Let's pray. Father in heaven, the only thing harder than our personal sanctification and being the man or woman you called us to be is to be a Christian husband and father, Christian mother and wife, or a Christian child growing up in a Christian home. These are difficult things. They're not simply precepts that We have to apply once in a while in the world, but we have to apply every day. Who is sufficient for such things? We thank you that you've given us resources in Christ to be the kind of people you saved us to be. Would you give us grace this morning that we might be better husbands and fathers, better wives and mothers, better children for Christ's sake. It's in His name we pray. Amen. All right. Last week we looked at the wives and we said that it's important to realize that whatever we do, we need to do it for the right attitude. How you choose to educate your children, how you choose to do a lot of things, is dependent for being meritorious with God on the attitude that's underlying it. I can have my kids, for example, just to let you know, we homeschooled our kids, we Christian schooled our kids, we public schooled our kids, we reform schooled our kids. Our kids were in all kinds of situations. And what you do with your children, you'll have to give an account to God. And it's important to realize it's why you do it. If my attitude underlying it could be rebellion toward authority, then that will diminish the impact of why you're doing what you're doing. So, there's a lot of freedom as Christians. We don't dictate how you do those things. The Scriptures don't dictate how you do a number of those things. But the underlying attitude is critical. Why am I doing what I'm doing? Is it because I have a chip on my shoulder? Is it because I have a problem with authority figures? Or is it because I've determined before the Lord this is the best route to go? Okay, parenting with a biblical mind. Let me say at the outset that neither Brandon nor Robin nor Barry will stand before God and give an account for your children. They will in a sense indirectly as part of their responsibilities as elders, but you as parents will stand before God and give an account of your children. Husbands will give an account of their wives. What did you do with this woman I entrusted to you? Women will give an account for what did you do with this man that I asked you to be his complement? What did you do with the children I entrusted to you? Pastors have to be faithful. Elders have to be faithful. But it is the primary responsibility of the parents, not the youth pastor, not the elders, to see to it that your children are raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord. I said that because one time we had some people that we were close to who were upset because they didn't like that philosophy. They didn't want to feel the burden themselves. Now we have much help. There's things that are offered to help you with your children in this church. But at the end of the day, it's your responsibility. Do you see my point? Okay, nobody raised their hand, so I'll move along quickly. First of all, parenting with a biblical mind. There is stewardship of our children, not ownership of our children. And what would be the difference? Well, Christian parents are to see themselves as stewards, not owners. A steward is someone who is entrusted with valuables, this should be a plural, and is accountable to the true owner when the day of reckoning comes. Okay, I've entrusted to you this person or these people. What did you do with this? This is a stewardship. You don't own them. They're entrusted to you. God has entrusted our children to us for a season, but they are his creation. You go, well, my wife and I made them. Well, indirectly, but God gave them to you. Psalm 127 says as much. It says the children are a gift of the Lord. And what did he give these children to us? Well, they're entrusted to us as adults. Usually parents to be raised to maturity. That's the ideal. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes parents are killed. Sometimes one parent dies for some reason. Sometimes relatives have to raise children in some circumstances. Sadly, sometimes the state has to raise people. But ideally, it's given to the parents to raise their children. I don't think anybody would have a problem with that. Did you have a problem with that? Okay, no. Was that an amen? Okay. Training with eternity in view and not just time. We train our children to be effective adults in God's world. Training body, soul, and mind for a life of service to God and man. Look at Luke chapter 2 verse 52. This is a verse worthy of meditation. Pastor, isn't that a wonderful sound? The sound of all the pages rustling. That makes a pastor's heart warmed. I once had a couple of men tell me in the course of my time serving as a pastor that one man almost started weeping when he asked, he told the congregation to turn to a page and all the people are turning and he goes, in my congregation I'm seeking to reform back in Virginia People just sit there, they don't look at their Bibles, they just expect me to wow them every Sunday. It's not really what Scripture says, but did you preach a good sermon? And to hear all those pages rustling when I told them to turn to the Bible made him start to cry. He was so grateful to see a Scripture-oriented people. Luke 2.52, let's back up. Verse 50, And they, his parents, did not understand the saying that he spoke to them, referring to Christ. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. Students, did you note that his parents were imperfect human parents and the Son of God submitted to them while he was a minor? And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom, mental development, and in stature. He grew up physically and in favor with God, the spiritual, in favor with man, the social. Jesus wasn't a social outcast. Jesus wasn't marred because his parents didn't see that he was intellectually trained, he wasn't marred because he didn't have enough food, and he wasn't marred because there wasn't spiritual development. And these are the four areas of growth of any rightly raised child. Wisdom, the mental development, stature, physical development, favor with God, spiritual development, and favor with man, social development. It is biblical thinking to value eternity over time. What does 1 Timothy 4, 7, 8 say? Well, Paul's telling Timothy that physical exercise has some benefits for the here and now. Basically, to be physically fit is better than being unphysically fit. But he says spiritual fitness counts more because it not only pays dividends in this life, but for eternity. A mature person makes decisions and choices based upon the long haul and eternal consequences. The immature person or child makes decisions and choices based upon short-term or immediate fulfillment with little or no thought of the long-term consequences. Johnny, would you like a quarter today or would you like to have me set up your own Not a 401k, those are worthless. Roth IRA with $25,000 in it? I'll take the quarter today. Every time. One of the definitions of immaturity is you don't think about long-term. You don't think about the big picture. You just can see what's in front of your face. But sometimes we as parents can be very myopic too. Christian parents know their children have a physical body and will not neglect training their children with habits of physical well-being. Unhealthy people are limited in their service to God. Christian parents know their children have a mind and want to see it trained and renewed according to the truth. Ignorance is not bliss. There was a song I used to deplore. I don't know when it was popular, but a couple of people have done it. Don't know much about geography. Don't know much about history. I just love you. So I'm being loved by an ignoramus. I mean, to have an idiot think you're cool, to have an idiot think you're great is not the world's greatest compliment. And I was like, I'm a fool, but you're wonderful. And it's not just in the physical realm. I mean, this is a very hard culture. If our kids Can't get out of high school with at least a GED and be prepared for life. Life's going to be very hard. I know kids who've dropped out of school. You can't make me go to school. And sad things were awaiting them. And they were too stubborn in their sin to see that. Children with warped or incorrect thinking will have a trouble filled adulthood. We want our children's minds to be renewed in truth. Paul says in Romans 12, 1 and 2, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, I'm pleading with you based upon 11 chapters of the mercies of God that I've been teaching you, the first 11 chapters of Romans. I beseech you, therefore, God, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed, don't be squeezed into the world's mold, but be transformed, how? By the renewing of your mind. good illustration is when you become a Christian it's like you've been handed an old, you have an old used computer and we want to try to wipe the hard drive clean and put a whole new data, a whole new approach to life on that hard drive and not just live with the old data that's stored there but we want to erase as much as we can and put on as much new stuff as we can. Christian parents first priority is to see to it that their children are raised in the fear and instruction of the Lord. Priority doesn't mean you don't do the other things, but it means you always be sure that you do this thing. It's the most important thing. A child who is prepared to live on this planet only is not prepared to live for eternity. In other words, I want my kid to be an all-star in sports. I want my kids to be the valedictorian of the school. What did you do with your kid's spiritual life? Oh, I just left it up to the Sunday school teachers or the youth pastor or something like that. Well, by how you handled your child, you're communicating, I want you to make it in the physical realm, in sports maybe, I want you to make it intellectually, but I don't really care all that much if you make it spiritually. That's a terrible thing to communicate to a child. Parents have not completed their jobs with only physical fitness and a great mental education. Children must be trained in the gospel. As Charles Spurgeon called it, the highest science known to man to engage the mind of God's elect is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You know, I couldn't teach my son math beyond trigonometry probably. I didn't do well in calculus in college. There's other subjects I couldn't teach my son or my daughter, but I could teach them about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So I need to see that my children are trained physically and mentally, but if they're not trained spiritually, then I've really neglected the basic. Parents who raise their children to be great students and great athletes only are fools. If I as a parent do not educate my child in how to flee from the wrath to come, no matter what else I have done for that child, I have failed that child. They are unprepared for life, and how in the world are they going to face death? What will it profit a child if he or she gains the whole world, but loses his or her immortal soul? To paraphrase a Bible verse, I was at a pastor's conference one year, sponsored by the Banner of Truth, and one man from England was speaking on basics of being a minister, and he said, what's the number one thing that you owe to your congregation, such that if you don't do that, you're a failure? He said, he showed a lot of things that it wasn't. He said, you know what, if your people don't know how to flee from the wrath to come, if they don't understand the way of salvation clearly, then no matter what else you've taught them, no matter how much of a great guy you are, you've failed them. On judgment day they're going to turn and point, I sat under that man's ministry for how long and he never told me these things? Think of the number of ministers who on Judgment Day are going to have some awful accounting because they never told their people how to flee from the wrath to come. And now these people are facing the wrath of God and they have no means for dealing with it. Well, in the same way us as parents, we