Hey, podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click the donate button or follow the link in our show notes.
Now here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. This is the coming year with the brand new 2024 Daily Devotional, From Pathway to Victory. This exquisite book bound in forest green leather and inlaid with brown and gold foil features over 530 pages of biblical inspiration from Dr. Robert Jeffress. That's a new devotional reading deeply rooted in God's word for every Monday through Friday and through every season in the new year. Get a copy for yourself and request several more for your family and friends when you go to ptv.org. This is Robert Jeffress in response to the horrific attack on Israel. I've written a brand new book called Are We Living in the End Times?
Go to ptv.org to order your copy. Ladies and gentlemen, the most important thing we can teach our children is that there is a God. He's always watching.
He's always judging. I want to suggest to you today four foundational and more importantly biblical commitments we have to make if we're going to eliminate, reduce the number of regrets we have about our parenting. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, most moms and dads hold some measure of regret over their parenting choices throughout the years.
But while you can't change the past, you can make positive choices to impact the future. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress offers four practical ways to improve your relationship with your children and grandchildren. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress? Thanks, David. And welcome again to Pathway to Victory. We're delighted you decided to join us for this brand new teaching series called Say Goodbye to Regret. As your Bible teacher and as the pastor of a large church family in downtown Dallas, I've discovered that well-meaning people often are haunted by their bad memories.
These emotional barriers can sometimes become paralyzing. The enemy uses our regrets to keep us from moving forward down the pathway to victory. Well, in this brand new teaching series, Say Goodbye to Regret, and in my book by the same title, I show you God's plan for breaking free.
So in this series, I'll show you the path forward on 10 different issue, issues like saying goodbye to relationship regrets, saying goodbye to sexual regrets, and the one we're talking about today, saying goodbye to parenting regrets. Plus, when you contact Pathway to Victory and give a generous gift to support the ministry, I'll say thank you by sending you a copy of my book. This is the perfect choice for your small group Bible study or to use in your private devotions. Again, the book is called Say Goodbye to Regret. The subtitle is Living Beyond the Would-Haves, Could-Haves, and Should-Haves. David and I will say more about my book and other resources later in today's program.
But right now, let's open our hearts and minds to what God wants to say to us. I titled today's message Say Goodbye to Parenting Regrets. Before we talk about how to have no regrets about your parenting, I want to look at a case study in regret, and it's found in the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel chapters 1 and 2. Really, these two chapters are a contrast between godly parents who raised godly children and some godly parents who raised ungodly children. Let's look at the godly parents who raised a godly child. The parents' names were Hannah and Elkanah.
You remember the story. Hannah had prayed that God would give her a son, and after a long time of praying, God answered her prayer, gave her a son that was named Samuel, which means God has heard. He was an important priest and judge in the land of Israel, and Hannah and her husband Elkanah not only prayed for Samuel, they dedicated him to the Lord.
They sought to realize God's purpose, not their purpose for his life. They were even willing to give him up to a priest named Eli to be mentored. Hannah and Elkanah were what we would think of as perfect parents.
They would have made a great couple to interview and focus on the family. Interestingly, the priest who became Samuel's mentor was a good priest, but he was a lousy parent. His name was Eli, and we find this word about Eli in 1 Samuel 2, verse 12, about his sons. Now, the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. What is it that made these two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, worthless? Well, the Bible says they were engaged in sin.
They stole sacrifices from the altar of the Lord to use themselves, and they engaged in sexual immorality. As a result, God said to Eli that his two sons would die on the very same day, and I want you to note the reason that God pronounced this judgment against Eli's two sons. It's found in 1 Samuel 3, 13, and 14. I have told him, that is Eli, that I'm about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons wrought a curse on themselves, and Eli did not rebuke them. Therefore, I've sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever. Now, the big question is, why would Eli, a man who knew better, not rebuke his own sons when they sinned?
I think we find the answer to that in Eli's reaction to the news of the death of his sons. The Bible tells us in 1 Samuel 4 that the Israelites went out to do battle with the Philistines, and in that battle, 30,000 Israelites were killed, including Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas. It was also during that very same battle that Israel lost the Ark of the Covenant.
