The New Way of Being a Parent

Gather back up, take your seats. Brad and I were talking in the office the other day about who our favorite TV dad was. Oh yeah. I don't like the modern TV dads because they're all like bumbling idiots and stuff like that. It kind of annoys me.

I probably didn't watch enough old television, you know. I kind of like the guy on family ties. I can't remember his name. His actor's Michael Gross, but I can't remember the dad's name. But uh Anyway.

Well, my name is Brian. I'm the lead pastor here. You can take your Bibles, turn to Ephesians chapter 6. We've been studying Ephesians, and I'm going to invite you to look with me. We're going to be in verse 4.

We'll get there in a second. I have to make 2. Two announcements. I'm going to pray just to walk us into the Word, and then we'll attend to the text of Scripture. The first is a really sexy announcement, it's about our business meeting.

And ooh, yeah. Let me say something about our business meeting. Uh how much If you're a partner here. I know you think how I really don't want to come to the business meeting. I want to encourage you, come to the business meeting.

It's a once-a-year thing after the service on the 19th, but it's actually important that you're here. It's when we walk through our annual budget. We appreciate that you trust us as elders and leaders with the budget. That's great. We love that.

But come and be informed about it. It's important that you're here. It's important that you participate in that as part of the life of the church and part of your responsibility as a partner.

So I just want to encourage you. It won't be too long, but it will be after our second service on the 19th. The second is a little bit of a selfish announcement, but we have a partnership many of you know about with Spurgeon College, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. And we're not Southern Baptists, but it's just been a good partnership for Theological Ed for us. And so I'll be teaching a course starting February 11th on World View.

Here it'll go once a week on Tuesday.

Some of you took the last course that another one of our pastors, Rob Ollis, taught that was the second of a two-parter on the Old Testament. This one on World Views will run for 10 straight weeks from February 11th to April 15th.

So just want to encourage you to dial that up, get signed up. And then one other thing that I don't have a slide for, but I want to encourage is come to our 20th anniversary celebration. If you're not dialed up for that banquet, get signed up for that as soon as possible. That's January 24th at Gardner Village, the gathering place. And we're looking forward to celebrating 20 years of God's faithfulness to us here at Lifeline.

Amen. Amen. Now, but then sign up. Just go like this and then sign.

Okay, let's get it dialed up. All right. We are going to continue our study in Ephesians. We're going to be looking at the new way of being a parent. We'll talk about that.

But let's pray and just invite the Lord to minister to us. God, you're so faithful. And your word is dynamic. It is. Both at the same time entrenched in history.

And yet, Absolutely, dynamically transcultural. It moves all through time. It speaks to us relevantly right where we are. We're not here to sort of jazz the thing up and make it relevant. It is relevant.

And so, unashamedly, we're a church that sits under the text. And our goal this morning is just to see what you have for us, Lord.

So we're asking you through the power of your Holy Spirit to give us insight and wisdom, the capacity to hear. And the to see. to appropriate, to like bring it into our lives. And I pray, Lord, that you'd meddle with us. in the holiest of ways.

This morning, I know people in this church, they came in the door, and some of them have broken hearts, they're on the cusp of losing loved ones. They are they have lost loved ones. They're sick, lots of sickness going around. I feel up against it physically. I feel uncertain.

Displaced Some people feel excited. We have people ready to give birth. People who have just given birth in this church. And Lord, we thank you and praise you for all of those. And so in the tensions of the weight of life, in the expectations of the joys of life, we just bring our life to you.

And we pray that you would minister to us. If we're parents, minister to us in a unique way today. If we're not, minister to us because we are impacting the lives of young people all around us. We just pray that you would seek us out with your wisdom today in Jesus' name. Amen.

I shared with you before that sometimes I watch a uh Nick's, I used to watch, he's done coaching now, but I used to watch the greatest college football coach in history, Nick Sabin's press conferences, which I just loved. I loved in part because you never knew when he was going to go off on some reporter and never knew if he was cantankerous or if he was going to like preach a little sermon. But you would always come away with sort of like these remarkable. Kind of leadership lessons. I wanted to read you a little bit of an extended quote from one of his press conferences.

He gets up and he would do this on occasion. He'd get up and he would say, like, he would come and just kind of talk about something that you could tell was kind of maybe bugging him. But it had to do with leadership in the present world, especially when it came to young people. Here's what he said. Uh These guys talking about the players.

These guys, they all think they have this illusion. of choice. Like I can do Whatever I want to do. That's called the Blue Clues Myth. You ever watch Blues Clues?

You be anything that you want.

Some of us raised our kids on Blues Clues, and it was just heresy. You have a younger generation now that doesn't always get told no. They don't get told this is exactly. How You need to do it.

