only by His grace. And it is only by His grace that we can parent teenagers. Right, parents? Okay, so let's go ahead and head back into this and we're in the middle of our discussion about parenting teens. I think we should finish up tonight on this and then next week we have a topic that we're going to discuss that will not be recorded at all. There will be no record of it. And if you want to know what that is, you'll have to ask me personally because I'm being recorded right now. So anyway, you might figure out what it may have to do with if you think of parenting and why I wouldn't want it to be recorded. But anyway, all right. We are going to talk today about that we've been going through different characteristics of teenagers and Let's sort of recap a little bit here. We don't biblically have the concept of teen in the Bible, a teenager exactly. However, you do have children, that's in the Bible. You have adults, that's in the Bible. And you actually have this word called youth in the Bible. The word youth in Proverbs is a reference to people that wouldn't be considered children, They wouldn't be considered full mature adults yet. And so there's a sort of a sense in which you do have, you have youth. Now probably we're talking about youth being young adults going all the way through probably, you know, 25, 30. Solomon, when he wrote to his son, was probably, his son was probably a young adult. But anyway, you have that category of youth in scripture. And so a lot of the things we're taking from scripture is based upon that. It's interesting. I was listening today to, guy was talking about just demographics and about teenagers and the fact that even in our society that nobody can really figure out what a teenager is and what an adult is and when somebody passes from teen to adult. We have some laws that say 18 from minor to non-minor. Then you have drinking age, which is 21. You can't rent a car until you're 25. I mean, there's all these different things in place. And really, society is not entirely clear on what a teenager is, or on what an adult is when somebody becomes an adult. But it actually, when someone goes from a child to a teen is actually somewhat clearer physiologically, and also in mental ability. Because when someone goes from a child to a teenager, they are now able to analyze. So I would say, we could say it this way, a child thinks, but an adult and a teenager thinks about thinking. You catch that? So there's a difference between thinking and thinking about thinking. So if you think about thinking, then you're past the childhood stage where you're actually thinking about whether or not you really ought to think about that. An adult then is able to think about thinking. So you will never hear, it would be very surprising to hear a five-year-old, you talk to a five-year-old and you ask them a question, they say, let me give that some thought. You usually don't have that for a five-year-old. They're just going to tell you exactly what they think because they're not thinking about thinking. So the cognitive ability of someone in their 11, 12-year-old, 13, definitely, it begins to change. And now you actually have someone with that ability, the analytical ability, to where at the point when they're getting it. Now, you still have brain development, they're saying now, through age 25. You still have adolescent development, even in early early 20s, from what this one thing I was listening to said, and probably is pretty accurate. All that to say that what we're doing is we're looking at what it looks like to be a youth from Proverbs, and we're pointing out some characteristics. We're now at number four, and the characteristic is susceptibility to sexual temptation. Now, of course, that's definitely something that we would all understand to be true. For one thing, a teenager is in the middle or has gone through puberty. Our culture is literally awash in sexual temptation, perversion, and permissiveness, to put it mildly. The crucial point here is to know your son or daughter and to work hard at keeping honest, frank, and safe lines of communication open. This is absolutely crucial when it comes to teens and sexual temptation. In fact, it's one of the things that parents in previous generations, you can't do it the way it was done. I don't think it was necessarily the right way to do it. But years ago, you didn't necessarily talk to your kids about it. They just sort of figured it out somehow or learned from their friends, that kind of thing. That is a very dangerous thing to do now. I'm thankful that my parents at a really young age, I was surprised they did it. Well, now I look back and I'm surprised, but I was asking questions. So anyway, so they felt like they had to tell me, explain things. And they said, we want to be the first. One of the reasons we're telling you so young is we want to be the ones to tell you and explain it to you. And that really, if you can get to talk to your kids about this issue, about sex, before anybody else does, that would start you on the right journey. And I would highly recommend that you do it. Don't wait too long anymore. If they are going to have sleepovers, that's a good place to talk about sex. And so you want to get them before they do that. If they're going off to camp, you probably should consider doing it before they go off to camp, those kinds of things. Talk to your kids about this and have an open line of communication. We need to get over the awkwardness of it and just realize this is just a necessary thing we need to do with our kids. So we need to talk about sex with our teen and not merely in hypotheticals or general principles. Now, that's going to change as they get older. Beginning stages, when you talk about this subject, I do recommend staying fairly general, actually. Not really necessary to get into detail. And