The Philistines stole it. Now, listen to the news when it reached Eli, how he reacted to the death of his sons and the stealing of the Ark of the Covenant. 1 Samuel 4, 17, then the one who brought the news back to Eli replied, Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there's been a great slaughter among the people, and your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, they are dead, and the Ark has been taken.
Now, look at verse 18. When he mentioned the Ark of God, Eli fell off the seat backward beside the gate, and his neck was broken, and he died, for he was old and heavy. The point was, he was so old and he was so heavy, when he heard that the Ark had been taken, he fell over backwards and died. Thus, he judged Israel for 40 years. What I find interesting is, what sent Eli over the edge, so to speak, was not the news that his sons were dead.
It was the news that the Ark of the Covenant had been stolen. You think, well, that just shows what a great and godly man he was. He cared about the things of God. He was more concerned about the things of God than he was about his own sons.
No, that's called misplaced priorities. He was more concerned about his ministry to others than his ministry to his own sons. And the story of Eli reminds us that the road to parental failure is often paved with good intentions. We can be trying to do the right thing with our kids and make many mistakes.
I imagine Eli, as he looked back over the years with his sons, had a number of if onlys when it came to raising Hophni and Phinehas. Using that story as a background, I want to suggest to you today four foundational and, more importantly, biblical commitments we have to make if we're going to eliminate, reduce the number of regrets we have about our parenting. Commitment number one is this, I will spend time with my children. Secondly, negotiate with your boss for a flexible schedule. A growing number of corporations are adopting flex time policies that are more family friendly.
If that's a possibility, negotiate for it. Third, and this is so key, refuse to allow other people to set your schedule. A mentor of mine used to say, you better determine what your priorities are or somebody else will determine them for you. Fourth, stay focused with your children. You know, it's possible to be with your children physically and be someplace else mentally and emotionally. And if I have any regrets as a parent, it is those Saturday afternoons, I was with my kids physically, but mentally, I was at last Tuesday night's deacons meeting. Or I was engaged in a conversation, an imaginary conversation with somebody.
Or I was spending time worrying about something that ended up never happening anyway. If you're going to spend time with your kids, be there. Spending time, the commitment to spend time with your kids. Commitment number two for regret-free parenting is this, I will create lasting memories with my children. It's important that when your children are gone, they be able to look back at the time they spent with you as a museum of wonderful memories. How do you create lasting, positive memories with your children? Author Stephen Kramer explains what he calls the three R's of memory making.
Let me expand on them for just a moment. The first R is routine. These are things that you do daily or weekly with your kids. Second R is ritual. Ritual, holidays, birthdays, vacations. And then the third R stands for the ridiculous. There ought to be just fun things you do as a family to provide excitement in your family.
They don't have to be elaborate or expensive. Dr. Kent Hughes, in his book Common Sense Parenting, says that he and his wife would put their children to bed, turn off the lights some nights, and about 15 minutes later, they'd walk in, turn the lights on, and yell out pajama ride. And they would all get in the car in their pajamas and drive to the local Dairy Queen to get a blizzard.
And then some nights they'd yell seconds, and they'd get in the car and go across down to another Dairy Queen. Those kind of things provide excitement in a family. We're going to look next time at a verse, Ecclesiastes 9, 9, that relates to our relationship to our mate. Solomon said, you only have a short time on this earth. Why not devote your time and energy to the one you love most dearly? That can also be expanded to your children. You only have a short time with your kids.
Why not devote the energy and time you need to the children you love? Commitment number three, I'll spend time with my children. Secondly, I'll build lasting memories with my children. Number three, I will discover and develop my children's gifts. You know, one of the most often quoted but least understood verses in the Bible about parenting is Proverbs 22, 6.
Most of you can say it by memory. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he was old, he will not depart from it. Most people misinterpret that verse, and they end up disappointed. They think that verse is a blanket promise that if you take your kids to church and read the Bible to them and train them, they will never depart from the Christian faith. We know that's not true. We all can think of examples. We may have examples in our own home of children we've poured spiritual truth into. They wander away and never come back.
