So we pray for Jesus, we thank you for your word and for its powerful work in us. And we pray that you will continue to work through your word in our lives. May your spirit convict and encourage and strengthen us in the things you've given us to do. May we live before you with holiness, and dependence. And we pray that you would give us wisdom in this time together this morning. We pray in your name. Amen. OK, I'm going to pass the attendance sheet around, if you'll be sure. Are there any visitors here this morning? So we can spam you with email from all kinds of places. Great. Well, this is our last week together on foundations of parenting. And we'll get some into some nuts and bolts. But I want us to understand that this foundations piece is more about overall strategic approach rather than tactical approach. strategy means the overall picture and the tact though is a day-to-day thing will give you some helps along that line, however. Last week we were walking through and just making comments from Bob and Stephanie Green's book, Tying Their Shoes. Again, I commend that book to you. And I want to come down to make a couple of comments in Chapter 9, Dad's Involvement. Well, 9 to the end of the book here in just the next 10 minutes, and then I want to move to something else. The chapter on dad's involvement is just really, really helpful. And a lot of times, guys, we think we are, if mom is taking a nap or has to go do some shopping, we are left with babysitting the kids. And I'll remind you that you are never a babysitter. You are always a parent. So the time that you have with that child is not just Kind of substituting for mom, this is where you get to step in and have input and engagement and with an infant bonding, I guess if you want to call it that. Sometimes we guys think, well I'm the provider for the family, I'm also my wife's protector. How can I help her get more sleep? How can I keep her from taking on more than she should take on? It's very difficult to have five or six children milk your own goats, raise your own chickens, grind your own oats, and do all of that. There are a lot of things you can't do unless you've got a lot of help. And sometimes moms have to be protected from things they would even like to know. God does expect men. He expects us to be very engaged. And he commands us to be active in bringing our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. For us to be effective men with our children, we have to have an enormously good relationship with our wife. There is nothing that angers children more than a dad who's frustrated and angry with his wife. Children originally are spending more time with mom. They're going to feel more protective and loving toward mom. And sometimes we can think, oh, these kids just want to go to mom. And they don't want to come to me. Well, that's natural in infant stage and even early toddler stage that they want mom. And what kids start resenting is when mom isn't treated well by dad. and they don't understand the dynamics of what is going on, and they can get very, very resentful. There are several things we have to dive in and do, and that is like changing diapers. I was talking to a guy not a while back who said, man, I've gone through all of our children. I've never changed a diaper. And I said, shame on you. I'm serious. We didn't have, back when our children were coming through, I mean, these huggies and all of those weren't around. And what was around were very expensive. Now it's a dream. I mean, there are 40 pound huggies. You don't have to change that thing until it holds That is an amazing technological advancement. No, not really. We have the old rinse and flush method. And dads, whatever, and our daughter, one of our daughters, used cloth diapers the whole time, and it's rinse and flush, and dads, you need to get really good at that. We are part of this whole process. And as I said, you're not babysitting, you are parenting. That's all I want to say in Dad's involvement. Right there, there are a lot more things I could say. Chapter 10, all I want is me time. Parenting exposes our selfishness. Marriage does. Patty and I were growing in the Lord as single students at Bob Jones, and God was teaching us much. And then we got married, and I found a whole level of depravity in me that I didn't know existed. And then we leveled out and grew through that spiritually, and then we had children, and there's a whole nother level of depravity in me I didn't know existed before. And God is on a constant process of exposing not only our weaknesses, but our sinfulness, our self-centeredness. And we just got to expect that, men and women, and welcome it. And all of the struggles we have, whether it's a child who's teething, and won't sleep at night or up every few hours with a fever or whatever. Those are trials. And God tells us how to handle trials. A kid who just doesn't seem in this little phase, 18 months to two years or whatever, just will not obey. That is a challenge for the training and the discipling. But it is a trial for mom and dad, and you and I have to see those as trials. And the reason we need to see them as trials is because God has instruction for how Christians handle difficult times, and parenting often filled with difficult times. And sometimes, you know, guys, we can think of our wife just at home all day just cuddling this baby. And, you know, yeah, she's got to run the laundry once in a while. And she's got to change a few diapers. But I've had a hard day at work. And I need everybody to leave me alone while I have some me time. And when you step into that house, you are there, as I've said before, you are there as