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Well, we’re on the tail end of a series together on building a Christ centered family. How do we do that? We’ve been defining that together. This week we’re going to talk about a scary word. Last week we talked about a scary word. Submission. Right. Who wants to do that. Next week we’re going to be talking about what if your spouse or a loved one that you care so much about isn’t on the same page with you, and that’ll be next week. This week we’re going to talk about the area of parenting and discipline. So I’m going to ask you the question what is parenting like? How would you define a question like that? I got an article off the internet. It’s called a mother’s dictionary. She’s learned even though Webster has defined particular words within his dictionary, it doesn’t quite fit the need of of what it means to be a mother. In the dictionary of the Mothers Dictionary, you’ll find words like bottle feeding, which stands for an opportunity for dad to get up at 2 a.m. to. I will testify to that this morning. Four month old and I am up all the time. What about drooling? It’s called how teething babies wash their chin. Family planning. It’s the art of spacing. The birthing of your children in the proper distance apart to keep you on the edge of financial disaster. Insanity. Feedback. It’s the inevitable result when the baby doesn’t appreciate the strained carrots.
Full name. It’s what you call your child when you’re mad at them. Or how about grandparents? The people who think your children are wonderful, even though they’re sure you’re not raising them right? That’s not true. Grandparents, right. Independent how we want our child to be, as long as they do everything we say. Yes. Hallelujah! Look out! What it’s too late to say for your child to do at the same time that you scream. It prepared childbirth a contradiction in terms. A show off is just simply a child who is more talented than yours. Sterilize what you do to your baby’s first pacifier by boiling it, and what you do to your last baby’s pacifier by blowing on it. Top bunk where you should never put a child wearing Superman pajamas. You guys laugh because you know every one of these are true. Here’s my favorite the two minute warning. It’s when the baby’s face turns red and she begins to make those familiar grunting noises. Right. You can fill in the rest there. It’s church. We don’t want to get too nasty and whoops, an exclamation that translates roughly into get a sponge. What it’s like to be parents. I read a poem online of a recent parent who was trying to express that idea to us. She she wrote, now lay me down to sleep. I pray my sanity to keep. For if some peace I do not find, I’m pretty sure I’ll lose my mind.
I pray I find a little quiet. Far from the daily family riot. May I lie back. Not have to think about what this stuffing down, what they’re stuffing down the sink, or who they’re with, or where they’re at and what they’re doing to the cat. I pray for time all to myself. Did something just fall off the shelf to cuddle in my nice soft bed? Oh no. Another goldfish did some silent moments, for goodness sake. Did I just hear a window break? And that I did? I need not cook or clean. Well, heck, I’ve got the right to dream. Yes, now I lay me down to sleep I pray my wit’s about to keep. But as I look around I know I must have lost them long ago. And I was reading being a new parent. I bought all these different books on parenting. Got to know all the things that the book says, right? And one of the best books, the first book I bought on parenting as I started to read for our own child that was recently born, the very first page of the very first chapter, the author wrote. You know, you can read all the books you want, but after you’ve read them, go ahead and just throw them away because your kid isn’t going to fit this mold. Every child is different, isn’t it? If I were to ask you this morning, what kind of person do you want your child to be? How would you answer that question? Because when I look at the role of creating a Christ centered family and the parent’s responsibility in that and what I read in Scripture, it is enormous.
And the influence that you bring into the life of your child. After all, when we read Scripture, God goes as far as to describe himself as the father throughout the Old and New Testament. He’s drawing on us just the sort of imagery that, as a young child, begins to learn the Word of God, the way that they identify who God is in their life is closely related to the acts and the way that his earthly father conducts himself here in this world. God also compares himself to a mother. Various portions of Scripture. He draws on the fact that a mother, as she draws herself her chicks in to literally protect her, protect them underneath of their wings. Parenting is hugely influential in how you display to your kids the character and nature of God. What is he like? How much does he care about me? When I started very early on in the ministry, I met a young lady who had recently come to the Lord, and she really hated reading the Bible of all things. Digging a little bit deeper in her life to find out the reason why that she hated reading scripture so much, is because God often compared himself to a father in this earthly life, and and her father was such a horrendous figure in her life that she couldn’t stand the thought that God wanted to compare himself in such a way for us to be able to understand what he’s like.