Now, it's true. If you train your children in the principles of the Lord, they have a better chance of coming back than if you don't. But there are no blanket guarantees in the Bible. That's not what this verse is about.
What is the meaning of this verse? The key is train your child in the way he should go. The way he should go, a legitimate translation of that Hebrew phrase is train up a child according to his bent. In other words, recognize the uniqueness of your child, his unique gifts and interests, and maximize those because he's always going to return to those. If your child is bent toward athletics, he's always going to be pulled toward the soccer field or the football field. If your child, boy or girl, is a leader, they're always going to be pulled to places of leadership.
That's their natural bent. Train your child. Maximize your child's uniqueness and their bent, their interest in life.
How do you do that? Well, we need to remember every child, as James Dobson says, is every child is hand stitched by the Lord, not mass manufactured in a sweatshop. So remember, your children are unique, and to understand their uniqueness, number one, ask the right questions. I've given you a list on your outline of 10 questions Dr. John Maxwell says every parent should be able to answer about his or her child. That will help you discover whom your child really is.
Ask the right questions. Secondly, make the necessary sacrifices to develop your child's unique bent. You know, one of the things I'll always appreciate about my parents is the sacrifices they made for us to discover our unique interest. Sometimes people ask me, why in the world I picked the accordion to learn how to play?
Well, it's real easy. My dad played the accordion, and I remember this like it were yesterday. When I was five years old, I walked in to where my dad was practicing, and I said, Dad, can I take accordion lessons like you did? And he said, sure. And so my parents spent 13 years hauling me across town twice a week, spending thousands and thousands of dollars for accordion lessons. And yet, that was important for my development as a minister.
You say, well, how do those things work together? People ask me all the time, how in the world do you stand up and say the audacious things that you say before thousands and millions of people? What gives you the courage to do that?
And I say, it's easy. If you've learned how to stand up and play an accordion, you learn not to care what anybody thinks about anything. It makes you tough.
Anyway, my parents, they made the needed sacrifices. And thirdly, if you're going to train up your child according to his bent, accept the results. Realize your children may not turn out like you envisioned.
They may go a different direction. That's okay. You know, one of the greatest ways to avoid regrets as a parent is to be able to look back on your years with your children and say, I accepted, I discovered, and I maximized my child's unique bent. Fourth, how do you engage in no regret parenting? The fourth commitment is this. I will exercise appropriate discipline with my child.
I'll exercise appropriate discipline with my child. As Eli looked back on his experience with Hophni and Phinehas, I imagine most of his if onlys dealt with this area of discipline. Let me help us learn positive lessons from Eli's failures. Let me point out four mistakes Eli made in disciplining his sons. First of all, he didn't begin early enough.
He did not begin early enough. Again, 1 Samuel 3.13, God gives the reason for killing Hophni and Phinehas. Why this judgment? Because Eli did not rebuke them, and yet that seems unfair because, in fact, Eli did rebuke them. We find in 1 Samuel 2.25, Eli said to his sons when he heard the news of their disobedience, if one man sins against another, God will mediate for him, but if he sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him? But his sons would not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to put them to death. Do you see the conflict there? God says, I'm judging you, Eli, because you didn't rebuke your children, and yet we have a clear case here where he did rebuke his children. How do you reconcile that?
Here's the problem. Eli waited too long. He waited until his sons were young adults to try to correct them, and by then it was too late.
He didn't begin early enough. Jot down Proverbs 13.24. Solomon says, he who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.
You know what that word diligently means in Hebrew? It means literally at early dawn. That doesn't mean you wake up your children at 5 a.m. to beat them to death. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about early in life. You begin this discipline as children.
If you don't, you will have waited too long. The second mistake Eli made was he was not consistent in his discipline. Notice there were two things the boys did wrong. They stole from the altar of the sacrifice of the Lord, and they committed sexual immorality. Yet when Eli screwed up the courage to confront them, all he mentioned was sexual immorality. He never mentioned the stealing from the Lord's altar.