a shock absorber for the family. And my biggest advice to us men is we've got to keep our thumbs out of our mouths. We can't be sucking our thumbs thinking, oh, me, poor me, this isn't what I expected, and all of this. I don't know if I used the illustration of Kirsten teasing our oldest daughter. Did I use that? While Patty was nursing, there wasn't anything I could do in the middle of the night to help this situation out. But I took over all the nighttime stuff once she was finished, once the babies weaned. And so that meant I got the teething, which can run anywhere from, what, nine, 10 months to three years. So I'm off in the evening. And I remember one night, she was just beginning teething, but a lot of pain. And I'm rocking her, trying to get her to go back to sleep. And I put everything, I've given her all the numbs in it and the Benadryl that's legal to try to alleviate this pain. And I'm in tears. I'm rocking, I'm so tired, I'm in tears. And I said, Lord, I understand this is a trial, and it's a trial for her too, but this can't be about her. She's too young to understand what's going on, so this has got to be about me. So would you please show me what I need to learn, because I need to go back to sleep. And it's just really important for us to frame the hardships as trials, because there's always a pathway spiritually through trials. If we just look like, how do I get through all this parenting, this thing, and this parenting problem, and this problem, all of these are trials. Now there are some techniques and strategies we need to learn, but we've got to understand these as trials, or we will mishandle them spiritually. And that's just really, really, this is what foundations of parenting, the overall picture. Another thing I would say to us dads, and it just reminded me of some of this in chapter 10, All I Want Is Me time, once you are married, you can never act as if you are single. You know, if you're single and every Tuesday night you went out and played basketball with the boys, you may not be able to do that every Tuesday night. And if you tell your wife, well, Tuesday night, that's me time with the boys, you have missed it. You have a wife and you have children, and if there's anything left over, you might be able to play basketball with the boys. But the boys, you're not going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account of how well you played basketball with the boys. But you will give an account of how well you parented your children and how well you ministered to your wife. That you will give an account for. And again, that's that long view. You've always got to evaluate what's going on by where is this ending up. And it's going to end up in the judgment seat of Christ. much grace from God if we will humble ourselves. He gives grace to the humble, but he resists the stubborn. I'll just make a passing comment, too, here about sexual intimacy as a new parent. Oftentimes after a child is born, sex is not enjoyable to her for weeks. And the doctor may even say, in six weeks, OK, it's OK for you to have intercourse now. But there still may be a lot of difficulties with her doing it. And guys, you've got to give that time. And I've often, in those early days in my own life, where I wanted more intimacy than what was possible. And you can get frustrated. Those are out. This is a time when you turn to God. And I remember saying on more than one occasion, God, this lack of intimacy that we're having right now, where I feel kind of alone, and this must reflect right now what you feel when I don't want to come to you. What we're experiencing in relational distance God may be allowing us to experience, to understand how our relational distance feels to Him when we pull away. There's always a Godward component in everything that is going on in our lives. We can still have a contented relationship with the Lord. And that's time for a lot of talking and for a lot of patience and a lot of kindness and a lot of love. Now, the part in the box, that's all I'm going to say about those notes. But I commend that book to you, Tying Their Shoes. And I want to move on to some discipleship matters. I want to, I just want to give you a caution. Be very, be aware of the gentle parenting movement. How many have heard of gentle parenting? That's misspelled. Gentile. That's gentile. Be aware of that too. AI wrote this whole script. That is a reaction to hard-nosed, angry, disciplined kind of parenting that all of us who know and love the Bible would reject. But the answer is not gentle parenting. There is a whole movement within the secular movement against gentle parenting because of what we're getting as a result of that. It doesn't work in the end. Dr. Becky Kennedy is, it's been around since Dr. Spock and even before that. Eli in the Bible was gentle parenting. David was gentle parenting. In other words, uninvolved in really bringing children along the right path. Dr. Becky Kennedy, her book, Good Inside, which should give you the first clue, this is a problem, because she rejects the sin nature and really is against anything, calling anything sinful. The goal is social-emotional resilience. Children are basically good, just misdirected and emotionally confused. because he can't have a toy or in the grocery store can't have the cereal that he wants, then you just have an emotional moment with him and say, honey, you're really angry right now because you're not getting what you want. And mommy understands that because sometimes I don't get what I want either. And so we're just gonna go over to the next aisle and we're gonna do some things over there. Or a kid comes to the table, says, chicken