Video Transcript: Thriving Children

The basics of this are very simple. As we think about thriving children, we're going to think about two main points. One is that thriving children are children who honor and obey their parents, and the second thing about thriving children is that they have parents who are worth honoring and obeying. And so that's a call to children, to honor and obey; it's a call to parents to be honorable, and not to be the kind of parents who drive the children crazy and provoke them to wrath. As we saw in relation to husbands and wives and their relationship, God addresses each one. And so if your child here today, you need to hear the part about children honoring and obeying their parents and parents who are here shouldn't always be elbowing their kid in the ribs and say, are you listening, are you listening? You need to obey, obey. The parents need to clue in on the second part, being worth honoring and obey. 

So let's think about that a little bit more as we consider God’s teaching to us in this passage. We're talking about thriving children. And there is something about obedience that seems to be a key to either prospering or perishing, and that's taught in a variety of places in the Bible. Proverbs is one of the books that teaches that the most. And very rarely, in Proverbs it says, listen my son to your father's instruction, and do not forsake your mother's teaching. So there you have it. Obey your parents, both of them. My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity. If you want to thrive, be somebody who is willing to listen to your mom and dad, and that will be one of the keys to thriving, being prosperous and doing well. The opposite, however, is if you refuse to listen, refuse to honor and obey,  you’re dead meat, and that's about what the Bible says here. The eye that mocks a father, that scorns an aged mother will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures. So if you're buzzard bait, it may be because you wouldn't listen to anybody, starting with your parents. That's a pretty tough verse. But hey, sometimes just remember that old vulture verse when you're tempted to really just go off and do your own really smart thing. 

Now, just this week, in our Bible reading plan, we read of a week father and of his worthless sons. The sons of Eli were worthless men; they did not know the Lord. And when we get into the details, these people these two Hophni and Phinehas are priests and they’re priests who just seize from the offerings that God's people are bringing and fatten themselves whatever parts they want to grab even before they can be sacrificed properly, and they're sleeping around with the women who served at the entrance of the tabernacle. That's the kind of guys they turned out to be. They're worthless. And what one reason is that they would not listen. And even when they're grown up, Eli warns them and says well, you're not just sinning against people, you're sinning against God and if you sin against a person, maybe God can stand in the way and help you. But if you're going right into God's teeth himself right in His tabernacle and sinning against his sacrifices, what hope is there for you. And the Bible says they would not listen to the voice of their father Eli, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death. God had decided that these guys are done. They're finished. And so they are not going to listen to their father’s rebuke even at this point in time. 

But the Lord also said, I'm about to punish Eli’s house, not just those boys but forever for the iniquity that Eli knew. Because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. He made his suggestion and one suspects, he'd been making suggestions for a long time, but never enforcing them. So when they're grown and he says if you act that way, you're gonna be priests anymore. You’d be canned, you’d be fired, you’re gonna be out of here. No, he just said boys, I heard a bad report about you, please cut it out. They didn't cut it out. There were no consequences. Not from Eli that is, there were consequences from God. Eli and his son's all died in the same day. We'll be reading about that soon. The boys are killed in battle after they think that God’s ark is some sort of magic thing they can drag into battle and get automatic victory. So that doesn't work out so well. They end up dead and Eli, in a sense to his credit he's heartbroken when his boys are killed. But when he hears the ark, is taken, is when he falls over and breaks his neck. So he still had a heart for the Lord. He was just kind of a weak father. 

And oftentimes you'll get sermons that will say now, fathers don't be like Eli, be tougher on your discipline, be firmer with your boys and there may be some truth in that and we parents need to take that kind of thing to heart. But if you're one of the kids here today, it's not just Eli, who was wrong. The boys wouldn't listen. He was too wimpy, it was his fault for not being more forceful. But it was still their fault too, for not listening. He says they wouldn't not listen to the voice of their father. 

Now let’s take another example of somebody who grew up under Eli. You say, Well, Eli’s sons turned out that way because it was a lousy father. Well, he didn't do what was needed in their case, but just suppose he had been kind of a weak father not that great in some respects, but they have chosen to listen to him. What would happen? Well, here's maybe one possibility. The boy Samuel ministered to the Lord in the presence of Eli the priest. In fact, Eli was Samuel’s main father figure whom he grew up under. And the young man Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with men. He actually thrived in the Lord and was was growing up in his body and in favor with God and social relations with people. And it was Eli who helped Samuel to recognize the voice of the Lord. Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the word the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. And so when he keeps hearing his name, Samuel, Samuel, he's not sure what's going on. And it finally dawns on Eli what's going on and Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the young man. 