of course, it should be biblical, the way you're talking about it. I'm not going to get into a lot of detail about this, but I will say this. A good way to talk to your kids about this area Obviously, if you have daughters, you need to have your wife there. Fathers and sons could do it with or without a wife there. Wives, it depends on how you do it. I mean, you could do it with your daughter as long as your husband's aware of it. In our family, Liz and I have done it together. And what we've basically done is we've said, biblically, this is what sex is. This is what God intended it to be. It's in marriage, only in marriage. It's for various things we talked about, for reproduction, for pleasure, for intimacy in the marriage. We talked about those kind of things. And then we said there are all, just like everything else in the world, there are all kinds of perversions to this. And we're not going to tell you every perversion right now, but realize there's lots of perversions. Anytime God creates something, sin perverts it. And that's the case with sex as well. And that's where we usually leave it. And then as they get a little bit older, as they develop and they ask questions and those kind of things, we want an open line of communication with them to go into more detail. You can't hardly, I mean, Homosexuality, transsexuality, all of these things now are in the news and everywhere, and it's not something that you can avoid. And we want our kids to feel free to be able to ask us questions, and we need to be able to answer them and not feel awkward about it. Or at least get over it. We might feel awkward, but just get over it and talk about it with our kids anyway. We should be open with our teens and be able to ask our teens things like, are they struggling with lust? Are they believing sexual lies that they're being told? There's different things that we need to be asking our kids. I have a pastor friend who's raised four teenagers relatively successfully, and they're all in Bible college or graduated from Bible college now. serving the Lord in various ways. And he said he had a policy that you keep your doors open in the bedrooms, and he would at any time just walk by his son's bedroom and say, what are you thinking about right now? And he would ask questions like, have you ever had any homosexual thoughts? Has that ever been something you thought about? Just very open, just an openness with his kids about that kind of stuff. That is really a good idea in our society, to have that level of openness with your kids if possible, because they're going to get it other places. Harry? How do you handle that? You're giving a child a cell phone. Do you have discussion before you give that cell phone out and all the stuff that goes with that? So I would answer that question, yeah definitely, but I would answer that question by saying that the level of freedom needs to equal the level of responsibility. We talked about that several weeks ago. Practically, what does that mean? On a practical level, that basically means that they're not ready for a cell phone until they're ready for the responsibility of having it. Is a cell phone dangerous? Absolutely it's dangerous. I would say it's as dangerous as a car. Is a car dangerous? I remember my parents having a conversation with me. We didn't have cell phones. So I'm having a conversation with me when I started driving. My mother said to me, this is a weapon. You need to understand you can kill somebody with it. And that's a very good thing to say to your child that's driving, but it's the same thing when it comes to a cell phone. You need to realize the danger of the cell phone. So, in our household, they're not getting a cell phone, a personal cell phone, until they're older. Until they have a job where they need it or something of that nature. We have, currently in our household, we have, we call them kid phones, and They're open. We can see everything on them. They're not allowed to use them in their bedrooms. There's all kinds of things like that that we have in place. So it's close to impossible for them to do anything with them. Because, I mean, literally, they don't own them. It's not their personal property at all. And it's dangerous. It's like, I say this last week when I talked about a police officer. OK, I'll just repeat it in case somebody wasn't there. Somebody asked a police officer, when should I give my kid a cell phone? He said, when do you want them to see porn? I mean, that's really the question that they asked. So you really want your kids to be past puberty entirely. Because what happens when someone is in the middle of puberty, and they see this kind of stuff, it's going to be a harder, not just see it, but look at it, it's going to be a harder struggle for them. If they get past puberty and they happen to see it, that's a little bit different. Doesn't mean it's right. And we should be training fathers, we should be training our kids, whether it's a cell phone or in the mall or a billboard or whatever, training our kids to look away. I, can I tell you, I am very thankful. If there's anything I can think of that I would thank my dad for, it's at an extremely, I didn't even understand what he was telling me to do when he told me to look away, I was so young. I remember, I remember we were in the movie theater. Yes, we watched movies as a kid. No, we didn't watch Bad One. Anyway, and so we were in the movie theater and there was a, there was a, I had to have been like six or seven. And there was a, you remember Roger Rabbit? Okay. Now, we didn't watch the movie Roger Rabbit. It was another good kid movie, but it had a preview of Roger Rabbit and that girl was on there. It's a cartoon. And my dad said, I don't know the name of the cartoon, that's fine. My dad said, Jim, you better just get used to looking away, look away