Perils and aims in biblical parenting. By peril I mean a wrong practice that will lead you to bad places. Wrong practices that endanger biblical parenting. Christian parents can discourage, frustrate and alienate their children through unbiblical actions or habits. One common way is misusing the rod of discipline. I can use the rod of discipline too little and some parents lean in this direction. Proverbs 13.24 He who spares his rod hates his child. The Bible is very strong about that. It doesn't say it's messing his child up. It doesn't say it's forfeiting certain lessons. But it's a failure to love and a failure to love in the Bible is equivalent to hate. Children need to be taught and they need to learn that sin hurts. Sin ultimately does not make us happy, but hurts us and others. Children may never learn that in this lesson if they never connect sin with painful consequences. Children need to learn that sin leads to judgment and punishment. Now, in a minute we're going to come to the point which says the Bible doesn't say that using the rod is the only form of discipline, but it's the point of last resort and if you never use the rod you're not being faithful. Proverbs 30.15 says the rod and reproof, that's they basically spank and explain, give wisdom but a child who gets his own way, literally a child who's left to himself brings shame to his mother. You know if you listen to the news sometime with discernment You hear about some guy got in a fight, he got angry, he was at a bar, 1 o'clock in the morning, on a Saturday night, not a good place to be. Good things don't happen in bars at 1 o'clock in the morning. A. B, this person got in a fight and beat a guy to death, or something like that. You find out, well, he does have a problem with anger his whole life. Well, what were his parents doing? Were they on vacation his whole life? I mean, children need to learn to control themselves, and sometimes you have to help them. They can't discipline themselves, so you have to teach them discipline. Self-discipline begins with parents teaching self-discipline. I was reading an article, it was great, it was on the internet yesterday in one of the few blogs I go to, and this woman was writing about you can teach your children to sit still. And if you do that, just if you taught your kids to sit still, it's huge for their whole life. Kids who can't sit still in school are going to have an awful time in school. Kids who can't sit still in church and have to always be up and out and whatever, they're not going to get much out of it. You can do your kids a huge favor to teach them self-control just to sit. Like for example, you're in the waiting room at the hospital or you're driving to California. Kids, when we get to Tucumcari, you're dead. You have to teach your kids to be able... Not all of life is entertainable. And sometimes we're trying to distract our kids. We're trying to entertain our kids. Well, start by beginning to teach your kids self-control that not all of life is fun. Driving to California in the car without air conditioning in the summer takes self-control and love and patience. There are just things in life that aren't going to be fun and they have to learn to sit quietly and not go ballistic. Well, my child has itchy bottoms disease and they can't sit still. Well, explain to them there's other things that can happen to their bottom worse than itchy bottom. That's hot bottom. Many adults have sinful habits because their parents were unwilling to confront and discipline such behavior at home. Such parents love themselves and hate their children. You know, that's pretty strong. That's what the Bible says. If I'm unwilling to discipline my children the way they should be disciplined, I really don't love them, I'm really hating them. Now, at the other flip side, you can use the route of discipline too much. For every parent who will not use corporal punishment, there are parents who are spank happy. I mean, everything is going right to the route of discipline. Proverbs 17.10 says, a rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows, meaning of a rod, into a fool. The use of corporal punishment, the rod, is not the only means of discipline. And if I'm spanking for everything, then I'm not understanding discipline and its purposes and its means. The foolish people often think that if a little is good, a lot is better. Hence, in the apocryphal work, this is not in the Bible, but a Jewish work of the intertestamental period, the book of Ecclesiasticus, chapter 30, verse 1 and 12, it reads, He who loves his son will whip him often, bow down his neck in his youth, and beat his sides while he is young. Gosh, that's kind of grim. You guys want to be whipped, you know? Come into these people's house, there's a bullwhip hanging on the peg of the wall. I could take a fly off of my kid's shoulder. Needs to be beaten a lot. This is not biblical discipline, but human cruelty under the guise of religious training. I knew that I had to spank my kids. I knew that it was something I needed to do. We had a house on 51st Street in Indianapolis and it had a. Wooden steps down to a landing, then wooden steps down to a concrete floor in the basement where I had my dark, dingy office. Big air ducts going through there and there was probably bats and all kinds of weird things. It was a very gloomy basement where I had my office. But my understanding was my kids, my son at that time could not play on the stairs, couldn't open the door and come down to check out Dad in the basement. Because if you fell, it was a really hard floor. And sure enough, one time I heard the door open. And I paused and I could hear little feet coming down the stairs. And he made it as far as the landing where, of course, I grabbed him. And I took him upstairs and I explained that he wasn't supposed to do that and he knew that and I spanked him. He was heartbroken. He was, I don't know, two, I don't know. And he went looking for himself, oh my God, I want to see mommy. And he cried, and I went down to my office and cried. I did not enjoy spanking my son, but if he thought I wasn't going to do it because I didn't enjoy it, he was wrong. It was for his own good. Do I want him splattered on the concrete floor? Would that have been loving? Well, I don't want to break his will, so I'm not going to spank him better than he'd fall and hurt himself. Well, no, of course not. William Bolkenstein in Table Talk says, if your children can forget that you love them, Either during or immediately following discipline, you might be doing it wrong. I was listening to my daughter one day, and she had a dollhouse, and so if you listen to your children, they frequently play, describing life in their world as they see it. And she had her figures in the dollhouse, and there was the mommy and the daddy and the little children, and one of the children did something like, okay, we're going to have to go upstairs to spank and pay. And you know, upstairs to spank and pay. And that's what you do. You explain it, you spank them, and then you pray with them and hug them. Yes, we love you. No, we don't hate you. I love you, but end over. Okay, we're going to get it here. Being inconsistent in the use of discipline. Some parents are badly inconsistent in how they discipline their