Now, this isn't the main passage I want to preach on, but I do want to just draw one lesson from it. You know, Eli was not the greatest of fathers, but a boy who was willing to listen to the old man despite all his flaws, learnt to hear the voice of the Lord. He learned to walk with the Lord. Eli was one of the saddest people in the Bible to me because he loved God. And it’s a tragedy what happened to his sons, and yet when he kind of had a second crack at it with a boy who would actually listen to him, Samuel, turned out pretty well. So anyway, if you're a young person here, and you say, my dad or my mom, you know, they aren't doing all that they should be. Well, that might be true. They will have to answer for that. But just keep in mind that Hophni and Phinehas got one result from being under Eli, Samuel got a very different one. And so when you even have flawed parents, if you're willing to listen to them, you still might flourish. 

Why obey your parents? Well, this is pleasing in the Lord. The text doesn't translate this pleases the Lord, but literally, it's just this is pleasing in the Lord. Remember Colossians is all about the Lord being in us and us being in the Lord. And so we live in a way that we are in the Lord and if you're a son, or a daughter, you're picturing how God the Son obeys his father. It's pleasing in the Lord, to be dramatizing what Jesus is like in relation to his own Father. Oh, another reason this is right. That’s not the worst reason in the world you know. Do the right thing. Try it sometime. Great idea. You're keeping one of God's ten commandments, the first commandment with a promise. Children obey your parents in  the Lord, for this is right. Thirdly, that it may go well with you. Your parents, they want the best for you. So obeying them helps you to thrive materially, relationally, spiritually. In almost all cases, listening to them is going to be what's good for you. 

Now, you children should know that when I was growing up, I was exemplary in all respects. And laughing..come on, that's not fair. And perfectly obedient to my parents. Well, actually not. You know, I shared with you before my memorable 10th birthday. And on my tenth birthday, I understood that now I had arrived at mature manhood, and it was time to graduate from the pony to the horse. And I had a job every day that summer to tie a bag of oats to the saddle and ride out on my pony and dump it in a pan  that the big bull would eat out of. 15V was the bull. Silver standard 15V I still remember. But I still keep track of my Dad’s cattle date too. Anyway, I was riding. That day it was time to get away from Frosty the pony move on up to Lady Bird the horse. My dad said no, you're not big enough to ride the horse yet. You better stick with Frosty for a while longer. And when you are ten you you have arrived at mature manhood and your father's opinions are not that reliable. 

So I decided after my dad was gone that I was going to ride the horse anyway. And so I got the saddle on, the bigger saddle, got the bridle on, tied the oats on the saddle and I took off and I was riding high. Literally riding high and that was great you know on a horse and cruising along, you know first kind of walking, then a trot and a canter and pretty happy and get out to the pasture. And decide we're gonna gallop a while and the horse decided to gallop a while and there was a problem with the saddle. It was not mine. And so it had stirrups that were longer than my legs and they were just flopping like this and horses understood what flopping against their sides means. That means go faster. And so the horse went faster and faster and faster. She went as faster as the harder the stirrups flapped until finally I thought there is no hope at all of stopping this horse. Because she had bit in her teeth and she was too strong for me and I wasn’t strong enough. 

So I decided my only hope is to at least change her direction. So I pulled on the reins one way and she headed for a swamp with a bunch of bumps in it. And when she hit that swamp, she tripped and flipped and I went over her head and she rolled on my leg and then hopped up and raced home without me. And I stumbled back home again, just covered with mud and feeling pretty sore and wondering what in the world my dad was going to do to me. But when I got home he didn't actually do anything except almost fall over laughing. He evidently felt that he did not need to apply much more discipline in that case. Now the fact that is you know that's something I can laugh about now, it's also an occasion that could have broken my neck quite easily or had been killed by horse rolling over on me. There are a lot of near misses in our life and some of them are near misses where we should be listening to somebody who knew better. And so a great reason to obey parents is so that it go well with you and so that you won't get worse just ended up as dead meat or at best covered with mud and looking kind of stupid. 