at that. And I mean, that's how early my dad started me with this. And I can tell you I'm extremely grateful for that. And the reason I'm so grateful is because I was confronted with this, working, doing tree work and those kinds of things. And I had such a reflex to look away. It never got in my system. And I couldn't be more grateful for that. So dads, give your kids that gift. and stay in connection with them. And I got to say this as well, it's not only men now that are getting addicted to pornography. It's more men than women, but it does happen with women as well, and teenage girls. It's definitely something that happens. So be aware of this. The best thing to do, the best thing that you can do to help is to stay in communication. Teenagers, it's awkward to talk to your parents about this. I know it's awkward. I remember being a teenager and I remember being awkward. But I can't tell you, just talk. If you have a question about this, don't go to your friends. Go to your parent. Go to your mom, go to your dad. It's really important that you have an open line of communication. There is so many things that, I mean, if you talk to other teenagers about this, you're going to get such bad information. They don't know what they're talking about, okay, frankly. And whatever they have is going to be a bit of a perversion to what's really, really true based upon what's good based on experience. You've got to talk to a married adult person, and that person should be your parents. And so I really encourage you to, kids, teenagers, please, please think about that and how important it is. Parents, maybe tonight you need to go home and talk to your teen and you need to say, hey, we've never talked about this. Pastor Jim brought it up. Can we talk about this? Maybe tonight you need to do that. I just opened a door for you to have a good reason to say something. And so I would definitely encourage that. What situations or locations or relationships are presenting temptation? How do you fight temptation? It may be hard to get them to open up. Is it hard to get teens to open up? It's a little hard to get teens to open up sometimes. But keep at it. Come alongside them and walk with them through this critical area. So stay with it, keep at it, and stay as open a line of communication as you possibly can with your teenagers on this subject. Because this is the kind of sin, all sin, but this kind of sin, particularly according to Ephesians chapter four, it grows in the darkness. You bring it out in the light, and it's going to get solved a lot faster. If it stays in the darkness for a long time, it will grow there. And that's why it's so important for parents to have an open relationship with their kids. Teens, I would also say to you that you might be surprised how much your parents aren't going to be surprised by what you ask them. Parents, you shouldn't look surprised, by the way, if they ask you a question. But you might be really surprised that they're not nearly as surprised as you think they would be by your questions. and just be open in this area with your parents. On the other hand, teenagers, don't be open with anybody else about this. It should be just your parents that you're open with. I will say this as well, since I have teenagers in the room. The gateway to this often is curiosity. That's often the gateway. And the reason I mention that is this. Curiosity is not wrong. You can be curious about all kinds of things. You can be curious about any subject. You can be curious about creation. You can be curious about sports. curious about all kinds of things and study up on and learn all kinds of things. That's God-given. We have that within us to want to be curious. But when it comes to this area, understand that the curiosity needs to be on the other side of marriage, teenager. Like, realize that that's a gateway. And you might say to yourself, well, I'm just being curious. I'm just curious. And realize that curiosity's not sin, but it can be a temptation that will lead to sin. And if you could be curious about every other area within that area, within sexual temptation, wait to be curious on the other side of marriage with your spouse. And until then, Be aware that that's a critical area as well. Alright, any questions about this? Alright, let's move on. An absence of eschatological perspective. What am I talking about here? Eschatological means end times or last things. And the truth of the matter is, it's very common, youth don't just generally think about the end in mind when they begin something. And frankly, adults are the same. We all could be this way, where we are so focused on the here and now that we're not looking ahead, we're just looking at what's here right now. All right, and that definitely tends to, all of us can be this way, and we need to be reminded, all of us need to be reminded to take the eternal view. So the Bible says, set your affections on things above, not on the things of this world. Look ahead to what's going on. And teenagers tend to need help in this area, to see the big picture. It should not be a surprise that teenagers can be especially present focused. Teenagers, would you agree that you could be kind of like this? What do you think? What are some things that you might think to yourself? Can you think of some things that you'd say, you know, I thought this was such a big deal, but I look back six months and now it's not that big a deal. Anything like that you can think of? I think sometimes, I'm trying to think of some things that teenagers, maybe it's a, what's that? Okay, a breakup. Okay, if you're not dating until you're 30, you don't have to worry about that. But if you, you know, that could be something. Being snubbed by a friend. Somebody that can feel really, really serious and you look back at it six months from now and you go, okay, well