children and make discipline frustrating and confusing. And if it's frustrating and confusing, then it's ineffective. When you discipline one time for something and then don't discipline the next time for the very same thing, It's confusing to children. Consistency is a virtue. Is this wrong or not? Last time I got my backside paddled out. This time, nothing happened. Or I just got kind of a verbal something. Or when you discipline harshly for something at one time, but fail to discipline at all or deal lightly with it the next time, it's confusing and discouraging to the children. What's expected of me? I know a man who was huge as a child, when he was like 2, he looked like he was 5. When he was 7, he looked like he was 10. His parents didn't do a faithful job disciplining him. He was in and out of trouble. One night when he was 13 in junior high, he was standing in the backyard, this huge individual, but only 13. Is somebody going to get control of me? Because he didn't have self-control, his parents struggled, his parents didn't do a faithful job. He knew he needed to get control, but nobody was doing it. And inconsistent discipline, and in that case, his mother wouldn't discipline during the week while the dad's gone to work out of town, and save everything up for Friday when dad got home. Oh boy. Didn't you look for your, you know, that's wrong. So it's always delayed discipline and then sometimes dad's going to get the belt and sometimes he's just tired and fried and doesn't want to deal with it. And so it was just very inconsistent discipline. So I can misuse the rod of discipline. Second of all, I can fail to speak and act. We can fail to speak as one flesh, united in purpose parents. Too often father and mother are not on the same page and do not operate by the same rules when raising their children. Children thrive on consistency, consistency, consistency. And parents who speak and act without unity are actually undermining their whole parenting. One parent is too lenient, the other more demanding. Such confusing double speak is very confusing and frustrating to children. What do they want of me? Is that child's heart cry. Let me give you a testimony. I knew a man who was in prison in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. He was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list at one point in his life. He was a juvenile delinquent. They said you can go to prison or you can go to the military. So he went in the Marines. He said, then I learned to handle weapons. And then he was really dangerous. And he robbed a mafia card game. He walked in with two hand grenades with the pins out. And he says, give me all your money or I take the pins out and run. So they gave him all the money from the Mafia card game and of course he was wanted by the Mafia too. He was finally captured and spent 20 some years in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary before he was converted and became a different person. And he was so different as heading up to prison ministry that Jimmy Carter commuted his sentence and pardoned him. But he said in reflecting upon his troubled teen years, he said that his father beat him for smoking and that his mother gave him the money to go buy more cigarettes. So what in the Sam hell am I supposed to be doing? Is smoking bad or is it good? Parents must regularly communicate with each other about the children and what is going on. If one parent senses that things are out of balance or that mom and dad are not agreed and united, they should talk and pray about it soon. Children need united parents. If the father and mother just cannot agree, then the wife must graciously follow her husband's leadership as head of the family. That might be one of those cases where I don't agree with you, but the final call is with you and I will back your play. And if you say that you have to back his play, you can't be passive aggressive. Well, your dad is going to pound your behind, but I'm just going to let him give you cookies. You can't do that. That will mess your kids up big time. You both have to be on the same page. If the issue is sufficiently serious that you disagree, they should seek the counsel of the elders. Johnny's five. He wants an AK-47. I think he should have it. My spouse doesn't think he should have it. What do you think? You might want to go to the elders with that one, I think, if you can't figure out whether your five-year-olds are having an AK-47. Maybe when he's fifteen, but not when he's five. Again, this gentleman, William Bekenstein, said in Table Talk, near the end of Colossians 3, God speaks His will. to people who play a role in six different relationships. He speaks to wives, husbands, children, fathers, bondservants, we'd say in our culture, employees, and masters, employers. Only to fathers does God not give a positive command. He simply says, fathers do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Colossians 3.21. Perhaps by doing this, God is accentuating the uniquely devastating problem of parents, especially fathers, who provoke their children. In Ephesians 6.4, God gives the clear alternative to parenting that provokes. He says, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and training of the Lord. I know of nothing that more provokes children than having inconsistent parents. Am I not supposed to do this, or is it okay? Because you guys are giving me all kinds of signals and I don't get it. Now your child will probably not tell you that. They'll just think it in their heart and be confused. So we need to be together and we need to talk it through. And invariably, you know, offices attract. I think Mr. Hitler with a couple more counseling classes is going to turn the corner. I go, well, spouses, just shoot him and drag him out by his heels. Okay, somewhere between the middle of that, there's reality, but we need to both be on the same page and say, let's talk it through. You know, why is it that they have all this padding at just the right spots? Why does the adipose tissue collect there? And children first quickly learn, don't put your hand back there because your fingers get whacked too. People talk about Susanna Wesley and having 17 children, and raising 17 children in a Christian home without drinking heavily, and that's the real thing. Which one of you, oh right, I knew that, Larry. Can you imagine the size van you'd need and how many seats and all that? That's crazy. But she had a rule in her home to keep sanity. Every child in her home by the age of two knew how to receive a spanking without flailing and kicking and screaming. You could whimper and cry but you couldn't kick and scream because some children will just act out while you're spanking them and say, fine, I can keep doing this longer than you can. They can express their rebellion in the spanking. But not everything is faking, and you need to determine, okay, whatever we're going to be doing with this child, we need to be on the same page. And the child needs to know, I back his play, or I back her play. And one of the worst forms of rebellion is a manipulative child who will play one parent off against the other. And if you see that, particularly dads, because I saw that in my family I was perceived as the harder, mean parent and my wife was the