Fourth reason to obey parents is you're gonna be shaped by adults anyway. You might as well pick some good ones. If you think that as a kid, you're going to do what the other kids are thinking and you're going to be your own person, dream on. It just isn't gonna happen. Your favorite rock star if it happens to be one of these teenyboppers is controlled by some big corporation who set them up to be famous and advertise the daylights out of them. The beer sellers have all of their stuff targeted to certain age groups, the cigarette sellers want to get you hooked on that and maybe donate a little bit lung cancer to your cause. They know how to market their product. The pornographers are experts in marketing their product, and it's all done by a bunch of fat 50 and 60 year old men in corporate boardrooms, who are making billions of dollars of kids who think they're rebelling against the adults. Well, they're rebelling against some adults who just happens to be their own parents, but they are still just the pawns of these other adults who are out there pushing their buttons and taking their money and doing whatever they want to.

So my point among others is why obey your parents? You're gonna be stuck with doing what some adults want anyway, why not the adults who love me the most and know you the best? That might not be a bad idea. So why obey parents? We've got the fact that it's pleasing in the Lord and in Him right. It's good for you, and you might as well listen to some adults that cares about you rather than the ones who don't. 

Now, let's take the example of Jesus Christ. Obviously nobody can live up to Jesus’ example. But here's what I want to point out here. Sometimes the temptation to disobey or dishonor comes because your parents aren't perfect or because they don't understand you. Just suppose that you are exactly right about that on an occasion and they don't get it and that you as a person have a higher calling. While Jesus was in the temple asking and answering questions with the most learned people in the land and his parents were missing him because they just lost track of him for three days. And they were kind of panicked when they finally found the back and his mom said, Well, how can you do this to us? And Jesus said to them, Why were you looking for me? You know, that I must be in my father's house? And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. So here's a 12 year old kid just moving into his teenage years, his parents don't understand him. Good time now to rebel because he's better than they are. He knows better anyway. And this is the one case in the world when it's really true, that he is better than they are and knows better than they are. So what does he do? He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Kind of an echo of what happened with Samuel, increasing in stature and in favor with God and man. So you have the perfect son with imperfect parents who still honoring them and submitting to them and benefiting and thriving as he grows in stature and in favor with God and man. So the first thing they realized then is that thriving children are children who honor and obey their parents. Well enough about that. 

Thriving children have parents who are worth honoring and obeying and who don't needlessly provoke them, but bring them up in God's glad way. Fathers don't provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Fathers don't provoke your children to wrath, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Fathers, don't drive your kids crazy. That's what Colossians and Ephesians is saying. Now, it tells children to obey parents and to honor father and mother. It's dealing with both parents and yet this command to parents isn't actually directed at parents. It's directed at fathers. Fathers in particular are the focus of the command to bring up children and not provoke them. Why focus on fathers, because the word for parents is readily available. It was used in the previous sentence. Now this doesn't mean of course that moms have no role at all. But it remains a fact that he's addressing fathers very specifically here. 

One reason is that the father has the main responsibility for his children and he will answer to the Lord. I've often reminded the men of his church that when that judgment day comes in… it wasn’t yesterday, you know, some people aren't very good at predicting these things. In fact, nobody's good at predicting these things. You should get  out of the prediction game. But the fact is when that day does come, the first person to answer for how children were brought up will be the father. It will not be the mother. It will not be the pastor. It will not be the uncle. It will not be the Sunday School teacher or the youth group leader. It will be the father. Now that doesn't mean pastors have no responsibility in relation to children or that mothers have no responsibility, but the first and primary responsibility will be on the shoulders of the father. And if the question comes up, how did that Bible reading thing go? Well, you know, I really liked the ESPN, and I couldn't squeeze bible reading in very often. Just imagine yourself on the day of judgment, what are you going to say? You're asked, Well, what did you do to bring up your children in the training and instruction of the Lord? Again, none of us is going to be perfect, but let's face it, a lot of the excuses that we kind of mumble throughout our week for either not reading the Bible with our kids or not listening to them or blowing up on them. So those kinds of excuses will all ring hollow, when we're in the presence of the Lord who knows everything. 