the guy was just not being, he was not being a great guy or whatever. and it's not that big, but in the moment it seems like it's everything. Yeah, test grade can be that way. I thought, you know, you can think that your whole, you know, we can sort of expand a test grade and suddenly I'm going to be a college dropout. I'm going to be a total failure in life. I'm going to end up being a sanitation expert. I'm going to, you know, all these kinds of things. All right. Yes. Okay, yeah, losing a basketball game or a football game, baseball game, whatever, soccer. Losing a game, oh man, we lost. Now I'll never be able to join the NBA like I was planning on. Anyway, those kind of things can be that way. So we need to be careful about that. Teens often live as if the current moment or their current desire is the most critical thing ever. And the culture and advertisers certainly work to reinforce that feeling. Teens tend to put off responsibilities until the last possible minute. Not our teens, though. You guys don't do that, do you? You never put things off until the last possible minute. Unfortunately, teens, where do our teens get it from? Sometimes we're the same way as adults, aren't we? It's called procrastination. Don't put off, uh, today what you can do tomorrow. Um, I, that's not procrastination. Anyway, procrastination is don't put off today what you can do tomorrow. Um, and so, so, um, um, we need to be aware of that and we need to help our teams with this. because it is something that happens a lot. You know what the old joke in college was for procrastinators? I just work better under pressure. You ever heard that before? I just work better under pressure. Yeah, okay. We'll just have a little pressure, you know, two weeks before instead of the day before. But we need to help our kids understand that we don't want to be that way and just being in the present and not looking at how your present circumstances can project into the future in the right way. In other words, what we do now, we need to do in a way that we can look ahead to the future and say, that will be a good result for the future. So that's exactly what the Bible says. Whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. So whatever, what you sow, you will reap. We need to teach our teens that. We need to remind our teens of that. What you're sowing now in things like discipline, things like behavior, study habits, knowing the Lord, devotional time with the Lord, Bible memorization. Those kinds of things that you do now, you're going to reap later. It's going to help you later, or it could be detrimental to you later as well. So what you sow, you're going to reap. and to help our kids, our teenagers understand that to see the big picture rather than just what they have to do today and realize how important that is. Ultimately, we want them to realize God is more concerned about our holiness than our happiness. Did you catch that? God is more concerned about our holiness than our happiness, though it is holiness that truly leads to happiness. and that sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us. Holiness more than happiness. I think that's an important thing. Now, God has not, God, I remember somebody, I was saying to somebody, you know, I'm really, I was a young adult, I was at a seminary, and I was in a situation and I said, I don't, I'm really not happy. And the guy said, well, you know, God hasn't called us to be happy. He's called us to be holy. Well, that's not quite true. God's called us to be holy and then we will be happy. Okay. Blessed is the man. The word blessed is means happiness. So holiness and happiness, it's not one or the other. God says, you really want to be happy, biblically happy, then you need to be holy. And we ought not try to teach our teens that, look, if you're holy, then you will never be happy. You've got to choose between holiness and happiness. That's not the case. If you choose sin instead of holiness, you'll have immediate happiness and you'll have problems down the road. And you'll have all kinds of issues down the road. So that's sin. Sin is pleasure for a season with consequences down the road. Holiness may be hard in the present, but it's happiness down the road. Very, very important for us to teach our teenagers. God intended for us to be happy by means of our holiness. And that's something that we need to understand. We need to understand ourselves, frankly, as parents. But then we also need to teach our teenagers. Any questions about that or thoughts about that? What's that? The sufferings of this present time is not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed now. We want to help them see that the world and their circumstances through an eternal and gospel lens. We want to help them begin to see at the earliest stages of their development. I mean, there's this critical time around 11 or 12 years old where they go from thinking to thinking about thinking. They go from thinking to actually being able to analyze. And that critical time is where we want to help them to see the right perspective of having an eternal perspective on things, a gospel lens. Let's flesh this out a little bit, because I think this is important. How do we teach our teenagers to have a gospel lens? Let's take the issue of how they look at themselves. Because teenagers are often looking at themselves, right? They're often paying attention to themselves, to whether people like them or not, whether they're popular or not, what they look like, whether it's acceptable to them or not. How do we teach them to look through a gospel lens in that area? Any ideas? Yeah. We're already accepted in Christ, so we don't find our acceptance in our appearance. Yeah. Okay, good. So we're not finding our acceptance in those things and what other friends say or what We're already fully, completely