need to make sure that, yes, our children are well equipped to function in this world, but they're even better equipped to face God on Judgment Day. I know we can't make our children into Christians. I know we don't have supernatural powers, but if I'm not teaching and praying and teaching and praying and praying and teaching, then I've forgotten the main idea. Parenting with biblical love. Biblical love is based on the character of God and the law of God. How do you know what love is? God who is holy, holy, holy has eternally been a loving God. The Father has always loved the Son. The Son has always loved His Father. The Spirit has always loved the Father and Son, etc. etc. etc. The Bible says God is love. One of the differences between Christianity and Islam, for example, Allah is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God of Islam, Allah, is not the same God of the Bible. The God of Islam is a monad. He's a static being who is never related to anybody and will never relate to anybody. He's not a relational being. And so that affects the way Islam is worked out. I sat next to a woman on a flight to Newark one time. She was very well dressed and as we engaged in some conversation, it came out that she was a Muslim. She was an adult convert to Islam. She and her husband had raised their kids. They all had doctorates. They all were wonderful human beings and do all these things. And she didn't know who I was or what I did, but as the flight went on, I pulled up my Bible, and I was reading my Bible on the flight, as I will do. And I watched her out of the corner of my eye, watching me read my Bible. So she knew that I was a person of the book, and she probably figured I was a Christian. So I was praying, Lord, how can I have wisdom to speak to her of something about Christ? Am I going to take out my gospel machine gun and go, Muhammad is a false prophet. We're going to have a massacre there in the city. We're going to have this big fight and argument. I go, well, she's probably prepared for something like that. So I decided to be really mean and hateful. I knew something about Islam that she had never faced, perhaps. And so I decided I would bring it out and just leave it there and let her deal with it. I said, ma'am, I've been a Christian now and I've been a Christian 40 some years and I was a Christian probably 35 years when I had this conversation, maybe 38 years. I said, Ma'am, I've been a Christian all this time. The Lord Jesus Christ intervened in my life and saved me and by His grace over the years I've come to know Him better and love Him more and I'm just so thankful. Tell me, how is it with you and Allah? Do you feel like you know Him better? Do you feel like you love Him more? And I knew I had her. Because in Islam, you don't love Allah. You don't sing, since Allah came into my life, you don't sing songs like that. You don't have all kinds of praise hymns and things like that. I can't wait to see Allah. You don't know him personally and you don't love him and you don't experience his love. And she looked at me and she looked down and she said, well, in Islam, we don't wouldn't say that. I hope I serve him better. That's the best she could hope for, was that she's a better servant. But you don't know him personally, and you don't love him, and you don't experience his love, because he doesn't relate to anybody. He's a non-relational being. The Trinity, by definition, has been relational from eternity past. Before any human beings decided to sin or not to sin, God the Father had loved the Son from eternity past, and vice versa, and the Spirit. So relationships and love are at the very core of who our God is. And all these other false gods, have ramifications because of their being false that work out in the lives of their devotees. Love is not primarily a feeling, but a disposition, a purpose of will. Remember, Jesus is teaching about the Good Samaritan. Who was the one who really had compassion on, or love, you know, who cared about the man in the ditch? He says, well, I guess the guy who stopped and helped him. Do you think the Samaritan goes, oh, I feel such love in my heart for this guy. I don't know, lying in the ditch. I think I will do something to help him. That's not what the parable says. The parable just says he had compassion on him. It's the right thing to do. I care about his well-being as a fellow human being. I don't know him. Looks like he's dressed like a Jew. I'm a Samaritan. But hey, he's a fellow human being. Love is dutiful. It does the right thing, if not always ooey-gooey. Love does the right thing even though it may not always have feelings at the time. I never have feelings of love when I'm blowing off the driveway, but after I get the driveway done, I feel good about it. A lot of feelings don't come until after the fact of doing. If you wait till a feeling arrives before you do something, certain places could freeze over before you have those feelings. God's love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. That's a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13, 6. There's a view of love which is unbiblical. I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll be whatever you want me to be. Well, not if it's sinful. Not if it goes beyond the bounds of Scripture. I'm not going to lie, cheat, and steal for you. I'm not going to commit an act of sin. I'm not going to break the law for you. That's not biblical love. It's not loving to do something which breaks or violates God's law and then claim it was done out of Christian love. The law of God is love's eyes. How do I know what love's propelling me to do? In Situation Ethics by Joseph Fletcher, the famous story was of a woman who was in a German prisoner of war camp or concentration camp, and the only way you could get out of this camp was if you died or somehow you were pregnant. She so much missed her husband and so much missed her small children back where she was. She seduced a prison guard and got pregnant so she could be released to go back to her family. And that was called a loving thing to do. The situation called for it and that was the loving