth, and prayer, and tenderness, and
yet holiness, a firmness, and yet love, That's what we are
to pattern for our children. And so our children need to see
us prayerfully, diligently, joyfully undertaking our role as leader
in the family. Now mothers, you have a prime
way of showing respect for authority by your relationship with your
husband in the presence of the family. As you guide your children,
of course, you're two authorities and you work together as a team,
don't you? And that's wonderful. And you must indeed present a
united front to your children so that your children actually
expect you to come with a united decision. and they know that
there's a co-equal team over them. But when it comes to your
husband, your children need to see that even maybe when you
express your ideas and your thoughts, if there's not complete agreement,
they need to see that you're willing to submit to your husband's
leadership. And in his leadership, he may
well choose the way that you want to go rather than his own
way because he loves you so much. That may well happen. That's
fine. That's wonderful. But they need to feel from you,
from your teaching, from your example, that you're not running
over your husband, but rather that your husband and you are
your primary relationship in life. and that you're respecting
him and loving him and submitting him to respect his work. They
need to, just as the children need to hear you, dad, say to
your wife, you know, thank you so much for the meal you just
made. They also need to hear you, mom, say to your husband,
thank you, dear, so much for working so hard for us. I really
respect your work. You see, if we fail in the home
setting to exercise this kind of submission, then we can hardly
expect our children to take from our words what they don't see
from our example and to exercise real, genuine submission to us. In some ways, our children also
need to see us as husband and wife being submissive to each
other. That's what Ephesians 5.21 says,
submit one to another in the fear of God. It's not only wives
submit to your husband, but there's another way in which both husbands
and wives submit to each other under God. And so the husband
honors his authority by serving his wife in humility. And a wife
honors her role of submission by being a helpmate for her husband. And together, you see, they stand
as a united front, as mom and dad, before their children. So that's the first thing, and
maybe the most important, setting an example of submission. The
second is this. Because all authority exists
as a reflection of God's authority over his creation, authorities
are subject to God's rules and God's laws. That is to say, rulers are not
free to simply make up their own rules as they go along. Some parents try to rule their
family in this way, and really it shouldn't be. God has established
rules for us in his word, and we need to apply them, of course,
to different situations. But we shouldn't flaunt those
applications such that we suddenly spill out a whole bunch of new
rules spontaneously in overreaction to a certain situation. Our children
should have a sense of stability in the home. They should have
a sense that mom and dad are in firm control, there are simple
rules, clear rules, rules that are preventative, so that they
serve as a form of preventative discipline, so that children
know what's going to happen if they break those rules, and rules
that are reasonable, rules that are grounded in the
principles of Scripture. And that's why I read Hebrews
12 for you. Like, the Lord chastens us for our well-being, so we
are to chasten our children for their well-being. Otherwise,
they'll act like spoiled children and not sons, we read. So we're to rule as God has commanded.
When our children break rules, they need to be disciplined.
And as a team, as parents, we need to know how to do that. And we need to stress with them
when they break rules that they have not just gone against us
as parents, that's not the issue. Well, it is the issue in God's
sight to some degree, but the real issue is they've gone against
God because we rule our home and exercise authority in the
place of God. And so when we discipline our
children, as we must do, when they break rules, when they're
disobedient to God, we don't do that out of spite or anger. We discipline them because we
love them. And that's why I said to you
in a former subject when we talked about the exercise of actual
act of discipline, don't ever discipline your children when
you're feeling very angry. It's better than to say, I'll
decide, my son, my daughter, on the course of discipline.
