on the family and particularly on parenting tonight. And I think this will be a very helpful lesson for us and give us some things to think about that perhaps we haven't thought about before. And it's been a little, of course, we've had several weeks now, I think, since we've been going through this because of the holidays and things like that. How many of you all are getting back into your routine? You feel like things are getting back into sort of normal. I'm starting to experience that again. I was last, you know, over the holidays, everything is kind of, not normal. And I like that. I mean, it's nice to have things not normal for a while, but toward the end of the holiday season, I start going, okay, I just really would like things to get back to normal, you know. And normal doesn't mean easy, but it's just normal, you know, routine, instead of just so many different things everywhere. So anyway, But anyway, so now we're sort of getting back to the normal routine, and now we're able to get back to the series on the family, which I think has been a helpful series for our church, and I pray that it will continue to be healthy and helpful. So tonight we're going to be looking particularly at getting to the heart of behavior. But let's review a few things. Christianity, we learned several weeks ago, is inherently familial. That is, when we think of Christianity, we can really not think of it apart from the idea of family relationships. For example, our How can we understand our Heavenly Father? I mean, our Father is a relationship, a family relationship, a brother-sister relationship within the body of Christ. How do we understand how we're supposed to respond and act with one another? It's brother-sister kind of association. Christ and the Father, the Trinity. How do we understand the Trinity? If you didn't have If you didn't have family terms to understand these concepts, you would have no frame of reference. And so God created, his first institution that he created after he created Adam and Eve was the family, marriage and the family. And he did that because that provides the foundation for everything else that he wants to teach us. And then that also, as we have our families, we conduct our families individually, our individual families, that becomes the building blocks for how our kids learn what they're going to learn. What do they understand about their relationship with God? What do they understand about the gospel? What do they understand about who God is? What do they understand about the personal nature of God? Those kinds of things are established. They're either established in the home, or we have a skewed view because of the home, or we have a very little frame of reference because of our home life, but usually without any intervention from the Spirit of God or the Word of God, your concept of God often does come from the home. Now thankfully, aren't we glad for the intervention of the Spirit of God and the Word of God in our lives that flesh those things out and correct our thinking on all those kinds of things. But nevertheless, it is extremely important to understand that our families do set the basis for what our kids are going to understand about the gospel and about Christianity. We want our relationships with our children to image for the world our relationship with God. So we become, as a family, a light to the world of what a relationship with God looks like by our own relationship with our kids. How does God relate to us? Well, you can do that, you can show that to the world to at least some extent by your relationship with your kids. As we live under God's authority as his children, so our children need to live under our authority. And that's one of the very basic lessons that we need to teach our kids at the earliest stages. I mean, there's a lot of things tonight that we'll go over, some of which we can start teaching very early, but many of the things, you know, you can't, they have to develop some before you can teach them certain things. But on the very basic level, they need to understand that we live under God's authority, and if they're gonna live under God's authority, they have to live under our authority. In fact, I would set it up this way. These are general goals when we're thinking about parenting, general goals with age groups, I think, that we probably would agree on. Ages zero through five is really establishing our authority. That's really what you're doing. You're teaching them obedience. The main thing that you're teaching them from zero to five. You may be teaching some basic concepts about who God is, some basic concepts about the gospel. work on their lives a little bit as far as maybe learning to memorize scripture a little bit, maybe learning to sit still for a while, and whatever, those kinds of things. But basically, you're teaching them obedience. My youngest daughter is older than five, she's seven, but we were doing family devotions this morning, and we were reading through 1 John 2. And in 1 John 2, it actually says that we are to, the things are in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, you know that passage. don't love the world, basically, and those things are in the world. And she, at the end, she said, what does that mean? We're in the world. Everything's in the world. How can you not love the world? What's that about? That's a