again? Disgusting. And mom loses it and is angry with him. And then she realizes, oh, that was a very gentle parenting. And so she goes back to the bedroom and says, honey, you know, that was really wrong of me. And this is correct. That was really wrong of me to treat you in this way. And I know it must you that you want every time. And I understand that because I don't always get what I want either. And so I just want you to feel that I love you and I care about you and this kind of thing. Never addressing the disrespect and the lack of gratitude. That's a huge problem. And there's this focus on the emotions and not on the character. If you have the right character and you have godly wisdom, you will have emotional resilience. You don't aim at emotional resilience, you aim at character and wisdom. And you will have emotional resilience as a result of that. It is a reaction to harsh, angry discipline and calling bad behavior sinful. Much emphasis in schools on SEL, social emotional learning. So a kid comes in and the teacher says, why didn't you have your homework done? Well, mommy was mad at me and she wouldn't help me with my homework. Oh, I am so sorry. Well, we wouldn't be sorry. We feel badly if there's not a good connection with mom. And sometimes people get upset at me too. Why don't we go over in the corner over here and play with building some robots, you know, out of Legos or something. So much of it is distraction, to just get the emotional temperature down. And if somebody is pushing you that direction, contact us for resources. We can give you some things, too. I watched a TED Talk by Becky Kennedy and an interview with another lady who is really dead set against it, who's not a believer, but is really sharp in her. The scientific studies, the social studies, show that gentle parenting is not working. We have children who don't have courage to do things that are hard. They don't have connection with other people. They don't know how to resolve problems when somebody doesn't like them. All of their problem-solving skills are blunted because they've never been faced with what's going on in themselves and developing wisdom about how to handle those problems. For gentle parenting, you need to run the other direction. The theology is wrong. Some of the techniques about being kind and all of that, that's wonderful, but if you're walking in the spirit, you have love and joy and peace and gentleness and goodness and meekness and temperance. That makes for a wonderful parent. A spirit-filled parent makes for a wonderful parent. Not that all of those fruit won't be challenged with trials. I just want you to focus in the right direction here. What our goal, the discipleship goals for ourselves and for our children are really twofold, character development and wisdom. God doesn't give us a bunch of techniques. He gives us a pattern of what the end result should look like in our kids and us, and principles for how to get there. And you and I need to focus on those in our parenting. For example, in Proverbs, so much about wisdom, how to handle conflict, how to deal with bullies, how to pick friends and avoid bad influences, how to be responsible financially, how to have a right work ethic, and in the New Testament, so many more, how to view trials, how to view yourself, how to think rightly about God, what role does the church have in God's plan for me, What does false teaching look like? How do you seek reconciliation with somebody I'm wrong? How do you work with somebody who's wronged you? The Bible is filled with wisdom. It is a book of wisdom. It's teaching man, redeemed man, how to live in a fallen world in the face of God. And if we're not mastering that, we're raising our kids blindly. And a lot of parenting is just a reaction to how I was parented. And the problem with that is that if you're a driver, 14, 15, I got driver's permit when I was 14, and in South Dakota back, roads had just been invented. And maybe you end up in a, maybe you're in a car and your dad is driving and got distracted and ended up in it. So what you do is you're trying to drive by watching that ditch. I'm not going to go in that ditch. I'm not going to watch that ditch. I'm not going to fall in that ditch. Well, you'll end up in the other one. You drive by looking down the center of where you're supposed to be going, and you'll avoid both ditches. And in parenting and sanctification, it's the same way. You can say, I'm not going to parent like my parents did, or I'm going to do exactly what my parents did with all of the flaws. if they were just managing behavior. And you need to head down the center line, I'm trying to develop Christian character, Christ-like character and wisdom in my children. And we'll give you some ideas about that. Because, this is the long view again, is the judgment seat of Christ. We are getting our children ready for the biggest day of their lives. The biggest day of our lives before the Lord will be how we got them ready for the biggest day of their lives, that judgment seat of Christ. Paul says, for what is our hope and our joy and our crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming? We want to be able in that day to have a joyful response because Jesus is pleased with our children. A good test of your parenting is do other people want your children to come over to their house? If they don't, you probably need to do some changes. And I would encourage you again, if you weren't I'm here to review the foundation of the parenting sessions, the two week sessions in the summertime before this class started. You can find it on YouTube and our church's website and sermon audio. I want