Godly Teaching

All right, everybody, good to see you. This is our last, this is our last time this year talking about this.

So I hope you found it profitable, I hope you find it profitable tonight, and yeah, this will conclude what we're talking about, parenting in perilous times.

Let's pray, shall we? Lord God, thank you for the time we have together. Thank you for these folks that have come out to learn and to grow.

And so now we pray that you would help us to actually understand this and use it for your glory and for the good of our families.

We are thankful for our children. We are thankful that you have entrusted them to us. We pray that in what we have learned, we will know how to execute that trust in a way that honors you, in Jesus' name, amen.

God's given you and your child a destination to reach, but how can you reach it? Now remember what our destination is, what's the goal?

Our goal is an independent, godly disciple who loves and serves God, loves and serves others, and can handle life by handling

God's word, okay? Memorize that, so it's always ringing in your head, right?

Godly, independent disciple who loves and serves God, and loves and serves others, and can handle life by handling

God's word. Three clauses, okay? Very easy to remember. The question is, how do you get there?

So let's turn to our verse in Ephesians 6, 4, to find out what

God says is the way we reach that destination with our children.

Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the

Lord. Now we've already seen that the rails that take us to our destination, there are two, there are two.

They are discipline and instruction. Both of them are necessary.

We emphasized this last week, so the first is discipline. In Hebrews 12, 11 we read, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.

The same word discipline that's used in Hebrews 12 is used in Ephesians 6, 4.

And here it is described as that which is painful. It's used for the training of an athlete.

So God speaks of structured control, or what we call discipline.

That's one rail. And again, let me say this, one rail isn't going to get you to the destination.

You need both rails. And the other one is instruction. It's the word, which is essentially the

Greek word that comes closest to our concept of counseling. It means to correct by word of mouth, or to place into the mind.

We see it used in a number of places. So we are to discipline and we are to counsel or instruct our children, okay?

Those are the two rails that take you to the destination. Now let me emphasize that again.

If you think all it takes is strict discipline, if you do that, then you may have someone who's compliant, but he may not reach the goal because the only thing he's doing is compliant because you're bigger, stronger, faster than he is at this point, okay?

You need teaching as well. You need that which will bring conviction, inner convictions.

And if you just teach, you're going to have a child who is not in, and what you see is here's a child who's not disciplined.

He thinks he's the wisest person in the world when actually he's foolish. Remember what we saw,

Proverbs 29, and that is, folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod will drive it from him.

Wisdom is gained with the rod, and so both of those have to be in operation.

Both of those have to be what we're doing in order to reach the destination. I always think of it this way.

There's my destination. I need two rails to get there. Not one, but two. Now, what's the basis for our teaching, okay?

And I would suggest to you that instruction must be based on understanding your child.

Understand your child. Look at Proverbs 20, verse 5 with me. Proverbs chapter 20, verse 5.

The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

Now, that's an important proverb for us to see, because if I'm going to understand my child,

I need to be able to draw out the streams in his heart. I need to be able to draw out what's going on on the inside.

And so it has to be based on understanding your child. You have to know that child.

You have to draw out those deep waters, okay, that takes skill.

And that's what we need to be doing with our children. How do you do that?

How do you get to do that? How do you draw out those deep waters? Well, one is you've got to listen to your children.

Don't just speak to them. Now, I can remember, I can't remember which of the

Tripp brothers pointed this out. It's Proverbs 18, 2. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

Now, what got me, I remember as I read that, he pointed out, too many dads are really good at telling their kids what they think, but they're not very good in understanding what their children are thinking.

And that really struck me, because I knew that that was true of me, right? I was always quick to tell them what

I thought and what they needed to do. And oftentimes, you know, it was scriptural truth.

But I don't know what's going on in their hearts. I don't understand them. And I'm quick.

I'm quick to tell them what to do, but I'm really slow at understanding them. And I want to really impress upon you the importance of that, okay?

Now, here's, and I can't remember if I got it from one of the Tripp brothers. You know how it is, at the end of the day, we preachers are all cut and paste people.