good question, isn't it? So I explained to her, I said, well, what it's talking about is it's talking about the things that are against God, and it's talking about wanting what God doesn't want, and doing what God doesn't want, loving what God doesn't want. And I just said to her, you know how you know what God doesn't want and what God does want? She said, how? I said, by what your mom and dad tell you. If your mom and dad tell you to do something, that's what God wants for you. When you want to do what your mom and dad say don't do, you're loving the world. I mean, it's very basic. I mean, I can't get, I'm not going to go into all the world system and the, you know, Ephesians chapter two and talking about, you know, the principality. I'm not going to get into all that. I'm just going to simply say, Hey, you got two options here. You do what God wants or you do what you do, what, what you want to do and what the, what the world wants you to do. And how do you know? By what your parents tell you. And so you're teaching obedience at a very young age, ages 0 through 5, that's really what you're teaching, primarily. When you get into the ages 6 through 12, now you're going to help them grow in their character. Now these are general goals. We're going to break all these things down. Yes, Jeff? Well, you could explain to the level that they understand, but their understanding is gonna be limited. I think you should always explain as much as you can. And you always want to encourage them, well, I'll take always away. You often want to encourage them to ask questions. For instance, our devotions are designed to be about 15 minutes, but if my kids ask, I love when my kids ask questions, and they know I like it, right? She doesn't want me to do that. Anyway, I really do. I do like when they ask questions. And they'll ask different questions. And that's what takes more of the time sometimes. Or sometimes it's just 15 minutes and then we're done. But anyway. But no, I think we should explain whatever they ask as much as we can. We're going to be limited, obviously, by their aptitude, and so we're really primarily just trying to get them to obey. That's the primary thing, even when they don't want to. Of course, 6 through 12, we're going to want to help them grow in their character. A very simple character is just consistent obedience. So now we're going to say, okay, if you're not If you're not consistently obeying six through 12, why? You need to develop certain characteristics. You're impatient, so you're not obeying right away. Or you're selfish, or you need to love your brothers and sisters. So now we're trying to develop character at six through 12. And then in the teen years, we really wanna help them grow in their personal relationship with God. Now they're old enough to really have their own their own relationship with the Lord, they can pray to the Lord, they can understand that God loves them and accepts them, and we want to cultivate that at this point. And in this whole process, What we really want to do is we want to live the gospel out for them, and we want them to begin to grasp the gospel. And even in how we discipline them, how we relate to them, how we talk with them, we want them to be able to grasp the gospel over time as a process, and we're going to learn how to do that. So the objectives that we're going to talk about tonight is really talking about the importance of the heart And we'll get into that in a little bit. Then we're gonna look at, we're gonna offer some examples of how to aim at the heart. So how do you aim at, even one, two, three years old, how do you aim at their heart rather than just their behavior? And then we'll deal with some of the common questions about heart-centered parenting. A lot of the concepts that we're gonna talk about tonight do come from the book Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted Tripp. How many of you have read that book before? Okay, yeah, overall that's a good book. I don't agree with everything he says, but overall it's a pretty good book. And a lot of these things come from that. Ted Tripp illustrates in his book He illustrates the, he uses this illustration. He says that a lot of times parents are preoccupied with a kid's behavior and they're not really focused on the heart. And he said it's like taking a dead tree, an old dead tree, and putting fresh new apples on the tree without dealing with the tree itself. And so when you're trying to deal with just the behavior and you're never pointing to the actual heart, the actual person, then you're trying to fix the behavioral problem without dealing with the actual person. And really, when you do that, you're not disciplining in a gospel kind of a way either. But when you connect behavior with heart attitude, that I'm doing what I'm doing wrongly because of my heart, when I make that connection, and when you train your children to make that connection, then they begin to realize What? Well, they realize that they're a sinner. They're not right with the Lord. And it's not just they have bad behavior. There's something really wrong inside. And that opens up the opportunity for the gospel to be received. So let's talk then a little bit about the importance of the heart. The heart is the control center of behavior. So behavior reveals the heart. Proverbs 4.23 says, above all else, guard your