The role of being a parent and your kids life is very important. The Bible tells us that children are a blessing from the Lord. In Psalms. He tells us in the book of Genesis that we’re created to be fruitful and to multiply and subdue this earth. He created the family as the first institution in this world by which God desired for us to carry out his plan. Being a parent and having an idea of how you want to raise your child is hugely influential in the success of the family. But not just the family, the the ability of the church and the way that this nation goes. The family is important in God’s eyes. Look in portions of Scripture this morning. The Bible has all sorts of places within its text that shares with us what God desires for the family. Proverbs is a hugely influential book in how to raise your children and offering wisdom into their lives. It starts off in chapter 222 and verse four. If we just read here together, it says, the reward of humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor, and life.
Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse. He who guards himself will be far from them. Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. Think about the word training this morning. Go to a new job. I mean, initially into the new job, at least for the first few weeks. They put you through what they call training, right? Every job that you ever have in your life, they have some sort of philosophy that they like to carry out. Every manager style is different. What’s important for you to know as an employee is that you get underneath of that manager style, that company’s philosophy, and you live for it and you work towards it. That’s training. It’s the same word that’s used even within the family. There is a goal that we work toward together as a family, and it’s the parents responsibility to train up that child and look what it says to the child in the way that he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. When the child grows older, it’s it’s given the assumption to parents that as you discipline the child, as you raise the child up, as you train him under your wing, the way that the child is intended to go in life, even it says when he’s old, those tendencies and those habits that you’ve built in his life or her life will continue to be lived out in the future generations.
Training is an important word to understanding the whole concept behind verses 4 to 6. It literally means in the Hebrew text to narrow. It’s saying to us as parents, there’s all kinds of paths in this world that your child could take all sorts of areas in life that they could explore. But when you walk with the Lord, you understand that his footsteps are laid out before you. And as a parent, you narrowly follow the way of God in your life. I believe the Bible even talks about that, doesn’t it? Jesus says narrow is the gates that lead to him. And even in the area of parenting, all sorts of influences come into the life of the child. But it’s important for you as a parent to have a plan on what you want your child to be before the Lord, because God has a goal for their life. Training also follows another word which we dare not speak this morning, but Discipline. No one likes to be told what to do, right? But when you’re under someone’s authority or position, the act of discipline teaches you how to follow the philosophy you’re teaching as a learner. Interesting. The word discipline is also comes from the root word of which we get as people disciples. Disciple we know means a follower.
Referring to Christians. A follower of Jesus. When we look up Proverbs chapter 22 and verse six, when we talk about training, what we’re talking about is disciplining. When we talk about discipline, what we’re talking about is making a disciple. And the question we ask ourselves is, what type of model are we trying to put out for our children in order to follow or to be raised up into that training that we’re influencing in their lives? Why discipline? It’s very apparent in this verse. We discipline for a goal. God’s got a goal and purpose for everyone’s creation in this world. God’s got a will for everyone’s life. One of the things I love to do to teenagers. Every once in a while, I get the opportunity to get with them. I just simply ask him, What’s God’s goal for your life? I love that question because at first I get a deer in the headlights type of look like, I don’t know. I was just talking. I was just texting, I don’t know. That’s a huge question. Where do I go with what’s God’s will? Do you know what that is? If you read The Purpose Driven Life chapter one, the author of The Purpose Driven Life very quickly wrote out and he wrote to all the philosophers in the world, major philosophers of different religions, asking him, what is the purpose of life? And in asking that question, nearly all the philosophers wrote back, I have no idea.
And most of them wrote back. If you do figure it out, will you just let me know? We’re talking about religious influencers in this world, in particular religious affiliations or groups. What is the purpose of life? If we can’t begin to define that as people, then how in the world are we going to train up our children in the way they should go? The reason why discipline is so important to understand this morning in Proverbs chapter 22, along with it, is that God’s got a goal for our lives. If you look in your notes this morning under point number one discipline for a goal, you’ll find at the very bottom of that point, just some references to some verses that help outline what God’s goal is for our lives. You have the opportunity a little bit later, not today or during church, but you can go back in your own home and just study those those verses. It starts with John chapter 17 and verse three. Even for your own family, how you want to project God’s goal into your family and and to discipline and begin to train. But if I were to simply say to you this morning, what is God’s goal for our lives? Just define it in a nutshell. God’s goal for your life has a lot to do with relationships. In fact, it has everything to do with relationships. Bible tells us that God knows you.