accepted in Christ, if we know Christ is our Savior, if we've accepted the gospel. We've accepted the gospel, God has accepted us entirely. And it's not based on our performance. It's not based upon what we do. Do you know that sometimes, we as parents, we Kids will grow up in Christian homes, and somehow they think that God's acceptance of them is based on their performance. Are you aware that that happens? Candidly, it happens very frequently in sort of fundamentalist background homes. Because if we're not careful, we're so focused on do this and don't do this, and do this and don't do this. Well, you do and don't do based upon what? You want to please God. Yeah, you love God. It's not you do this and don't do this in order to be accepted by God. And we've got to make sure our teenagers understand that. God, if by, through Christ, because of what Christ has done, if you'll accept him by faith, you are completely accepted. You're accepted. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what your performance is. But you're going to want to please him. If you are truly accepted by him, then you know his love, and you want to love him. You want to please him. And so, really important for us to get that across to our teenagers. Jeff, did you have a question? Well, when you were saying it doesn't matter, obviously the acceptance doesn't matter, but in terms of it does matter that you do good things, but you do it because you love him, but it's thought. I wouldn't say it doesn't matter. Well, if you don't include the context of that, then yes. Right, it doesn't matter with regard to your acceptance. Yes? Was all that stuff your answer to the teaching your kids when they look in a mirror to see themselves through a gospel lens? I feel like we got off that question, or maybe was that the answer to that question? No, I think it's all part of it. I think it's all part of the answer. And I don't mean looking in a mirror particularly, but just viewing them, how they view themselves is the question I was posing. As far as looking in a mirror specifically, I still think that's the answer, is that when we look in a mirror, we need to go on, whatever it is, the basis is we're accepted by God because of the gospel if we have accepted Christ as our savior. Does that make sense? It makes sense. I don't know how much it would help a teenager that's looking in a mirror struggling with anything. I don't see how that would tie to a teenager that maybe looks in a mirror and doesn't see themselves in any way, in a good way. I don't see how me telling them that is going to help them feel better the next day, feel better in their life. I guess I'll answer it this way. The other aspect of it is that we're created by God. So we're saved by him, but we're also created by him, in his image, exactly the way he wants us to be created. And so he says we're fearfully and wonderfully made. And so we need to have our kids accept themselves based upon who God has made them to be and how he saved them to be. And I can tell you this, that I have talked to young ladies before, who have struggled with this, and when I explain to them, it's always in the presence of my wife or somebody else, but when I explain to them how much God accepts them, It has helped. They look at me like, and I'll read Romans 8 with them, so nothing can separate them from the love of God, and that God loves them, and nothing can separate them. Isn't that wonderful? They can make the connection between those two things, and I've actually seen it help. But I think the fact that God's created them is also an important aspect of that. I think another thing related to this is teaching them to be others-focused instead of self-focused. Like the word esteem in the Bible is used to esteem God and to esteem others. You don't really see, yes, we're made in the image of God, but it's focus on others, esteem others greater than yourself. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah, as long as we're saying that the motive of why we esteem others is love for God, like you said, and love for others. In other words, I'm not esteeming others one way or another because I want to be accepted by God. I'm esteeming others because I love Him. Anything like that, any action, any behavior is based upon our love for God, not to be accepted by God. Bruce? Well, just an added point to what she was saying about appearance thing is one verse in the Bible about David when he was anointing the kings and he said to Samuel, don't pick him because of how he looks, but because God looks at the heart. And so that's one encouragement to me that God sees who I am, who he made me to be, and who he's working on me to be, and he sees my heart. And the other verse that encouraged me when I was younger is the verse, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, and that's The beauty that God sees in us is becoming more like Christ. That's good. And that shines to other people. That's important. And 1 Peter 3 says that a meek and quiet spirit is beautiful to God and is of great price. It's actually beautiful to people, too. But that spirit that's within us is a beautiful thing to God when it has that meekness about it. I think too is like if that mirror kind of concept was to happen and you've never really developed that palette, that interest in things of God, then that teenager's probably not going to see it as anything until they've had enough training and teaching and encouragement for them to realize that it's in God, it's not of herself. So it doesn't happen just because today you decide to walk in and say, hey, oh, by the way, God loves you and you're beautiful in His eyes. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure that's true. I don't, so there's a, obviously I'm at a bit of a disadvantage. I know that women in teenage years do deal with body image issues, those kind of things. I'm at a disadvantage as to identifying with that because, you know, I'm not a woman. But any ladies would want to speak to how acceptance by God or what, how do we see that as a gospel thing? Is there anything I'm missing as far as that's concerned? Okay, good, I got it all right, good. Okay, anyway, what's that? All right, next one is a lack of heart awareness. Okay, Julie. All right, I'm thinking back to being a teenager and like there's just so much insecurity and and the world feeding like the perfect image and you fight that and I as a teenage girl I think teaching them and training them that there's so much security and safety in the Lord and that that's something that you can rest in and you know using scriptures relating to that is very helpful, I think, when you're struggling with image, or how you feel, or how other people are making you feel. Okay, because of security. So, a woman may feel insecure because of their body image, their perception of that. Or their acceptance of their peers, and just feeling like, you know, like you said, I gotta be popular, I gotta be cool, I gotta do this, I gotta do that. they really can sense the security and the safety in the Lord. They won't care so much. They won't need it so much from outside. Thank you. OK, good. All right, number six, a lack of heart awareness. We've been talking about the heart through this whole course. Proverbs says, above all else, guard your heart, for out of it are the issues of life. it's very easy for us to not think about our heart. Just do this or do that or be totally occupied with what we want without saying, okay, is what we want really coming from the right heart? And so That is something the teenagers need to be aware of. We want to know the heart of our teenagers, which means patient and persistent questions, and help them see their hearts as they really are. So we want to make sure we're understanding our kids' heart. We ought not, we should try not to assume we know our kids' heart. That can be easy for us to do, because when they're kids, when they're children, it's kind of easy to figure out what they're thinking. When they get to be teenagers, it's a lot harder to figure out what they're thinking, and sometimes we can just assume we know. The right way to deal with this is to ask a lot of questions. There's a sense in which sometimes, and as adults we're the same way, isn't it true that sometimes we don't even know what's in our heart? We haven't really thought about it fully. Isn't that true about us as adults? And that's true for teenagers as well. And so to ask questions, we should be asking ourselves questions, but to ask lots of questions is something that is helpful. Sure. Yes. So is the heart, I feel kind of dumb asking this, but is that your desire? Is that like, it's the source of your desires. You use your mind for everything. So when the Bible refers to the heart, is it talking about the desires you're generating? It's both. Or actually the fleshly organ of your heart? No. No. Good question. So when the heart, when the Bible talks, so we think differently, our Western world, we think of heart and mind as separate. Okay? So mind is sort of cognitive, heart is more emotions. The Bible doesn't look at it that way. The Bible looks at the heart all together. So mind and heart, or mind and emotions and desire, will, mind, will, and emotions, all of that is together. So when the word heart is used, it's talking about all of it together. That's a good question, actually. So it's not, it's your ability to think, your desires, and really, let's face it, they all do go together. I mean, you could try to separate them. our hearts are deceitful and wicked above all fantasy. That's saying that any desired thought in itself that comes from our own selves and is not from the Bible or what God teaches, that that is inherently evil. Or the potential to be evil. It has potential for, yeah. Okay, so prior to salvation, pre-salvation, it's exactly the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Of course, we are given a new nature once we're saved. So you have then two sources of desires after you're saved. You have the desire to please the Lord, and you have the desire to please self. Both of those are within the heart. And so you have to look at it that way, that there are desires When God saves you, he gives you a new heart. So there are desires, there are genuinely pure, right desires that come from us, but we still have that old flesh. We still have the flesh that gives us the wrong desire. So the Bible says the flesh, worth against the spirit, lowercase s, worth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and they are contrary to one another. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. So we need to make sure. So the main thing that we're most concerned about is, I don't know, it's all three. You've got the mind and the will and the emotions. We want our teens and ourselves for that matter to make sure that we're thinking right. But we also want to make sure that our wills are right. In other words, that we're keeping our wills in check, that our desires are in check, that when we have a desire that's wrong, we're checking it to make sure, oh, that's not a desire that pleases the Lord. In other words, discerning what desire comes from the flesh or what desire comes from the Spirit of God. We have to do that in our own lives as Christians, don't we? But that'll never stop. We'll always have to be doing that. But it really is when kids become teenagers, that is really where the whole process starts. Where is this desire coming from? And helping them to then cultivate and follow after desires that are truly spiritual, and to put to death the desires that are not spiritual, to put to death the desires that are from the flesh. Yes? There's