to touch base back at Deuteronomy 6, 5 to 7 and make some applications. I want you to just think real carefully with me about these words that God gives to The parents, he says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And men and women, that won't happen on Instagram and TikTok. You spend a lot of time on that. And I'm not saying there isn't some fun things you might do, but if you're trying to emulate those people, and you look at it, man, I wish I had that kitchen. I've never baked anything like that, and my nursery doesn't look like that. All you're doing is getting discontent. We taught our children, we don't go browsing in the mall. I can get discontent browsing in the mall, just window shopping. The mall is a place to get things. It's like hunting. You go in, get what you want, and you get back out. You shoot your deer and drag them out. And I would tell them, if you want to go with your friends, sometimes that's fine. But going to the mall or going on TikTok or Instagram is not a way for you to solve your problem of boredom or anger or whatever. It is not a problem-solving place. Shopping is not problem-solving. Shopping can't, we would tell the girls, we don't do recreational shopping. It will make us discontent. And they learned that well. They are thrifty gals. Most of the things they get are at thrift stores and they're toys for Christmas vacations, I mean for Christmas and things come, when the kids are really young, come from thrift stores and it's wonderful. You don't have to have. the very best and the newest of everything. You want to teach your children to be content with such things as they have. And that is a discipleship opportunity. Then he says, and these words which I command thee today shall be on your heart. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house. And this goes for dads too. When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise, and be careful about how many activities you get your kids in. You cannot parent from the driver's seat of a minivan. If the bulk of the time that you have with your kids is when you're driving them somewhere, you're not parenting. There's so, and I'm not saying don't get your kids involved in sports or whatever, but you gotta limit that. as well, because you have to parent. Just a couple of things about wisdom. Early on, I'll just give you some examples here. We played the opposites game. Even when they are two and three, we'd say, all right, let's play opposites. We usually did this kind of, a lot of fun things like this right after we finished eating in the evening. And I'd say, all right, I'm going to say a word, and then you tell me the opposite. Up. K plus. Down. Black. White. Round. Square. Sleeping. Awake. Waking. I mean, you can do all kinds of things. And they have fun with that. And then they say, OK, Daddy, let me try it. And they'll tell you something that has no opposite. Clocks. And it's really kind of fun. But what you're teaching them are there are opposites in life. Good, bad, stealing, giving. And you teach them opposites. We also had another game. I took several nights on this. I brought a sheet of paper, and they were in elementary school. And I brought a sheet of paper with lines on it. This is back before personal computers. So you actually had to draw lines with a ruler. And I wrote pigs at the top of one of them and sheep at the other one. I said, now, here's a really tough question. Do you know the difference between a pig and a sheep? And they go, yeah. I said, yeah, now tell me. Do you really know the difference? Different tails. OK, write down, what's a pig tail? Curly. What's a sheep tail? Fluffy. What else is different? Skin. OK, one has wool. bristles. And we just went down that list. There were about five or six characteristics. I can't remember all of them. And I said, OK, you got that? I don't want you to be confused in life between a sheep and a pig. You got it? Yeah, Dad. What's all this about? And I said, we'll find out tomorrow night at supper. So the next night at supper, I had one that said fool and wise man. And I said, now, a fool is somebody who isn't thinking about God, doesn't want God, a wise man who does everything from God's standpoint. And I had picked out about six verses in Proverbs that I wrote down the reference for a characteristic of a fool and six references for characteristics of a wise person. And I said, tonight, we're going to look up all these characteristics of a fool and you can write out some of them on your sheet. So we looked up the first verse, and I would have one of the kids read it, if they can read, have one of them read it, and then I'd say, all right, what does that say about fool? Disobeys parents. Angry. And I picked out verses that they could easily recognize that problem. And I said, tomorrow night, we're going to learn how to recognize a wise person. You got pigs and sheep down, I want you to get fools and wise men down. So the next night, we did a wise man. And you just come up with ways to teach them wisdom. And in seventh grade, our oldest daughter, this is two, three years later or more, she came and she said, Dad, I hate to tell you this, but Rob at school, he's a fool. And I said, what do you mean, honey? She said, he's always angry, and he hates his parents, and he won't listen to the teachers. doesn't know the Lord or have parents who are trying to help him be wise. So we can pray for him, can't we? And the fact that four years later, she's evaluating people by characteristics of, now, no junior higher is, he may be on the pathway of being a fool, but he does not yet have the character of a fool. That's really describing some