thing to do. It's never loving to commit adultery. It's never loving to defile your marriage. It's not the loving thing to do. So the law of God is love's eyes. How do I know if what I'm feeling inside is really what God would have me to do? What does the Word of God say? But in the same way, love is the law's power source, empowering or compelling us to obey and conform to God's law. It makes, why do I want to do the law? Because there's something within me which wants to be loving, which wants to be giving. And the eyes of what my heart wants to do are the law of God. Now, the greatest single instructor of children is their parents. When I was in seminary, one of my professors had been a 30-year professor at Michigan State, and he left Michigan State to come to my seminary where he was head of the Christian Ed Department. And what happened then? Well, he had been teaching biblical principles in graduate school at Michigan State and he decided that he wanted to help Christians and he wanted to help in the local church and so he came and he taught us and he did an excellent job. He wrote the short book you can find on the internet but I can give you the gist of it. He did studies as to what most impacts the values that your children have when they grow up. What most impacts it. And one of the statements from the book is, what is most determinative for the values your children will adopt is not where you send them to school, but whether you, the parents, practice what the Bible teaches and your church preaches. In other words, if my wife and I don't practice what the Bible says and what we hear in church, then no matter where I send them to school, I'm going to mess them up. Because the primary instructors are the parents. By watching you 24-7, they're learning about Christianity. And where I send them to school will have some impact, but it's not the most determinative impact. Better to have a healthy, biblical home and send them to the less-than-perfect situation in schooling, and there's all kinds of options out there, than say, I've got this great school, but my husband and my wife, we really don't practice these things in our home. That'll mess your kid up every time. how biblical love is expressed. If we need to show our children we love them and, you know, I didn't grow up in a Christian home. My parents were church but they weren't Christians and so I had to learn all these things myself. I had to kind of go back and say, okay, I don't wanna play the game with my hands tied behind my back and blindfolded. I'd best work and study to make myself be a better Christian husband or father. The Bible says that love is expressed by personal self-sacrifice for the one loved. These verses here should be from 1 John. That somehow dropped out in my note-taking. So these verses here, John 3.16 is 1 John 3.16 and 1 John 4.9-11. You can take John 3.16, God so loved that he gave. And greater love has no man than this. Romans 8.32. Who knows Romans 8.32 off the top of their head? He who did not spare his own son. You can have everything in heaven. You can have all the seraphim, all the cherubim, you can have all the angels, you can have everything, but you can't have my son because he's the most valuable thing in heaven. It says, He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how shall I not also, along with him, freely give us all things? The preeminent example of sacrificial love, of giving, is God giving you his very best, his son. And so, do our kids sense that we sacrifice for them? Sorry, Junior, I can't. I've got a golf game today. Sorry, Missy, I can't do that because I'm going to go do this today. Well, they need to see us sacrificing for them. Not all the time, but they need to know that we sacrifice for them. By persistent verbal expressions of tender affection. Young male child, come here. Okay, that would be an accurate description of perhaps a young male child, but there's greater terms of endearment you can use. Sometimes that's a phrase. Look at Zechariah chapter 3. It's those pages at the end of the Old Testament in your Bible that are still stuck together. Zephaniah. Excuse me, Zephaniah, not Zechariah. 317. I put Zechariah, it should be Zephaniah, pardon me. Let's change that to a PH. God is encouraging the nation at the end of the book of Zephaniah. This would be a great verse to memorize to put up on your refrigerator. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. And then it says three things this God will do in the process of saving you. He will rejoice over you with gladness. Oh, I so love my child. This is my beloved son or my daughter. He will quiet you by his love. No matter what's going on in life, if you have a sense of the Lord's love, life is OK. You may be having a good day, but if you don't sense God's love, then it's not such a good day. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exult over you with loud singing. What's that all about? Well, think back to when you were a child or think back to when your children were small. It might be more recent. Did you ever carry your child around the house? Did you ever sing to that child? I mean, certainly you didn't say you lovable little baby male. You probably had terms of endearment. Did you ever sing to your children? I used to sing to my children and I would cherish them. And God says here that God sings over us. You kind of go, well, that's kind of sappy. I'm sorry for you that you think that way. I'm sorry that your love is so limited that, you know, do you only have one phrase? Love multiplies expressions. Love multiplies expressions of showing love. Female counterpart, come here. That's my dear wife. Whoa. Okay. And you will multiply expressions. You will have this bubbling over sense of wanting to sing in your heart because you so love this Beloved. And we can pray to God, ask God to help us with that. I saw in scripture years ago, I was sitting on a top mountainside in California, meditating on a passage in Psalms that I didn't get quite right, but it talks about the importance of expressing your love. And I was thinking, who do I know that don't know I love them? Most of