So they have this illusion that they have all these choices. And listen close. But the fact of the matter is, if you want to be good, You don't really have a lot of choices. It takes What it takes. That sounds like the most simple sentence you've ever heard in your life.

And you could preach on that for years. It takes. what it takes. Takes what it takes. You have to do.

what you have to do to be successful. You have to make the choices and decisions to have the discipline and the focus to the process of what you need to do to accomplish your goals. I start there. Because Parenting is not really rocket science. But it takes an incredible amount of will.

incredible amount. An incredible amount of resolve. But I want you to pay close attention. Because the resolve is on the process. The resolve is not on the product.

It's on the process. There are people in this room. who have multiple children. and your children turned out different. all across the board.

And you step back and you go, same home. Same process, same principles, different product, and you scratch your head and you bang your head against sometimes a padded wall, sometimes a brick wall, depending on the situation. Can I get an amen?

Okay, just making sure. No, no, no, easy. All right. And in that context, I mean, it just... can be exhausting.

Parenting has seasons to it, and you walk through seasons. And by the way, it's interesting. Every season you're not in, you feel like you're an expert in. If it's a season you haven't gone through yet. Right?

I've watched this over I I remember going through it. I remember when when I was when you're a a a young couple And you see people with a baby. or see people with maybe that two-year-old who is acting like a serial killer at Walmart and just going nuts. And you think in your head, and sometimes you even say to each other, can't they get control of their kid? No, no, they can't.

They can't. And neither will you. Neither will you. But you think they should just be able to control them. And then you've got the five-year-old, and you've read a few books, which makes you very dangerous, and you've read a couple books on parenting, and now you see.

People who have this young teenager, and she comes in wearing some things. You go, I wouldn't let my child, I can't believe they're letting them wear that. I'll tell you what, when our daughter grows up, she will not be looking like that. You just don't know what you don't know yet. Bless your heart.

You're an ignoramus. And it's okay. We all were. We all were. And then you had him as a teenager and you watch these people who are stressing out when their child is 19, 20, 21, 22, 28.

And you go, man. It'll be great to get to the finish line. When they're 18, I love that when I hear that. I just got to get them to the finish line. You really don't know what you're talking about.

It's just starting. The terrible twenties haven't even begun for you yet.

Okay. And then you think, well, there's grandma. She's sweet. She has no worries about her children at all. And you haven't talked to grandma at all.

As our heart still is kind of breaking and struggling and all this stuff, it never ends. It never ends.

Now, it doesn't go the other way. See, now for me, I've got uh twenty-five, twenty Almost 22, 21 and 16. And I look back and I see you in Walmart with that screaming demon and I think, Lord, help them. Just help them. Treasure them.

Hold them together. They're going to make it. They don't think so right now, but they'll make it. And when you look back, you get kind of, it's sort of like midlife crisis with a man. All the guys that are 30 laugh about it.

Nobody who's 50 thinks it's funny. Right? So you kind of go through things in life and you get on the other side of it and you're like, man.

Okay. I'm starting to see more clearly. I want to take you to one verse this morning.

So look in your Bibles at Ephesians 6. As we do it, we're just going to see four parts to this. And we're going to kind of, I hope to actually zip kind of fast because I have actually a lot to share with you. In the end, I'm going to walk you through some slides that actually come from a presentation I gave years ago in a different format called Worldview Parenting. And I just want to give you a a little a few thoughts about what you ought to be sort of shooting for as your parent.

But you're in it, you're in the thick of it.

So I want you to know first that this message comes R it does. It really comes from a place. in my heart of mercy because It is a hard task, and you are fighting upstream. It's not because your children are bad, it's because you are in the context of a whole culture that is no friend to almost anything we're going to talk about this morning. And you're going upstream, and it's hard.

It's hard.

So what I probably won't say again that I'm going to say now. is I want you to have a little self-compassion. I do. I want you to have a little self-compassion. I want you to, it's okay.

to sit in a space and be compassionate to yourself that it's hard.

Now listen close. That's not self-pity. You're not allowed to have self-pity. You're not allowed to say poor me. You're not allowed with a wayward child.

to spend your time crying over spilled milk. You still have a job to do. Doesn't matter how old you are, how old your child is, you have a job to do. And it'll shape and it'll shift and it'll change. But nonetheless, you have a job to do.

So let's think about this a little bit. Just start off, kind of like we did last week, we talked about children, the who of parenting. Look at your text. And I want to remind you, of course, that all of this falls under what we've talked about. This new way that started in chapter 4 of living.

Wisdom, work, use of our words, family life, all kinds of things that he's talked about and is going to talk about. And then a key verse that we've mentioned is 5.18, where it talks about being filled with the Spirit. And that comes right before the family life, because you'll never be able to be the wife, the husband, the child, or the parent you ought to be unless you're reliant upon the Spirit of God. With that in view, look at verse 1 of chapter 6. Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right honor your father and mother.

