You will turn me to Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you that you may live long on the earth. And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Well, we're going to continue our study of training the hearts of our children, shepherding the hearts of our children. As we looked, as we've been going through Deuteronomy, we saw that the fifth commandment tells us to teach our children to honor their parents. And so I think it's a good segue to focus on what it means to train the hearts of our children. And just like everything else we do here and everything we discuss, it's surrounding around the Word of God. And I would just say this, it's not that parenting is a task that's completely incomprehensible or undoable. The problem is that we're just not familiar with the blueprint that God has given to us when it comes to raising our children. And what unfortunately has happened in the church is we have adopted techniques and approaches that are just quite contrary to the blueprint. They're contrary to the nature of our children who have a sin nature that must be dealt with. And so our approach to discipline and training must address that. We need something more powerful than our words. We need something more powerful than manipulation and bribery and emotionalism that usually takes place in a lot of the child training. We need the power of the gospel. And so, since the bulk of our study is going to be around the use of the Scriptures, I'm going to ask you again. How well do you know them? How well do you know the Scriptures? How often do you refer to the Scriptures in just normal conversation with your children? I've asked this now three times. This will be the fourth. Have you made the proper adjustments in your home life? Right? Have you made the proper adjustments when it comes to instructing your children? If you haven't, then what are you waiting on? Do you think unbiblical approaches will change the heart of that child? How adept are you at teaching and relating scriptures to your children in everyday life? How effectively do you use the scriptures to reprove and convict your children of their sins? What would you think of me as a pastor if I came in here with something other than the Word of God to try to bring conviction into your life? And here's the thing, the very same Word of God that convicts you is the very same Word of God that will convict your children. Let me ask you this. Do you reprove in such a way that causes your children to revere God's Word or disdain it and then hate it? How consistently are you using the Bible when you correct them? How do you use the Bible to train your children in righteousness to point them towards the dear Savior? Can you see that if we go somewhere outside the Scriptures, we definitely can see a change in their behaviors in the short term. We definitely can point them somewhere, but the question is, are we pointing them to Christ? You see, I don't think it's possible for you and me to bring our children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, as Paul says here, without continuous use of the Word of God. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 29, 15, it is the wrought and reproved. And we need to understand that it's our job as parents to know and to use the scriptures as God intended. Now we've looked at the nature of our children in our study up to this point. It's important for us to note that when dealing with our children, they have a sinful nature that must be dealt with with the gospel. And so the gospel is a critical element in the training of the hearts of our children. As we discussed last week, when it comes to discipline, all discipline, all discipline must revolve around, geared around, preparing the hearts of our children to receive the grace and forgiveness of our God. This means we must not embrace unbiblical methods of training and discipline. And we looked at many of those last week. Let me just review these with you. Unbiblical methods will get results You may even see temporarily an outward change of behavior but unbiblical approaches will not change the heart of the child. For example, outburst of wrath. I'm sure that gets a change in your child if you're just venting and losing it in front of them. But what are you teaching that child when you have that outburst of wrath? To fear you but not God. And so we need to be careful. that if we're about to get out of control, and here's the problem that I've seen in my own life, in the lives of other parents over 30 years of ministry. You sit there and watch a child sin for one straight hour. You don't intervene, you don't do anything with them, and then they just hit your last nerve and you lose it. That's not biblical parenting. James tells us, my wrath will not produce the righteousness of God. Let's just suppose for a moment I took your approach in the pulpit. Let's say if your approach is, I get a change in my children when I scream at them. What if I just came in here and just screamed at you for a straight hour? I'm sure I'd get a change. But is it changing the heart to love God more? Let me ask you, if I came in here and just screamed at you for a straight hour, or let's say you needed biblical counseling, and for the whole time of the counseling session I just screamed at you, Is that drawing you closer to Christ or is it making you hate Him? And why would you think it would be any different with your child? We must come up with something different than an outburst of wrath because we didn't do our jobs, we let them push our nerves, and then we reacted to that nerve. There are others who use emotionalism. Oh, you know, you embarrass Daddy when you misbehave in church like that. I really wish you wouldn't do that. Or you misbehaved out there. I know you hit your brother in public, but that embarrassed me. That's not how we approach our children. We don't go through emotionalism and try to, you know, that hurts mommy's feelings or daddy's feelings when you don't obey. That's manipulating. How about bribery? Right? Go back to emotionalism. What's the center of emotionalism? It's you. Not God. See, either you want a God-centered home or a you-centered home. Which one is it? How about bribery? Does bribery work? Yeah, I could get my kids to do all kinds of things if I bribed them, but it didn't change their heart. See, bribery is when we compensate them for good behavior. And so what do they do? What do you think children with a sin nature will do if you use compensation to get them to behave and do what's right? I mean, they just become little self-centered brats. And what ends up happening is, as long as you're watching, they'll behave so they can get the reward, but the moment you're gone, they're just being self-centered. And again, you're not training them. Well, what you're doing is you're making them self-centered brats who know nothing about serving others. They're only serving themselves, gratifying themselves. And what they do is they learn how to game the system. They don't really learn true reverence and fear of God. How about grounding? That seems to be a popular one. Why is it popular? Because it's easy. You don't have to think. Just going to be isolated until I can stand to look at you again. Aren't you glad your Heavenly Father doesn't do that to you? But see, grounding doesn't change the heart of a child, does it? Grounding takes no thought, it takes no effort, it takes no shepherding. It basically says, I'm tired of dealing with you, I don't know what else to do with you, so I'm just going to isolate you from everyone else. Punitive correction. This would be yelling and hitting, no positive instruction from the Word of God. There again, it doesn't change the heart of the child. How about erratic discipline? What's the problem with that? That will certainly provoke your child to wrath. Because one day you're consistent with discipline, the next day you're not. What's the problem with that? Well, they never know what's going to set you off. They never know what standard they're being held up against from day to day. And so it provokes them to wrath. There's no consistency there. Here's another one. I don't know if we talked much about it. See if this one sounds like you. How about unending rulemaking? Well, we've got 25 rules in our house and you've broken all 25 of them. Maybe I'll just add a 26. Let's just see. We'll just make up some more rules. In fact, you've got the rules. You've got the Word of God. You really don't have to make up any more, do you? So we've got the Word of God. We've got a standard to hold them accountable to. And do you think adding another one is going to change that heart? My recommendation is this, less rules are better. Right? Rules don't change anybody's heart. And so be careful with this. Just, all right, well, you broke the last five rules I gave you. I'll throw a sixth one in there. And then all you do is just let them break the sixth one. See, if you didn't hold them accountable to the first five, you're not going to hold them accountable to any