At any rate the reason it says fathers, and not particularly fathers and mothers on this one is that the father does have the main responsibility. Now, as I say this, I want you to tread into pretty touchy territory. Because I know sometimes some moms who said, Boy, I wish my husband would get that. I wish he would be the father and the assertive man and leader that he should be. And I've heard a few of those I wish from people who couldn't handle it very well when he did. Because all of a sudden you saw a little bit of your turf shrinking, or some changes in relationship happening. And that can be a challenge for moms who say they want it. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. And sometimes men don't always handle it wisely, or tactfully either. But my point is, if this is what we seek then fathers and mothers both have to be willing to help bring that about. 

I think there's another reason though, that there's a focus on fathers as well. Not just because he has primary responsibility, but he's going to be needing the command the most, not provoke your kids and drive them crazy. I think fathers are gonna be a little more likely to do that, than the mothers. The fathers are gonna be just a little more likely to ignore their kids feelings and to trample on them. It certainly was the case at the time, Paul wrote these letters originally. He was writing this to Greek and Roman fathers who had the power of patria potestas, the right of life and death over their wife and children, and they could run roughshod and do whatever they wanted up to killing their own children and get away with it. So fathers in that kind of culture definitely would need a very strong warning not to provoke or to crush your children's spirits. 

But even in a culture that's not quite like that, it may still well be the case that men are going to be the ones who are going to be just a little more likely to crush a child’s spirit. So we may just need that worked from the Lord even more than the mothers. At any rate that addresses the fathers. You can speculate on what you think the reasons are, but that I think it's primarily that the father has a leading role, and then also that the father is the more likely to do the greatest damage in harming or provoking children. Certainly in terms of physical abuse, and also in some other possibilities. So when we think about that one end of the spectrum is the whole Eli sort of thing where he doesn't restrain his children. He doesn't insist on anything. He doesn't discipline anything. And the other end of the spectrum is the father who is just a brute, who's nasty, who is a disciplinarian, to the point of crushing his children’s spirit and the answer is not have no discipline, but to have loving discipline rather than wrong discipline. 

Now, the Bible makes it clear that discipline is important. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child but a rod of discipline drives it far from him. Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves them is diligent to discipline him. Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you strike him with the rod he will not die. If you strike with the rod, you'll save his soul from Sheol, from the pit, from being buzzard bait, as it says elsewhere in Proverbs. And so the point of loving discipline is if you love your kid at all, you want the best for them and you want to spare them from terrible consequences. And you need to show them early in life that disobedience and sin is painful, and that it is harmful. And measured discipline is a lot better than the total destruction that comes from somebody who has just learned to live a wicked and disobedient and dissolute life. Loving discipline is vital, not the kind that crushes the spirit, but nonetheless the kind that’s firm. 

Now, how do you discipline in a manner that doesn't crush your child's spirit, that doesn't provoke him to wrath. You know, if kids read that in abstraction, fathers don't provoke your kids to wrath or don't make your kids upset or don't drive them crazy. As with any other verse in the Bible, if you yank it out of context that sounds good. Dad, that makes me really mad. You’re provoking me to wrath. Because you didn't say that you'd go to the mall for the 14th time this week or you know, because you declined some other requests and there's a I’m mad. Obviously I’m mad because he didn't give what I wanted. That's what’s provoking and you're provoking me to wrath. Well, sorry about that. Doesn't work that way. That not every time that you got mad wasn't because your parents provoked you unreasonably? 

Now, as we think about discipline, I want to look at a passage we read a few weeks ago from the book of Isaiah in our Bible reading plan. It's a book about farmers. It pops up in Isaiah seemingly out of nowhere. God is talking about how he's going to punish Israel and then restore Israel. And all of a sudden you get this silly little passage about farming. And then it goes on again. And you might not even remember that or you might say, what was that farming thing doing out of context? Kind of dangling in the middle nowhere of these prophecies of judgment and restoration. Well, God is the Father who knows how to discipline and he knows when not to discipline or when to put a stop to it and when to start doing something positive as well. So it says does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground? You know, a farmer just plows, plows, plows, plows plows, plows plows. Okay. We will plow again and will plow again, we'll plow in March, we’ll plow on April, we'll plow in May, we'll plow in June, we’ll plow in July we'll just plow. That does not produce much of a crop. If all you're doing is plowing and you never plant you're not gonna get anything. You plow only in order to plant. You dig up the weeds only in order to help the good stuff grow. When he has leveled its surface does he not scatter dill, soak cumin and put in wheat and rose and barley in its proper place? He puts in all these good crops after he's done plowing. So he doesn't plow all the time. And once he's got himself planted, he's not digging it up every two days to see how it's doing. 