This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Watch the message from last week if you're interested in that text. Fathers. Do not provoke your children. to anger.

But bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Who of parenting?

Well, fathers Of course, this applies to both fathers and to mothers. I don't want to, though, just nullify the reality that fathers is mentioned here either, though.

Okay. Because I want to speak and just make sure you're clear, men, that your wife is responsible for her role as a parent. But You are leading your home. and you have a real responsibility. To happen to your children in a very clear way.

The who of parenting starts with fathers, it moves to mothers, and you are in the unique role. That is only yours. I have been so my kids have been so blessed. In fact, last night I was I have a bracelet on here, not because I love bracelets, but because I was making them last night with my 16-year-old daughter. And we're sitting on her bed making bracelets.

And I'm asking her questions. And as I'm asking her questions, some of the things I'm talking to her about are about people in her life that mean a lot to her in her life. And it occurs to me, and I told her, I said, you know, you're really blessed. Like you have so many people outside of your family that mean the world to you that have poured into your life in different ways, right? And so she has lots of aunts and uncles and lots of grandmas and grandpas in a sense and lots of older cousins and all that kind of stuff that are pouring into her life.

And I praise God for that.

Okay. But she has two parents. And there's a role that is distinct. There's a texture. There is an everydayness.

There is a bump up against. There is a kind of tension and joy and sorrow and a host of things that have a uniqueness in that dynamic. Yeah. And I, as a dad, have to attend to that. And I have to think about the primary responsibility.

I have to think about all those other roles and how I place her in all those other roles. And you're going to have to do that, dads. You have to do that, moms. I want you to see that. Look at that ending phrase of that verse.

See the last little phrase there? It says, In the instruction of the Lord. I mentioned this in the Who because I want you to see the bookends. Fathers. Okay.

Including mothers, but fathers. And then The Lord. Because I want to make sure that as we start, you know, you are never. Never, or at least you never ought to be perceptually from your vantage point. Flying solo.

This is always in the context. Yeah. Christ what we use a big word, crystal centricity. all surrounding Jesus. All baked in Jesus.

A conduit. There was an old hymn, Channels Only Blessed Master. That there's this sense in which you're standing between Christ. And your children. And you are the avenue upon which Christ traffics.

So therefore everything, every decision. Everything you gear towards. Everything you permit, everything you disallow. The texture, the aroma, the adverbs, the intangibles, all of those things baked in Christ. And you have to see it that way, and you have to happen to it because the who is not just you, but it's also Jesus.

Now, here's the wonderful thing about that: when they pack up. And they leave home. And then they come back and they live for who knows how long on your dime still, but still say they're independent. And when you experience all of these things, and that transition takes time and they move on and out. I want you to remember.

That as your role changes. The Lords doesn't. There's still in that sense of the Lord. As you have attempted to rear them.

Now remember. By way of reminder, I touched on this last time when we talked about kids. You change, right, in your roles. And you start off, and you're a coach. Who is enacting structures to take this little one and move them along in places they both want to go and don't want to go, but you know that they need to go.

And you're doing it with a view to the whole, like a coach does with the team. And then you sort of transition and you keep that coach, but the coach starts to get a little quieter in terms of the coach's role, and the cheerleader raises up, and you're a champion. You see not what you want to actualize, but who they are. And you begin to press them, press them, press them.

Now, you don't press them who they are in a direction away that if who they think they are moves away from Christ, you don't champion that. But you champion everything that moves towards Jesus. And you cheer and you cheer and you cheer, and you are the bastion of optimism. And then eventually, the cheerleader starts to, it kind of keeps going, but you move because your proximity will shift, your regularity will shift. 90% of every interaction you'll have with your children will be done by the time they're 18.

Think about that. Think about the weight of that.

Okay. and you'll shift. And you'll be a consultant. And you'll be in an advisory role. And you'll have to learn to trust the sovereignty of God, and all the things you've talked about for a long time will kind of come home.

to you, right? Let me uh I wanted to read to you a a quote. There's a wonderful book on uh lots of good books on parenting. Probably my favorite is a book that was written a number of years ago called Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas. He quotes a book.

by Evelyn and James Whitehead. about the sort of final transition that parents end up making. And I wanted to read it to you. I think it's helpful. As we see our children develop in unanticipated directions, we may be tempted to restrain them.

or to abandon them in disappointment.

So, we're going to do everything we can to keep them from making a horrible decision. And if they do make a horrible decision, we're going to go. All right, forget it. I did my stuff. Restraining them, we try to force their growth according to our designs.