more. All right. So we see that there are unbiblical approaches. I think they will get behavior changes in the short term, but it's not going to be long lasting. A lot of this, the unbiblical methods, make someone other than God the focus of who they should truly fear. We also look at factors that can impact your child. Your child has a sin nature. He can sin on his own. But there are things that aggravate that sin nature. There are things such as friends. Certain types of friends, you need to be careful. The Bible, we'll look at this in a moment. Friends, um, biblical friends, foolish friends, can do and encourage your child to rebel. Entertainment. Entertainment's not neutral. Entertainment is either leading your heart closer to Christ, or it's pulling their affections away. Your family structure, your family values are important. And remember, moms and dads, the children, they can see your hypocrisy because they live with you. You can say one thing in public, but live completely different behind your doors, in your home, and they see that. That will impact them. Conflict resolution. How you address conflict is how they're going to address it. Right? If they see you losing it with one another, that's how they think, well, that's what you do to deal with conflict. So all these factors matter. We've talked about this. They will aggravate the sinful nature of the child. And you say, okay. Maybe if some of you have done what I ask you to do, spend some time with your spouse. Let's evaluate how many of these unethical approaches have we brought into our home. We need to do some cleaning up. We need to do some realignment. And so you're saying, OK, I get it. I shouldn't bribe. I should stop this. I should stop screaming and yelling with no purpose at all. I should stop grounding. I should stop doing all these other things. Well, what should we do? I'm glad you asked. That's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to start with that. So Paul says this is your job and you fathers don't provoke your children to wrath. Which tells you we have the ability to provoke them to wrath. And we're not to do that. But bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. So let's look at God's word. We want to abandon all these methods that don't produce fruit. And so we want to turn to God's Word and allow the truth of God's Word to enlighten our methods. Now keep in mind, it's the Word of God that forms your goals for your family with respect to your children and determines the method by which you achieve those goals because you can have godly goals but ungodly methods to get there. One said it this way, methods and goals should be complementary. You want your child to live for the glory of God. Y'all gotta agree on that. Either you want your children to live for the glory of God or you don't. Now, if you desire for your child to live for the glory of God, you want your child to realize that a life worth living is a life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Your methods must show submission to that same Lord. Does that make sense? You can't say in one breath, I want you to live under the submission of the Lord Jesus Christ, but I'm going to live in such a way and bring things that are not under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. So I'm going to hold you to a different standard than I hold myself to. You see, if we believe that King Jesus rules and reigns, then he must rule and reign over our approach to training our children. And so a biblical approach to children involves two elements that we're going to weave together. First is what I'm going to call rich communication, and the other is the rod. Rich communication, and the other is the rod. They go together. Turn to Proverbs 23. Proverbs 23, pick up the reading in verse 13. Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he'll not die. Alright? You should beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell. My son, if your heart is wise, my heart will rejoice, indeed I myself. Yes, my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak right things. Do not let your heart envy sinners, but be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day. For surely there is a hereafter, and your hope will not be cut off. Hear, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way." And what we see here in this particular proverb is that The guy who wrote the Proverbs is weaving together these two elements. Look at verse 22. Listen to your father. So to listen means the father speaking. He's doing more than just willing to rot. Listen to your father who begot you and do not despise your mother when she is old. Look at verse 26. My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways." Notice how Proverbs 23 couples the rod and communication together. It needs to be rich communication between you and your children. Because I'm going to keep reminding you, the rod by itself does not impart knowledge. But when the rod and biblical exhortation is brought together, now you have a biblically unified approach to child discipline. The rod preserves the biblical grounded parental authority, right? The rod is the symbol of your authority over that child. Now the emphasis on communication prevents the child training from just becoming cold and tyrannical. The communication aspect of this training is geared to help the child know himself and understand why he is sinning. So let's look at this communication. I'm going to deal with Rod in another section here, in another service. But I want to deal with communication because you need to get this right. How would you gauge your communication with your children? Do they feel like they can come and talk to you and discuss things in an open format? Now what I mean by that is, I'm not saying that your child feels like he can come to you in a rebellious attitude. Not talking about that. I'm not talking that your child feels like he can come and manipulate you, that there's an open communication channel where he can manipulate you to justify their sin. But have you set up an environment where your child can approach you and be heard, even if it's something over you disagree about. Try to give you something to think about. When you don't establish this early on in your child's relationship that he can come and talk to you even about something you disagree about. As they get older and then they form their own, trying to form their own theological thoughts, right? If you haven't established that they can come and talk to you, And you, he doesn't feel like, or she doesn't feel like they can come talk to you about maybe a theological thing that they have a difference with you. They're not gonna just not go, they're not gonna just go away and not have that conversation somewhere else. They're gonna get an answer from somewhere. You want it to be you. And so this is why you're trying to establish, even if your child disagrees with you on something, you're listening to that child so you can hear why they're disagreeing with you and then correct it with the word of God. Now I know a lot of fathers over the past 30 years who didn't give themselves to the study of God's Word and so when it came to theological and doctrinal issues and application, they didn't want to be bothered with it. But the child didn't go away. The child was still there wanting to learn. And unfortunately they went somewhere else. And unfortunately a lot of times where they went, there's no good. They usually end up going to fools. So we need to have the word of God in our minds. And here's the thing, if you're a father saying, I don't even know where to start. I wonder if God put something in place to help fathers that don't know where to start. I wonder what he called that thing. I think he called it the church. See, you're not alone. I was where you were. I didn't grow up in a godly home where a father instructed me. But I thank God that he gave me godly men who helped me and brought me to the word of God and said, this is what you need to do. Here's how you train that child. Here's how you bring this to the... Humble yourself. If you need help and bring this into your home, we're talking about the heart of your child. Look at some of these old guys in here. I'm not one of them yet, but there's some old guys in here. Ask them. Ask them. What did you do with your children? How did you train them? And I tell you some of the best advice I got is when a man, an older man, told me, here's what I wouldn't do. And I wish I'd have done this. I remember one time my child rebelled and I lashed out at him and it made it worse. I wish I'd have responded this way. And over time, God has healed us as they humble themselves. Humble yourself. If you need help, that's why the church is here. So how would you gauge your home when it comes to communication? Now when we talk about communication, many times when I say the word communication, you've already thought that's the ability to express myself. And so what you're already thinking of is me talking, my children listening. And so it becomes