So, I don't know. Sometimes I think it's my idea and find out years later, no, I got it decades ago from someone else.

But, so, and you probably heard this one already. So, parents take their teenage son out to buy some shoes, right?

Buy some sneakers. And they get them the ones that only cost $85.

And they come home and he's moping around about it and everything. And so, dad says, what is wrong with you?

Listen to me. We can't afford $250 sneakers, okay?

We can't afford it. But besides, you know what God says? In 1 Thessalonians 5 .16, here's what he says.

He says, be thankful in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Now, you get thankful, you ungrateful wretch, okay? Real quick to tell him what's wrong.

What he doesn't know is the reason why that boy is moping around is not that he's, it's not that he's ungrateful.

The fact is that he knows that if you wear those shoes to school, everyone's going to think you're a dweeb.

You are some kind of a geek if you're wearing those shoes. So, dad's entirely missed the point.

He's not dealing with an ungrateful boy. He's dealing with a boy who struggles with the fear of man.

That's the issue that he has to help him with. And too often, dads, we're real quick in telling our kids what they ought to do.

And we're not quick enough to listen to them, to engage them, to figure out what's going on in their hearts.

All right? So, I think that's really, really, really important for us to see. It's really important for us to see.

I forget, I think it's Ted Tripp talks about the man. He says, he's talking to a man, he's counseling, and he says, so, do you communicate with your children?

He says, yeah, my boy told me he wanted a bike and I told him he needs to eat his peas. All right?

That's the way the conversation went. You also observe your children. Observe your children.

You be careful observers of them and maybe start to see patterns.

You see how they respond. Why is one sister slapping the other one?

And it seems to happen quite often. Are you watching? Are you seeing what triggers that?

Are you seeing a pattern there? Watch your killed children. Observe your children in different settings and you see how they react.

Learn to ask questions of your children. Again, Proverbs 25, draw them out.

Proverbs 18, 13 says, he who answers before he listens, that is his folly and his shame.

All right? Did you hear that? He who answers before he listens, that's his folly and his shame.

Ask questions. What were you thinking when you did that? What makes you so angry?

Why are you so sad? Here's what I've noticed. You're sad last week when this happened and this happened and this happened.

What's making you so sad? What is it? You ask questions. You need to develop a loving relationship.

That is absolutely essential. Remember how we ended up last week? Relationship is everything.

Everything depends on that relationship. So you want to develop a loving relationship. You want your children to want to talk to you.

Okay? So do that. Work hard at that.

Have fun with your kids. Do things with them. Sit with them and just talk with them.

Develop a relationship, a loving relationship with your children. And then engage your children.

They're not just objects that get in your way. They are people that you need to engage and to understand.

Okay? And again, dads, this is where we need to work hard.

We tend to, you know, I don't know. We don't pay as much attention to our children like mom does.

We need to engage them more. Right? So I think all of those are important. By the way,

I think this is also important for discipline as well. Right? Not just teaching, but for discipline.

Engaging and understanding your children. Now, why should you teach?

Why should you teach? Well, first of all, it's a primary means of God's grace.

I think that's very, very, very important. In 1 Peter chapter two, beginning in verse 22, we read these words.

No, you know, that's not right. I think it should be chapter one, not chapter two.

Make that correction in your notes. 1 Peter chapter one. All right.

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the

Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. Now notice, it is the word of God that has this imperishable seed that brings about new birth.

And so you need to use the word of God in your teaching. God promises to bless his word.

It's a means of regeneration. Too many parents from our kinds of backgrounds are just looking for that one time where the kid makes the prayer and everything's, we're home safe now, he's going to heaven.

All right, no, what you need to do is minister the word of God. And the word of God brings the seed that produces regeneration.

That does not guarantee that every child's gonna be saved. But don't deceive yourself into thinking either that just by making a bunch of rules and telling them what they ought to do is gonna change them.

The word of God changes them. Your instruction should come from the word of God. All right, your instruction should come from the word of God.

Now, here's another reason why we need to teach them, because it builds in your children inner convictions.