We remind them that they are. hours. That's a kind of way of manipulating someone. You sort of put now, hey, you're carrying the weight of our legacy. On you.

Our care insists on control. And in this, we recognize that our deepest desire is more to reproduce ourselves. than to serve new life on its own terms. Or we abandon them. Bitter.

that they do not appreciate all I've done for you. We mature psychologically and religiously as we acknowledge that our children are not our possessions. The asceticism at the heart of parenting, asceticism, the letting go. The letting go, the releasing. The heart of parenting is to learn to continue the investment of our care, but gradually to diminish our control.

Can we still give ourselves to the next generation when we realize that they're not going to be just like us? It's a great question. It's a great question. Or that they're not going to be like you may have idealized. And there's nothing wrong with idealizing.

We all have goals. We all have things we would like to see our children become. Yeah. But we have to be careful. We have to keep him in a drawing room.

Can't walk him out on the factory floor. Gotta be real careful with that. The who of parenting. Remember this quote? I showed it to you last time.

Last message. I want to recycle it. Today, more than at any other time in our history, children are setting the terms of family life in the United States. That can't be. Your kids are not the who of parenting.

You're the who of parenting. You are the who. Don't don't leave the driver's seat. Don't leave the driver's seat, okay? There's a warning.

Isn't it interesting it starts off fathers? And what's it say? Do Not Provoke. Do not Provoke. Let your eyes in the text look at it, chapter 6.

Let your eyes go back. to chapter four just for a second. Just look at verse 26 in chapter 4. It says, Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down.

And see that last on your anger? That last term on your anger, it's related to the first term anger. The first term anger is or gizu, which is kind of a typical word for anger. Um the last one's perorgizo. It's used one other time as a verb other than the text here to provoke.

That's in Romans chapter 10. But then it's also used as a noun, and that's the noun at the end of 426, in your anger.

So when you go over and you read, fathers do not provoke your children to anger. Don't have the kind of conduct, the idea is that stimulates your children to anger. Colossians chapter 3, and if you've been here a little bit through this, I hope you've picked up on this, because you've seen me over the last probably four messages go to Colossians 3, because Colossians 3 runs parallel. To the end of Ephesians 5 and the beginning of Ephesians 6. It's got the same, it's kind of a shortened form of it in a way.

In Colossians 3:21, there's that verse I just read to you, but Colossians 3:21, Fathers do not provoke your children, lest they, and it uses a different term. Athumeo. discouraged. It's interesting it says that. When Paul writing on the same theme.

Writing to churches not that far apart geographically in Colossia and Ephesians, but in Ephesus. But he kind of. Uses a different term, same idea, but a different term, lest they become discouraged and lest they get provoked to anger.

So I was interested in this term, and I did some looking at it. And in the Old Testament, the term shows up. I don't know if you remember, there's a biblical story where Hannah. is a barren woman. She ends up giving birth to Samuel.

And her husband has another wife, as was the occasion sometimes in the Old Testament. And the other wife's name is Panina. Mm-hmm. And Penina is a fruitful woman biologically, and Hannah is not. But Hannah is the favorite.

Hannah is her husband's pride and joy, so to speak. Hannah longs to get pregnant and have a child. And in the beginning of 1 Samuel chapter 1, it says that Panina, this other woman, would irritate. Hannah. And she would pray.

Provoke her. To make her feel kind of an angered discouragement. It's the same word that's used there.

Okay. So wh what does it mean? to provoke a child to anger. How would you do that? How would you do that?

So I'm going to just list, I got eight ways that you provoke your children to anger.

So I was thinking about this, so I asked my daughter, my youngest daughter, 16-year-old, I said, how do I provoke you to anger? Who? That's an interesting question. She gave me an answer. It's one of these eight.

I'm not going to tell you which one until we get to it. But I'll tell you which one it was. But what cracked me up is, I said, is it okay if I share that with the church that you mentioned this one? She said, yeah. She said, but can you work on it?

Yeah. Sure.

Okay. We'll do both, all right? I'm in it. What provokes a child to anger? Here's the first thing: unreasonable expectations will provoke a child to anger.

Unreasonable expectations. There's nothing wrong with expectations. Don't hear me saying expectations will. You ought to have expectations. They just need to be reasonable.

And that's going to shift probably based upon your child.

So you have to exeget your child, you got to know your child. And then you have to set expectations, but make them reasonable. Secondly, Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. I mentioned this last week.

I'm going to mention it again because I work a lot with men and I see this in men.

Okay. Men want their families to respect them. See them as an authority type figure. And yet they're often unteachable, the men. and not under any authority themselves.

And they buck against authority themselves. And yet they want downline the very thing they won't give up line. And guess what? There's no hypocrisy hunters. Like a child.