Now in terms of discipline and parenting, if you're constantly disciplining, constantly trying to stop the bad stuff from happening, and always digging and trying to control everything, you might not get too many weeds, but you're not going to get any kind of a crop at all. If you have a negative view of child rearing where I'm trying to bring up my child not to do bad stuff. Sorry, that doesn't cut. Bring up children not to do bad stuff is no vision for child rearing at all. How do I stop this? Not how do I make something flourish? 

Now, another thing that God says. Dill is not threshed in a threshing sledge nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin, but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod. Now we might associate the rod with getting really tough, but a rod is not a club. And what is being said here is there's also a time of harvest. When you get rid of the chaff and you thresh it and certain kinds of thing may take a heavier threshing machine. Other things take a lighter machine and a lot lighter touch. And certain kinds of crop you don't just take the big old threshing sledge and plow right over top of it and you don't grind it over a big heavy stone wheel. You just don't grind it to nothing. You take little stick is good enough. You just tap, tap and it separates out and you get rid of the bad stuff. You get the good stuff. And maybe some discipline is more of a tap tap tap that stings rather than smashes that accomplishes its purpose without crashing. 

So you see what's going on. In God's discipline, He's saying I'm a smart farmer. I invented farming and farmers for that matter. And I know how much Israel needs in terms of discipline without being wiped out as a nation and I will restore Israel and make her thrive again. And when we who are fathers reflect our Father, we realize we should be plowing only we need to be planting and building up what's good and healthy and helping them to thrive. And we don't always have to bring up the big guns in discipline and crush what they've been doing wrong. It may take just a little stick instead of the big stone and the big threshing sledge. So we understand there's a great difference between loving discipline and just outright cruelty. 

What's the difference between good correction and unhealthy cruelty? Well, disciplining is fair. It gives the punishment that's deserved and no more. It is done in love. And it's limited. You don't say well, I'm going to just do this forever. Some books on discipline even say you've got to spank your child till they cry, and if they don't cry, give another whack. Don't cry, give another whack harder and harder. Get a grip. There's a difference between disciplining and damaging which is bullying and causing bodily injury. When some people who've worked with abused children or who have been through abuse themselves hear that verse you know, punish your child with a rod, he won't die, that verse can sound pretty sad to them. Because they say I know a few who did, or a few who became mighty close. Even if the body wasn't killed, the spirit was. So we need to understand that when Proverbs is saying, hey, don't worry about dying, it's talking within the context of talking to wise covenant fathers, it’s not talking to idiots who abuse. And so there's a great difference between limited discipline and just an unlimited bullying. 

Another kind of abuse is how you use your tongue. You can scold and it's fine to scold. Kids need to be rebuked. They sometimes need to be corrected, but it should be done not to shame them in front of their friends or in front of lots of other people. It should be done privately personally and again in love. Screaming, raging, exploding, insulting them, doing in front of a lot of others and making them feel stupid and like nothing that's verbal abuse. And there's a great difference between a good sound scolding and vicious screaming and if you don't know the difference, then keep your mouth shut for a while, that still needs to say. 

Directing, fathers and mothers are to teach children and to teach them not just by what we say but by who we are, and by our example. And that's a great difference between dominating. Directing wisely is very different from having had rigid control over your child every second of the day or having a certain template for your children where you force them into a particular mold. I confess I'm not very fond of certain books that tell you that you need to teach your children early on to fit your schedule and do it all for three hours. And if they think they got to eat sooner than you think they should too bad. You know, if you’ve a little baby they gotta learn to fit your schedule and learnt it quick. And that there's just a sense that every child should be made to conform to the same schedule and that schedule is entirely defined by the parents. Now, that doesn't mean that at some point say Okay, let's give the kid 10 minutes long and to learn sleep through the night. Now you know you can do that. That's fine, but there is certain kinds of parenting advice which is written and tailored to control freaks. Don't be one of them. If you like books like that too much, burn them off. You know if you tend to be kind of sloppy, undisciplined, unscheduled anyway, maybe one of those books would be kind of a healthy corrective. If you'd like those books where you get to control everything and dominate every detail, trash them all. Because you probably need something different.