sweet, nice parent. Imagine that. Anyway, and the children would kind of go over and Now that's a sneaky rebellion. You wouldn't do that to dad, but you'll take mom on and try to wear her down and get your way. That's disobedience and rebellion. I've told you no. Going to mom and trying to wheedle her and manipulate her and get it to happen is rebellion too. You're not going to do that. That's sneaky rebellion. A third way that we can frustrate our children is maintaining a disorderly home. God is the God of order and all things are to be done decently and in order. which is what 1 Corinthians 14.33 says, not only in worship, but in life. I mean, some of you can say, you know, I grew up in a home and bless their hearts, which is a Southern way. What does bless their hearts mean in the South? Those poor knuckleheads. Anyway, bless his heart. He's a dear guy. But, well, our parents sometimes had real issues. If you grew up in a home that was really out of control, it's a difficult home to live in. created in his image and redeemed to reflect his character, believers are to live orderly lives. I'm not saying super-structured, I'm not saying we're mechanical, but I'm saying that confusion and chaos are not of God and must regularly be fought against and subdued. Structure in the home and the family brings order and security to each family member. Why is it that when you go on vacation, it's harder to control your kids, and you bring them back home? Because there's structure and order. There's normalcy here, but when there's no structure and no order, kids are really... You know, it can be wild. There's a great article that James Dobson mentioned one time on how a public school in California had highways running on three sides of it. And so outside of the school where the kids played in the playground, they had a giant fence all the way around it. So kids couldn't run out in the street chasing a ball and get hit by a car. Strangers couldn't walk onto the campus and do things. And the kids would play, they'd fill up that entire area. Well, they had to put in some sewer lines or some water lines or something and they had to come along and they had to tear down the fence to do some construction. And now it's just an open playground. Now this was an elementary school, not a junior high or high school. And the kids didn't now go out and play every place because it wasn't safe out there anymore. They clustered by the doorway to the school. They knew they could play within eye shot and ear shot of the school, but they didn't go out and play in the whole playground anymore because it wasn't safe, it wasn't secure, it wasn't orderly. An orderly home is a secure home. A disorderly home is who knows what's happening next. Perhaps a lunar module is going to be coming into our living room. Who knows? This place is wild. For example, homes that are perpetually messy. I know if you have kids, you have a messy home. But kids, you know what? Socks that are dropped can be learned to be picked up. And you moms aren't the only one who needs to learn to do it. Reginald, I use Reginald as the artificial name for a child. Reginald, I'm glad you're enjoying your blocks, but you need to pick them up now. Yes, Dad and I do know how to pick up blocks, but that's not our turn. It's your turn. And we will show you, and after the first showing, this is how you pick them up. You need to learn to pick up your own blocks. It's like tools. You know, you don't take a tool off the pegboard and leave it out in the middle of the driveway. You put it back on the pegboard. How does it get back there? It doesn't magically float during the night back to the pegboard. You know, finding my golf clubs in the woods when I'm out there. What's this doing out here? Finding a saw out in the woods is not where dad wants to find saws. They need to be put back where they're in on. So we just, it's teaching our children that. Otherwise you're growing up in chaos and that's very hard to grow up in. Anyway, homes that are perpetually messy or worse dirty can help produce poorly adjusted children. Living in filth and perpetual clutter is not biblical. My wife and I once had a dinner date at someone's house who, bless her heart, she did have mental problems. I'm not exaggerating. It was knee deep all through the house. Knee deep all through the house. You had to pick your way to get into where we were going to eat. And then we were invited for a 6 o'clock dinner. It wasn't even started until around 8 o'clock. and she was fixing dinner and I was like, wow, this is such a weird place. It was a crazy home. It was a home that eventually exploded. It was very sad. A home without order and structure actually discourages children and confuses their thinking. Can you see how it would be discouraging? Now again, not everything can be neat and tidy and can you imagine the struggle if you have multiple children the multiple picker-uppers that you need to be engaged in doing this. And I'm sure Susanna Wesley with her 17 kids, which again, not all of them live to adulthood, you'd be fighting all kinds of issues. But if you didn't, you would have chaos. Can you imagine a city without a police department? A nation without laws? You guys, you all just do whatever you want. Whoa. For example, a home without regularly scheduled meals with the family seated together around the table helps create disorder and discourages children. One of the worst things our society has done in the last 50 years is we don't eat together anymore. You say, well, people are coming and going. Well, we need to find out when dad's going to be home and it's a good time for him and then we shall direct the rest of the family to make sure that we're all going to eat together. You've got to go, well, what's the big deal about eating together? And no, we don't have the TV on the counter, we don't sit in front of the monster screen and watch TV while we're eating dinner. We eat together. Did you know, in the Bible, eating a meal together as table fellowship has a huge impact on our lives? There's been books written by evangelical scholars on what the Bible teaches about having a meal together. Why are we eating lunch together? Don't we have places to eat at home? Sure. But eating together cements our fellowship, cements our relationship. You can talk. I was one of those, and I just confess on my things, numbskull dads who would pick one of my children up every day after school and bring them home rather than take the bus. And being a dad and been busy all day, nothing like a teen likes to happen is be peppered with questions on the way home from school. What did you do today? And get all these one word answers. They're not communicating. And then Cindy's at home. And she's just there in the kitchen, just kind of standing in the kitchen with some snacks. The day comes out with her, but why is it that the teen didn't like to be peppered with questions? Like a husband walks in the door from work, he probably doesn't want to be peppered with questions. It'll come out over time. If something happens, he'll talk about it. And a mealtime is a good time just for fellowship together, eyeballing one another, being able to talk about the day, what's going on. It cements relationships. A home without regularly scheduled and maintained