heart, for out of it are the issues of life. And by the way, I'll just say this. So when you think of the concept of a heart, in fact, I think I was listening with Caitlin today, we were listening to a podcast, and the guy mentioned this, and it's a good point. When we talk about the heart, in our society, what do people think about when they're thinking about the heart? Yeah, emotions, okay? My heart's telling me to do this, or I just feel like I ought to do this. I mean, they're really talking about emotions primarily. That's not the Bible word for heart. The Bible idea of heart includes all three, the mind, the will, and the emotions. It's all of it, okay? That's why the Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. So with the Bible definition of heart, you can think with your heart. So we make a real distinction between our head and our heart, but the way the Bible uses the term heart, it doesn't do that. So that's important to understand as we go through this. So we're not saying this is just a matter of your feelings. You're doing this just because of your feelings. We're actually saying your thinking is wrong. Your heart, your feelings are not leading you the right direction. and your will is not leading in the right direction. And sometimes when you're talking with your kids about their different things, the behavior that's wrong, you might wanna point out one thing or another. Maybe the thinking is the real problem. Or maybe the feelings, hey, your feelings are just throwing you off real bad. You gotta understand, your feelings are just deceiving you right now. Or your will, you know what, this is a will, you ever seen the difference between, have you ever seen that when you're with your kids? The difference between an instruction problem, they're not understanding what they ought to do. versus a will problem, okay? And that you're just being defiant. You're just going against what pleases God. And understanding that it's a heart problem, making those connections is very important. Our parenting is often designed to control behavior, and we need to be careful about that. Not that we don't control behavior, and we'll talk about that, but it ought to be something more than just controlling behavior. Mark 7.21 says that what we say is a reflection of our heart, that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And there are plenty of other passages as well that talk about The things that are stored up in our heart will overflow to what we say. And so we want to make sure that as we're parenting, we're identifying what's going on and how to parent our children where we're actually shepherding their hearts. And I'll note this also. We ought to look at our kids' behavior and it ought to be for us a guidebook for their heart. So I'm gonna, when they, because I can't see the heart, right? And you can't see the heart. But we can see the behavior, and the Bible says that what comes from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, for example. So what comes from your behavior is your, what comes from your heart is your behavior, and so you can make the connection. So we should see our kids, and we should make that connection. It should be a guidebook for us. And let me ask, I'll open it up this way. What keeps us from looking at our kids, at the behavior of our kids, as a guidebook to their heart? Any ideas what keeps us from doing that? In other words, when we see wrong behavior, what would keep us from looking at it that way? Yes? Okay, okay. So in other words, we're embarrassed by their behavior. All right, yeah, that's one serious pitfall. When you respond to your kid's behavior by embarrassment, you're embarrassed because of what your kids have done. Honestly, that is a real quick way to cause rebellion in your kids, especially over time. So that's selfish. If I look at my behavior and I'm embarrassed by my kid's behavior, I'm actually, it's a selfishness that's actually happening. My own heart, my own heart is the problem actually. And it will keep me from being concerned about my kid's heart, which that's actually the real problem. Their wrong behavior, I would be concerned more about their heart, not about what I look like. Yeah, very good, yeah. I have two thoughts. One, we may not correct because Okay, yeah. You ever seen that, by the way? You ever seen that in your kids? You see they have the same tendencies you do? You're all giving me blank stares. I can't be the only one that sees myself and my kids. And I'll tell you what, it'll get me frustrated. And I'll be like, I remember, even when I was a kid, I did something wrong, I don't remember what it was. And my mother got really angry. And she came back and apologized to me. And she said, I am so sorry. She said, I'm sorry. She said, I really lost it because I saw myself so much in you. And she admitted it. She was willing to admit it, which was a good thing that she was wrong. Yeah, so you do. And sometimes we can sort of excuse our kid's behavior because we don't see it. Yeah. Cheryl, did you have one? We make snap judgments. Okay. We react so quickly to correct it that we don't evaluate what's actually happening. Yeah, we're too quick to jump on what that is. The Bible says, he that answers a matter before he hears it, it's falling to him. So we're too quick. We're just answering it before we're really understanding