He knows you so personally and intimately that he. He knows the words that you’re going to express before you say them. He knows the thoughts that you’re thinking before you think them. He knows if you’re in a time of desperation. You’re in a time of joy. You’re in a time of of need. Or you’re in a time of triumph. God knows you, but God also wants you to know him. The Bible tells us in John 17 three, this is eternal life that we may know him. It goes on to say, the Bible tells us, not only does God want us to know us, but know him. But in Romans 829 and two Corinthians 318, that God then begins to desire to transform you into his image as he knows you. And the more that you know him, the more he’s able to work on your heart, molding you and making you in his image and discipline as a disciple. And as you grow in knowing him, God’s desires for you to then go out into the world and begin to share that with other people. It’s all about relationships. It’s been said by a famous counselor that the quality of our life is determined by the depth of our relationships. That’s why family for us as a church, is such an important topic to talk about. Because when we looked in Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two together throughout this entire series, the first thing we noted about man is that God said, it’s not good for you to be alone.
I created you for the purpose of relationships. Therefore, I will create a female who will complete you. The areas that are your weaknesses will be her strengths, and the areas that are her weaknesses will be your strengths. And when you come together, the two shall be one flesh, completely complementary towards one another. Relationships are important, especially in the area of parenting when it comes to training up a child. As the parents are on one page together, they begin to nurture and train this child up in the way that God desires. Ephesians six or Ephesians period, is a book that we’ve looked at often together. Ephesians chapter six. We’ve looked at four as a church family talking about the family. We’ve looked at five together. If you go on to verse six, it begins to talk about the the father and child relationship. Now, let me just say to you mothers this morning, it’s not excluding you from this verse because you will remember as we studied together, the father is the primary one responsible for the headship of the family. God’s holding him accountable and that responsibility falls on his shoulders. Not talking to the father doesn’t mean the mothers are excluded from this verse. But here’s what it says in chapter six and verse four. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline.
Here’s the word discipline again, and instruction of the Lord. Very pointed. And the philosophy in life that God desires for this kid to follow. It’s not some belief that you carry apart from God. It’s everything that God is. When you talk about discipline and instruction in the Lord, you, you disciple your child under everything that God is for his life. Discipline is important because God has a goal for your child’s life, and it’s important to share that goal into their life, that they may begin to learn about what God desires for them and grow in that. And as they’re growing in the discipline and becoming a disciple of the Lord, even when they are old, they will not depart from it. Why? Discipline Bible tells us it’s not only important towards a goal, but God’s primary will for your child. We know is to come to know him. God desires to to know your child as he already knows your child. He wants your child to know him. But second, God’s will for your child. He may be a doctor. He may be a nurse. He may be a pilot. He may be whatever dream he has. The president of the United States Let me tell you a big broad will of God. That’s not a mystery for every child that you ever nurture within your home. Deals with his character and his wisdom.
I think sometimes as people, we get so mysterious about the will of God in our lives. What is God’s will, I don’t know. Let me pray about it. Is it to own this house or not own this house? Is it to buy this car? Do we need a white fence or a yellow fence? Let’s pray. I think much of God’s will isn’t a mystery to our lives. If we’re interested in just simply knowing him and letting the discipline of the Lord as we are becoming a disciple to mold our character and wisdom into his image, the rest will work itself out. God’s goal for you to discipline your child and to bring discipline into the life of your child is for the purpose of his character, his wisdom. In Proverbs chapter 22 and verse 15, it says, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will remove it far from him. You know, parents, this this means for us, we’ve got to be active in the discipline of our child. We can’t be passive as parents. We’ve got to have a plan for our children and disciplining them in the Lord, because foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. You know one thing you don’t have to teach your kid when they’re born. They begin to interact in life is how to be selfish, right? Kids just have that natural inclination.
Why? Because we’re all sinful. We all have a sin nature, which means our tendency is to gravitate towards that nature. And the Bible is agreeing with you that the foolishness is bound up in the child, just as we as parents sometimes act foolishly, so do children, because they have a sin nature. It’s important for us as parents to know this because when it comes to disciplining your child, when you ask your child why they did something wrong is not as important as just simply asking him what they did wrong. Here’s why. If you come to your child and they’ve done something wrong, and you as a parent come before them and you say, why did you do that? Why did you do that? And their answer is, whoa. What? What are you talking about? Right. The answer to why is already known. I mean, it’s taught throughout the Bible. The reason your child acted like that is because your child is a sinner. He made a mistake. He went against your will. Probably. And God’s right. If he’s going against yours, he’s going against God. That’s why he did it. What’s important to talk to your child about is what he did. Identify for me what you did. Tell me what you did wrong. Let’s agree together that what you did was wrong. The tendency is when we start talking about. Why did you do that? Why did you do that? The kid doesn’t give an answer.