grown person. It doesn't want to listen to instruction, that kind of stuff. And dads, you may say, I'm not a very creative person. And I cannot tell you how many times I've had married day student men, when they come in, they say, I know I need, that God's convicted me, I need to know some of the things with my devotion, with my wife. We never read the Bible together. My dad never did that, and I don't know how to do that, and I'm not a creative person. And so let me ask you a question. When you were dating your wife, did you lower her dating standards? Yeah, we did some things we shouldn't have done. I said, well, don't tell me you're not creative. You are creative. When you want something, you know how to get it. You can figure out a way, and you can figure out a way to cover it all up. Every one of us is creative. We're made in the image of our creator. We are creative about anything we want. And if you want wisdom for your children, you will be devouring your Bible and books for parenting on the Bible in order to creatively come up with ways to disciple your own children. Because before we had children, none of us ain't done that before. And we need outside information. The first verse we ever taught our children when they were in elementary age, or earlier, was this one, training them to be attentive. And if you've worked, well, if you have children, or you've worked with children, you know that you can't teach anybody who won't pay attention. So the first thing I want out of my children is attention, so we can teach and we can train them. We taught them this verse from the American Standard because it was far more clear. My son, pay attention to my words. We did little finger signals. Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart. And we did that right after the evening meal. Week after week after week, just, all right, what is our verse? Training and discipline is all about repetition. And you have to say the same things over and over and over. Remember when I was Dean of Students, and we would make announcements to the students about something, and every once in a while a kid would say, yeah, you treat us like children. I said, you're right. Exactly the way God treats his children, God repeats to his children because they forgot the way of the Lord. They remembered not his ways. Their problem was they needed reminders. That's why this book is written down for us, so that we can remind ourselves constantly about what God says, because every one of us needs reminding. And Peter, at the end of 2 Peter 1, says, I would not be negligent to put you in remembrance of these things, even though you know them and are established in this present truth. And yea, I think it's fitting, as long as I'm in this tabernacle, as long as I'm living, to remind you of these things. And yea, I think after my decease, I'll have them to remind you. And he wrote them down. Peter said, I am not going to let you forget this stuff. We have to remind our children. read to your children. Books and children's Bible story books do a lot of reading to your children. By the way, there's a whole series of books out by CCEF, New Growth Press, and Puritan Reform on different problems children have. Anger. Little picture books that are wonderful. teaching how to deal with anger, how to deal with scary things, fear, how to deal with anxiety and worry. Wonderful Bible story books for your children. There are a lot of resources today. We would read a lot to our children. I'd come home, and I would be so tired, and Kirsten, our oldest, she'd be five, and she'd say, read, read, read, and she'd bring a book. I'd sit down in the recliner and start reading and fall asleep. And she would reach up and she'd grab my chin and she'd say, read, daddy, read. And I'm doing the best I can. But read. That engagement with them, you're training them to sit and listen to your words. Even though they're not your words, you're teaching them how to get input from you. Reading to your children is really, really important. Memorizing scripture together, Bible Memory Association had, Patty and I did a lot of memorization for BMA, but they had one for children with a verse for every letter of the alphabet, just a truncated verse, and they learned all of those, and it was a part of our part of our discipleship with them. Developing wisdom, using short, repetitive phrases that you say over and over, you repeat. I think I told you about drawers, doors, and floors. So when you're teaching your youngster to clean up, you know the passion pirate song, pigs don't live in houses? Yeah, well, one of our daughters, who as an artist shall go unnamed, was most notably messy. She would stash every piece of cardboard and stutter foam and foam rubber into some crook and cranny under her bed or her closet. And you dare not touch it, because that is sacred. So I would say, honey, you want some money? She said, yeah. I said, I'll give you $0.25 for every shopping bag you can haul out of this room. And she would haul out a lot. And it was a win-win. All I'm out is $1.50. And the room is clean. And I have come out the hero because I gave her money. But we would train the girls to clean up drawers, doors, and floors. And I think maybe Patty mentioned this. You said it. Yeah, so when you walk into the room, here's how we want you to clean it. And the cleanliness that a 3-year-old can do is not the same as a 13-year-old. And we just talked about drawers, doors, and floors. So make sure all of your clothes are off the floor. and the drawers are closed shut and the doors to your closet are shut. And we would play a game with them about where does this go to teach them how to