bedtimes frustrates the God-given desire and need for order. Again, it depends on the age of the children. Sometimes the children argue, why can't I stay up as late as my older brother? Well, he's an older brother and he doesn't need as much sleep. But they need to have regularly regulated times. They can't just stay up and go to bed whenever they want to. Or, I'm going to be in my bed watching TV until 1 o'clock in the morning. No you're not because you're not going to have a TV in your bedroom and we're going to have a regularly scheduled time of going to bed and getting up. A home without regular family devotions, a home with regular family devotions, helps to establish order and set the whole family under the care of the sovereign king and shepherd and brings stability and security. It seems like a small thing, but I'm not talking about two hours and dad's plowing through scripture and the kids are falling asleep and mom's snoring and stuff like that, which I've led a couple of those. I've learned that 3 o'clock on Sunday afternoon is not a good time to start devotions after the wife has just got through cleaning up. You know, everybody's eating, they're kind of... I go, dear, if you fall asleep, it discourages the children. Well, we might reschedule for a realistic time. OK. But family devotions can end up being a thing that your children look back on and say, you know, it only lasted 15 minutes. But it centered our home. It made our home have a fitness to it and it reminded us daily that God was the king of this home and dad was his assistant and he was leading. If dad was out of town, mom would lead devotions or as the kids got older she might delegate to a professing Christian in the home who was a teenager who could read a passage of scripture. I'm not saying you have to have this big hairy deal. Family devotions don't have to be big hairy deals. They can just be reading a passage of scripture and praying over it. But it's a really important thing and even when you're empty nesters like my wife and I are, you know, the highlight of our day is having our devotions together in the evening. We have devotions individually in the morning. At the end of our day, we love being together before the Lord and having our devotions together. Number four, maintaining a home without joy or love. Well, you kind of go, well, nobody would aim for that. Well, sometimes we have homes where love and joy are very small. In some Christian homes, children are not treated with the dignity that God requires. I know of a family where the dad was treated horribly, and he had a hard time as an adult treating his children with love and respect. And that home, I think, has struggled because of the importance of a father in the home, and dad's not the biggest lover and cheerleader and understanding and patient. It's diminished what might have been a much happier Christian home. Each human being is created in God's image and deserves our love, respect, and the other imperatives are commands of the second table of God's law. You know, the Ten Commandments have two halves. The first four are God-word. The second six are man-word. Okay? So, the Bible says you ought to treat people this way. It's not loving my neighbor to commit adultery with his wife. It's not loving my neighbor to steal his goods. It's not loving my neighbor to lie about him. And the same way 1 Corinthians 13 talks about Christian love, that ought to be the aim in our home for how we treat each other. Christians should always speak to others with respect, whether parents to parents, in other words, I should always treat my wife with respect, parents to children, I should speak to my children with respect. Just because they're smaller and just because they're my children doesn't mean I can speak to them disrespectfully. They're still creatures created in the image of God. They may not be believers yet, but they're God's and I had to speak to them with respect. And children need to speak to their parents with respect. I love and I emphasize the fact that in the South, there is still a memory of that, yes ma'am, no ma'am, yes sir, no sir. I am from the Midwest and people say, huh, or yeah, and you got to go, yes sir, yeah, yes sir. In fact, we used to take our kids to a conference at Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania every year for about five years. The people there couldn't get over it. Your teenagers are so respectful. Can we have them for a few years? Could they teach our teenagers? Well, they didn't teach themselves, but if you ask a Southern teenager some question, they'd say, yes ma'am or yes sir, no ma'am or no sir. Where did you learn to speak with respect? It didn't come naturally. It wasn't in the water down here. It wasn't in the grits. It was in parents teaching that it's a form of honor. 1 Peter talks about give honor to whom honor is due, respect to whom respect is due. Children should speak to their parents with respect. If you regularly speak to others with disrespect, then expect your children to follow your example and so sin with their tongues also. Some parents rarely or never congratulate or encourage their children. Instead they focus on their children's faults, their shortcomings. Why did you get 96 and not 100% on that test? Well, 96 is still an A I believe. Why didn't you score that goal? Perfectionism is not a Christian value. Do you know what perfectionism is? Perfectionism is expect everything, if you work hard enough, to be perfect. Tell me, do you understand what the Bible says about the fall of mankind? There are no perfect people on the planet. There are no perfect institutions on the planet. There are no perfect marriages, no perfect parents, no perfect kids, no perfect companies. And if you're the kind of person who is wired as a perfectionist, you need to ask God for grace to put it to death, because it'll eat you up. Because a perfectionist says, if it's not perfect, it's nothing. Well fine, you're going to get nothing your whole life, because nothing on the planet is perfect. Every person is bent and twisted by the fall. There are no perfect people. And as hard as you're going to work at your marriage, you're two sinners and you're going to have weaknesses. And if you said, it's got to be perfect or I reject it. Can I kindly say biblically, you're a fool because there are no perfect situations on the planet. It's a shortcoming. It's a misplaced desire for what? Heaven. In heaven, everything will be perfect. Francis Schaeffer wrote about his own struggles with perfectionism. C.S. Lewis wrote about his struggles with perfectionism. They both came to realize, I'm really wanting to be in heaven where everything's perfect, no more sin, everything is glorious, everything is fit and perfect and proper. But it's a misplaced desire for heaven. The Bible does not promise perfection this side of glory. And if you demand perfection, you're unbiblical and you're going to be frustrated your whole life and frustrate others. Occasional reminders that we can each do better is not the same as a relentless message that we never measure up, never merit, and attaboy, after a while the message is so loud and clear that the children give up and quit trying. Why bother, they think, you can never please him or her or them. I can think of some