the people in my life. You know, that was the last time I told my parents. I had a good relationship with my parents, but I hadn't told them in a while. I love them. My best friends in college, you know, tell another guy you love him, man, that's sweaty. You know, and they said, us, back at you. I mean, they didn't know what to say when I told them. But I decided I was going to screw up my courage and tell them that I love them. I was thankful that God brought them into my life. And my future brother-in-law and my roommate, and my brother-in-law, he just didn't know what to say at the time. But later we talked about it, and I said, you know, this is in Scripture, and I think love should be expressed rather than hidden. And so the story came out a few weeks later. He was home visiting his mother, and the washroom was in the basement, and his little apartment was in the basement. And he was coming up the stairs, and his mom was going down the stairs. And they kind of passed, and he said, Mom. She kind of turned around, and he goes, I just want you to know I love you. Then he kind of ran up the stairs, and she later told me she sat down the stairs and cried. to have your adult son say that you love him and you haven't heard that in a while makes you feel very special. Ephesians 4.15 talks about speaking the truth in love. Number three, by meeting the physical needs of our children. He who doesn't provide for his children is worse than a pagan, worse than an infidel. Great illustration from Howard Hendricks, one of my heroes. Dr. Hendricks was a teacher at Dallas Seminary and taught leadership and taught how to study the Bible and how to preach the Bible. And he talked about one time that he came home from seminary, and he was to race across town to speak at a church in Fort Worth. And he pulls in the driveway, and one of his boys, he had two boys and two girls, and one of the boys' bikes was kind of bent and twisted and lying there in the front yard. And he goes, uh-oh. So he comes home, and his boy's sitting on the front porch, kind of half crying. What's the matter? Well, I wrecked my bike. And I was like, man. So he takes off his tie, rolls up his sleeves, fixes the bike. washes his hands, gets back in the car, races across town, he said, I got to the banquet at the church, he said, I missed the rubber chicken and the green beans, but I got there in fine time to speak. He said, at that point, the master of ceremonies was upset with me, I could tell he was upset, and asked where I'd been, and I explained that I had to fix my son's bike because To my son, that was a big deal. It's like a broken car or a broken stove or something. You just don't leave it for weeks. And he said, my child, I just determined at that moment that I needed to help my child. He said, at that point, the Master of Ceremonies gave me a piece of his mind he couldn't afford to spare. Got to think about that one. Anyway, so he spoke. It went fine. He's out fishing with his son six weeks later. Billy, do you love your mom? Yeah, I love my mom. Why do you love your mom? Well, do you love me? Do I love you? Yeah, do you love me? Why do you love me? I don't know. Well, you ought to have a reason for everything you do. Five minutes later, Dad, I know why I love you because you fixed my bike. Now, how many rubber chickens is that worth? What may not be important to me, a bent up bicycle may be hugely important to this child. Do I meet their physical needs? By living with your children in a faithful, dependable way. What does that mean? Proverbs 20. Is dad, is mom dependable? Are they always changing? Do you never know what you're going to get from day to day? Are these faithful, dependable people? Proverbs 20, verses 6 and 7. A man proclaims his own steadfast love. Some people talk to me in game. But a faithful man who can find. You know, Dad's not the flashiest bulb on the planet, but Dad is a faithful bulb. Dad's not the brightest bulb on the planet, but he's a faithful bulb. You don't want a flickering bulb. You don't want a strobe light for a parent. You want someone who's faithfully consistent that you can count on. Because nothing makes for a worse home than gross inconsistency. And who knows what tomorrow's going to be like, because in our family there's not a faithfulness. I'm not talking about circumstances impacting, I'm just talking about people who are all over the map. Verse 7, the righteous who walks in his integrity, blessed are his children after him. Integrity means what you see on the outside is what's on the inside, and vice versa. This person has integrity. They're a whole person. And blessed are the children who have parents of integrity. You can count on them. Love is expressed by persistent teaching, by constant acts of love and kindness. Proverbs 13, the whole chapter, most of it is about different ways to express your love. Proverbs 3.27, which I'll read. Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. You ought to be many acts of love and kindness. By persistent teaching and instruction in life and godliness. In Deuteronomy 6, it said, Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one. And then it goes into, you shall teach these things to your children when you get up in the morning, and during the day, and when you're walking down the street, when you're going to bed at night, you should put it on the sides of your door, and over your door, and used as a way of life. And the phrase there which is used is the idea of, you know what a whetstone is for a knife? How many times do you do it? Once, twice, it looks sharp to me. No, you have to keep working the whetstone and the blade, and it's basically, constantly going over your children with them. Life and godliness. To show my kids my love for the Lord is huge. Now, my kids never thought I was perfect. Amen? But I think they thought I was faithful. And the same of my wife. I mean, if you've known me for more than five minutes, you know I'm not perfect. But I hope... What are you laughing at? That was an amen. That was a... Your kids don't expect you to be perfect, but they expect you to be faithful. And when they see you