In terms of discipline, be careful. Punish direct disobedience or defiance. You know, when your kids get in your face so that they are not doing what you said. But you know, they’ve knocked over the milk with their elbow, you don't say how stupid you want a spanking the next time you do that? Hey, it's spills happen. I get mad too when they do, because it's a pain in the neck. You got to clean stupid things up, but that doesn't mean the kid was sinning against the LORD, or sinning against you for that matter. These are kids and you'll probably knock it over tomorrow. I think spank is most appropriate when kids are fairly young. I don't have hard and fast dates for when it's best to start, how old they need to be for the first spanking or how old they need me for the last one. Kids of a certain age may respond better to quick physical consequences than to a long lecture that they don't understand or to other forms of timeouts and punishment. So spanking might be appropriate in some cases. 

I think the parents who grew up under abusive parents, in all cases, it might be wise not to spank at all, but find other forms of discipline. Common the Bible says spare the rod, you know you got to use a rod. Well, you also have to use wisdom as you're applying the Bible. You should never use the rod if you're not able to control your own temper while you're doing so. So there may be parents who grew up under abusive parents who can do much better than their parents did and be very restrained and calm. But if you can't, leave all physical forms of punishment alone. I think that fairness does not always mean treating all children the same. You can have a definition of fairness that every offense that this child did should be treated in the same manner that as if that child did it and of course you don't wanna play favorites. But different kids are different. Okay, there are some who are repentant and sorry with one look at them. And there are others where they need some pretty firm discipline to understand what was wrong. 

Now of course, some kids who can give you that melting look, learn to milk that after a while. So obviously there's no way I can explain or even in my own life perfectly follow all this. I just want you to think about it that each child was different and so sometimes the form of discipline. One child may get a lot more spankings than another and deserve a lot more or maybe just have been more responsive to spanking and the other one  didn't get the spankings because of a different form of discipline. I’ve got kids that rather get spanked than get grounded for a few hours. So guess which one they get? They probably get grounded. So you know I mean, anyway so be careful, be consistent. Make sure the punishment fits the crime. And that means the kids need to know what to expect if they did something wrong. They need to know that it depends on them doing the wrong, not what mood you're in. You know how that is? Sometimes your kids do something wrong, and you're in just a jolly mood. And it was kind of cute. And it was kind of funny, and it got kind of a chuckle and a guffaw out of you and the children got away scot free with the encouragement of the laugh track. And they do the very same thing when you're in a sour mood, and the volcano goes off and death is near and it was the same offense. The only difference was what mood you happened to be in today. And so one way of provoking your children to wrath is for the punishment to depend on whether you're in a bad mood, rather than on whether they needed the discipline or not. 

You need to walk the talk. Parents who lecture their children on alcohol consumption, they better not be getting drunk. That's obvious, but it still happens. And there are many other things. We're in our walk with the Lord. Don't try to get your kids to do what you're not doing yourself. And that doesn't mean to get them to do the wrong thing. It means to clean up your own act. We have to be consistent in what order our kids to do we do, what we tell them to avoid, we avoid. 

Another aspect of consistencies is dad and mom are consistent with each other. That  triangling thing is deadly and the kids have to figure out which parent is nicer. And so if it doesn't work with one, they say, Mom, can I do this and such. No. Dad's kind of a soft touch. They’ll go to him and maybe give a compliment or two and say, Dad, they'll ask you this question as though it never occurred to them before or have been asked in the previous 30 seconds in a different room. And they'll ask for permission from the other parent. So it's important that moms and dads are consistent with each other and if one says no, well then that was no and you don't get a yes out of the other one.

Be understanding. That means you listen to your kids. That means you listen when when they've done something you think is wrong. They may have their excuses but hear them out. Maybe there was good reason maybe there wasn’t. You don't know much unless you listen. He who answers before listening that's his folly and his shame. If two kids are in the fight I'll guarantee you the first story will be a little different than the second one. The first presenters case seems right till another comes forward and questions him. A man of knowledge uses his words with restraint. A man of understanding is even tempered. So when you're understanding person you are able to keep your temper level. These are things that every one of us as we hear I suspect winces at least I'm sure way, way, way better person than I am. My temper is not always even. A fool gives full vent to his anger. But a wise man keeps himself under control. When your temperature gets too hot, your ears just shut down and so does your brain. And so it's just important to cool it and when you deal with your kids and your temper is too high, just chill for a little while. Get back together with them when you're ready for it. 