homes I've been in in other parts of the country where Parents grew up in homes with really demanding parents and they became really demanding parents and children who had some of the same gifts as their parents could try to rise up and do with their parents but some other children were not gifted like their parents and their parents mistook some of their gifts as parents with Christian virtues as they demanded those of all the children and some just couldn't measure up and they quit on life. They quit on life. The parents couldn't figure out why the children quit on life. But the parents didn't realize they had unbiblical expectations for their children and some children just said, you know, I've tried for 20 years and I just can't compete, I quit. A home that does not major on the grace of God in Christ and the persevering love of God for his people will instead major on one's performance and law keeping done to merit love. The result is hypocrisy and Phariseeism for the self-righteous conforming child I can do what mom and dad ask. I'm a good child. But other children have become angry and rebellious. I don't care about your righteousness. I can't do this. I don't want to do this. I interviewed a woman once for membership in a church I pastored and she grew up in North Georgia in a denomination that's both charismatic and perfectionistic. The holiness denomination, the Church of God based out of Cleveland, Tennessee, teaches Wesleyan holiness, perfection, you must be perfect, and speaking in tongues is the way to show that you've reached perfection. And in fact, the verse from Leviticus was their denominational's logo, and it was a drumbeat every service. Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Well, yes, I'm not to aim at mediocrity, but if I demand perfection short of heaven, It's going to be really rough. So this girl said, I knew I couldn't be perfect and at 16 I rebelled. I'll show them. And I had two babies out of wedlock and now I'm 18 and I'm still angry and nothing's fixed. She said, I was just a rebel because I knew I couldn't be this. She said, my dad tried to comply. He tried to be a good member of the denomination. All he got was really depressed because he couldn't do it. And she said, and then the church started in Cedartown, and there was a minister there who taught about the grace of God in Christ. I couldn't be perfect. God demands perfection. I couldn't be perfect. But He grants the perfect righteousness of His Son to every believing sinner. And Christ's righteousness becomes their righteousness. And He forgives all of our sins. And she would start crying sharing her testimony because, you know, I'll show you. I'm going to cut my nose off. Is it grace cutting off your nose to spite your face? I'm mad at you, face in the mirror. Take that. Well, does that help? No. It just means I've got a stubby face. And she needed to hear about grace and her dad needed to hear about grace. Her way of dealing with the demand for perfectionism was to rebel. Her dad attempted to comply and all he got was really depressed because he wasn't perfect. And they heard about the grace of God in Christ that changed both their lives. Number five, another peril is maintaining a home where the parents have and use unbiblical expectations, which kind of we're morphing into the second part. Some parents expect next to nothing from their children. In such homes, children lose energy or passion for life because they're never expected or helped to reach forward to those things which are ahead, or to learn to work really hard unto Christ. You know, if I don't expect anything from my kids, You know, it's tragic. I can remember the big shock when I learned that I have to go to school. You mean all day as in play? No, you have to go to school. Really? You've got to go to school. But summer comes. Well, I get three months in the summer to play, whatever age you are. But then comes around eighth grade. I have to work in the summer? But I thought summer was for play. No, you need to grow up and part of summer's knowledge is work. Whoa. You mean I can't just play all day? No, we need to get this out of your system. Life is not all about playing. But are there people who live in their parents' basement playing video games at 26 because they haven't figured out anything greater in life? Sure. Parents must pray for wisdom on when to push their child and when to relax pressure. Classic illustration comes to mind. I'll make it quick. I was in seminary in Chicago. We wanted our children to learn to swim. We enrolled my son in a swimming class that was free at the Y and it met at a college that had a competitive swim team. And if you don't know anything about competitive swimming, the water in a college swimming pool is colder than normal because if you swim in hot water, your muscles get tired faster. If you swim in cold water, your muscles can go longer as they heat up. Well, what if you get these little five-year-olds with string bean bodies in this cold water? So there's four kids who are waiting to swim, and the one who's being worked with, and they're all totally on the side going, blah, blah, blah. Their lips are blue. And after about two sessions, my son was not real keen about swimming lessons. I goes, no, we're not quitters in this family. You're going to learn, even if you turn to a block of ice. I mean, I was like, duh. He doesn't dislike swimming, he just doesn't like his teeth chattering for an hour while he's in the water. I said, honey, let's make the decision to pull him from this and don't make him go through this. It's not about the swimming, it's about being freezing cold. So we pulled him out of that. That summer we moved back to Atlanta when I graduated and somebody had backyard swimming lessons in their pool which was about 90 degrees. And my son turned into a fish. He loved swimming. And it was nothing to do with swimming, it was the stinking cold water in that college pool. But see, I needed to make a decision, we as a couple think it through. Are we teaching him to quit something and having no expectations? Or is it something he can just let slide because the issue isn't swimming, it's cold. And so we need to make that decision. Other times, okay, you signed up for this, you said you were going to do it, so you need to finish it out. You can't just quit. We need to have expectations for our kids. Pray for wisdom, what to do. In other homes, too much is expected. Competitive, omni-competent, and perfectionist parents, and I actually know some folks like this. My wife and I are not any of those. She's more perfect than I am, but I'm nowhere close. Competitive, omni-competent, and perfectionistic parents push, push, push, push, push, and demand more and more from their children. Some children seek to rise to the occasion while others just quit. Human experiences teach us that unreasonable demands are the ideal breeding ground for discouragement. Because the child who isn't wired like you just quits. Do you recognize that your children have different personalities, different gifts and abilities than you? If your children regularly fail to measure up to your personal high standards, or even quit trying, you might be too demanding. It says in Proverbs, train up a child in the way that he or she should