mess up, and you confess it, and you express your grief that you sinned against the Lord, or maybe against them, and you go on, that's huge. They don't expect you to be perfect, but they want you to be faithful. They need you to be faithful. By patient and persistent encouragement and exhortation. I said Ephesians 4.15 was Paul saying we should be speaking the truth in love, and that's how we build each other up. But Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, he says, you are witnesses and God also is. How holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. For you know, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. We were like the good fathers trying to, we would encourage you, Encourage means, come on, you can do this. Exhort you, come on, let's go, get off your cab, let's go, let's move in. And we charge you, sometimes you just have to have a sober talk and say, you can do better than this. You're laying down the job, you can do better than this. But the engagement of a father with a son or a child is what Paul says, what I try to be as an apostle to the people under his care. By consistent and persevering discipline of disobedient, rebellious behavior, Hebrews 12, 5 through 11 is a long passage on discipline. He said, every true child of God is disciplined. If you're a child of God, God will chasten you and he will train you. And if you've never experienced chastening and never experienced discipline, then gulp, you have a worse situation. You're not even a child of God. You know, God doesn't discipline those who aren't his children. I didn't go up and down the street trying to straighten out every kid on my block. I just work on my own kids. It's the same way with you. There may have been some knucklehead kids down the road, but you didn't mess with them. They weren't your kids. You could go to jail for disciplining someone else's kid. Some parts of the country, you can almost go to jail for disciplining your own kid in public. But the point is, is that we do need to faithfully discipline our children. We're going to come back to that. by appropriate physical expressions of love and tenderness, holding, kissing, hugging, giving them a noogie, whatever's appropriate. Do you know what a noogie is? How many of you don't know what a noogie is? Brandon will explain afterward. You know, you grab them by the end, kind of rub the top of their head with your knuckles. It's kind of a guy thing. Anyway, that was a bit of humor. I didn't put verses here. There's tons of verses in the Bible about expressing your love physically. In the New Testament, you had to greet one another with a holy kiss. Whoa. Well, how about a firm handshake? And Christians are known usually for being huggers. And maybe that's not your thing, but maybe you can work on more physical expressions of love. Hi, dear. How's your day? That just warms your wife's heart, doesn't it? You can work on it. Biblical love is not the blind, naive sentimentalism of the enabler. The enabler is, no matter what Johnny does, he's a good boy. He's been arrested 12 times. He's got his own gang, but he just hangs out with the wrong people. No, I think mom and dad are seriously naive, and seriously, if you read Johnny through the rose-colored tinted of... rose-tinted glasses, he's a good boy. He just hangs with the wrong people. No, he's a sinner, and he needs to repent, and you guys haven't been helping him. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Bad things, love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Love doesn't get excited. Love hates it, is the better term, when people are doing sinful, disobedient things. Now, parenting with biblical limits and biblical discipline. The word authority. Do you know what the word authority means? It means the right to use force to compel obedience. You know, here's a guy wearing a blue outfit, blue pants, blue shirt, blue tie. Maybe he has a blue hat on. He's standing on the road, he puts his hand up. You go, that's not nothing, mow him over. Well, that badge... and the gun and the walkie-talkie and all these other things. He was an agent of the state. The state has the right to use force to compel obedience. So by mowing down the policeman, you just got for yourself either being shot by the arresting cops or by spending a long time in jail. They have the right to use force to compel obedience. A stop sign, you go, it's just a sign. I just felt like that was a sign to me. Yes, it was. To stop, you're supposed to stop. That wasn't a suggestion. That wasn't like, well, I just didn't feel led to stop today. No, that is an expression of governmental authority. God set and explained his ways in the Garden of Eden and then enforced these limits with discipline. In Genesis 1-3, we see the communication of the limits. You can do all these things, but as a symbol of my authority, you can't do this. Understand? What do they do? They disobey. Does God give empty threats? Well, try harder next time. I'm really not going to discipline you now. There's horrific consequences. And we're still paying the price for those consequences. Parents' authority over their children is delegated to them by God himself. The fifth commandment in Exodus 20, 12 and Deuteronomy 5 is the foundation of all earthly authority. Children have what attitude toward parents? To honor their parents, to treat them with respect. and all other authority figures based upon that. Apostolic command reinforces Old Testament foundational teaching. Paul tells both the Ephesian church and the Colossian church, children, obey your parents and the Lord, which covers a whole multitude of things. You don't have to have a multiplication of commandments because parents are supposedly having the smarts and the maturity to teach their kids the do's and don'ts of life. God's word and principles taken from it are the foundation of the principles which parents are to teach their children. Rules of our home are extrapolations of biblical law and biblical love. Well, the Johnny's parents are doing it. Well, we're not in that home. We have these rules in our home and they're based upon biblical laws. Parents