what's going on. Jeff? Laziness. And that kind of leads into the other major one that I thought of. Embarrassment is one and inconvenience is the other. We see behavior in our kids. And it's really inconvenient. And I have to admit to you, I've got three girls, and when they're going at it with each other, it is very inconvenient. And it's loud. And anyway, and it's really not mainly Caitlin. It's actually much more Kristen and Julie that are just. That's why I have an office in the basement. Anyway, but I need to say not just you guys cut it out, which is, the knee-jerk reaction is, just stop talking. Which I do say from time to time, I will tell you, just stop. Don't talk anymore. Like, stop. You're not allowed to talk anymore. But I need to take the time. And it's not just about the fact that you're driving me crazy, which does happen. But there's a heart problem here. Usually it's selfishness, honestly. They're both being selfish. They both want their way. And so we need to take time to learn that. And if the only reason we correct behavior is because it's inconvenient for us, we're really not dealing with the heart of our kids. And frankly, when it comes to our kids' behavior, those two issues, if it's embarrassment, and inconvenience. If that's what our parenting style is to punish and discipline based upon those two things, mark it down, your kids will rebel. It will almost definitely happen. Now, it doesn't mean you can do everything right and your kids will still rebel, because why? The heart's deceitful and desperately wicked. But kids, when they get to a certain age, when they begin to see what their parents' hearts really are like, and it's really just about inconvenience and embarrassment, then we have real concerns there. That is not what we want. All right, so what does it look like? These are some more ways that, okay, if it's inconvenience, if you're parenting out of those kinds of styles, inconvenience or embarrassment, what is that gonna look like? Well, let's list a few. First, bribery. If you'll be good in the store today, mommy will buy you a candy bar. You ever been tempted to do that with your kids? Okay, so bribery is one way. Random penalty. Alright, the next time you say shut up, you're going to have to put a dollar in the jar. Just this random... You don't even have a jar. Or a dollar. Anyway, they don't have a dollar. So, random penalty. And by the way, make sure you follow through on whatever penalty you do. I mean, if you're going to So I heard one time a mother said, if you don't be quiet, I'm going to throw you out the window. Don't say stuff like that. That's not right. Guilt or manipulation. It makes me sad when you disobey. You're now ruining mommy's day. Now, I think you can say it really grieves me when you, I don't think that's necessarily, when you disobey it really grieves your dad. I think you could say that, and I think that it grieves God when we sin, right? So I don't think that's wrong, but it's not about you ruining mommy's day. I had a bad day because you did that, that kind of thing. So guilt and manipulation, that kind of thing. Fear of man. That's it. I've had it. You've been doing this all day, and you won't listen. You're going to get it now. OK. Wait for your dad. Yeah. All right. Well, actually, I think sometimes it's appropriate for the mom to say, wait till your dad gets home. But not for this reason. Anyway. Mere forced obedience. Say you're sorry. Share the toy. Just merely forced obedience. So we must control the behavior, but that must not be the whole story. Our kids must understand law before they can understand. Okay, so let's talk a little about this. I am not saying here that you don't control behavior, that you just let them do whatever they want. I'm saying that there ought to be more than controlling behavior. that you ought to draw, help them make the connection between their behavior and their heart. Yeah. Are we in the 6 to 12, 13 plus range here? I think this is generally all of it. Now it's going to look differently based on the different, and when we get into the examples that will flesh out a little bit better. Well, but you could still say to a three-year-old that you're having a bad heart, you're not cheerfully obeying. For example, if somebody disobey, if a kid disobeys, or let's say they have a bad attitude, I could still point out attitudes, I could still point out, I could still do that. It's gonna be on a more basic level, but I still can, for sure. Yeah? So you're saying enforced obedience is not bad when it's combined with Yeah. Sure. Sure. Forced obedience is necessary. But you're going to say, why is it, you're going to say something to the effect of, hey, the, you know, three, you're probably not reasoning with him saying, why is it that you don't want to obey? You're probably saying your heart is not right here. You have a bad heart, and that's why you don't want to obey. Something of that nature, or something similar to that. Yeah? At what point is a reward system appropriate In my opinion, a reward system is good for positive things but not for infractions. If my kid goes out and rakes leaves and I want to reward them, that's fine. But if I say clean your room and they and it's an obedience thing, that's something different. I think it depends on, if I'm rewarding them because they're obeying, I think it's different