Why is that? Now this is just speculation. Could it be Eli was guilty of that same sin? So he dared not say anything to his boys about something he was guilty about?
Was this the chink in his own spiritual armor? We don't know the answer to that, but what we do know was he let his boys get by with one thing without mentioning the other thing. He was inconsistent in his discipline.
What are the mistakes Eli made? Thirdly, he was not observant about his children's behavior. He wasn't observant about his children's behavior.
How did he find out about their misbehavior from other people? Look at 1 Samuel 2 22. Now Eli was very old, and he heard all that his sons were doing to all Israel and how they lay with the women who served at the doorway of the tent of the meeting. And then when he confronted his sons, what did he say to them? Verses 23 and 24.
Why do you do such things, the evil things that I hear from all these people? No, my sons, for the report is not good, which I hear the Lord's people circulating. The Lord's people were gossiping about it. Did you hear about Hophni? Did you hear about Phinehas?
Have you heard what they're up to? Again, this is a little bit of sanctified imagination, but I think it's pretty accurate here. Eli seems to be more concerned about what people are saying about his sons than what his sons are actually doing.
Have you heard what other people are saying, what other people are saying? He should have been concerned about what his sons were doing, not the report others were circulating. And again, I think it's another case where Eli was more concerned about his position as a priest than he was in his responsibility as a father. Finally, Eli's mistake, and this is the foundational mistake, he did not teach his children to fear God. Ladies and gentlemen, the most important thing we can teach our children, our grandchildren, is that there is a God. He is always watching. He's always evaluating.
He's always judging. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Remember, this was a day in which people were being struck down by God just for touching the Ark of the Covenant. This is a day in which people were being slaughtered by God because they offered a sacrifice to God that he hadn't authorized. And yet here were sons who didn't mind stealing things from God. No thought about it whatsoever.
They didn't possess a fear of the Lord. Now I want to be very careful about how I say this. You've heard me teach for years, and I believe with all my heart that the most important discovery we can make as a Christian is what our spiritual gift is and to use that gift in serving Christ in the church. We've all been called to use our gifts. Your Christian life will never be complete until you discover your gift and use it in ministry. But having said that, we need to remember that our most important ministry, not our only ministry, our most important ministry is to our own children and grandchildren that God gives us.
If we lose our children to the kingdom of Satan, we have lost everything. My prayer is that today's message has inspired you to say goodbye to your parenting regrets. As I mentioned earlier, I wrote a book for you. It's specifically designed to help you take your next steps with God. My book is called Say Goodbye to Regret, and a copy is yours today when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.
When you're ready to knock down some of these emotional barriers that are holding you back, I'm confident the biblical principles in my book will help you. Again, when you give a generous gift, be sure to request my book, Say Goodbye to Regret. Now, before our time is out, I'd like to send a big thank you to our growing family of monthly supporters we call our Pathway Partners. Your consistent month-by-month giving is truly making a difference. For example, I heard recently from Sherry, who listens in Washington. She wrote, Well, your feedback's a great encouragement to us, Sherry.
And now, it's your turn. Would you be willing to join the team of Pathway Partners? By doing so, you're becoming an active participant in boldly declaring the gospel with people you will likely never meet. Yes, I'm the voice you hear on this program, but it's your monthly gift that empowers us to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word. Thanks for considering becoming a valued Pathway Partner today, David. Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Our goal is to reach 1,200 Pathway Partners during the month of January, and you can help us achieve that goal when you follow the easy steps to sign up online at ptv.org. Now, when you give your first monthly gift or when you give a one-time gift to support Pathway to Victory, we'll say thanks by sending you Say Goodbye to Regret. That's the bestselling book by Dr. Jeffress.
And when your gift is $75 or more, you'll receive not only the book, but also the complete collection of audio and video discs for the brand new Say Goodbye to Regret teaching series. Call us at 866-999-2965. One more time, that's 866-999-2965.
Or give online at ptv.org. You could also use our mailing address, P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins.
Join us again next time for the message, Say Goodbye to Marital Regrets. That's coming up Thursday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click on the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