are to be very clear and consistent as to the rules of the family and their enforcement. Unwritten or constantly changing rules make for a chaotic household. Consistency gives order, and it also gives security. Many of you have even heard yourself say, you know, when we leave home to go visit relatives or stay at certain places where their schedule and their routine and their consistency is upset, what happens with the kids? It usually leads to chaos. You go back to your house, the routine's back, the consistency's back, and they're back in their right minds again. This is wonderful. Well, do we see the impact of consistency and the importance that makes for our kids' well-being? Rules of conduct that are not faithfully enforced are really not truly expected to be obeyed. If I tell you not to do something and you don't do it, and I don't do anything about it, then I've just taught my kid, I really don't expect you to do this. If you make a rule in your home, then you have to enforce it or take away the rule. But to have a rule that you don't enforce teaches your child, my parents say things they don't really mean, and I can pick and choose when I want to listen to them. Children are to be disciplined for disobedience and rebellion, not ignorance. They didn't know it. There can be confusion because of lack of clarity. Or that's another thing I wrote down and read here, or immaturity. You would expect a three-year-old to be less obedient than a six-year-old or a 10-year-old or a 12-year-old. Who's been in the house the longest knows the house rules best and should be best able to function by those rules. Sometimes, was this child being disobedient? They knew what they should do but they didn't want to do it. Are they being rebellious? You can't make me do this. Or was this, you know, they were being kids, they were being immature or it wasn't clear. And every one of us have disciplined for times we shouldn't have because The child was ignorant, the child was confused, or the child was just acting immature? Ignorant and confused, that's right. As we as parents can be ignorant and confused. Biblical parents are to faithfully exercise authority to compel obedience. People say, well, that's just because you're mean, but I don't like to discipline my children. I wept the first time I disciplined my first child. I didn't enjoy it. To see their heart broken, to see that you've always been the source of nurture and encouragement and you... I told you not to come down these stairs because there's a concrete floor here in the basement and you come down these stairs as a two-and-a-half-year-old and bad things are waiting for you at the bottom if you fall so you may not be on the stairs. And so that's been explained over and over again and the child disobeyed and I had to spank the child and the child went looking for the loving mother and fleeing the evil father And I put my head down and wept because I just saw this child was learning some painful lessons. Better that I spank them than this child fall down and hit the floor of concrete. When God first makes a covenant with Abraham, he calls him to exercise authority over his children and household, quote, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. He used to command his household. Abraham just wasn't throwing out suggestions. It was his job to see to it that the family and everybody working for the family was doing the right thing, going the right way. Parental discipline is a critical part of raising your children in the Lord. To fail to discipline your children is likened to hate in the Bible. You know, the Bible says if you don't discipline your children, you hate your children. You kind of go, well, that's way too strong. Well, the Bible says you're setting them up for failure and misery. They're not going to believe the consequences of sin is condemnation if the consequences of disobedience is never any discipline in this world. To fail to discipline your children is to set them on a path of hardship, confusion, and misery. And you can look up all those verses in Proverbs which say that. Passive-aggressive behavior. What is passive-aggressive behavior? I'm not speaking to you for four months. I'm going to freeze you out. Passive-aggressive behavior is fighting by being passive. It's imposing yourself on another person by withholding your affection, by withholding your love, by not talking to them, withholding communication. Now, the Bible doesn't say, it doesn't demonstrate that God is never passive-aggressive. You can go into the promised land and I'll send an angel with you. But by God, I'm not going to go with you, because if you just do one more sin, I'm just liable to go off on you and just clean the whole room and just go. And they go, so do we get the Christian bookstores and when do we get the Christian media station and do we get these things? But we won't have your presence, but we'll have all the stuff you promised. Let's go for it. That's not how Moses and the children of Israel reacted. If you won't go with us, What's going to happen to us? You're the only one that makes us special. If it wasn't for you, we're just like everybody else in the world. We don't want to go without your presence. Whatever we've done to offend you, please forgive us. We want to make this right. We don't want to go without your presence. There's other times in the Bible. Now, that's not God's primary way of dealing with us. But you can't say that God never uses, quote, withholding of affection, withholding of, you know. Do you ever sense that your relationship with the Lord is a little distant? Like, my heart's cold and I haven't felt the love of the Lord in a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months. What's going on? Has God done something wrong or maybe have I offended Him? And, you know, most of us couldn't treat our spouse the way we treat the Lord and expect Him to speak to us all the time. So sometimes God withholds His presence and His affection as a way to get our attention. But it should be used sparingly. Proverbs 27.5, better is open rebuke than love that is withheld. If there's something bugging