a guy at the church I went to in Greenville, and I was in one of his classes, and he was talking about knowing your kid's heart. And one thing that he said was, it's not always just about discerning what's sin. It's also discerning, OK, what my passions as God given this kid. What things can I be helping him, like showing that I love him by helping him or her pursue? And one question that he applied to that too was like, his kid wanted to play flag football. So He sat him down and was like, OK, so you want to play flag football? That's awesome. So let's think about this biblically. Why would a lost kid want to play flag football? And then they talked through that and forced his kid to think about it. And he came up with good answers. And then he said, OK, so why does a kid who knows God want to play flag football? And then he thought about that. And so now, when they went to practice, they talked about that stuff. Yeah, that's excellent. Very, very good. Yeah, so just taking everyday kind of things like that and saying, why are we doing what we're doing? Yeah, thank you, Zach. Very good. Good example. So just a warning here with this area. We can't just burst into their room, announce the infraction, declare the penalty, and deliver a short sermon on the lesson they should learn. that tends to be how we want to do things, we must talk and pray and love. We need to help them to see the heart behind their actions, their true treasures, and what the Bible says to them about every aspect of their lives and experience. So, we need to do life with them. They need to do life with us in order to have the right kind of relationship. They have, we've already talked about this quite a bit already, but they struggle with acceptance and identity. This is something that teenagers struggle with. Youth will struggle with finding who they are. Youth will often look at their peers for acceptance and validation. And youth often struggle with feeling acceptance from when their parents are instructive and corrective, from their parents when they're instructive and corrective. I didn't word that quite right. What I'm talking about there is this, that as parents we have to be instructive to our kids. We have to be even corrective with our kids. We talked about how now we have to set rules in place because there's so much freedom available without responsibility that as parents we have the responsibility to make sure that we put rules in place. That is something that makes it, it's a struggle because teens then, if we're not careful, they can feel that we don't accept them because of the boundaries we're putting or the correction. So we have to really work hard at assuring our children, our teenagers rather, that we accept them regardless of what they do, that we accept them regardless of their performance, but still instruct them and correct them. Does that make sense? And it's very important that we do that. It's also very difficult to do that. It is not an easy thing. to try, you know, and I think I mentioned this last week a little bit as well, when our kids are young, you spank them and you hug them, but it changes when they're a teenager. And so, be mindful of this. Be mindful, parents, be mindful that when you correct your kids, when you instruct your kids, that they're gonna feel like they're not accepted. And you have to come back around and remind them that you do fully accept them regardless of their performance. You still have to do the instruction and correction, because God says to, but remind them that you still truly accept them as your children. It's really hard to do that, I think, but it's very important. How do we help our teens feel accepted and find their identity without failing to discipline? Teach your teens that what they do does not define them. By the way, that's, teenagers think that what they do define, and actually adults think that. Have you ever heard that before? What you do defines you? What you do doesn't define you. God defines you. He's already defined you in Genesis chapter 3. You're made in His image. And He's defined you further if you know Christ is your Savior. You're recreated in Christ. Your definition is not based on what you do. What you do should be based on your definition. And so teaching your children, a lot of times we think, and our kids think, teenagers think, oh, if I don't do this, then I'm not this. Or if I do this, I'm not a good, if I do this, I'm a good person. If I don't do this, I'm a bad person. No, no, no, you've got it backwards. You're bad. All the time. All right? And your only, anything that's of any good is because of God's grace, And what you do does not define you. And we've got to teach our kids that. We've got to help them understand that. Teach your teens that they are defined by creation and salvation. They're defined by the fact that God created them, and they're defined by the fact that God saved them. If that has indeed happened. If they haven't been saved, then of course it's just creation and the potential to be saved. Parents must give their teens time and attention if they are to feel accepted and important. You really can't, you really can't, there really isn't anything that you can substitute for time. And quality time is found within quantity time. You can't say, well, I'll just have quality time. Quality time is found when you have quantity time. It's like trying to have a relationship. I was listening to something recently about this. It's like trying to have a relationship and coming to somebody you don't even know and trying to have a very deep conversation with them right away. That doesn't work. You've got to spend time with them. Jeff? But the way you're perceived by your peers, both saved and not saved, obviously is colored by your actions. How do you deal with explaining the relative importance or lack