You know, in an hour or so, I'll come back to you, I'll talk to
my husband, and I'll talk to my wife. But don't discipline
when you're angry, because you'll probably mess it up. It'll be
too strong on the one side, or you'll say things with your mouth,
you'll regret on the other side. Discipline in love. Now that doesn't mean that you
are softy. It means you're firm. It means
you're clear. But it's done in love, and your
children know that it's not easy for you, because what parent
wants to discipline his child? But you're doing it on behalf
of God, and your children need to know that, need to be told
that. They don't need to be told that every time. You tell them
that when you're three years old and five years old and seven
years old, and they will know it. And once in a while, you
might have to remind them of that as they get older and say,
I'm sorry, I need to set this rule because this is what God
would have me to do. Thirdly, in view of the many messages
that our culture sends to our children, we really should make
earnest effort to know what our children are watching and what
they're listening to. It's hard to exercise authority
when our children have a whole world by themselves that we don't
know what it's all about. And I realize that's challenging,
particularly as children get in the older teen years, and
they have instant access, of course, to the World Wide Web,
even via their cell phones. The world is just a keystroke
or a mouse click away. Songs and music videos and television
shows and blogs and radio broadcasts and webcasts and movies and video
games and websites of all kinds are available. It's a whole different
world than we grew up in. And so are social networking
sites like Facebook or Twitter, or MySpace, or YouTube. All of
this is changing the whole way our children view the world they
live in. And sadly, too many of us have
too little idea what's involved and what they're learning. And
how all of this massive bulk of entertainment and communication
impacts our children's view of how to honor authority. So to
understand our children, we need to know what is shaping their
attitudes and actions. We are to monitor what our children
do on the computer, particularly when they're younger. What music
do they listen to? What movies are they watching?
Where do they go for information about sex? Who are their friends? Who's teaching them in cyberspace?
What are they posting on their Facebooks? What are they text
messaging to their friends? See, many children of all ages
are living lives of duplicity. They go to church, they go to
Christian schools, but their online histories reveals they're
watching TV shows and movies with little understanding of
the messages they are absorbing about rebellion and anti-authoritarianism
and contempt for God and His law. So there's a war, parents,
there's a war of worldliness. That worldliness is waging today
for the minds and hearts of your children. And what or who will
they honor? Will they honor the world and
its wisdom? Or will they honor you and God and His Word? Will they honor their friends
more than their parents? Will they follow their own impulses
and feelings? Or will they pray for the Holy
Spirit's guidance in their lives? Will they honor themselves or
the God who made them? These are paramount questions.
As parents with God-given authority, it's imperative that we understand
so many things are shaping the worldview of our children. This
barrage of messages that culture is sending and teaching our children. We need to somehow teach our
children to sort through these, particularly when they conflict
with what the Bible teaches. Deuteronomy 6 tells us we should
be talking to our children every day, doesn't it? When you sit
down, when you rise up, teaching them God's truth, showing them
God's way. Ultimately, you are your child's
authority. And you've been given this weighty
role by God himself. So your children need to know
your wisdom. about these things. And they
need to know, of course, that you don't support a worldview
that is at war with God's Word. And that leads me to the last point I want to make about exercising
authority. There are, of course, many, many more points. I'm just
giving you four of the main points for exercising authority. We need to know how to talk to
our children. And I'm not talking now about
just chatting about the weather or how'd you do at school today.
Those are starting points and important starting points. But
we need to probe deeper. We need to know what it's like
to have penetrating talks with our children that burrow down
inside them. We must probe further and deeper
And the best way to do that is to start when they're very young. Now, you can't do that. You can't
have what I like to call real talk with your children if they
don't feel real love. No one opens up their inner depths
to someone who doesn't love them. And so, the key thing here is
to is to love your children, that they need to feel your love.
And then you need to find ways and times of talking to them,
talking to them about their dreams and goals and visions and hopes
and fears and giving them loving advice and just being alone with
them, both parents being alone with them. Just talking. How are you really doing? What's
really going on in school? Talk to them about their best
friends and how those friendships are going. Talk to them about
these entertainment forums and what's going on and get close
to them. And it's amazing when you really
make an effort at it that children want you to be close to them.
They want you to probe them. They want your love. They really
want your advice. So start when you're very young.