a monologue. Now there's nothing wrong with instruction. We're going to talk about teaching in a moment. There's time for instruction where they need to listen. They need to be quiet and understand what you're saying. But there needs to be the ability to have a monologue. You need to learn the ability to listen. What then are you listening for? You're dealing with a five-year-old, you're dealing with an eight-year-old, a ten-year-old. What are you listening for? Well, if you listen to your children, you'll begin to understand how they understand the world. And this will allow you to start ministering to them. So if there's a misalignment with their worldview and what they're thinking, and God's view, What a great opportunity to teach them God's Word and guide them to truth and proper understanding of what God expects. Turn to Proverbs 18. Proverbs 18, look at verse 2. A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart. Look at verse 13. He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him What I would encourage us as parents to do is first start this discipline of listening. One said it this way, the finest art of communication is not learning how to express your thoughts, it's learning how to draw out the thoughts of another. And so we need to understand our children. And it's a skill we need to learn and it's a skill many parents have never learned. We never learned to teach our children how to express their thoughts and what they're struggling with. And so the point here is that discipline cannot always just be the negative aspect of it where you're using the rod or you're just sternly rebuking them all the time. When you're correcting is really not the only time you should be engaging your children. We should be training at all times. When does Deuteronomy 6 say that we should be training our children? When you lie down, when you get up, when you eat. And when does it need to start? when they're little. Like, Pastor, you're telling me this newborn, I should start now? There ought not to be a time in that newborn's life where you're not instructing them from the Word of God. When does the training of your child, your toddler, need to begin? Early. They should not know a time where they weren't sitting down hearing the Word of God instructed, where they give it reverence. Right? There just ought not to be a time. And so they ought to know that God's Word is the focal point of our authority. It's sufficient. It's authoritative. You know, they ought to just sit up and think, my dad and my mom bring all decisions through the Word of God. They have proper time set aside where the Word of God is being taught. See, it can't just be on Sunday morning, can it? Well, we need to understand, children, we need to learn this skill. I think this example makes the point. When children are little, we often fail to engage them in significant conversation. When they try to engage us, we respond with uninterested uh-huhs. Eventually, they learn the ropes. They realize that we are not interested in what goes on in them. They learn that a good talk for us is a good listen for them. When they become teens, the tables turn. Parents wish they could engage their teens, but the teens have long since stopped trying. So think about this, you got a young kid who comes to you. And I get it, we're busy, we got a lot of things going on. But most times we're just sitting there scrolling on social media, right? Your child comes to you, you're tired, whatever excuse you're making, he's trying to get your attention, and you're like, uh-huh, uh-huh, whatever, move on. Year after year of doing that kind of communication with them, when they become teenagers, they give up on you, and then they go to someone who'll listen to them. Well, who's listening to them these days? Well, the perverts? Right? There's always those people who are trying to make them fit in. So as Christian parents, learn the discipline of laying down what you're doing and start at a young age that your child can come and talk to you. And as they're talking to you, you're listening. You're trying to understand their worldview. It doesn't take long to find a three-year-old's worldview and what makes them tick. Mostly it's selfishness. You don't have to have a PhD in psychology to figure these things out. So if you want to have a meaningful conversation, and I'm not saying I did it right, but I do have a lot of people who come to me and say, how in the world does your mid-20 year old children still come and talk to you, want to do things with you? I talked to them when they were little. I didn't always do it right. I didn't try to pawn them off on someone else to raise. I didn't try to give them to someone else to train them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. and I'm thankful that they do still come talk to me. That I've still, there's some relevance that I have in their life. And what's beautiful about this parents, let me just say this, the greatest thing that I have with my children right now is that now they challenge me. They come to me, hey dad, I was reading this, what are your thoughts on that? I have no idea, I've never even thought about that. I mean, I get stomped still by them. A lot of times when your children's minds start getting creative with the questions, and I get it, they can ask a lot of questions. And sometimes the questions, because they haven't learned to be filtered yet, can poke you right where you're weakest in some area. And instead of turning them away, say, you know what, let's go study this out and let's go figure it out together. I don't know. I don't know how to answer that question. And so what ends up happening is that child, yes, they'll always be your child. But what's beautiful is when their brother or sister in Christ grow it in grace with you. If you haven't experienced that yet because some of you have little kids, I can tell you, it is beautiful what God does as you pour into their life and then they pour back. It's not a one-way street. Learn to listen. Be communicating with them always. And the focus is on understanding. The objective in correction must not be able to tell your children how you feel about what they've said or done. You must try to understand what's going on within them. See, the scripture teaches us, right? We've looked at this multiple times already. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so, when you engage your child, understand what's going on within them. I'm not trying to, I'm not saying justify sin. That's not what I'm saying at all. You're understanding what is going on within their heart so that you can minister to that heart. I mean, isn't that what biblical counseling is? Most of it is, when we're doing biblical counseling, if you come to me, I'm listening, I'm trying to understand something, sin's got a stranglehold on you in some area. And I'm trying to understand why and where it is so I can take the appropriate text and minister to you. I mean, what would you say if you came and wanted biblical counseling and I wouldn't even let you talk. I just assumed I knew what was wrong and I just started whipsawing you with the scriptures. That's not an effective way to counsel. So when training your children, it's important you don't get frustrated. You don't get angry. You don't get hurt. but rather you're trying to understand the nature of that child and the struggle they're having with sin. It's important to understand the why of what was done or said. In other words, when you see the outward signs of disobedience, you must not only deal with the outward sin, but the inward heart that led to the sin. And here's the thing, when dealing with a child and teaching them repentance, when you see that like, let's say one kid slugs another, I know your children don't do it, but I had children that did this. When they slug another, it's not just enough to repent over slugging the other, but all the sins that led them to get comfortable to slug another. Right? The covetousness, the anger, and the bitterness that's in their heart. We've got to minister to all of that. Our display of their sin is from the abundance of their heart. So think of it this way. What specific content of the abundance of the heart was manifesting itself in that circumstance? Whatever sin you're dealing with. Or what was the temptation that led to that sin? What was the child's response to that temptation? Now why would I say all this? Because what you're doing here is you're prying in beyond the behavior and discern the inner issues of that heart that led to the sinful behavior. So let's use an example. Let's say the issue is disobedience, whatever it may be. Now your objective can be stated in several simple propositions. The behavior that you see is a reflection of the abundance of that heart. You want to understand the specific content of that abundance of that heart. And you want to deal with the internal issues of the heart that are of greater importance than the specifics of that behavior. Because they're driving the behavior. And so the goal for