clean and pick up some article of clothing and say, now where does this go? And I'd say, oh, I think this would hang on the doorknob. No, Daddy, it goes over here. OK, you take it, you put it away. And you have to play games with them first to train them what to do. And you're encouraging them. And eventually, they can do that on their own. Another phrase we repeated zillions of times is, you must obey. And you must be kind. Complaining is not kind. And that comes up particularly at mealtimes, where a kid doesn't like something. We used what we call a no-thank-you helpings. So if you say, I don't like that. Well then, I don't like green beans. Well then, you get three of them. You must eat them before you get anything else on this table. And you don't let them complain about the food. God is really against complaining. If you don't believe that, read Numbers 11 to 16, where the children of Israel complained about the food. and about that they don't have enough liberty. Moses is taking all this authority on himself. And we'd rather be back in Egypt because they have all this good stuff. And God takes complaining personally because he provides everything we have. And you teach your children that. This is on the table because this is what God has given us. And your mom has worked hard, and guys, I say this kindly, but if you're a picky eater, grow up. There's something far more important than your taste buds, and that's the respect you show your wife for the food on the table. You are modeling that before your children. I mentioned earlier, I think Ken Collier's statement, just two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self. That's a huge one that applies in so many areas because in fact, that's what we are doing. We're either pleasing God or we're pleasing ourselves in every circumstance. And another one was what you do at home, you'll do in public. So when they would lean back on a chair, I would say, you know, honey, that's hard on the chairs. Daddy's already fixed two of these over the years, and I'm not going to do that. So all four legs on the floor. And they would kind of lean back and say, no, legs on the floor. And what you do at home, you're going to do in public. And sure enough, Patty and I were at a birthday reception for an elderly lady. And we took Kirsten along. We wanted our children to have some social kinds of events. And this woman is very proper and very nice, but all the furniture was, it was old antiques. I mean, it was, they were really nice. And Kirsten was sitting on this little stool kind of chair, it had a back, and she started leaning back on it. And out of the corner of her eye, she picked up the panic on this woman's face. And she immediately put it down. And we had a talk about that afterwards. What you do at home, you'll do in public. You treat people with respect at home, you'll treat people with respect in public. And you take care of property at home, you'll take care of property in the public. Now, I just have about three minutes. I really, really, want to encourage you to get a handle on what mature Christian character looks like, because this is what we are going to be, our children are going to be responsible for, and we are as well. This is 2 Peter 1, Peter's list of what I call essential virtues. I was so concerned that even at the university with all of these Christian teachers and Christian parents, if you ask any of them, what is the goal of parenting? They'd say, Christ's likeness. And you'd say, well, what does that look like? And you could get 100 different answers. And there are a lot of virtue lists in the Bible, but this one in 2 Peter is the most complete portrait of mature Christianity anywhere in the Bible. And so you're making character connections with your children, and I'll give you a resource to help you with that. But Peter says, and besides this, besides everything that I've done for you, I want you to give all diligence. I want you to put effort into this, to add, cultivate into your saving faith virtue. That virtue is a commitment to be like Jesus. And then knowledge of Jesus and his ways. And self-control, spirit-filled self-control. and endurance, self-control under the long haul, under pressure, and godliness, which is having an impact on other people, and doing that with brotherly kindness and love. All of these are virtues that we need to be cultivating in our children, because this is what they and us will stand before the Lord about. And Peter says, well, here's his appeal. He says, these will cure your spiritual apathy. Say, my kid is so apathetic, my teen is so apathetic. Nobody is apathetic. He's just passionate about something else other than God. Everybody's passionate about something, and it's always themselves or something about God. It's a path to intimacy with Christ. He says, if these things be in you and abound, you will neither be barren nor unfruitful. That's the apathy. That word means stall. You won't be like a car stalled on the side of the road that has to be pushed, pulled, or carried. And you will neither be unfruitful in the intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ. You work with the Spirit of God and the Word of God with these character qualities in your life, and you will get to know your trainer really well. And then he says, it is a key to discernment. Without these things, you will be blind and cannot see afar off. You will not have discernment. I do not want nearsighted kids spiritually. I want them to see beyond what's right in front of them to the end of that journey. That's so much of what Proverbs is. This guy goes out and sees this woman who entices him and it says, and he