than rewarding them because they're doing something positive, they're doing something that is. So, let me see how to put this. So if you have, if you are breaking a rule or breaking a law. I don't think reward has anything to do with that. You'll be really good until we get home and I'll give you a candy bar. That is not appropriate. Because they shouldn't be doing good because they're good. That's actually cultivating a selfish heart, actually, is what that's doing. Does that make sense? Because you're now saying to them, okay, here's a selfish reason for you to obey me. It could actually do the exact opposite of what you want to do with that. But to spontaneously say, I'm thankful you obeyed and here is a reward just to show I'm grateful for that. I think it's probably okay. But you're training their hearts. So you know their hearts whether or not they obeyed because they thought maybe mom would give you a reward or not. And you want their hearts to be, no, I'm going to obey. because I'm supposed to obey because I need to please the Lord. And even saying that, even at really young age, you could say, hey, that does not please God. That does not please Jesus when you do that. And so that's how it, good question. Our kids must understand, but so what I'm saying is, what I'll say is this, it is really important that you set a very clear standard for your kids at a very young age. Here's why. Our kids must understand law before they can understand their sin. We know that from Romans chapter 7. It says that we don't know sin except we know the law and we know when we've crossed the line. Sometimes parents adjust their rules to the point where the kids can obey this. No, right is right and wrong is wrong. And your kids are going to disobey. And you want them to see when they disobey. Why? Because they understand their sin when they see they disobey. You don't want to make it so easy for them that there's no law. Because if they don't know the law, they're never going to understand their sin. They must understand their own sin before they can understand grace. You can't understand grace unless you understand that you've sinned. Because grace is what? It's unmerited favor. It's unmerited. That means, I don't deserve this. They can't understand grace until they first understand their own sin. And then another one to be really careful about, and I've seen this before, be careful not to attempt to teach them grace by overlooking their sin. Some people think, some parents think, well, I just want them to understand that God is a gracious God, and so I'm going to overlook their sin. What's the problem there? What's the problem? They think they can do it again. Again and again. that maybe they aren't receiving grace if they have consequence. Say that again, I'm sorry. They may think they're not receiving grace even when receiving a consequence. Okay. So like, if you're doing it this way and then they get a consequence and it's still graciousness, they're not recognizing it. Okay. Provides the expectation that God's gonna overlook their sin also. Good. Brad? I was just gonna say, you're not acknowledging the problem of sin. Okay. you have to accept the gift of salvation. God's forgiving it, but only if you accept the gift. Here, they're not, they don't need to have that same type of relationship in that case to have the sin be overlooked. It's just it's overlooked. Okay, let's, let me, let me, is grace overlooking sin? No. That's the problem. The problem is that grace isn't overlooking sin. God does not overlook our sin. He never overlooks our sin. What does God do? Why can God give us grace? because Christ paid the penalty for our sin. Don't say, this is a real temptation for parents. Well, I'm gonna overlook that, I'm gonna give you grace. No, that's not grace. That's not grace. God doesn't overlook our sin. He applies our sin to Christ's account so that it isn't overlooked, so that God's justice is appeased. And so I think we have a misunderstanding of grace sometimes is why we end up doing this. So how do you teach grace to your kids? Okay, we know how to teach law to our kids. Make sure you have a standard. Let's ask the question, what is grace? Grace is unmerited favor. That's what grace is, right? That means that no matter what I do, I'm accepted by God. Is that right? Because of Christ. Is that right? Okay, here's how you apply grace. When my child sins, disobeys me or whatever, and I discipline them, I spank them, I don't withhold the consequence. and say, that's grace. But here's what I do after I spank them. I make sure that they understand that I totally accept them. So I give them the discipline. You're not giving grace to your kid by withholding discipline. But then I'm going to hug them. I'm going to show. Julie does it. When I spank Julie, which is a lot lately, she will actually come to me and she wants a hug right afterwards. Why? I've heard people say, that confuses the kid. Don't hug them right after you spank them. It doesn't confuse the kid. They get it completely. You spank them because there's a consequence for sin. And then you hug them so that they understand you're fully accepting them. And I don't hug them, by the way, after they say sorry to me. I will do that too. but I'm gonna hug them right away. I want them to know, I want my kids to know that no matter what they do, I accept them, but