go. Meaning that how we work with each child will be a little bit different from how we work with other children. We are not seeking to create many me's, but people who can stand on their own two feet before men and stand on the perfect atonement and imputed righteousness of Christ before God. I have a boy and a girl, so they are obviously different. If I had two boys and two girls, they probably would be differences among the boys and differences among the girls. And although they have the same gender, there are some differences we need to take into account. Each of them have their temperament. Some children are outgoing, some are more quiet, some are more athletic, some are more musical. You know, very few of us have a child who gets straight A's, runs 109 seconds, plays the violin like a virtuoso, is a public speaker, I mean, does all these things. It's like, how did you kill in my family? You know, nobody else in the family is like this. The point is, is that each of our family's children will have strengths and weaknesses and we need to work with them, not put them all under the same demands and making sure that we're neither too pushy nor too lenient. No, you can't stay in your room playing video games till all hours of the night. Give the monitor, give the remote back. We need to help our children with certain things in the culture. That's another message. Number two, what should we be aiming at? These are things we want to avoid. What should we be aiming at? Faithful aims and practices of biblical parenting. Training up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Biblical parents demonstrate that Jesus is central to their lives and home. This is something that I want to have as a big deal in our home. Jesus Christ is sometimes mentioned in some homes, but too often not the real center of some Christian homes. His will is not paramount, His desire is not noted, His glory not sought, His word not obeyed, His covenant love not our security. In short, Jesus has the title, but not the humble submission, fervent loyalty, and open devotion of those who name His name. And we don't intend to do this, we can just fall into this. We have small love for Christ, and it isn't enough to really impact our home. Some Christian homes can be all about establishing our own righteousness and the self-righteousness we expect from our children. What a nice family there with such nice children. And we can congratulate ourselves that we're a nice family with nice children. But we're really cultivating self-righteousness because Christ and all he is and all he's done for us isn't the center. We create a self-righteousness when we look down on other people and their children. How do people do things like that? We hear about things in the community and somebody does something wrong. How can people do things like that? Hello, do you know your own heart? Are you a sinner? Nineteenth century pastor Robert Murray McShane, noted for his holiness, said one time, having seen my own heart, I now know there is no sin that I am not capable of committing. I remember reading that the first time and going, wow, he must be really perfectionistic, because I'm depraved, even though there's some things that I wouldn't do. And St. Thomas said, really? Really? Do you want to test me on this? Do you want me to put you in a situation, take away all restraints, all accountability, and give you over to your remaining sin, and see what you're capable of?" And I started crying. I said, no Lord, I don't want to see what I'm capable of. Just in the dark recesses of my heart, the things that I see are bad enough. I don't want to be tested on this. And so a self-righteous family builds up how good we are, how better we are, and not how... You know, every day we need the grace of God in Christ. Every day, sinners need the grace of God in Christ. After we sing, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, do we openly seek to apply it and live it out in our home? You know, asking one another forgiveness when we sin against each other. Having devotions were to be reminded that Christ is the center of this home and we're living for Him in His glory and not us in our glory. Do dad and mom openly show their love and devotion and submission to Christ? Now for some of you to say, well I have a hard time talking about my faith. Some people are more talkative than others. I can understand that. But let the redeemed of the Lord say so. If you're a Christian, you should at least be able to talk about it in front of your wife and children. And if you can't talk about it in front of your wife and children, then something's wrong in your heart and you need to deal with it. Because these are people who need to know what's going on with you. What makes dad tick? Has dad always been this way? Well, son, you didn't know me when I was X, Y, and Z. And they need to know what it's like to see their mom and dad following Christ and applying Christ to themselves every day. Biblical parents make much of God's amazing grace in their home. There should be no greater joy in our hearts or homes than the experiential knowledge that God loved us before time began, loves us now for Christ's sake, and has forgiven us all of our sins. Have you ever gotten over that? Before the world was created, God knew you, and he planned to save you at the expense of his Son? 2 Corinthians 5.21, For God made him who knew no sin, to become sin for us. When was this? At the cross. That we believing sinners might become the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus said in John 10.10, Part B, I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly. I know a girl who was so shocked by this, she grew up in a religious home, but she said, I thought Christ came to make our lives small and miserable. No. Christ came that we might have an abundant life as he defines it. But it is an expanded life from what rebellious sinners have. And she looked the verse up to make sure that the tract she was reading it in was really given it to her right. I by purpose in coming is to give you a life you couldn't give yourself for time and eternity. hearts full of such wonders cannot keep quiet but must speak to God and others Psalm 1611 in your presence is fullness of joy when I'm close to you I am a happy camper Psalm 107 verse 2 let the redeemed of the Lord say so Matthew 1234 for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks if someone gave you a new Jaguar or if you're a guy gave you a new four wheel pickup phone, one drive, pickup, and just gave it to you. The word would get out. Can you believe this? Look at what they gave to me. Well, is Christ not greater than that? Wouldn't I be able to talk about this out of the fullness of my heart? Hearts full of the love of Christ ought to overflow to our spouse and children. We should be the biggest cheerleaders for our children. It should never be in doubt that we are our children's biggest fans. We should tell them every day, and more than once, that we love them. You go, well, Pastor Martin, funny you should mention this, I'm just not a real gushy person, so I'm probably not going to do this. Fine, let some teenage boy tell your daughter that he loves her. Obviously, I don't want you to do that. But our children need to know that we love