knows not that he goes as an ox to the slaughter. He's not looking at the end of this. He's just looking at what pleases him right now. I want my kids looking to the end of their behavior. Now that doesn't mean if your kid is, I saw one thing in Mad Magazine when I was in high school, this little kid is on the floor and he's got one of these little workbenches with pegs in, he's got a mallet pounding him in, and his mom says, oh, he's gonna be a judge. And the next frame is he's pounding rocks out of prison. You can't extrapolate from everything, so if your kid is, you know, she's three and she's lying to you, that doesn't mean she's, but it does mean you have work to do. The foundation of assurance, and you will not have, without these, you will have forgotten that you were purged from your former sins. And he says, you need to work on these things to make your calling and election sure. You need to demonstrate that you really have Christ by the fact that you're trying to be like him. And it's a requirement for stability. He says, you do these things, you will never fall. That doesn't mean you won't ever sin, but you won't be lapsing back into the old ways. And it's a basis for a rich entrance into heaven, and this is key. He says, if you have these things, you will be given an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom. This is what Jesus honors. It's the likeness of his son. And dads, so much of this is on us. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline, that word paideia. How many of you know pedagogy? You know, if you're piano pedagogy, you're teaching people piano. Pedagogy has to do with training that gets the job done. And is there repetition? I know you play piano. Is there any repetition in getting ready to play So if I'm gonna get my children ready to stand before Jesus, I can expect a lot of practice at the keyboard of life. Standing, we had three daughters, they all played the piano from third grade through high school. That was just kind of a household rule. So they could minister in a small church, and they didn't have a pianist, and two of the three, well all three of them, two of the three have. And Patty's a musician, so it kind of came a little more naturally, but she could listen from the other room and say, count, or that's a B flat, you know, and can coach. Or sometimes you sit down beside them and watch the fingering because they might be able to play the piece with that fingering, but that same kind of fingering is going to really interfere with other pieces that are coming down the road. So there's got to be this repetition and watching what's going on training that gets the job done, and instruction of the Lord. So discipline, that's teaching, that's that paideia, that pedagogy, teaching them virtue and wisdom, and those are the foundations, and lots of repetition, and then instruction, connecting virtue and wisdom to life situations. Those are making those applications. Now, we don't have time. to go through all of those. So I want to commend this book to you for the love of discipline. Do you see how many stars are on that book? Read that together and often. I mean, read it together at least once a year for the first 10 years of your marriage with children. We'll start reading it before you have children. We have a little head start on that. And by the way, that's on this sheet. This is an amended sheet from the last, if you were over there and got a sheet in the auditorium, this is an updated one. And I want you to notice, I'll leave you with this verse, and dads, I want you to pay attention to this too, because we're kind of the ones that let mom do all this. But here's what Ecclesiastes says. Solomon says, if the ax is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, He must use more force. But wisdom helps one to succeed. If you find in your parenting you're using more and more force, you probably need to back up and get some wisdom. Sharpen your sword. Sharpen your axe. Not to use that on your kids. That's a metaphor, all right? And this book will help you do that. This is how to take your parenting and transform it into character formation with your kids. This is an amazing book. Patty just found it within the last, well, since we started this course. And it is amazing. This is what we would have loved to have had. So much of this is what we did. It just wasn't in printed form yet. But I really commend this book to you. This is a must read, five star. Read it together and read it often. And reading together is critical. And you say, well, we don't have time to do that. But when your kids get in a lot of trouble at school, you will be taking time. When your kids go off into deep trouble, it will be taking your time. Take that time on the front end. It will take time to minister to your kids, alright? God bless you, God will help you. He wants to do this in all of us. If you want to know how to parent your kids, pay attention to how God's parenting you. If you fall asleep in class, as God tries to parent you, you won't have a clue about what to do with your kids. So pay attention to what God is doing in you as he parents you. Lord, thank you for your direction and the wisdom and your spirit and your help to us We are so needy and we are desperate and we need you. I thank you for these men and women. Would you raise up a whole foundation of godly homes of men and women who love you preeminently and they love each other. And Lord, I pray that you would help them to teach their children to love you and to love their neighbors as well. And we'll thank you for all that you do, Jesus. We pray these things in your name because we love you. Amen.