you about what this person's done, tell them. Don't just say, you know, they're dying of frostbite because I've been so cold toward them. Maybe I should help them figure out what they've done so we can deal with it. Other forms of discipline seen in Scripture are isolation from the rest of the family for a short time, quarantine, and that's usually used with diseases in the Old Testament, removal of privileges previously enjoyed, No, you can't have your iPad, you can't have your computer, you can't have these 47 devices that are in your bedroom. We're taking them all out and you have to go cold turkey. They may be kept from the Lord's table if they're a communicant church member. They may be removed from involvement in special family times enjoyed by the obedient children. They may miss a meal. I don't suggest you make them miss a whole day. That's too long for a child to miss. But a meal can sometimes be an attention grabber. All discipline hurts in some way, and any so-called discipline that does not hurt in some way is not effective. Why? Children should learn that sin has painful consequences. How are they going to believe there's such a thing as the wrath to come and condemnation at the end of their days when they have to face God if they never once felt the sting of any consequences for all the stuff they do wrong in this life? They're going to say, ah, you're just chanting me on. You're just telling me a story. There's nothing coming. I never once suffered consequences for anything I did wrong. Children should learn that sin has painful consequences. For the moment, all discipline seems painful, rather than pleasant. But later, after you come to your senses, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. It requires training. Fathers take the lead as the warm, faithful lovers and the faithful, careful disciplinarians at home. It's not that mom's a good guy and dad's a bad guy. You don't want good cop, bad cop parental relationships. Kids should always say, you know, my dad is the most loving dad in the whole world. Who do you not want to cross? Dad. I love him and I fear him. And that's biblically healthy. The other one I'll only mention because we're past time. Child training with the proper exercise of authority and control. And the first part is exercising control in the right way at the right time. And it shows from birth to 6, from 7 to 11. These are not inspired. I don't quote any child psychology books or any Bible verses here. These are just empirical observations. I did work with teens for 10 years out of college, and I have my own children and grandchildren. I've worked with people. Ages 18 to 22, young adults still living under your roof or going to college on your nickel, or otherwise supported by you, are still subject to your authority and control. If you pay for their college, or they're living in your home on your nickel, then you still have a certain amount of control and authority in them. If they want to go out and graduate at 18, so long, I'm going to pay for my own college, I'm going to pay for my own expenses, adios, that I can't exercise the same kind of control over them. But if they're on my nickel, then I still have input. You must pray for wisdom to choose the right time to take a stand. You cannot and should not micromanage everything your young adult does. Neither do they get a free pass on all their foolish decisions and choices. Companies have development review meetings with their workers. Something like that would be good for your young adult maybe twice a year. In other words, okay, let's sit down and see how we're going here. Again, it's not something you do every day. You should have zigged and you zagged, and we'd like to talk about that. You can't micromanage everything your children do. Would you want someone to do that when you were in your early 20s? Was it pretty all the time when you were in your early 20s, and you always made the right decision, and you were a stellar stand-up person? Or was there a lot of, ooh, that was kind of messy, or that was not very pretty? Well, they need to learn. Age 22 and above, you are now your child's counselor. when they choose to ask for it. And hopefully they're confident to some degree, and sometimes they're humble admonisher. You are now largely limited to prayer and fasting with your children. It's called prayer 2.0, that's parenting adult children, prayer. Choose wisely and carefully which few battles to fight. The Word of God is now your persuader, teacher, controller when you talk to them. You know, Reginald, I saw that, you know, I've been seeing this and, you know, I'm nobody, I'm just your sinful saved dad, but it seems like there's a portion of Scripture here that you're not taking into consideration and I just wanted to bring it to your attention. You only do that at certain times and you have to prayerfully decide, is this one of those times? You are not limited to prayer and fasting with your children. Choose wisely and carefully which few battles to fight. The Word of God is now your persuader, teacher, controller. When you talk to them, listen well and weigh your words and actions carefully. And then finally, there's different tendencies and weaknesses. Are you guilty of Peter Pan parenting? Distracted neglect parenting? Live and let live parenting? Democratic parenting? Okay, who wants to go to Six Flags? Who wants to go play golf? Oh, man, you guys are no fun. Neville Chamberlain parenting. Neville Chamberlain was the Prime Minister of Great Britain who said, you know, I think Mr. Hitler's going to turn a corner here, and I think we can have peace in our time. Conflict is the worst thing in the world. No, it's not. Conflict is not the worst thing in the world. Autocratic parenting. The children salute their dad when he comes into the room. That's not a good sign. OK, we're past. Let's pray real quick. And you can salute your husbands before we leave. Father, we've whizzed through a lot of material today, and there's a lot to think about. And would you, by your Holy Spirit, help us to apply it as you see fit? In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.