them. They bounce themselves off us. They're figuring out who they are by how we treat them. Do we treat them with respect and love? I'm so thankful God gave you to us. You're the best child that we could have had for a boy or a girl. We're so thankful Christ gave you to us. What does that put in the kid's heart? Well, a lot of really great things. Our love and affection should be incarnated by hugs in terms of endearment. Come here, oldest male child. Now, that would be technically correct. Or you could say, oh, when would you come here please? As opposed to saying, come here oldest male child. No, youngest female child. Those would be technically correct, but there's no terms of endearment there. And in fact, in every family, and I could embarrass everybody, say, you know, I've actually had listening devices in your home and I know all the terms of endearment that you use in your family. And we're going to post them on the church prayer board for everybody else to pray for you. No, not that one. Little Snuggie Poo? Yes, we're going to use Little Snuggie Poo. In other words, but why do you have terms of endearment? Why don't you say adult male child, female spouse? Why do you have terms of endearment? Because love multiplies expressions because simply saying I love you once at the beginning at the altar is not enough. And telling your children once when they're born that you love them is not enough. You multiply terms of expression because you love them. Zephaniah 3.17 is a verse which is amazing. It talks about the Lord in heaven loving his children, loving his people, taking care of them. And it describes the Lord as a father caring his child. And he's singing over them. Did you ever sing to your kids when they're little and they're in your arms and they're just these little cute guys and you're telling them how much you love them? And if you poop your diapers one more time, you're going to be the best baby on the moon here, but hey, I love you. And you tell your kids how you love them and you make up songs for them. And they're crummy little songs, but they don't care. Dad's singing to them and Mom's singing to them. Why? Because you do love them. And so do you think teenagers need that less? I didn't pick my teenagers up, but they need to know even more before they leave their home that the best place in the world, the most loving place in the world is your home. And the people in the world most committed to me are in this home. Withholding love and affection is a sin. Counselors call it passive-aggressive behavior. It means we fight and hurt one another by withholding our love and affection. I'm not going to talk to you for two days. It might be fine for junior high girls, but it's not biblical, it's sin. Proverbs 27.5 Better is open rebuke, just get it out and say it, than love that is concealed or withheld. Proverbs 27.5 Better is open rebuke, just get it out and say it, than love that is concealed or withheld. 3. Biblical parents model repentance and faith in their home. and before their children. You'd be surprised how many children have never seen or heard a parent say, I'm sorry, I was wrong, would you forgive me for my sin of whatever it was and ask for forgiveness. You need to have defibrillators in every home. Then they have to clear and shock them. My dad said he was sorry. My mom confessed her sin and asked my forgiveness. This is huge. We tell our children to apologize like they mean it. but do not model that very thing. How hard is it to do something you've never seen acted out before, especially if your role models fail? We expect our kids to model repentance, but we don't? That's called hypocrisy. Remember the problem with the Lone Ranger? What problem with the Lone Ranger? Oh, my son was about six or five they had the Lone Ranger doll and it was a cool and silver was this beautiful horse and it had saddles and ropes and all these things and guns and all it was the greatest toy in the world except my son had never seen the Lone Ranger and I had no idea what Rangers did when they were by themselves ranging. So he never played with it. I go, oh this is crummy. And then one day they were showing Lone Ranger reruns on Atlanta television. Let's watch to see what Lone Rangers do when they're out there ranging. And he watched a couple episodes and he got it and he began playing with his Lone Ranger doll. But if you don't know what you're supposed to do with it, it just sits in the toy box. And we expect our children to know what to do about how to express repentance, how to express remorse, how to ask for forgiveness. But they never see us do it. They're just not going to get it. We're modeling other things. Naming our sins and asking forgiveness for those we have wronged and those who have witnessed the wrongs but were not the recipient should be a regular occurrence in our homes. Unless you think you have a sinless home, and that shows you have another problem. But like I said, it's important that if I speak harshly to my spouse or speak or do something wrong, I need not only to confess it to the person, but the people who are the spectators watching. Sin needs to be confessed in the venue where it was committed. I've asked for forgiveness in my congregation because I spoke snidely of someone and I had to apologize to them but the congregation heard it so I had to apologize to them. That's how it works. Faithful parents believe So rebuttaling faith means you communicate to your children your personal trust and confidence in God, His word, His promises, and His threats. Faithful parents believe God's promises and speak about their trust with their children. For example, you know what, kids, God always forgives those who repent. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Isn't it great that God is a God who forgives sin? God always cares for those who are His. Hebrews 13, 5, I will never leave you or forsake you. Never. God works all things together for your good and His glory. Romans 8, 28. But we need to tell our kids that we're banking on these things. We're applying these things. That's how they learn. We're modeling it. We want them to catch it. Number four, we're almost done. Biblical parents seek to build a home noted for love and encouragement. The very best place in the whole world should be a Christian home. When I was out on the road, I always loved coming home. I used to tell my wife, I love coming home to her and our home. It's the best place in the world. The love of God the Father, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit ought to permeate our homes as an outgrowth of permeating our Christian lives as parents. We set the tone. If I can't be at church with my extended family of God and its atmosphere of love and mutual encouragement, I want to be with my own family in our home, the local family of God, with our love and encouragement. We should seek to create such a home atmosphere that our children's friends and the neighbor kids would rather hang out at our home with us than in their homes. And that's true. I was talking to someone just recently about that. And a really good home is such that, now your kids love to be there, but their friends in the neighborhood like to come over and be at your house because it's the best place in the whole block to be. We should