None. They got a nose for it, man.

So if dad's unteachable, If dad's not submissive, if dad has no authority in his life, But he's telling Junior Better start listening to dad. I'm telling you right now, you're smoking a Christian wacky weed if you think they're going to listen to you. That's just the truth. inconsistent and arbitrary. That'll make a child provoked to anger.

Can't figure out where to land. One minute they do this, they get your wrath. The next minute they do it and they don't. and they can't figure out what's going on. It feels like mom and dad are parenting based upon how their day went.

That sometimes happens. Unfortunately. Sure.

Hypercritical. Hypercritical. You're you're just you're a fault finder. Your fault finder. Your kid could tell you ten things that you.

think they do wrong. They just can't figure out too many that they you think they do right. Because what carries the day in the conversation is the failure, not the successes. Harsh. Harsh.

You can tell them to go clean their room, or you can tell them to go clean their stinking room. It's funny. It's the same verb. But the adverb is just toxic. Harsh.

Dismissive or condescending. I mean She's 11. What wisdom is she bringing to the world? I don't know. But you should hunt for it.

You should listen for it. You shouldn't dismiss her heart. You have to don't be condescending. This is the one that my daughter said. Can you work on it?

Okay. I want to know that when I say something and I don't agree with you. or I don't feel like you feel. where I feel a tension point. Or, I feel like you're only telling me this, but there's more to the story that you don't know.

I want to know that you're trying to understand me. You're not just trying to move me a direction. Ouch. It's hard when your 16-year-old is right. Neglect.

Neglect. Um Yeah.

Sometimes you can get so busy with everything else. That actually, and sometimes here's the oddity with this neglect one: is this one. comes and bites you later on. Cats in the cradle kind of stuff. Get you later on.

This one got a great saint in the Old Testament. This one did. You remember David? David's daughter gets raped by her brother. And David doesn't attend to it?

And he neglects it. It had almost cost him his whole kingdom. because one of his other sons Absalom saw it. and lost respect for his father.

So if that's the way you parent? If that's the way you lead. If that's the way you treat people, who are precious to you. I think this country needs a new ruler. I think they need a new leader.

Neglect. provoked anger. Eight things. I'm sure there's more. But I'll tell you what If you are able to eliminate those eight.

That'll get you going down the road a little bit. Fathers, it's a present active imperative in the Greek, meaning keep. Mothers, keep on it. Keep? Keep what?

assessing Keep not provoking. to anger. The what?

So if that's what you're not supposed to do, and that's the warning, what are you supposed to do? And it comes just in a real quick phrase here.

Okay. But bring them up. It lets your eyes go back up to verse. 29 of chapter 5. It's the same word.

Right. For no one ever ate his own flesh butt. It's that word. nourishes. Same word.

Bring them up, nourish. to nurture. to nurture. Um This is, when you see this, you go, well, yeah, of course, isn't that what we're supposed to do? It is.

But you got to understand the culture and how countercultural this is for what Paul is saying right here to his original hearers. The scholar William Barclay said a Roman father had absolute power over his family. He could sell them as slaves. He could make them work in his fields, even in chains. He could take the law into his own hands, for the law was in his own hands.

Yeah. And punish as he liked, he could even inflict. The death penalty. On his child. Right?

Every kid is like, man, going to my room doesn't seem so bad right now. Never wanted to go to my room quicker. Listen, this is like this is the culture. In the backdrop. In the Roman context.

That Paul's writing this, and he says, Here's what I want you to do: I want you to bring them up, but nurture is the word, nourish. Nourish. Calvin, John Calvin said it this way when he was commenting on and translating this. He said to what to cherish them fondly. That's the language you use.

Cherish them. fondly.

So what is it you're supposed to do as a mom and a dad at bottom? You are supposed to see them and to pull them in. In a protective Provisional Okay. Edifying, building up environment. That's the what.

It's pretty simple. How do you do that? And that's really... what we have to spend a little bit on. How do you do it?

Well, the Bible gives you a couple of things about how to do it. We read in verse 4 again, Fathers, don't provoke your children to anger, but bring them up. And then we get this in the sphere of two terms, in the discipline and the instruction. of the Lord. The first term in the discipline.

discipline. It's the word padiya and it means to bring to maturity. to bring to maturity. The little quote below there is from the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, but I think it's helpful. It it involves both the way of education and cultivation.

So it's what you're doing. Think of like almost like curricularly, what you're doing. Which has to be traversed, and also the goal which is to be obtained.

So it's what you're shooting for. Right? And it is then a process. that employs That In it.

So if you want an angry child. Be an angry parent. If you want a resentful child, be a resentful parent. If you want a chaotic child, have a chaotic home. If you want a disorganized child, be a disorganized parent.