you is to understand the struggles of the heart of your child so that you can know what aspects of the gospel are appropriate for the situation. Because remember, many parents in our day and age have bought into the lie, well they're just immature. You never grow out of a sinful heart. So the heart has to be dealt with. You're using the sword of the spirit. You're using the word of God to bring the power of God to bear on their hearts. And so if you're going to understand and help your child understand themselves, these are the skills you're just going to have to start to develop. You've got to learn to help your child express themselves. And you're going to have to help facilitate those conversations. Turn to Proverbs 20. Because if you don't do that, you're not going to understand and discern the behaviors and the motives of their heart. Proverbs 20 verse 5 says, counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. A wise person is patient and able to hear. to draw out. It's good to let them talk. If they start talking, let them talk. Because you're drawing out and you can learn a lot about them. As a parent, you want to be such a person of understanding. And when you do this, you're now coming alongside your child to guide them to the pathways of righteousness. As a parent, even as a redeemed parent, you can come alongside your parent as one center to another who understands the struggle and point them to the one who can save them. You can come alongside them and teach them from experience how to deal biblically with temptation. You know who the worst of these are? Legalists. See, legalists don't operate on the power of God's grace. They haven't overcome sin by God's grace. And you can be very frustrating to your child by just telling him to grit it out, pull your boots up, and shut up, stop rebelling, just be better. That's not how you grew. You grew by the grace of God. God broke your temptations. God broke the chains of sin in your life and you want to come along beside them as one sinner to another to say this is how God broke this sin in my life. I want to show you how. Son, I want to show you. Daughter, I want to show you. Isn't that different? What if you walked into this church and we knew all the baggage you drew behind you. You're dragging all your sins that you did in the past. And then we took every one of those sins and just started beating you with them. And then just look at you and say, just do better. That's not helpful. What's helpful is recognizing we all know that we struggle with sin in certain areas and that God's grace broke those power and the chains of sin in our lives. And so we want to learn to come along with one another. It makes it a healthy church community. We're not denying sin. But we're not beating you with it. We're coming along beside you to show how God's grace will help you conquer that sin and have victory over sin. That's what you're doing with your child. Any of you have this conversation? Let's give an example. Let's say you have a son and he hit his sister. And the mom says, well, why did you hit your sister? And what does the little boy usually say? I don't know. Right? And then what does the mom do? Exasperated. What do you mean? I don't know. And then what does the child say? I don't know. And this goes on and on and on. And depending on how long the mother's fuse is, he better come up with something better than I don't know. But what's the problem here? Is it that the child is refusing to talk? Not necessarily. He's simply being asked questions he doesn't know how to answer. And unless you have trained your child which comes with time, what they do is they lack the depth of understanding and the ability to self-reflect and be able to respond coherently to the question. He needs to have the issue dealt with in a different way. So a lot of times, maybe you can replace the why did you line of questioning that a lot of times ends up in frustration for both the parent and the child. Maybe go along with something else. You don't have to come up with your own for your own children, but things like this. What was going on within you that led you to hit your sister? Here's another one. What did your sister do to make you mad? Now there again, you're not asking the question to get them off the hook. Help me understand then how hitting your sister made the situation better. I mean, what was the problem? What was she doing to you? And maybe the sister was sinning against the boy. I mean, your children are going to be put out in the world where they're going to be sinned against all the time. Is hitting people going to be the answer? Right? They're going to have to learn how to deal with sin and this is why, children, God has put you in a home. To teach you how to deal with sin. Is there a better way when your sister sins against you to respond? How do you think your response reflected trust or lack of trust in God's ability to provide for you? In what way did you defame the character of God? and your reaction. She's an image-bearer of God. You're an image-bearer of God. You're not an orangutan. This is what monkeys do. They hit each other. You're an image-bearer of God. If you're wise in the scriptures, what each question is going to help you do is it leads to other avenues that can help you discern what's going on within the child. And you may just find out the child is struggling with anger and they don't know what to do with the anger other than lash out. Does the Bible speak to how to deal with anger? Of course it does. Now you've got an opportunity to lay the child's heart open. Remember, the Word of God is powerful. It lays us open. We need to teach them in this kind of way because let me ask you this. Your son hits the daughter. You go through this line of questioning. Why did you do it? I don't know. Why did you do it? I don't know. It goes on. Then you lash out, yell at them, and maybe you hit them with a rock, a bell, whatever it is. What did you just teach them? This is what happens when I don't get my way and I don't know what else to do, and I get frustrated because that's what mom and dad did. We need a more biblical approach to dealing with these things. And I'm not saying take the rod off the table. But what you need to do is rod and reproof according to the Proverbs. Notice in this example when one child hits another, there's going to be incredible emotions there. The question is, you know, are you going to exacerbate the emotions with your emotions? Or are you going to learn how to diffuse that? And so don't bring your own emotions to the table. This will allow you to help your child explain what's going on within. So once you understand, you can help guide them, direct them, prepare their hearts to receive the grace and forgiveness of God. There's many questions that address this sin to help them understand their need for Christ's grace and redemption. But you've got to begin seeking to understand the nature of the internal conflict that was expressed in hitting the sister. And so as the child answers questions, your role then becomes helping him discern and understand himself Now, as you talk to your child, you need to get them to see three things. The nature of temptation, the possible responses to temptation, and then their own sinful response. Now, when you approach it this way, you stand both above and beside the child. You're above the child. Why? Well, because God put you in authority over the child. But you did come along beside them because you recognize as a sinner who struggles with, maybe you struggle with anger. Now the problem with most parenting approaches that we looked at last time, it emphasizes one of these but not all of them. Some parents identify so much with the child that they refuse to discipline and correct their child at all. And what they end up doing is, and you see this all the time, they just begin to negotiate with the child. Now what's the problem in negotiating with a child? We just gave the child a seat at the table. We don't negotiate with children. Right? We're not trying to weigh out the pros and cons of whether or not we're going to allow sin to manifest itself in the house. And so we don't reason with them in that sense. But we do bring the Word of God. to bear as you come along beside them. Others stand so much over their children that they are so distanced from their child. They don't even acknowledge that they're sinners at all. And so we need to remember that we're God's agent. So we have a responsibility to censure evil. But you do this as a sinner who comes along beside them, able to understand why they sin, the way sin works in the heart, the human heart. Doesn't that sound different than all the unbiblical approaches we looked at last week? Now, we've been talking about communicating, and I want to look at different ways the Bible teaches us to communicate. Oftentimes we reduce parenting to three elements. Rules, correction, and punishment. Sound familiar? This is how it works. You give your child a rule. Then there's a correction phase that comes