Then all of a sudden, he gets a mouthpiece from mom. And every very soon, what? The child is going to learn is when, okay, when mom starts asking me the why question, just tune out and come back. When I hear that, stop, right? Kids that are really young, they can’t process all that information. They don’t. They don’t exactly reason the way that we do as adults. And so they just need to simply identify, okay, I did something wrong. Let’s talk about what it is. That way I don’t make that mistake again. All right. And then whatever form of discipline you come up with, be creative. You know, go with that. But what they did wrong, the Bible goes on to tell us in Proverbs one seven it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction here, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. It’s important for a child to learn the character that they need. It’s important for a child. We see in Proverbs one to begin to to gain that wisdom, to understand that the fear of the Lord is where that wisdom comes from. Can I tell you as parents, are you as dads, especially When a child begins to learn to fear the Lord, it’s it’s really modeled more than it’s what it’s said about the Lord in their lives, if that makes sense.
If you really want your child to fear the Lord and understand what it means to fear the Lord, it’s important for you as a mom or a dad, to show that you are reverential towards God in your own life. I mean, when I was a young kid, my parents weren’t real faithful to studying God’s Word, but one person I know was was my grandfather. And as a kid, when I would go home when he had free time, I would walk into his house when he’d get home from work. And the first thing my grandfather would do would he’d. He’d sit in this reclining chair. He knew how to relax. He was really good at falling asleep. But but in between all that, he would he would always pick up his Bible and read. And as a kid, every once in a while, when grandpa was gone, I would just, out of curiosity, go near that Bible that my grandpa thought was so important and begin to open it. And as I opened it, what I found was all over the margins. It’s just filled with notations and advice and the what? He was thinking about a particular passage of Scripture. He made those notes. But what what came clear to me as a child, as I continued to see this behavior modeled out in my grandfather’s father’s life, is that he had this particular wisdom and this respect and reverence for the Lord, and it was very important to him, so important to him, in fact, that I thought that it should probably be important to me as well.
And the Bible tells you in this passage of Scripture that if you all are interested in disciplining your child in the way that they should go, it’s important to recognize that God has a plan for your kid. But not only that, most of God’s will for your child is to begin to raise them up in a person of character, to train them up in the type of individual that God would want them to be, to be successful in the life that they’re going to lead one day, whether it be before a family or a job. And the way that we are most influential in doing that in a child is to model that lifestyle out. How many of us have been guilty? Don’t raise your hands. I don’t want to know, but how many of us have been guilty of saying, okay, don’t do what I do, but do what I say, right? Say as I do, not as I. Not as I. Whatever. You got the point, right. I mean, how many of us have said that before? And that is, let me just say, the worst parenting advice. Kids, of course, are going to do what you do. I mean, it looks entertaining, right? But if we want children to grow up in the way of character, we as parents have to begin to model that ourselves by discipline.
Let me say, before you begin to even discipline as a parent, you have to be disciplined yourself. You have to be a disciple yourself. You’re never going to be able to teach character and wisdom to your child until you’re expressing it in your own life. And your walk with God is far important for not only yourself, but the life and the spiritual growth of your family. Our kids are having a blast in the back. Next, we not only discipline for wisdom and for character. We discipline for independence. Now we’ve we’ve just a few weeks ago as parents. But the goal of marriage is oneness. But the goal of parenting is independence. And it was a horrible service when I said this, because at the end everyone started crying and I don’t want to bring that up today. But one day your your kids are going to leave the house, right? It’s going to be going to lose them because that’s parenting. You are training up this child in the way of character, God’s goal for their life so that they can become an independent, living for God type of person in this world. It says in Genesis chapter one and verse 2028, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The intentions of the family is to have kids, have kids and kids out in the world to multiply, be fruitful and fill it.
It says in verse chapter two and verse 24, for this reason a son shall leave his mother and father, and they shall cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Your child is leaving, at least if you want him to have a healthy marriage relationship. It’s important for you as parents not to get involved with the health of that marriage relationship. When your child comes to you and complains about their spouse, don’t give an ear to that. You can give advice to their lives but it’s important for them and their marriage not to be able to go back and say, well, my mom said this and my dad said this. Feel awkward at Thanksgiving dinner together. All right. God’s desire for your child is to become one flesh. If your child marries one day says in Proverbs chapter 12 and verse one, whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof. I love this. It’s stupid. It’s the only time I’ve been able to say stupid ever in church. And I’m quoting a verse. All right. But the question is simple. Do you want to be stupid? And most people are going to say, no, I don’t want to be stupid. Well, the way to not be stupid is discipline. God’s got a direction. Figure that direction for his life. Find and discover and grow in that relationship with the Lord and practice those disciplines.