I don't think any of you want that. I don't think any of you have children and go, you know what, I'm really hoping this guy goes out and just ravages the world and is an angry monster. You're trying you see them be an angry monster And you're you're trying. To Get that out! along the way.

So what that means then is that the process and the product are actually wed now.

So that If the product is gentleness, what's the process? Gentle. If the product is joyful, what's the process? Joyful. If the product Yes.

Conscientious. caring about things. Then The process is conscientious.

So it's it's not rocket science It's just hard to do because To bring them to maturity means that you actually have a construct, a concept about what you're going to do in terms of training.

Now, let me put you at ease with something. There is no, and it was the name of a curriculum. I hated it. Worst name for a curriculum I've ever heard, Growing Kids God's Way. And if you read it, that's fine.

Don't be offended by it unless you wrote it, and I don't think you're here. The title's awful. As though, if you didn't do it the way of the book, you'd be growing them the devil's way. Right? Like, you want to talk about an arrogant title.

There's one way, we just discovered it in the late 80s, and we wrote it down. for people on the West Coast. All you schleps were doing it the devil's way, but we got it God's way. No, there's not one way that's God's way. There's not.

I have three daughters. And there's Three Related ways.

Okay. There's three related ways. Because the They're different. They're different. They're not widgets in a factory.

They're not widget I didn't put them in a parenting factory. And then widget them out. Instead, I have to take each one. See a parent Isn't an assembly line coordinator apparent as a craftsman? See the difference?

And a craftsman, no two. Objects come out the same. And yet he employs the same set of skills. He employs the same principles. He moves towards a particularly similar quality of product.

But it looks different. with steel than it does with wood. It shapes differently. And we have to recognize that.

So... You have a responsibility to bring to maturity through, and this hasn't a focus kind of on training. Is the idea with padiyah, training or discipline? A couple of verses. Whoever spares the rod hates his son.

But he who loves them is diligent to discipline them.

Now, in today's world, that's a hard verse, right? Spares the rod. And we want to metaphorize that and say, well, he didn't really mean spank your. No, he meant spank them. But anyway, it doesn't mean that that's the method you have to employ.

But don't misunderstand, back in that ancient day, like Rod, he didn't choose it arbitrarily. It has intentionality to it. Here's the point: the point is that there are different modes that end up working in terms of discipline. And you might spank your children, never in anger, but in a controlled manner. You might send them to their room.

You might make their life living hell for a week for the sake of heaven for eternity. My encouragement is do it. And all God's children said amen. But I do think that's important. I remember I went to a, I had to speak at a sizable church in California years ago.

I was speaking at a camp, and this church that was out there asked if I would do this special event. They did this evangelistic outreach one Sunday, and it happened to map on when I was speaking in the camp. And they did a big car show, a big classic car show out in a parking lot. And they had like an outdoor festival and stuff.

So I had a couple of services and asked if I'd preach for it. Sure.

So we pull up, I'm the guest speaker, we pull up in the Mercury white minivan. Pulling in from Utah. Come down. And we pull in, we had at this time two of our three daughters, both were little, and my oldest had decided to invoke demon possession that morning. Pull in.

And I don't know what was happening. Yeah. But it was on Real.

So I said, okay, everybody out of the car except you. And they got out. And I shut the doors in the parking lot of the church as the guest speaker, and I disciplined my daughter. We went inside.

Some demons only come out by prayer and fasting. This was one of them. We got inside. And we're walking around and I am exhibit number one of the inability to parent my child. Here is the guest speaker.

People are coming in and out. Foyers filling up. She is going insane and I want to stab myself with the fork in the temple.

So I looked at my wife and I said I think she needs more discipline, Jennifer said. Take her out in the car again.

So I did. I went out this time, it was a pack parking lot. Went out, opened up the van, closed the doors. Round number two. Thriller in Manila.

And we went after it again.

Sometimes those things happen.

Sometimes you have to just have the will to say nope and you get far enough downstream. That if you lose Dad, you lose Dad. If you lose, mom, you lose. Training in discipline, but never in anger. Do not withhold discipline from a child.

If you strike him with a rod, he won't die. Isn't that great? Let's go's in prayer. If you strike him with a rod, you'll save his soul from Sheol.

Now I have never spanked when my kids were little I never spanked them and they looked at me and said thank you for saving my soul from Sheol Never happened.

Okay? Never happened. But The lesson is true, and the lesson is discipline. They'll make it. They'll survive.

You did. But They need it. They need it.

Now again. Please understand, I'm sensitive to the reality that there are people in this room that were abused by their parents.