into play when they break the rule. And in the discipline phase, you announce the price they're about to pay for breaking the rules. And that's it. Now let me just say this. Every family does need rules. They need correction. There needs to be punishment. But that can't be the extent of your communication with your child. What we want to do is look at, and I want to help you in the remaining time, consider some deeper dimensions of communication that might help you with your child. Let me just read them to you, and then we'll talk about each one of them. We've got to have rules. There are corrections. There is discipline. But have you ever considered encouragement? That is a form of communication. How about rebukes? Now, the question is, well, when do we do encouragement versus when we do rebukes? How about entreaties? It's where you plead. The Bible, we'll see here in a moment, the Bible pleads with children. There needs to be instruction. There needs to be warnings. There needs to be teaching. And most importantly, with your children, when you communicate, there needs to be prayer. All right. I want you to think about this. What percentage of time do you spend communicating rules, correction, and discipline as compared to these other forms of communication? Do you ever encourage? Do you ever review? All right. Your communication must not leave out these other elements. You ever just sit down and pray with your child? We believe prayer works. I just won't pray with my children. What do you think you're teaching your child at that moment? All right. Look at 1 Thessalonians 5. Hold your place in Proverbs. We'll be coming back. 1 Thessalonians 5. You know, the Bible's full of these different forms of communication that are at our disposal, not just with our children, but even with one another. But in 1 Thessalonians 5, 14, now we exhort you, brethren. We have an exhortation. Warn those who are unruly. Comfort the fainthearted. Uphold the weak. Be patient with all. I mean, we've got all kinds of communication styles just in this one verse. Paul's point in this text is that different situations require different forms of communication. And I think we do great harm when we fail to discern what type of communication is appropriate for the moment. And let me just say this. Over time, you'll be better discerning and better at doing these different types of communication. So let's talk about encouragement. We should never forget to inspire and fill our children with hope and courage. When your child recognizes that they're in the wrong, you don't necessarily have to give them an additional rebuke. So like for example, As a pastor, sometimes people come after a sermon or after someone else does some teaching or maybe someone's encountered them and you know, they're really convicted over something. And they come and they say, you know, God has been working with me in this area and you know, is that the time for me to rebuke them? You filthy sinner. The Lord's already done that. The Lord's already convicted them in that situation. So what I want to do in that moment is when the Lord is working, just encourage them to hope and forgiveness in Christ. When you detect the Spirit of God working within your child, then encourage them to seek after God and seek after what brings Him pleasure. When a child is tangibly struggling with sin, encourage them by reminding them Christ came to needy, sinful people. Lay the Gospel out there for them. Encourage them to pursue Christ. If your child, for example, has failed in some way, Encourage them. Remind them of times when things look hopeless for you and how God was faithful to you. Help them assess why they're disappointed and point them to the promises of God. So if your child is called to do something that appears to be greater than their ability, encourage them to find courage, hope, and inspiration from God who draws near to those in need. I remember one time when one of my boys was playing football. He was new in the area. All these other kids have been playing together forever and he was working his tail off and getting better and getting with the schemes and the coach just kept setting aside and he was getting discouraged about it. Now, I could have as a daddy went and approached the coach or I could teach my son at some point you got to learn to be comfortable confronting folks. And he did. And it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be. Right? The coach heard him, listened to him, but you taught him something there. Yeah, it's discouraging what you're going through right now, and you're wanting to quit. But don't quit. Keep working hard. But if you see God working in their lives, and they're making great strides in their holiness, then encourage them. And as we have called our children to pursue after God, we need to be consciously looking for ways to encourage them. God has gifted your children with wonderful talents. Encourage them to pursue those talents and gifts that God has given them for His glory. Alright, another form is correction. Correction means that we're bringing the child in conformity to a standard. And what's the purpose of correction? Well, the purpose of correction is to remedy something wrong. Correction gives your child insight to this is wrong and then this is what we need to do to correct the problem. Correction helps your children understand God's standard and teaches them to assess their behavior against that standard. 2 Timothy 3 You're familiar with the text, but let me just read it to you again. 2 Timothy 3.16 says this, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. For what? What is the Scriptures profitable for? Doctrine, reproof, correction, for instruction in righteousness. Why? That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. And so, correction is one of the functions of God's work. And so when we talk about correction, There's a standard. They've broken the standard. And then we're going to bring the Word of God to correct that pattern of behavior. So let's just say you're doing family worship. You have a child that doesn't participate. Maybe they don't want to sing. Maybe they don't want to listen to the Word of God. Well now you've got an opportunity to provide correction. There's something wrong and you want to take an opportunity to teach them why this is important. So what you want to do in that situation is take them to the Word of God, show them why worship and reverence and respect when the Word of God is being taught is important. That would be an example of correction. So what's the difference between correction and a rebuke? Well, a rebuke censors behavior. And depending on the nature and the extent of the rebellion, it's okay for your child to experience a sense of alarm and shock at what they have said or what they have done. I mean, why does Jesus use such harsh language against people when they're openly rebelling? Let's get their attention. But if you've clearly taught within your home, for example, a principle, a rule, and your child blatantly disregards, then a rebuke is necessary. Don't confuse rebukes with outbursts of wrath and uncontrolled rage. They're not the same. A rebuke has a purpose in mind. It's purposeful. When Jesus rebukes the Pharisees, or when Jesus rebukes Peter, for example, it's not uncontrolled wrath. There's a purpose behind the rebuke. Now, here's the thing. After you rebuke, keep in mind there's still other forms of communication that needs to be dealt with. Now that you've gotten their attention with the rebuke, some instruction is needed. Some encouragement maybe, and prayer. Remember, a rebuke is not uncontrolled outbursts of wrath. It's purposeful. It's a direct form of communication to expose and censor sin. Jesus used this form. Jesus used this form of communication on both believers and unbelievers. Pharisees, for example. Peter, he rebuked. Remember when Peter was being used as a tool of Satan to oppose the purposes of Christ. And so this form of communication is important to utilize when you're dealing with open, unrepentant, rebellious sin. So you need to learn to use it. Entreaty. Entreaty is a form of communication that there's just this sense of earnest plea and it's intense. It involves pleading, soliciting, urging. This is an earnest plea of a father and a mother who understands the child and the ways of God in an extreme moment. In this form of communication there is just a bearing of the soul of the parent pleading with the child to act in wisdom and faith. And this is a form of communication that is reserved for use in cases where there's just great importance, especially when the child is making decisions or behaving in such a way that's destructive to their soul. For example, if you have a child, and I'm talking about older children, and they're refusing to remove themselves out from under temptation, You can get their attention by pleading with them. If you don't stop, you understand the destructive nature and what's going to happen to you if you continue down this pathway. Turn to Proverbs 23. Look