But make sure, remember as I said before, 85% or plus of this talk needs to
be absolutely positive in nature, not negative, not like you're
a policeman probing around. That won't work. So you affirm
them, you encourage them, and you shepherd them. And once you
do this, you see, They won't see submission to you as something
negative, like you're demanding obedience. No, it's done in the
atmosphere of love. And they won't even reject it
when you gently and lovingly confront them with some sins
that you see in their lives. Now, the way to do that, of course,
is not to accuse them outright, unless you catch them red-handed
in some sin, but to ask them questions, like, what do you
think? Do you think, you know, maybe you're becoming a bit careless
about your daily devotions or whatever. Or how are your daily
devotions going? And then maybe a mild loving
rebuke and encouragement to press on, whatever it may be. You see,
for children to honor parents when there's a strong relationship
of love and trust is actually not so difficult. And for parents
to have real talks with children when they really love their children,
have a good relationship, and have put money in the bank, so
to speak, for the teen years, by talking with them all the
way up through childhood and being open with them, it's not
so difficult either. So that's what we need to aim
for all the lifetime of our children. And no matter how old your children
are, if they're under your roof, why not just knock on their bedroom
door and just come in and have a little chat? Have a little
chat, just how are you doing? Or maybe you're alone with one
child and a particular evening everyone else is gone. Just talk
a little bit. One thing I love to do is I love
to take each of my children out for lunch and just have a meal
or a supper. Once a year I do it for their
birthdays. That's a great time. And they know, they know I'm
gonna have a real talk with them. not a threatening way, but a
loving way. And it's going to be fun. It's
going to be enjoyable. We're going to come away from
that supper feeling closer than ever. They're going to know once
more that I really deeply, deeply care about them and their future,
and I do, of course. And they're going to feel, at
least I hope they can say that, that I'm easy to talk to. They
can pour out their heart to me. They can trust me. I'm not going
to go blabbing it around to other people. But there's a confidentiality
that my wife and I maintain about our children. And so find ways,
maybe you have other ways, maybe walking with your children or
doing certain sports with your children and then finding ways
to talk to them in the process. But it's important, you see,
if we're going to exercise authority without stirring up rebellion
in our children, that they feel the bulk of our time with them
is positive communication. And when that's the case, you
see, then we can offer them all kinds of advice. Sometimes they'll
ask our advice, which is great. Sometimes they won't ask our
advice, but we can gently give it anyway. We can offer them
ways, for example, how to resist peer pressure. We can warn them
of the dangers of impure, immodest behavior. And of course, we must
be passionate about their need to personally believe the gospel
and embrace Christ by faith and repent of sin. Now, the key thing here is that
these children, your children, should not have talking times,
real talking times, just reserved for when they've sinned or done
something very naughty. Be preemptive. Work daily issues
and challenges into your family worship. Make the most of the
opportunity of family worship to speak about issues, but also at other times. When
there's opportunities to really speak to a child alone, probably
whatever you were planning to do right then is less important
than that. Realize the importance of talking time. And in some ways, your children,
especially as you get older, and you don't understand everything
in their world, you try to a bit, but you don't, They see things
a bit differently than you do, of course. You're another generation. If they poke a little bit of
fun at you because you said some expression that, you know, is
way out of style, I mean, just let them do it. It's fun. Laugh
with them. Okay. I'm a little bit old. I'm a little
bit weird. I'm a little bit old fashioned. No problem. Enjoy
those differences. Don't let them be threatening
and don't expect them as a 17 year old to act like they're
40 or 60. We can learn from them as well,
you know. But the need to keep talking,
to keep the communication lines open, is absolutely essential. And the sooner we begin, the
sooner we will feel that our children honor us as parents. So in conclusion, lovingly admonish
your children. to fear the Lord. Show them what
it means to fear the Lord. Show them how wonderful it is.
Teach them by example, teach them by appropriately disciplining
them, teach them by discussing with them the changes of culture,
and teach them by talking with them. These are four ways that
we can begin to fulfill our God-given role of honoring God's authority
over us by teaching our children to honor the authority of everyone
whom God has set over them in their lives. Let's pray. Great God of heaven, we thank
Thee so much for this time together. And we pray that a few of these
common sense and yet biblical principles that we've tried to
set before this dear class this morning about exercise in authority
may be helpful and may be put into practice when children are
already very young. And Lord, for those who have
older children and have not put into practice these principles,
give them the wisdom they need to repent in front of their children
and to say, my dear children, I'm sorry, I haven't done these
things, but from here on in, please forgive me for my lack,
but from here on in, I want to begin to exercise these principles
and exercise a better, more loving, biblical authority over you as
the place that God has put me in. Give us wisdom, Lord. Oh,
how we need it. Forgive all our shortcomings
as parents, and they are many. Help us to truly talk with our
children and to love them in ways that are tangible, communicative,
and earn respect. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Exercising Authority
Series 2011-2012 Family Living Class
| Sermon ID | 123111329380 |
| Duration | 33:23 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Language | English |
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