And that way you won’t have to worry about people calling you a name. Right? Hebrews 12. It says this to us for the moment all discipline Painful. And that’s why we don’t like that word. It’s it’s going to require us to change. We get so good at being ourselves as people, right? Regardless of it’s simple or not, I got these habits. I kind of want to keep them the way I am. You know? God, you’re okay with 75% of what I do. Just give me this, you know? But for the moment it says this God is disciplining you as he’s changing you. It seems painful rather than pleasant. But here’s the long term gift to that later. It yields the peace, peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. When we’re in the act of discipline, of course the child doesn’t like it. We as adults don’t like it, but the focus is the long term goal, and we understand the purpose of discipline is to achieve that long term goal in the life of your child. Why discipline? We’re disciplining for independence. We’re disciplining that that child may then become their own in the leadership and governing under God’s headship. And be able to follow his direction. Apart from their parents, says in Deuteronomy 410 that they may fear me. God’s desires for the parents to teach the children that they may fear him.
He says in Deuteronomy 410, teach your children. We discipline for independence. We discipline also for respect. Respect is highly important in the life of a child as he grows, especially on to being an adult, says in Proverbs chapter nine and ten. We have had earthly fathers who discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. This verse isn’t saying a father’s discipline isn’t good, but let me just say fathers are pointing out that you need to discipline In this passage of Scripture. But what they’re saying is our fathers discipline us as they saw it was good. And the kids not denying that it wasn’t good in their life. But he’s saying, But God in his discipline towards us, has this overarching goal bigger than what our father brought into our lives. And now it’s important for us to begin to follow that desire for God in our lives. It’s important to recognize what’s happening in this verse, especially for the life of your child. What it’s saying to us as parents is when you have a young child within your home and you begin to discipline them, you begin to model for them what God’s desire is for their lives.
And they begin to see how important Jesus is to his family and even into his own life. When he leaves the the headship of his father’s home and goes out into this world, he still sees the significance and importance of following the headship of God in his life. Let me tell you the danger today with young people. There’s a book out that’s called Why You Believe What You Believe. It’s written by a man named Paul Little. Paul Little died, I think it was in the 80s in a car accident. But he devoted his life to ministering on college campuses. And this is why, when Paul Little was doing ministry in church, one of the things that he noticed that as his teenagers continued to grow up and as they reach the age of 18 and they became independent and they left the home, they also left the church, and they didn’t have the tendency to come back to church, to learn under God’s wisdom until they had already married and they had already had kids. And they begin to think to themselves, you know what might be good? We throw a little bit of Jesus back in our lives. The problem he noticed with that is that kids were going out into this world. They were going into college, and they were making the biggest choices of their lives and dealing with the type of career they would have, the person that they would marry, and the number of kids that they would have before they would dare come back into the church to begin to learn what God desired for them again.
And he knew that there was a need to go to these college campuses and to share with these kids the importance to follow after God, especially when they’re making such big decisions in their lives. And he’s saying to parents in this verse, parents, as you are, discipline your kids the importance of what it means to follow after God. Eventually they’re going to begin to own their own faith. And rather than be a faith that they practice through their parents, it becomes a faith that they’re practicing on their own. They’ve become independent. They understand the need to follow after God, and you have disciplined them in the area of respect of these. Have they, as they have learned to respect their father? It says in verse nine, they also now begin to learn to respect their God. Respect is the key to discipline. And I ask this morning, sometimes as parents, we are neglectful to discipline our kids, and I can’t help but think that sometimes it might be because we don’t feel that we are worthy of respect. James Dobson wrote a book called Dare to Discipline. See all these books I’m reading on children? I told you I read a bunch. He wrote a book called Dare to Discipline.
It’s a wonderful book. If you, as parents, are wondering about different methods. It’s a good book to read. As a parent, this is a taboo thing. I’m not going to tell you today how to discipline your kids, but as a parent, I do believe there’s a place for spanking with within the family. I think it’s important to raise your child. I don’t think you need to make a huge deal out of it. I think there’s a lot more to disciplining than just punishment. There’s also a reinforcing of good behavior. You want that to happen with your kid, right? But I think spanking is a is a godly thing. I think it’s found in Scripture. I think even in the book of Proverbs you find it a lot, especially in 23, in chapter 23 of Proverbs. Verse 13 and 14, it talks about spanking your child. And I would just simply ask before you throw that out and think that you’re not going to do it for your kid. Let me just ask, do you think parenting Thing today is done better in discipling your kids? Or do you think it’s done worse? It’s my tendency to think in American history, as I’ve looked back throughout generations, I don’t think we quite have control of the children the way that we used to have control of the children. Just me saying, I think also, if you were to go to a foreign country and interact with other people of other cultures, other moms, other fathers, one of the things that I often hear people come back and say is the kids there are well behaved.