And be compassionate as a Father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame. He remembers we are dust. He knows us. He knows how mature or immature we are. He knows what our weaknesses are, what our vulnerabilities are. And he deals with us accordingly. And in the same way we need to be alert to our children's maturity level. If you've got a five year old, don't expect 15 year old maturity from them. You've got a 15 year old don't expect to exercise the same control over them that you would do over five year old. You have to understand your child's frame. You need to know their limits and their moods. When you got a little one, you know I've mentioned this before you've got a three year old who's just crankier than cranky at 8:30 at night. You do not need to whip out the largest Bible in the house and say it says here in the Word of God do everything without arguing or complaining so that you become blameless and pure children of God in a wicked and perverse generation. Now do everything without arguing and complaining. You might want to just say that kid is tired. Set him in bed, the lecture for different day. Now I'm not saying that every time you're tired as a kid, you have the right throw fits and be a crank. But parents got to understand the kids frame and if you've got a teenage child something like lack of sleep is a problem there too. But there may be other things going on in a person's life that make them a certain way, then you might respond only to the way they are at that moment or the thing you didn’t like, but often times something else is going on. And you need to be compassionate ready to listen to what is challenging another person. What their fears are. Deal with them as a human and be compassionate.

The main calling of a Christian parent is to display God's grace and love to children and   to show compassion and forgiveness. If you are living in la la land, if you think the main calling of a parent is to produce perfectly behaved children, it ain't gonna happen. And if you try, you will ruin them. That doesn't mean you don't have standards of behavior that you don't discipline for wrong behavior but your aim is that they know what it's like to live under grace, to live under love, to be forgiven sinners. Sometimes discipline sinners, the Lord disciplines those he loves and so do parents, but we need to show compassion and forgiveness to our children and we need to admit our own need of grace. Sometimes you know, you're wrong, you know, you provoked them. Don't keep that knowledge to yourself. Tell your kids I blew it. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. 

So admit your own need of grace and treat kids with grace and related to that as parents be teachable. You see a man wise in his own eyes. There's more hope for a fool than for him. I'll give him my 30 seconds on May 21. I’ve known and had to deal with issues related to Harold Camping for a few decades now. He is a man who was visited by my mentor Joel Neighborhood who was kind of on the same generation, had PhD in theology and knew all sorts of stuff. And it was a great man of God. Joel goes to visit him and this was before 1994 prediction of Jesus return already and he said hey, you’ve got to cut that out. That's just don’t. He talked to him at great length and finally all he could say at the end of it was Harold, you have one problem. You won't listen to anybody. That’s this verse. Wise in his own eyes. He wouldn't listen to anybody. The whole church was wrong. The whole church all the congregations of the world and all of his pastors were under the dominion of the evil one. And he the rich guy, construction engineer knew the Bible better than all of the churches and all the pastors, for all the history of the church. He was a fool. And those who listened were not much smarter. He who trusts in himself is a fool. But he who walks in wisdom is kept safe. The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom and humility comes before honor. 

Now, I've talked about a guy who made this date setting stupidity. But one of the great challenges in each of our own lives is to be willing to listen to others. Sometimes the others we need to listen to is our spouse when they can help us and correct us. Sometimes it's our own kids. I've got a book that's got its strengths and its weaknesses, but I still kinda like the title. How Children Raised Parents. Oh man, that's gotta be one of the wacko liberal really Bobby's? Well, it's actually not. But he says that God puts certain kids into your life as a parent for a reason too. To shape you in a certain way. And if you want to get cured of being your own law and your own selfish pig, having a couple of kids in your life will probably do it. I know for me getting married didn't have nearly the impact on me, in terms of challenging me that having children did. Because  getting married in the sense was all good. I got all sorts of good stuff out of it and really not much of downside. And with kids, the kids are a great joy, but there’s diapers to change. And there's orneriness, my wife isn't that ornery. So, you know, there. The fact is, when you get people in your life who cross you, that's when you finally find out who you are. When everybody is just going along with you and you get along famously and everything you want they provide you haven't learned anything about yourself except that's a great person. You learn a lot when you have How do you deal with it when this child is bugging you? 

Another thing you learn of course is you learn to love somebody just because you love them. When your father or mother you know and in one sense it's how helpless you are. You kind of stuck with loving this person no matter what they pull. And that puts you vulnerable position. A lot of people they don't like a church, they can leave it and go somewhere else. If they don't like a spouse, they can bail out on and go somewhere else, but man it’s really hard for people to just stop loving their kids no matter what shenanigans those kids pull. And so, one way the kids raise their parents is they teach you what it is to love unconditionally and they teach you how you need to listen to somebody else who's quite different from you are and do what's best for them and not for you. 