thereof of others' perceptions of you? Do you say that it's completely unimportant when anyone thinks of you? I think it pales in comparison to what God thinks of you, what people think of you as far as that's concerned. I think you put it in terms of a couple of things. I think you put it actually in terms of love, loving others. So for example, this is a really trite example but it'll help us understand. Why would I go, I could My mom taught me table manners. Hopefully most of us learn table manners. It's surprising how many people didn't learn table manners. But okay, she taught me table manners. You go to the table and you have manners at the table, there's two reasons why you might do that. One reason you might want to do that is because you're worried about what other people think of you, so you have good table manners for that reason. But there's another reason why you would have good table manners. What would be the other reason? because you genuinely want them to have a pleasant experience, that you don't want to gross them out, that it's an enjoyable time for them, that you're considerate of them. So I think primarily we should be teaching our teenagers that what we do affects other people, and we want to affect them positively. what we do, but I would be, I don't think it's wrong, I would be really careful, I guess, about saying that what you do, I think there's probably a place for saying what you do, you want to be perceived by others well, but why you want to be perceived by others well is very important to flesh that out. Another, just showing deference to others. Not causing others to stumble, scripture talks about. So there's all kinds of biblical principles on relating to others and how I might not say certain things and say certain things in order to be caring about others or loving others. But I think that would be my approach more than just being worried or concerned about their perception of me. So I think this is also why it's really important for our instruction and correction to drive to the heart and not just the externals. Because we could be sending mixed messages in our correction if we're saying, if we believe your actions don't define you, but we are just totally focused on the externals in our correction. and instruction, that can be a really confusing message for a teenager. Is that like the parent corrects because the child embarrassed them? Yeah, that's a good example. That's dangerous, by the way. Don't correct your kids because you're embarrassed by them. I mean, I've heard parents do that. You're embarrassing me. That should not happen. I don't want you to embarrass me. That's embarrassing. Don't be embarrassed by your kids. It has nothing to do with why they should be corrected or not. And, unlike children who may not be perceiving that you're embarrassed, your teens will know if you're embarrassed. They will pick up on things that your children won't pick up on. So even if you don't say you're embarrassed, they'll still know if you are. So you have to really try hard not to be embarrassed. Which means what you have to do is you have to be so secure in the Lord that you're not embarrassed. And humble before the Lord that you're not embarrassed. Believe me, when you get, teenagers will mature all of us, actually. So, yeah, very good point. But, yeah, and that's not the only area. That's a good example. I'm glad you pointed that out. Discipline should be linked to behavior, not the person. Okay? So you're not going to say, you're going to link the behavior or link the discipline to the behavior. Clearly communicated boundaries and consequences will actually promote acceptance if coupled with time and attention. In other words, if you spend plenty of time and plenty of attention with your teenager, then they will understand that rules and boundaries they will accept them and actually can see them as something of acceptance. They can feel accepted because they have boundaries, but it's got to be coupled with time and attention. If you don't, if you have boundaries and rules without time and attention, then you're going to have, then you're going to, they're going to feel that they're not accepted. Yeah. If you don't have the time or the attention, then you probably don't have the ability to even make sure that they're following the boundaries. Well, what happens is that's true, consistently anyway. What happens was is that if you don't have the time and attention, then you're coming in, you're not enforcing it, they're disobeying it, and then you jump into the situation, and they've been doing this for the last six months, and you're saying, hey, there's a rule there. And then you have, so you have inconsistent enforcement of it. So that's part of, one of the reasons why that's, But time and attention is love. I mean that's the real thing is that you're showing you love them by giving them time and attention. Yes, but the teenager will not likely perceive that boundaries are love. That's not going to be their love language. Their love language is going to be time and attention. One is going to be their love language, the other one is not. I want to, I gotta go, I have more to say. You know what, I thought we were going to be done tonight, we're not. We're going to do one more week and what we're going to look at is how to pastor teens. And what I mean by that is that, I'm not saying like you all need to become pastors, I'm saying that there's a sense in which with your teens you need to learn to, you need to shepherd them. And if you think in terms of pastoring your teenagers. Every one of you, I mean, if a parent thinks in that way, it will actually help them to understand how to parent their teens properly. So we'll look at that next week because I do want to take prayer requests and things tonight. Alright, let's then go ahead and grab your