there's still gonna be a consequence. That's grace. Does that make sense? All right, now, could you, when they're older, could you occasionally say, you know, I am going to give mercy. Mercy is different. Am I going to be merciful to you in this situation? you probably could do that, and in some cases that might be. I would really shy away from that when they're young. But can you show mercy later? I think probably. But be careful with it, because it can very much look like you're overlooking sin. I think there are probably time, you know when you'll really be able to show grace to your kids? When something happens, when they have some sort of infraction, that they could get the consequence, but you take it instead. And I don't know how, that doesn't happen that often, but occasionally that kind of thing could happen when they're older. That you end up getting the brunt of it instead of them. That would be a great way to show grace, because that's exactly what Christ did. But we need to be very careful of thinking, I'm going to teach them grace by overlooking their sin. It won't happen that way. Grace is unmerited favor. We teach them grace by helping them understand that we fully accept them despite their behavior, but not by withholding consequences. And when they get older, then they understand that when they sin, if they know Christ is their Savior, and they've accepted the gift of Christ, because they've got to do it themselves, then they are fully accepted by God as well. But there are still consequences for their sin. It is true that by God's grace, God does not always apply all of the consequences that we deserve when we're Christians. but we need to be careful of how we're teaching that to our kids. And it's all because God, the whole reason, we understand this, the whole reason that that's true for us as adults is because Christ received all of the consequences on himself and we understand that. Okay, so let's look at some examples of how to reach the heart. How do we reach the heart? Number one, And by the way, I did not come up with these examples myself. These are ones that I got from somewhere else. A one-year-old Jack is fussing about not getting to play with the dangerous utensil. He's starting to head for a tantrum. Okay, one year old, we're teaching this. What do you do? Do you give the one-year-old the dangerous utensil? Okay, that's obviously not the right thing. Try to distract the one-year-old with a safe toy. Not a bad idea for some children, I mean, for some small children. Or do you gently discipline the one-year-old and speak of the child's fussy heart? God does not want us to have fussy hearts. This child, like every one-year-old at heart, struggles with pride and subordination and impatient, complaining spirit. Even at this age, we need to start speaking of the heart. So whether you use fussy or whatever you think your kid's going to understand, I'd probably just say bad, frankly. But anyway, that's really clear. They understood good, they understand bad. But something like that to help them understand they're making a connection with their heart. But I will say this, they got to know you accept them too. That's great. So I'm going to accept them. They need to understand I love them and I accept them, but I need to point out their fussy heart or their bad heart to them. Yeah. Gently disciplined. Uh, what do you mean? Yeah, Joel will explain it to you. You slap on the hand and say, no, don't touch that. Anyway, it's not that hard. Alright, let's see. Two-year-old. Christina is dropping food off the tray on the high. Have you seen that? Every kid, every parent's gone through this. Drop the food, put it back in your plate, drop the food again. I gotta keep dropping the food. Okay. Rolling a Cheerio back and forth, left to right, that kind of stuff. Staring into your eyes while she's doing it. We've all experienced that. So what do you do? Stop feeding the child? No, that's not the answer. It's funny. I mean, that will work. And actually, if you never feed them, you don't have to change your diaper. It's a great system. No, don't do that. I'm glad you're not saying permanently. Or do you sit and feed them by hand so they have nothing to drop? Or do you give them food they love so much they won't drop it? These are all behavioral approaches. Or do you thank God for giving you the food ahead of time? at the time of dropping, here's your discipline, and then explain that God made the food and God does not want us to waste what he gives us. We do not want to have wasteful, unthankful hearts. So it's a good, very simple explanation. We've thanked the Lord, remember we prayed for this food? We thanked the Lord for the food before we started? Sure, sure you can do that with a two-year-old. And you just, sure. Yeah, exactly, don't waste, don't be wasteful. Yeah, you could tell a two-year-old. They don't have to understand cognitively everything you say. Just start telling them things. That's wasteful. That's unthankful. They can understand those concepts at two years old. I think they can, can't they? Anyway, yeah? Did you sign up for nursery recently? I have kids, yes. Isn't this also an obey issue? Like, I told you not to drop the food and that's enough. Sure, so I'm not saying don't do both. I'm not saying you disobeyed, okay? You disobeyed, but also, I mean, it's both. Yeah. I think if anything, it's helping you as a parent to realize why you're doing the move, if you're saying you're doing the move. Yeah, and if you start at two, then hopefully when they get to be 10, they'll still do it. Frustrated and angry at them. Yeah. Carrie? I think there's a danger, though, in overextending. Like, when they're little, they just need to obey the first time. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Okay. Yeah, I don't disagree with that and sometimes they just need to do it because I totally agree with that. I will tell you this. One of the worst punishments I ever received as a kid was a lecture. I'll take a spanking over a lecture. My dad would talk for effort. I'm kind of joking. I agree. Sure. Yeah, but you could easily, I mean, I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, because I think sometimes you're right, I think that's the case, but you could easily say, you disobeyed me, that's wrong, now here's why I told you don't do that. And just say, we want to be thankful for our food. It's not a long explanation, it's just a very quick explanation. I think we can, we don't need to give, you're right, we don't need a long explanation, But I think, and sometimes I think it's perfectly fine just to say, hey, look, you disobeyed, that's wrong, and this is the consequence. But I think when we can we should be focusing on we should be making the connection between behavior and heart four-year-old. Yes Do you think this if you say no? It's a fine thing to explain stuff prompts a child to become a negotiator with you though later They let you explain something and they start to develop their own mind say between 10 and 15 And then they're like but wait a second you said this, but I think this If you're heart-focused in your explanation, I think that's unlikely. If you're heart-focused, if you're saying, hey, the reason you did this is because you had an impatient heart, you had a rebellious heart, those are the kind of things, then I don't, I think that, I doubt you're going to have that. If you're trying to modify their behavior by your explanation, then I think that's quite possible. Then they're going to argue back. But if your explanation is to connect their behavior with their heart, I don't think you're going to have as much of that. That's just my opinion. Well, we all, yeah. I mean, yeah. And you have to know your own kid and stuff as well. Let's see. Four-year-old Sandra refuses to share with her sister who is screaming her head off that the toy is hers. Okay. You could cut that. Why are you talking? I get it. Okay. All right. Do you rebuke the older child and tell her to placate the younger sister? Well, you would probably say placate. Tell her. Is that what you do? Oh, just share. Share with your younger sister. Okay. This is Bill Cosby approach, by the way. Now, it's not the right approach, actually. What's the right approach? Well, do you sit down with both of them and talk about whether their fight is showing parts of what's showing in their hearts? Or do you give the younger child a different love for... I didn't word that right. Okay, bottom line is, do you sit down with both of them and talk to them and say, hey, you've got a heart issue here, both of you are being selfish, you don't wanna share and you should share. And you are trying to grab something that's not yours and you're both being selfish. I think that's many times the best thing. Just to tell the older one to share so the younger one will shut up is really not helping the situation in many cases. It's easier, but it's not necessarily helping. And often, if the two of them can't agree on who gets to play with the toy, do you know what happens in my house? Neither one plays with the toy. Yeah, that's right. We get to take it away. Let's see. Okay, let's go, let's move to common, well, we're almost, we'll move through this quickly. Common questions about heart-centered parenting. How can I expect obedience from a heart, from the heart? After all, if my children aren't Christians, then they can't keep the law. Now, we've kind of already addressed this by talking about the importance of the law. Sometimes parents are, they want to adjust the rules so that their kids can always follow them. And I would caution against that. The law of God is not easy for a natural man. Its standard is high and cannot be achieved apart from God's supernatural grace. God's law teaches us our need of grace. When you fail to hold God's standard, you rob your children of the mercy of the gospel. So understand that the answer is yes, you want to set up law so that they can understand they can't follow it, honestly. Do I instruct them on their heart every time they disobey? And my answer to that is this. You want to do this frequently enough that the child makes a clear connection between the heart and behavior. So I'm answering it by saying, some would say yes, you should do it every time or most of the time. My answer is, you know your kid and you should do it frequently enough so that the child is making a connection. My behavior is because of my heart. Okay, if something's wrong in my heart. And so you know, you know your, hopefully you know your child well enough to know whether they're making that connection or not. And if they're not, then I would increase the frequency that you're talking, that you're doing that, that