Another aspect, be involved. Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Teach them diligently God's commands to your children. Talk to them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down when you rise. It's 24/7 job to be a parent and to be a father in particular. So be involved in their lives. Be listening to them, be sharing from your own life with them and be godly. The Apostle says we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children encouraging, comforting, urging you to live lives worthy of God. If you must discipline so be it. Make sure there are a lot more hugs than spankings in your house. You've got to make sure that you've got a higher ratio by far of one to the other. That there are a lot more encouragement than scoldings in your house. If the only time you talk to your kids is to correct them, you need to evaluate your conversation and change it. Encouraging, comforting, urging. 

And then that great passage on the fruit of the Spirit. For the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. The most important thing about parenting is in a sense forget about parenting for a while and be a person who bears the fruit of the Spirit. If you are full of love, if your house and your personality are bubbling with joy, if there's peace and calm about you, if there is kindness and goodness, if your faithfulness and you keep your word and your promises if you're gentle, if you have self control, then whatever book you forgot to read about parenting techniques don't sweat it. If you have that fruit in your life, you're not going to have to force your faith on your kids. They're gonna want it. They're gonna want to see the difference between you and others. And they're going to want, who you are and what you've got. And so the best thing that we can do as fathers is simply to seek after God and ask the Christ to be formed in us, that his character and his fruit be in us. 

And as we do this again, let me remind you again, it's all in the Lord. We fathers are picturing the Fatherhood of God, for better or for worse. God says to His Son, Jesus, you are my beloved Son, with you I'm well pleased. And we do need to convey to our children that we love them, and that we take huge pleasure in them that we are delighted to have them as our sons and daughters. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing, and we fathers can take a cue from that too, that we love our children and that we're sharing from our own heart from our own life and, and helping them to understand what we're up to. Jesus teaches us to pray to our Father, our Father, who art in heaven, and we need to learn to respect our earthly fathers so that we can show respect also to our Father in heaven. And Jesus, He says, If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. And that's in a little different context, but it still helpful for those of us who are fathers. We are called to reflect the father and we gotta admit, we're evil. We're sinners, we got problems. But by God's grace, we still if our son asks for bread, we don't wanna give him a stone. If he asks for fish, we don't wanna give a snake or scorpion. And so God gives us the desire for what's best for our children. And even though we're evil we can at least in some dim way, reflect the Father's love, His discipline, his care, his teaching of his children. 

And then one last time for your kids, your attitude toward your parents pictures, the attitude of the Son toward the Father, as well as of you toward the Father. You're saying something about Jesus. Jesus said, I do nothing on my own authority, but I speak just as the Father taught me. I do as the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father. Jesus loves to do and loves to do what his Father says. And even on earth, it says although he was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. Now, Jesus was never disobedient, but he was called by his Father to do some very, very hard things. Supremely taking the whole sin of the world upon himself and being nailed to a cross so that other people could be saved. I can assure you that your father here on earth is never going to ask you to do something as hard as what the Father in Heaven asked his Son to do. And Jesus obeyed His Father. He learned obedience to the infinite degree when he obeyed His Father, even in that. And so our lesser obedience, sure we're not perfect like Jesus, but we're not called to quite achieve the things that his Father called him to do either. And so let us as children obey, honor, love our parents, and we as parents, let's do all we can to help our children to thrive in the Lord. 

Father, we thank you for your instruction. And we pray, Lord, that you'll give us the wisdom and the balance to implement your word as you desire. Help us above all to be devoted to you, to be delighted in you, to bear the fruit of the Spirit. And as we do that, Lord made that fruit of blessing overflow into our family into the lives of all around us. Father, help families who struggle to help parents who even now have a tense relationship and a difficult relationship with their children. Lord turn their hearts back towards one another that the parents can again become tender and affectionate and delight in their children. That the children can again look at the parents with a different eye and not one of resentment or judgement of the parents failings but one again to honor and obey. We pray, Lord, that you will forgive our many sins and heal our many wounds by the blood of Jesus Christ and by the work of Your Holy Spirit, and help us Lord as parents and children to encourage each other in walking with you for Jesus sake. Amen.