So I don't want you to hear me making light. of harsh Physical discipline. That is abuse. I don't either want you to hear me. Yeah.

having a fallacy. that the abuse of something means the non-use of something. Because people are harsh with their words doesn't mean you never speak. Because people have been harsh with their hands doesn't mean you never used them. And I just say that so you understand.

The Bible is telling us, be people of control, be people whose process embeds the virtues of the product you want to yield. But do that in your training, padea. The second word is neuthesia. There's a there was a branch of counseling for years called Nothetic. Counseling.

It means to impart understanding. It has an emphasis upon verbal instruction. It describes an effect on the will and disposition, and it presupposes an opposition which has to be overcome. It seeks to correct the mind, to put right what's wrong, to improve the spiritual attitude.

So understand your children are not in neutral. We established that last week. They are bent. Towards evil. It doesn't mean there are somehow inherently these wicked people, but.

They are inclined to disrespect, they're inclined to disobey, and they're inclined to self-aggrandize, and they're inclined to deceive, and they are inclined to dominate you. They are. In your job? is to say no to that. to say no to that.

But not by force. But by instruction. By showing them and teaching them what the good life actually looks like in Christ. as you speak. As you impart wisdom.

And again, that moves from a coach who does it in different ways than a cheerleader who does it in different ways than a consultant. might do it, right? MacSalt might do it.

So that leads me where I want to wrap up. And I'm actually going to run through this real fast, faster than maybe you might want. But I think on our website, in one of our training pieces, there's a broader teaching that was done years ago on this. But the concept is, I call it worldview parenting. I want you to think about this in terms of sort of like five layers.

Sort of five layers of development, where you're laying things down.

Now, I won't go back one slide though, and I want you to see what's around it. Do you see that? The child is in the middle. What's to the right of the child? The church.

To the left of the child is the home. Down below is the world and up above is God.

So your job is to think in terms of these four. Component parts. and to think in five layers. of what you're supposed to do. In regard to this child.

In regard to all of these five, in regard to themselves. Their self-perception matters deeply.

Some kids are groping for identity. They don't know where to look. You need to help 'em. In regard to the church, in regard to the home, in regard to God, and in regard to the world. And if you get these confused, which I've watched people do, I've seen people confuse family and church.

I've seen him confuse God and world. It upends the Apple cart and causes a lot of problems.

So let's just think about the layers. Here's the first layer. Who are the players, right? All these players. And you got to think about each one.

You say, well, that's obvious. No, no, you have to think about what is the church and what's the church supposed to be. You won't know what to do with your child in regard to the church until you establish what it is. If you think it's Sunday morning... Then Getting them here, you coming here, getting them in the kids' ministry or sitting with you is going to be the end goal.

You'll check it off and you'll say, no. Or is it more than that? What's the family? Is that you? Is Parrot?

Siblings? Aunts and uncles? Grandpa what is it? What's it constitute? The world?

What is the world? Who is that? What are we talking about when we speak of the world and culture and society and all its artifacts and architecture? God. And What kind of God?

What wh what what's he texturized with in Scripture? Passions. It's the second layer. What passions? The first passion you're trying to embed in your child is in wholeness and integrity of identity.

an integrity of who they are, a passion to be. honest. Ah, okay. Real, a passion to be authentic, a passion to be a genuine, real. person in regard to God.

It is to exalt him above all others in worship. In regard to family, it is that they would be faithful members of your family. They would have a fidelity to the values that you're establishing and they would treasure them. In regard to the church, that they would learn and see that the community of God is a place where they go for the best information on the most important topics of human existence, the world. They would see the world not as an enemy first.

Hear that?

Some good Christian families are hunkering down as little fundamentalist entities. And they think we're doing God's work. No, no, no, no. You're raising missionaries to impact the world. They gotta love.

People. Not love the culture, not love the atrocities, not love the architecture of the artifacts, but love the people. Impact. Priorities. priorities.

The first Identity. You have to submit as a parent is their identity. You have to think about it, you got to contemplate it, you got to ponder it, and you got to strategize for it. They have to be rooted not in dad. Daddy's little man.

Not in mom, mama's little girl. Daddy's little girl. In Christ. Christ alone. You will fail.

You will get angry. You will Be like me. and sometimes not try hard enough to understand. And my daughter. Has to push past that part right now that she mentioned the other night.

And she has to know that there's a father. who always wants to understand her and never fails her in that. My job is to catch up to him. First devotions to the Lord. Not to the family, it's to the Lord.

The first voice. Cheers. First voice. Stop. You said it's your best interest.

That child's best interest is at heart in your. warnings. Because you're the first voice. The first community? Here.

Hey, by the way. Wait a minute, I think that's I don't think that. There's one institution. That endures forever, and it's the Church of God. I'm going to tell you right now.