you're making that connection for them. And if they are, then there are certain times where they just need to obey and that's probably fine. Yeah. Is it as important to mention to them when they do something right that their heart is correct? If they do something nice that is above and beyond, or if they constantly are telling them to bring their Bible to church and then they can get their Bible on their own and they're ready to go, you're like, good behavior. Is it as important or is it? So the way to answer that is actually this. This might sound, this is going to go against what the world would say completely, but we have bad hearts, so we don't want to teach our kids they have good hearts, because they don't. So we can reward for good behavior. I don't have a problem with that. If they bring their Bible to church, we can say, good job, that's great that you're doing that, keep up the good work, those kinds of things. But I wouldn't, if they don't know the Lord particularly, I wouldn't want to connect that to their heart. This is my personal opinion. I wouldn't want to say, okay, you've got a good heart, that's why you did that. No, actually, I wouldn't want to say that. I would just say, I'm glad you did that. That's good that you did that. So I'm teaching them good behavior versus bad behavior, but it's the bad behavior that I'm actually pointing to their heart. The good behavior, I'm simply saying, you're doing a good job with that. Because I don't want them to get the idea that they can they can have a good heart if they do the right thing. No, it's actually gonna be God's grace. They're gonna have to come to Christ, and nobody can complete and fulfill the standard of righteousness that God has. So, for example, when at one point when she was younger, I was spanking Kristen, and afterwards she said, Daddy, I can't seem to stop sinning. That's exactly what you want them to say. I mean, that's exactly. And I said to her, you're right. You can't stop sinning because your heart is not right. And we're born that way. And so you begin to teach them that kind of thing. So yeah, I don't, I don't think I would make that connection actually. I would, but, but I think it's fine to say, Hey, that's really good that you did that. That's great. And yeah, sure. Sure, you could say that pleases... Sure, sure, yep, I think you could say that pleases the Lord when you obey. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I think that's good too. Good. So, let me go... Let me... Hmm, okay. This is the next question, and the last one. This is hard work, because it is hard. Is parenting hard work? It is. It's really hard work, actually. And you might say, well, I'm seeing little fruit. I'm not seeing a lot of fruit. Can you encourage me? Well, here's what I would say about this. This has a long-term fruit, has long-term fruit with very little initial gratification. So this is line upon line, precept upon precept, and you're not going to say, boy, my kid has just changed in two weeks because of this approach. It isn't going to happen. I don't want to give you any false, suddenly you're going to have a perfect kid in a month if you do this. You're not. You're going to have a kid that may be more aware of his imperfections, but you're not going to have a perfect kid. So here's what I would say. Present joy comes from your consistent obedience. It comes from you obeying. In other words, I'm going to do this with my kid. I'm going to train my child in the right way. And I'm going to be joyful that I'm obeying the Lord in doing this. I'm following the way God wants me to do this. And that's the joy I'm going to get, not from the kids' obedience. Because we like quick results from what we do. And you won't get quick results from this. This is long-term results for doing this. We all look forward to a day when we can joy in our children's obedience, but for now we must find our joy in the fact that we are pleased in the Lord. So we need to understand that. The other thing I would say is this is easier when parents are a team. Dads need to engage in this area and can offer a great deal of support by offering a fresh perspective when mom is understandably worn out. And I'll just say that, just generally speaking, that dads engage on this. So when you come home, I always tell, I always suggest, this is just a suggestion, my opinion. I think dads, when they come home from work, they need about a half hour to detox. They just need a half hour, well, detox is probably the wrong word, but you know what I mean. Decompress, yeah. They need a half hour. They need a half hour to decompress. They just need to, you know, But after that, they need to get back in and engage in their families. And understand, engage in what's going on, because a lot of times they can bring a perspective, and they can talk to their kids about their hard attitudes. If the mom says to the dad, he's been a disaster all day, which she shouldn't say in front of the kids, by the way, then the dad can sort of say, okay, let me talk to him, and you can do some of this coaching You know, why were you so bad? What did you do with your mom? Why did you disobey and explain the hard attitude and possibly discipline as well? So it is a lot easier. It doesn't make it easy, but it's easier when you are a teen. Okay, I'm over time. Let's go ahead and teens, you're dismissed.