I mean, they they, they follow their parents to a tee. I know there’s some there’s some overbearingness that can come with discipline, but I think discipline is a good thing. I think spanking has a place with kids. Dare to discipline is a place where if you read any Christian council today on discipline. Majority of them are going to tell you that there’s a place for it in the family. Dare to discipline, written by James Dobson, shares a lot about that type of philosophy, and James Dobson says within his book, the most important thing that you can do for your child to discipline your child the way that God desires in their lives, is to gain respect to take the respect, the position of authority that God has put over your child in their lives. Make them respect that position. Because if you can’t, you can’t discipline. And if you can’t discipline, you can’t influence. And if you can’t influence that person, that child that you’re raising isn’t going to go in the direction that God desires for their lives, apart from the grace of God coming into their world. Respect is important. And you discipline for respect. Bible tells us if we were to look in Ephesians chapter six back to Ephesians for just a moment, we read verse four together.
But if we look at chapter six and verse one, by the way, if anyone’s ever interested in my philosophy of discipline kids, I’ll share that person with you apart from service today. I don’t have time to get into all of it. We only have one message on discipline today, so let’s gear up. Okay. Ephesians six one says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. Ephesians chapter six and verse one and three is just talking directly to the children. How significant it is for you to learn to respect the leadership that God has placed over you, which is your parents. You just think, as a parent, if you don’t teach your child respect the danger that comes along with that. Because as a parent, when you raise that child, if they don’t learn to respect you, you’re not the final authority that they’re going to have over them in their lives. Not only does God rule over their heads, but one day they’re going to have a job and they’re going to have a boss, and their boss is going to demand respect. And if they don’t respect their boss, they’re not going to keep their job.
One day they’re going to have a spouse, and the spouse is going to have different wishes and ideas of what they should do. But they’ve learned to live such a selfish life because they haven’t learned to respect. And when they get into that marriage, guess what’s coming? A lot of counseling because they haven’t learned to have mutual respect towards that spouse that they have married And respect is not only key to the parenting principle and idea of what God’s direction is, it’s it’s important to the health of the entire future of that child. It tells you in this passage of Scripture in Ephesians, if you look in verse three, it says so that your child may be well with you, that they may live long on the earth. When I first became a Christian, I believed a lot that God was real mystical. And if I was, I was a young kid, and I believe man, I got if I start like obeying my parents, I’m probably going to be like 200. I want to listen to everything they say. God’s just going to like, keep giving me the fountain of youth. It’ll be great. But as I came to learn what it means to study the Bible, what I found out is what God is saying is when you discipline your child all the different paths in life, when you discipline your child the way that they should go, the things in life that that hinder the longevity of life, the things in life that cause us to make bad choices, that give us stress and in and give our give us heart attacks and create ulcers and puts us behind bars.
Whatever those decisions are. If a parent is disciplined, the child the right way to go. The life will be extended because they’ve followed the righteousness of God and they have the health of that. By the way, we talk about training a child when we talk about disciplining a child. The training and disciplining, according to Ephesians six four, deals with every area of your child’s life. This morning, we’re not talking about just their spiritual life and coming to church and being faithful to attending church. We’re talking about how God fits into every area of their life. We talk about training. It’s not just a set, structured environment. When you see the way that Jesus discipled his disciples, he he just went out into the world and taught him as he went along. In the book of Deuteronomy in chapter six, I believe it is when they talk about disciplining and teaching your children. The Bible tells us in those verses in chapter six, and it’s also in chapter 11 if you find it in six, beginning in verse six. And. To verse eight, it says, teach your children when they’re sitting down, when they’re rising up, when they’re going to bed, when they’re going throughout the days.
Teach your children according to God’s ways and God’s words. It involves every area of their life, whether it’s education, you as a parent, headship over their education, making sure they’re learning the right way. When we talk about the the diet and nutrition of their life, making sure they learn the right way. When we talk about recreation, learning how to have fun, make sure they learn to do that the right way. Every area of their life requires to learn discipline. The child when he’s born in this world knows nothing apart from what his parents teach him. And it’s important for you to discipline. In Deuteronomy six, the influence in Deuteronomy is to share with the younger generations the importance of following God in all areas of their life. Just as Jesus instructed his disciples in all areas of life that they may become independent, that they may learn respect that they may follow after the Lord. Teach the way that they should go, and the fruit from that is to have a long life worthy of respect, because they have had the character modeled. And let me just say, as parents, we’ve also talked about the importance of modeling respect as as God is important in your lives to just show that before them. When Grayson was born, one of the things that we started very early on, every morning I take him upstairs about 630 every morning and we we sit on the couch together and I just take time to pray.