not be known as the negative family, but the positive family. That means that our children, their friends, and our neighbors do not view our house as the one that doesn't do things. You know the don't family that live next door to the don'ts? They don't do Halloween, they don't do Christmas, they don't do New Year's, they don't do Sunday, they don't do anything. Their home is dark and negative and they never seem to smile, laugh, or enjoy life. I don't suggest you watch this unless you have Cussbox, the TV Guardian, but the movie The Burbs has a neighbor called the Clopax. And in our family, you mentioned the Clopax. It has all kinds of associations. They drive their trash to the end of the driveway and they beat it with a shovel. Good things are not going on inside that home. Well, that's how your neighbors may think of you. You know, many non-Christians have never been in a Christian home. They don't know what you do. They don't know how you think. And they go, well, I don't think they do anything on Sunday. I think they stay at home and kneel a lot. I don't know what they do. They don't have any fun. I saw them smile once, but I think it was a grimace. In contrast, the do family comes up with creative alternatives to worldly reasons to celebrate life. You know, non-Christians have to come up with parties as something to do. Christians can enjoy all of life even if there isn't a party. Their home is inviting, positive, warm, and life-affirming. They are known in their neighborhood and their extended family by their biblical convictions and their outgoing love. These are the neatest people. Finally, biblical parents listen to and learn from others. Defective and faithful parents seek counsel from their pastors and elders, their own parents, and other parents who have done well with their children in following biblical guidelines. Now, it doesn't mean that you take every bit of advice. You need to weigh everything by the Bible. But if somebody else has done it before you, it would be foolish not to. In golf it's called going to school on someone else's putt. They have a long putt of this length, you have a slightly less long putt. You watch how their ball breaks and moves, and you kind of go, my ball's in the same line, I had to mark it so they could putt. Well, I can learn from watching their putt, and I can try to learn and do a little bit better. Good parents even listen to their own children. Kids, did you hear that? Good parents even listen to their own children. But wait. As our children grow up, they sometimes confide in each other things they wouldn't confide in their parents. Ask your children what they think is going on in the problem at hand in your home. As I've worked this up and given this now several times, I'm convinced that, and I've seen it happen, that sometimes our kids have a good take on things that we're missing. Good parents take advantage of the biblical counsel available in biblically faithful materials and books, but you say, I'm not a reader. Remember to train your left hand when playing basketball. What is that about? Well, I grew up in the South and moved back to the Midwest, and in the South you play football, F-U-T-B-A-L, football, and you play baseball. But I moved to Indiana, where the national sport is basketball. You don't play basketball? Are you a dork or something? What planet are you from? You don't play basketball? Okay, I'm going to learn basketball. So I worked really hard to learn basketball. And I'd go play and they'd go, well, you don't use your left hand. Well, I'm not left-handed. Go learn. What? And to be a good basketball player, you have to learn to use both hands. Have you ever tried to dribble a ball with your opposite hand? And go for a layup like this because you know it's going to bounce off the rim and hit you in the teeth or off the backboard. Who knows? So I had to teach myself to use my left hand. And I just felt awful, uncoordinated. It was ugly. you know, keep babies and people away from watching because this is ugly. But I kept practicing and kept practicing and finally got to the place where if I had to take the ball to the court I would use my left hand because it was just unconscious. I learned to dribble better with my left hand than my right. And I spoke at a retreat like this once, and we played basketball during the break, and they said, you're not lying, you do use your left hand. I can make shots around the basketball with my left hand. It's not my best hand for making shots, but I can do it. The point of all this is, look, you can sit on the bench and say, I don't like to read, and I'm just not going to read, and I'll just use my right hand. Fine. You can learn to use your other hand and become a much better player and get so much more done in your life. If I can learn to use my spasmodic left hand, you can learn to read. And if you read good stuff, it's motivational. All the books on the bibliography were great. Okay, almost done. Become a reader and listen to tapes and CDs and watchers of DVDs. God promises no blessings to those who remain willfully ignorant. Only in America could you say, I don't know nothing, I just love Jesus. And that is encouraging to Jesus why. You know there's a song out years ago, don't know much about geography, don't know much about history. But I just know I love you. Right, so being loved by an ignoramus is a good thing. The town doofus loves me. Well, I mean is that something girls you really want? Is that any great prize? Look what I got. He doesn't know nothing, but he loves me. He may not be very discerning. But doesn't it dishonor Christ when we kind of pride ourselves on our ignorance, but we say we love the Lord? Good parents receive with kindness the input offered by unbelievers, but they evaluate and weigh the input by biblical criteria. They know that not all counsel is good counsel. You've been very patient. We're done with time. We're going to eat in five minutes. And we have a lot of stuff to digest. Let's pray. Father, I thank you that you're not impatient with us. All of us have had some things that we've been reminded of in the last night and this morning and things we'll need to work on, things that we'll need to restructure our lives, reorient our mind and our attitudes, talk as a couple. And you're not impatient. You're not angry at us. You brought this material to us so we can learn it. Those of us who are parents of children outside of our homes still have things to learn. Prayer is parenting 2.0 and we have to learn to parent our children who are away from us, how to pray for them, how to interface with them. I pray for our time tomorrow as we look at how to parent teenagers and how to parent small children, how to parent children outside of our home and the incredible resources you've given us to accomplish these things. Lord, it is such a great privilege to be a Christian. Would you make our homes such that they are the bright spot on our darkening blocks of homes that people say, you know, the Dew family down the street are the best people in the world. Our kids are always down there. They're a great family. I wish we could be like that family. I wonder what makes them tick. May you be honored and glorified by our Christian homes. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.