at verse 26. My son Give me your heart and let your eyes observe my way." You can hear the earnest entreaty behind these words. You might use this when warning your boys or girls about avoiding sexual temptation. Entreat them to the dangers of opening themselves up to temptation that would lead them to impurity. And it is interesting. Many times fathers have a great concern over the purity of their daughters but let the boys fend for themselves. You're as much responsible for those little boys' purity as you are for the little girls' as well. We do not want our boys to degrade themselves. We do not want our little boys to give themselves over to sexual temptation. Do you understand now why the entertainment matters? Do you now understand the kind of friends they hang out with matters? And so, getting to this point where they're one step from just jumping in the 12 foot side of the pool of sin. You're pleading with them. You need to learn these entreaties. They need to understand that sexual sins denigrate the image of God and fail to preserve His name as holy and glorious. Make sure in all your instructions you're bringing the child to the majesty and the grandeur of God and you're pleading. When you plead with them, there again, don't emotionally manipulate them. You're embarrassing your mother. That's not irrelevant. You're distorting the grandeur, the majesty, the greatness, the holiness of God when you pursue and you go down this pathway, whatever it is. And when you plead with them, you need to make sure they understand the impacts. It's not that they're shaming your family. It's that they're sinning against a holy God. It does not bring the blessings of God. It dishonors God. Everything in your training has to be around loving God, and reverencing and fearing Him. And so when dealing with an entreaty, think through some of the principles from God's Word when you've been challenged and you bring this to light within your child. Plead with them about the importance of knowing God's Word and applying it. Learn to bring these and use them in your communication. Instruction. Construction is the process of providing a lesson, a precept, information that will help your child understand the world they're living in. So as a parent, you're dealing with young people who have large gaps of understanding in their life. They need information about themselves. What's interesting with young children is they act like you weren't young one time. They don't recognize you weren't always that old fuddy-duddy. They forget that you were a child that wrestled through temptations and maybe you didn't have someone come along beside you and guide you. But children, let me say this. If you've got a mom or a dad who come after you and warn you and bring instruction into your life, don't you despise it. It is the kind mercy of God that He gave you parents who cared enough about you to not let you go headlong into sin. Your children need information about themselves as God presents it to them. They need to understand the world, the spiritual reality, the principles of the kingdom of God. They need to understand that there are spiritual enemies that are waging war against their soul. They need to understand that there's an enemy that wants to steal, kill, and destroy them. They need to be aware of the dangers of opening themselves up to temptations, because the enemy will use that to step in and grab a stranglehold in their life. And see, this is where the Proverbs can be so helpful. Your children need a framework in which to understand life, and Proverbs gives instructions about the character of a fool, about the sluggard, the wise man, the mocker, the dishonest woman. It also teaches us about the benefits of honesty, integrity. It teaches us about taming the tongue, guarding the heart. All these principles are just here in the Proverbs and so many Christians never go there. I got a self-help book, Pastor. You'll love it. And you read it and you're like, this is what you're filling your mind up with. You have infinite wisdom and a fool. A secular fool. And you chose the secular fool. Turn to Psalm 119. You know, we started off this study asking the question, why are so many children abandoning the faith? Is it because God is no longer powerful and effective? Is His Word no longer effective? No, not at all. Maybe it's we've abandoned His approach. The results of embracing worldly child training approaches and techniques has been nothing but disastrous. Because what it says is we're wiser than you, God. Even though you created these children, even though you taught us how to raise and train them, we prefer to go a different route. And the landscape has been littered with children who have abandoned the faith. Look at Psalm 119, look at verse 98. You, through your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I kept your precepts. I mean, look what he just said here. You want to be wiser than all the experts? Know the Word of God. Know the law of God. Know the precepts of God. Why do we sing the Psalms? We want to put them on your heart. I bet if I started singing a song from the 70s, many of you could probably finish the lyrics. But we need the Word of God hidden on our heart so that we may not sin against Him. You want to be wiser than the experts? Go to the Word of God. Look at verse 104 here. Through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way. This is the problem with the church. Because the church has embraced the false way. They didn't hate it. We must come back to God's Word because it's through His precepts you and I get understanding. What did Paul say? Paul said this very same thing but in another way in Colossians 2. When we bring the vain philosophies of this world to our children, we rob them of what? The nuggets, the riches of wisdom that are found in Christ and Christ alone. Christ is wisdom personified. You want to see the Proverbs in human form, person form? Look to Christ. He's wisdom incarnate. I'd encourage us as fathers and mothers, sit down, start outlining character issues that you see in your children and begin to study the Proverbs, spend some time in the Scriptures, start pulling the weight of the Scriptures together so you can instruct your children in these areas. Instruction is so important. Let me ask you this. If I spent 99% of my time in this pulpit rebuking, rebuking, rebuking, and rebuking, what's the problem? There's something wrong. I mean, if I had to rebuke every Sunday, there's something wrong in the church, right? And it's not healthy. This is why we give the majority of our time to instructions. Because instructions will guide you back to the pathways of righteousness, the pathways of truth. The same is true of your children. If the only time you talk to them is when you're rebuking them and shouting at them, you're not getting their heart, you're not changing their heart. What about warnings? The Bible gives us warning as a communication. We need to understand that our children's lives are surrounded by danger. You need to understand there's an enemy that wants to destroy them. Warning will put us on guard with respect to those dangers. A warning is a merciful way to communicate to somebody. If someone were about to hurt themselves, then what would the merciful thing be? If you saw somebody about to walk off the side of a cliff, what would the merciful thing be? Warn them. If you knew there was a bridge at the end of your road that's out, what do most times people do? They put a sign up, warning, bridge out. Why? Aren't you thankful they warned you? Have you ever driven through a neighborhood? Now, most people take your warnings and say, well, you're just being judgmental. Let me ask you this. You drive through a neighborhood, and it's got a yellow sign. It's got a symbol of a child playing. And it says, slow down, children playing. Is the sign judging you or warning you? This warning. I mean, what happens when you disregard the warning and you just fly through there? You wipe out a child. Right? We need these warnings in front of our children. Go to Proverbs 12. And this is why the Proverbs are so important for us to learn. The Proverbs are filled with warning after warning. Let's just read through some of them. Proverbs 12, look at verse 24. The hand of the diligent will rule, but the lazy man will be put to forced labor. Urgent warning against what? Being lazy. How about Proverbs 14? Look at verse 23. In all labor there is profit, but idle chatter leads only to poverty. You ever met somebody that just can't get any work done, but they can't shut up? Proverbs 15, 1. Here's one. A soft answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger. How about Proverbs 16? Look at verse 18. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. You see an arrogant little child. Remember this passage. Look at Proverbs 17, look at verse 19. And wouldn't you agree though, it's easy to see arrogance in someone else's child, but you can't just see it in your own. And when you can't see it because you've got your blinders on in your own child, you withhold these warnings from them to their own destruction. All right, what did I say, Proverbs 17? Look at verse 19. He who loves transgressions loves strife, and he who exalts his gate seeks his destruction. You got just a child that's just creating strife all the time? Bring me this proverb. This is your end. If you don't stop this, there are just some children that just always are creating strife within the home, and nobody ever warns them. And what happens when you turn a child that's nothing but strife into the culture? Well, then culture's got to deal with them. Because you wouldn't warn them. Proverbs 19, look at verse 15. Laziness casts one into deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger. All right. The warnings are all throughout the Proverbs. I just want to give you a taste. So how do warnings work? Warning is simply a statement that A leads to B. This behavior leads to this outcome. For example, laziness leads to slavery. The person who is lazy will end up in some kind of servitude. The warning is an application of sowing and reaping principle that we find throughout the scriptures. Warning your child, though, is not yelling at them. What it's actually doing is spending time teaching them all the A leads to B statements found in the Bible. and eventually they'll begin to understand these truths and embrace them. Once your child begins to internalize these truths, their attitudes and behavior then become influenced. One of the things we would do with our children is, you know, you want to see what sin does to not just an individual but to a family or to a whole community? is go minister in a community where sin is decimated. They get tangible, they can put their hands on what these Proverbs are saying. This is what happens when sin just decimates. They'll embrace these truths. Once your child begins to internalize these truths, it begins to influence their attitudes and behaviors. But one of the problems that I've noted with parents and children is that parents don't spend time warning them. I mean, how much time do you spend in this area? It's part of the instruction, but there's warnings in the Bible. How much time do you... Well, here's one. I've seen this a lot. We don't warn them about what happens when we have ungodly friends and the detriment that they will do to that child. One of the benefits, again, of me taking my children to engage the lost and to engage adult culture with the light of the gospel is they can see the contrast between light and darkness. Now, let me just say this. It didn't always impact them and stand out when they were younger. But when you talk to them now, they see what happens when you choose the pathway of darkness. But we would debrief after those times of sharing the truth. We would see the consequences of sin and rebellion. And I get it, there were people criticizing me over 10 years ago, 12 years ago. I used to take these boys with me to the liquor store in the government housing project area of the town we lived in. And we'd share the gospel with these guys walking in and out of the liquor store. It was interesting. We weren't the right type of people to be in that neighborhood. But just us being there, you would walk people, look down, walk in, and try to slide out while we were there. But they saw in that community what alcoholism, what drugs, what just sinning and rebelling against God had just done to that community. Another thing it taught them is, we don't fear man. There's no reason to fear man. But some of those people needed to hear the truth of the gospel and the conversations that we had to get them to see. But it's important for them to see, here's the teaching, now let's go see what happens when people rebel against God. They can make the connection. We also, by taking them out, we get to discuss over the years the apathy of lukewarm Christians who won't share the gospel. It's always interesting to me, the lukewarm Christians that want to come out there and rebuke us for sharing the gospel, they don't have a problem rebuking us and stopping and talking to us, but they won't talk to a hell-bent sinner. They won't talk to someone whose soul is very close to being dropped into hell at any moment. But we discussed the apathy of lukewarm christians and what lukewarm christianity takes us to and what happens to a culture when the church becomes lukewarm. Well, look, you can see it. You can throw a rock in any direction in this area, in the Bob Jones umbrella being cast in the shadow of Bob Jones University. But they abandoned the culture to itself a long time ago. And we see the fruit of that, or the weeds of it. But do you see if a child who has had a lifetime of warning and application and those warnings that they get to see tangibly. God's word makes complete sense now. See what happens though is when you entertain your children with worldly entertainment, what does it do? It makes worldly entertainment look like it pays off. It makes worldliness look attractive to them. Yeah dad, I don't know what you're talking about. It seems like those two homosexuals on TV are having a good life. But take them down to the sodomite festival to share the truth and you'll see the hatred and the debauchery and the destruction of the flesh that has come upon these people who have waged war against God. So warn them. about what happens also when they neglect the means of grace. From your own experience, what happens to you when you don't spend time in the Word, when you don't pray, when you don't worship, when you refuse to be around saints? Doesn't your love grow cold? Doesn't your faith grow weak? Your courage dissipates? Doesn't fear and anxiety over mundane things begin to take over? Your ability to resist temptation decreases? Remind them, warn them, when you refuse the means of God's grace in their life, what happens? And there again, turn to Proverbs 14. The Bible's not silent on this issue of friends. There's something about a young child that wants to be accepted by someone their age. And they need to learn at a young age to be discerning who they fellowship with. Proverbs 14.7 says this, go from the presence of a foolish man when you do not perceive in him the lips of knowledge. So this is a warning about hanging out with fools. And this proverb is teaching us to stay away from fools. Remember, a fool is one who lives independently of God. Turn over to Proverbs 10 and look how they're identified over here in verse 18. Whoever hides hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool. A fool is one who just spreads slander, lies. The Bible is very concerned about who we let our children hang out with. Now, I know you've heard this, and I've heard it, and I've seen it to the detriment of a lot of kids. Yeah, but I know that person, that friend of theirs is a foul-mouthed reprobate, but we want to share the gospel to him. So let me get that straight. You're going to turn your kid to someone who's been indoctrinated, well-seasoned with wickedness and rebellion. You're going to turn that child over to them, with no supervision, and hope that somehow they share the gospel. You say, well, should we abandon the fool? No. So why does your kid need to go off along with the fool? Bring the fool in. Bring the fool's parents in. And you proactively go after them with the truth of the gospel. You shepherd their horse just like you shepherd your child. But don't turn your kid over to a fool. The Bible over and over again warns you against this. And yet many Christian parents tempt the word of God by doing the very thing that God says don't do. Oh yeah, I know that my kid's a known alcoholic. And we're just gonna let my kid hang out with him. What good comes from that? Look at Proverbs 12. Look at verse five. The thoughts of the righteous are right, but the counsel of the wicked are deceitful. The counsel of one who leads you to deceit is one who is trying to pull your heart and affections away from the truth, which is Christ. But you read through Proverbs 12, and you can look over and over again throughout this chapter to show your child this is how you need to discriminate on who you build relationships with. William Sprague wrote a nice series of letters that's in a book form through Sprinkle Publication. letters to my daughter. And so William Sprague is writing letters to his daughters and one of the best letters he wrote to her is about how to choose friends. Young people, when it comes to choosing friends, you want friends that will pray for you, not encourage you to rebel, but point you to Christ and grow. Pray for those kinds of friends. And when you find one, keep them. Because they're rare and they're few. But you can go through the Bible and provide these warnings to your children in all kinds of different areas and that will impact your child. Finally, well not finally, teaching. Teaching is the process of imparting knowledge. Teaching is causing someone to know something. And the point of teaching is that it can take place, or it should, before it's actually needed. As a godly