I don’t know how long it’s going to catch on before he realizes I’m actually praying, because right now he just grabs my hand and coos and laughs the whole time, because I’ve got my eyes closed and I got my head bowed. But learning very early in the morning that what dad does is he seeks after his God because he is the key to his life. Modeling is important. We talk about the area of respect, how we gain that as a family before your child. As dads, when you go off to work in the morning, you think about young kids for just a moment when they’re getting ready to go into that preschool age or that young elementary school age. If you just looked at your child and just simply said, listen to your son. You’re you’re you’re at the house right now. Dad’s not here. If you see any spiders, you got to kill that for mom, right? But what I want you to do, more importantly, is just listen to what mom says. Because mom is so important to dad, and I just want her to be happy when she comes home. And I want you to be a good boy when I get back. Just listen to what mom says. She’s. It’s really important that you do that and you just walk away.
The impression that’s left on that child’s heart is, wow, mom is so important to dad. Wow. She is worth so much respect in dad’s eyes. Wow. If dad’s given me that permission to to be in charge of the spiders of the house. And he loves mommy that much, maybe I should listen to mommy too. Maybe that’s important that she gains my respect Teach that respect. Model that respect. And in so doing, you can discipline your child. Discipline is not only important to learn independence. Character. The goal of life. Respect. If I just hit one last thing for us this morning, I would also say to you parents. Discipline is about love. What’s God’s goal for your kid? Can you answer that question? We look in the Bible what God says. It says in Hebrews chapter 12, for those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines. We look at discipline. It told us in the in Hebrews just a moment ago. In same chapter, it said discipline isn’t fun when it’s happening, but the end result of that is just this fruit of righteousness. And here it is. It’s telling us it’s not fun, but it’s also tell us in verse six that he’s disciplining us, you, me today because he loves us. I mean, what does that mean to our lives? It says in Proverbs 13. Think about the other extreme for this for just a minute. It says he who withholds his rod hates his kid.
Discipline is so important that it’s communicating to your child, I love you. It’s as if God’s saying for this, the reason that I’m disciplining you as people today, the reason I’m I’m making you a disciple or following after me, is because I love you. It’s because I have a plan for you. It’s because I want to take the time to share in your life, and I want to take the time to invest in you. I want you to be a quality person in this world that people are going to respect. I want to protect you from harm. That might come your way by showing you the discipline in this world. I don’t want you to feel alone. I want you to know that I’m right there with you and you have a need. Kids tend to do sometimes as a parent disciplines them they often become children who like to push the boundaries. See how far the edge goes, right? But when you, as parents, have those boundaries established and surrounded by your child, what you’re saying to that child as they push those boundaries, although you’re not going to like this for just a moment, it really is done out of love. I’ve put these parameters around your life because God has a goal for you, and I love you, and I want you to be everything that God desires for you in life.
And the best that I have to offer you is everything that God wants for you. Tells us in Ephesians chapter six. We skipped over it just a minute ago, but it’s important in learning to love your children, to discipline, not to over discipline. That becomes a problem. Tells us in six chapter, chapter six and verse four. Parents, don’t exasperate your children. Meaning this when we talk about a house of rules and we set up the form of discipline, here’s what I don’t want to encourage you to to do as his parents. If you’re saying I need to be more disciplined in my life, don’t go home and make a bunch of rules, okay? You know your kid will hate me. Don’t tell your kid that, okay? But I said don’t make a bunch of rules. A house that runs discipline doesn’t have a have to have a whole lot of rules. A respect should be a part of those rules. But it doesn’t have to have a whole lot of rules. Figure out a way to minimize your rules by just giving overarching rules like respect the anyone above you or respect your parents. Listen to people. Don’t interrupt people and just follow what we say. Just just something simplistic. Whatever you want to make it in your home, don’t make it over disciplined because what that communicates begins to communicate to your child is you’re unloving. Communicates unless you follow all these rules, I’m not going to love you.
And sometimes it even comes over. Discipline comes in the way of over. So because the goal of parenting is to develop an independent child, and really, the older your child gets, the less rules they should have theoretically. Now I understand When we go through adolescence, there’s these new hormones that come in, probably a new set of rules come along with that, right. But as a parent, when you’re teaching and you’re nurturing and you’re training your child in the way that they should go, the older they get, the less rules they need to the point when they when they’re their senior high school 18 about to go on their own, they should really virtually be able to function in the home with no rules at all. Now, not all children get to that point, but it’s important as a parent that you aim for that goal to get your child to that point. That way, they can make you know that they can make godly choices as they go out into this world, but over disciplining them exasperates the kid. It tells us in this passage, when you do too much on them that they can’t handle, they blow up. There’s a model that says it’s called the X plus one model. It’s actually a model that your pastor will tend to follow in church. You guys don’t even know this, but I think Mark’s about the only one that knows this X plus one model.