I'll bet you have some amazing siblings as an adult parent who are great aunts and uncles. I don't know if they're walking in Christ or not, but here's what I'm going to tell you. You'll find the best aunts and uncles and the best pseudo-grandparents and the best cousins in your local church because they will be on the same page as you are. head in the same direction. and world view.

And the first alien. It's the world. You're gonna go impact why you impact? Because it's different. It ain't what's here.

It's other. It's other. and where to go to it. Principles. You focus on character development.

That's what you're trying to do. And what do I mean by that? I mean, let's go back to where I started with the Nick Sabin quote. You don't have a lot of choices. It takes what it takes.

Do you know? That If you don't have the character. to execute in a particular moment Your will will not be strong enough in the moment to execute. Execution is the product of character development. It's not the product of momentary choice.

Right now you have choices that aren't available to you. Or some that are. That's based upon the character you've cultivated. Submit to sovereign authority. God is the authority.

If God says it, I will do it. I will believe it. I'll come under it.

So you want a 10-year-old who opens her Bible. Not not because. You have somehow beat her down to do it. But probably because she's seen you do it. Probably because she gets the sense that her father and her mother.

would be dead in the water without this thing.

Well, I don't know if I if you don't know if you're dead in the water without it. You're dead. Submit to representative authority. You represent I stand between Christ and my child. I stand between them.

And by the way, I make no excuses as a parent for saying things like, I'm doing this because. I know that this will honor the Lord most in your life. I make no apologies for that. I need my daughters to know that I stand between them and Christ. in that way.

Invest in relationships. Don't ever. Pull this card. Yeah. You know, we're just trying to sh we gotta focus on the family right now, not the church.

Don't subdivide the worlds. Don't fall into that. That is a siren song. I've watched it happen with so many people.

So many people. I'm telling you right now. They need more voices than you. They need him. They need boulders upstream.

Do do you know right now that if you have a twelve-year-old? You can't be a godly 17-year-old for them. But they need to see a godly 17-year-old. They do. They need to see it.

Do you know if you're away from grandparents and you're raising your kids here? They need to see. You might be 35. Forty. They need to see a godly 65-year-old.

And you see what that looks like. Dignified engagement. That's what it means. Your principle, I'm going to come to the world, I'm going to engage it, I'm not going to be condescending, I'm not going to go to the low-hanging fruit, but I am going to engage it, and I'm going to do it with dignity. And then finally, what's the product?

What are you after? Maturity, right? That's the goal. That's padiya. Contentment in God.

A life where, with all the undulations, when you take your last breath, they can close your eyes. And be content. Blessing. Where they're a blessing to you. The Proverbs is loaded up with that.

But a wise son'll bless his parents. Wise daughter will bless her parents. A servant. seeking what they can do. and an ambassador to the world.

Right? Now I want to finish where I started. You gotta process. And you enter into that process. As I mentioned, it's not a factory where you just kicking stuff out.

But you do have a process. There are things that you need to do. What you need to know, as I mentioned, are that there are no guarantees.

So what you do as a parent is you pray, and you pray first for yourself because you know your sinfulness even better than you know your child's sinfulness. And if you don't, you should reacquaint yourself with yourself. And you pray for yourself. For control. For clarity?

For wisdom. For consistency. For passion? For relationality. For eyes to see a bigger picture, for a heart that's content in Christ.

So you pray. And then You practice. You practice, and you're with, you're in proximity. You're engaging, you're going, you're growing together. That's kind of what parenting is.

It's just you're growing together, growing together and going together. And you're teaching, and you're giving instruction. All the while you're being fed and you're pouring out and you're just a conduit, and you continue on and on and on. And then you stop. You keep going with that process, but internally you stop and you say to yourself when you're ready to launch them out, Lord.

I'm leaving the product with you. I'm leaving the product with you. That's the hardest part. she can do. is leave the product with him.

It takes a lot to trust in that. Very little things will test your Real belief in the sovereignty of God, like parenting. Final quote: Gary Thomas, I love this quote, but I'm telling you, this one makes. Works me over. Faith is not the power to get whatever we want.

It's the spirit to accept whatever God gives. That's what real faith is. Faith isn't, I'm holding out faith, I'm speaking into existence. It's not some spiritual law, some new thought nonsense that you just invoke, or as TikTok will tell us today, you manifest. This foolishness.

Foolishness. You know who manifests? God. You know, receives you. And you either do it awful.

Fearful. Resentful.

Sorrowful. Angry. discontented. Chaotic. Frustrated.

Or with faith? Father, I pray. He'd help us to be parents. Lord, how we need that, man. And we need it, whether they're two, whether they're twenty-two, or whether they're fifty-two.

I pray for you to help us, Lord. And give us the grace for a new way in Jesus' name. Amen.