parent, you have so much to impart to your children. Drawing upon the knowledge of the scriptures, you can teach your child to understand himself, understand others, understand life. God's revelation speaks to all these areas. But you must actively impart knowledge to your child through teaching them. If you look through the ministry of Jesus, what was most of his time doing? Most of his time was not given to raising the dead and miracles. Most of his time was given to teaching. He was imparting knowledge about the Kingdom of God. He was exposing those who were falsely teaching about the Kingdom. And this is where you should spend most of your time. How? By taking your children to the Bible and teaching them. And if you struggle with this, get you a good catechism. Right? If no one ever did this with you when you were little and you don't even know where to start, get a good catechism. Just start asking simple questions to your children and then go to the scriptural proofs and start using that as a guideline and an outline to instruct and teach. And then you'll watch how your knowledge and their knowledge and the conversations. If what I said to you earlier about you having rich communication and conversations with your children sounds foreign and it can't happen, try me on this one. Start opening the Word of God. Talking with them. Letting them see the Word of God work in your heart. Watch them humble. Let them see you humble yourself before God and His instructions. Pay attention to the sins that they struggle with. Husbands, listen to what your wife is saying. A lot of times when your wife is bringing things to you, you take it as, well, they're just complaining again. But if you'll listen to them, what they're doing is they're telling you, these are the sin issues I'm dealing with within the hearts of my children, within the heart of our children. Take that. Take the Scriptures and go to them and teach them. Listen, the Word of God will bring conviction in their life. And the goal is to get them to seek the forgiveness that is in Christ Jesus. Last one, prayer. Prayer is not necessarily you communicating with the child, but it is you and the child communicating with God. This is going to be an essential element of communication. Because the most penetrating insight you will have into the soul of your child is when they pray. And understand, when they pray, it's kind of like a window into their soul. But prayer provides an opportunity for you to hear what the child is communicating. Understand, they're going to hear your prayers. They need to hear you communicating your faith to God. They need to see you praying to God. Well, let me stop here. The point of this section was to just make you aware that there's different forms of communication than just screaming at your child. If you'll start adopting these, you'll have rich, rich communication with respect to your child. If you'll listen to what the child is saying, that will stay with them. Listen, the world is going to tell you, when your child becomes a teenager, they're going to rebel and they're not going to want anything to do with you, they're not going to want to talk to you. I can tell you that's a lie. If you establish that principle with them now, they'll come to you. They'll talk to you. But that's the biblical pattern that's given to us. If that's not been your pattern then, what are you going to do? If you feel like you're pulling your hair out and you're not getting anywhere with the rebellion in the heart of your child, go back and ascertain which unbiblical methods have you been adopting, repent, get rid of them, and then start embracing biblical means of communicating with them. And use this as an opportunity to instruct and shepherd the heart. So let me leave you with these questions. What proportion of your time is spent with these different types of communication we laid out for you? Any of them? Start adopting them. Just be honest with God and if there's some of these approaches that you struggle with, then get help. I'd like to know a little bit more about that warning you're talking about. I'd like to learn a little bit more about how to teach. God gave you the body. Body of Christ. There's plenty of people around here that can help you with this. You're not on your own. God didn't leave you without people that Everyone in here knows what we're talking about. Everyone of us understand we're dealing with the souls of children. So here's another one. When you find a problem in your home, is your method to deal with the problem or just implement a new set of rules and punish? Maybe think about a different way of approaching them. What if every time someone sins in this church, we just make a new rule? You wouldn't do it here. Don't do it. The government takes this approach. The government doesn't stop making rules. Now there's a Gagetian rules we can't already implement. And so they want to pass new ones every year just so we can't implement it. It doesn't do any good. And so don't bring that type of faulty approach to your home. Trust that God knows what He's doing here. Alright, start thinking about how you would talk to your child. Consider, I mean, listen, the sins that were probably prevalent in your children last week are probably going to be there this week. So outline them. Don't let tomorrow morning catch you off guard. If you have a child that's stealing, a child that's lying, a child that's angry, a child that covets, and I could just go sin after sin after sin, what are you going to do this week? How are you going to shepherd their souls? Next, of all the different types of communication we've discussed, which ones are you proficient at and which ones do you struggle with? There's some that Marie is just better at doing than I am. That doesn't mean I'm supposed to pawn it all off on her. But she can help me sometimes saying, you know what? That direct reproach of yours, you didn't listen. Listen to your spouse. Sometimes they know better than you do. But you're together, working together to go after the heart of that child. And then what issues are preventing you from communicating effectively? Whatever excuse you're using, get rid of it. Your child's soul needs you to be able to communicate with it. You need to be able to listen to them and let them tell you what's going on inwardly in them, even if their conversation and their vocabulary is restricted. Because it'll get better over time. And then finally, if you're at the place where what I just said sounds overwhelming, And you don't think you can do this? Then good. Because nothing will drive you to the grace of God, to His throne, than ministering and shepherding the souls of your children. If you try to take what I just said, separate from the grace of God, separate from being in His presence and dependent upon Him 100%, you're wasting your time. You need to bring something bigger than you to the equation. And that person that's bigger than you is God. So be on your face before Him praying, dealing with the souls of those children, pleading that He would intervene on your behalf for their children. And that He would even use your feeble approaches to take the heart of that child and direct it and guide it towards Christ. You know, we've talked about this analogy of looking at a farmer. If you went out there and you said, Pastor, I tried to start doing this last week and I ain't seen any fruit yet. Well, if I went out and planted the seed yesterday, should I expect to see a full-blown tree with all the fruit today? No. Now here's another thing. What are you fertilizing that tree with? What are you watering it with? You see, if all you have is the salt of your anger, it ain't gonna grow. You must bring the richness of Christ's word into their life that God would be prepared in that heart to receive the seed of the kingdom. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. It's true and we trust it. We're trusting upon you to save the souls of these children that belong to us. Lord, you've given these children to each one of these families. Lord, help us to take your word, to bring it, proclaim it, to live it faithfully in front of them. Lord, may our children see parents who are humble who come under the Lordship of Christ as we lead our children to come under the Lordship of Christ. Lord, may the word not puff us up but may it bring proper humility because we know that you give grace to the humble but you resist the proud. Lord, we have an enemy that desires to see our children's soul be destroyed. May we wage war against him with the sword of your spirit. May we bring the truth of your word to combat the deceptiveness and the deceitfulness of our enemy. Lord, may our children have no affections for the things of this world that would lead them to be destroyed. And may they have a heart that desires the richness, the beauty, the splendor, and the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ. May their heart desire and long after Him and Him alone. And it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.