It’s simply this we we give people things to do who want to serve the Lord. And as they serve the Lord, we begin to challenge them further. But we never throw so much on their plate that they can’t handle the load that they want to do. But as they want to serve the Lord, we just give plus one. Let’s develop more talents in this area. Okay. Plus one. Let’s develop more talents in this area. It’s the same thing with raising your child. Give your child everything that he wants. The way that Jesus discipled, give the disciples a job to do, and then just add something to it that they can continue to learn and grow in their talents. Add a little bit more as they progress. Add a little bit more as they progress. Don’t over exasperate them by giving too much that they can’t do. Don’t overprotect them that they feel swallowed up by your protection. Here’s the tendency is if we’re seeking independence from our kid, but we’re overbearing as parents, we create rebellion. We’re not after rebellion. We’re after independence. Rebellion is probably an outcry that may be in some areas of their life. They may need to experience a little bit more independence. If you communicate to them, they they show a little bit more of a tendency to follow after the rules of the home and follow the tendencies and respect and the wisdom of their authorities.
Rebellion is an important thing to to release from your child, to get it out of your child, but still teach them independence, even as a young baby, when they start just little, you can begin to teach them how important it is that they have independence but not rebellion. At the age of two. Pick two outfits out. Let them pick one. At the age of six, every treat in the house doesn’t have to be dad’s favorite. Throw their favorite ice cream in there. Let them pick what their favorite treat is. Give them the opportunity to make choices and develop as leaders when they’re teenagers. I’m not there yet, so I can’t tell you, but figure something out. Develop that independence, right? It’s important because if you don’t or you’re communicating to your child is that you don’t love them. Literally it says you hate them over. Discipline is a problem. It creates rebellion is under discipline. Under discipline creates rebellion. Two they’ve never learned to respect. And not learning to respect. They respect no one. They have no respect for authority, no respect for their leaders, no respect for the police, no respect for whatever governing their boss, whatever it is. And they become a person of rebellion because they’ve never learned to function under authority. It’s important, and it’s a position in which you, as parents, must find the need to follow after God’s will for your life.
Because overbearing and overprotecting rebellion under protecting long term rebellion. Let’s just follow what God’s will is for our lives. We want independent kids, not rebellious kids. Why discipline? I hope this morning, as parents, as I continue to make loud noises on my mic, you feel the need to discipline to think about how discipline fits into the life of your family. We discipline because it works. We discipline because it’s God’s method for your child. We discipline our kids. I’m not saying you as parents are always going to be perfect, but be honest. Be honest to your kid when you make mistakes, show them how to just confess and apologize and to make restitution in that relationship when you’ve made that mistake. B continuous discipline happens all the time throughout the life of your child. Throw verses up throughout the house. It literally says in Deuteronomy six, the verse I quoted a moment ago, that the parents could write verses and stick it up on doorposts and walls of their home, so kids can just read it as they’re going along that day. I mean, you may grow to ignore it, but a kid will just see a random postcard like I didn’t think I couldn’t write on the walls. What’s what’s mom doing? You know? And you see a postcard and he’ll stop and read it and reflect on what God’s Word has to say. We talk about bringing God’s Word into your family, having a devotional time once a week as a family.
It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. It doesn’t have to be anything long when your kids little act out Bible stories, man. Buy some costumes. Get a big sword, let the kid read about Goliath and cutting people’s heads off and let the girl read about Queen Esther. Let them elaborate on the stories. Get involved. Get into it. When they get older, their attention span is less, and they’d rather text than talk just a verse relative to their life. Just find one verse. Read it out loud as a family. Say, what does this say to you as a family? Just talk about that. Verse five minutes. Boom. Pray. Done. Seven minutes together. You’re done. And you begin to train the child in the way of God’s Word. Discipline continuously. Discipline creatively. Don’t be a boring parent. God’s not boring. It’s got to be a sin to be boring. I haven’t found that in the Bible yet, but it’s got to be a sin. I don’t I don’t ever want to be a part of learning about God in a boring way. But be be creative. Be honest with your kid. Be an example for your kid. Don’t expect them to become somebody you’re not. Be an example. God compares himself to the protection of the mother, to the disciplining of a father, to the love of a parent. And the way that you choose to bring into that family is highly important to how you build a Christ centered family. Do you see that this morning?