You instruct, you admonish in order to gain personal commitment to the truth.

It's not stuffing their heads with facts, but gaining them, but building inner convictions in them.

That's why teaching is so important, because you discipline, but you teach in order to build those inner convictions so that when they are leaving, it's not that they've just been compliant.

Now that they're gone, I'm free of all those rules. But now they have inner convictions.

They're going to leave because, and they're going to serve God because they have convictions.

Think about Daniel, Daniel the prophet. We all know his story.

We all know the story of Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how they stood against Nebuchadnezzar.

Did you ever wonder how they did that? Do you think they were the only four guys that Nebuchadnezzar deported from their land?

Okay, let me give you some history. Nebuchadnezzar sweeps in, he conquers

Jerusalem, and he takes some people out. And he leaves the king in place, he puts another king on the throne, and he's supposed to be a vassal to Nebuchadnezzar.

He rebels, so Nebuchadnezzar comes in again, 586 B .C., and he absolutely levels

Jerusalem. And the first time he came and the second time he came, particularly the first time, he takes the best and the brightest of the young people and takes them to Babylon, takes them out of their country.

Now I want you to think about this. He takes these young people, he wants to use them in the administration of the empire, so he's going to take them, he yanks them away from their parents, away from everything that's familiar to them, he takes them to a pagan land, he gives them pagan education, and on top of that, he gives them pagan names, right?

We all know Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Do you know their Hebrew names? You know what

Daniel's Babylonian name was? What was it? Belteshazzar, right.

Now here's the point. They're ripped from everything that's familiar. They're given a pagan education.

They are given pagan names. They are in an entirely foreign environment.

Why do those four boys stand? Well, probably all the others that were taken are just following, just doing whatever

Nebuchadnezzar says. Why do they stand? How can they say to the Nebuchadnezzar, we're not going to bow to that idol.

You can throw us in a fire and God will rescue us. But if he doesn't, we're not going to do what you say.

It's because they had inner convictions. They had inner convictions built into them, right?

They were committed to what God had said, all right? And that's how we need to think.

We need to build those inner convictions so that when they're not in our home, they're still going to live for God because they are convinced that's the way to live.

So not just the bottom, but the mind of your child is important. Those are the rails upon which you and your child travel in order to reach that God -given destination.

Again, don't think that being a strict disciplinarian will get the job done, and don't think that teaching alone will get the job done.

Both of them are necessary in order to reach the goal that God has given for your children. All right, how should you teach?

How should you teach? Well, you should teach formally. Teach formally.

Family worship. You gather around, you read the word of God. You learn there.

Sermon notes, right? Do you ever ask your kids what they learned in the sermon?

I remembered when my dad would preach, I remembered all the stories. I didn't remember much of the content, right?

I remember that, but sermon notes. Catechisms. Catechisms are great. Question and answer, learning doctrine, learning those things through catechism.

Sunday school tools that children bring home, their papers. You ever use those? You can use those.

Encourage and enforce what they learned in Sunday school. Books you can read together. Okay?

As you see the needs and weaknesses of each child, you're gonna teach to that. You can do that in a formal setting.

And there are many resources that you can find to help you with formal worship. One of them is our,

Andrew, someone once referred to you as Pastor B just the other day to me. Pastor B is a good resource.

He's really thought deeply about family worship. Good resource to help you understand that.

But notice, you should also teach informally. It's not just formal times. It's those informal times.

Someone read for us Deuteronomy chapter six, verses six and seven. Deuteronomy six, six and seven.

I'm on four. Carrie. All right, you teach when you're lying down, when you're walking along the way.

In everyday life, you're teaching. In everyday life, you are teaching.

You take those opportunities to teach. Okay? So how do you do it informally?

Someone read for us Joshua chapter four, six and seven. Joshua four, six and seven.

Okay? So question and answer. And here it's talking about a monument they'd built on the

Jordan. And the reason why they built that is so when succeeding generations would come and say, what is that pile of rocks all about?

You give them the answer. You tell them about how God delivered his people. I mean, you see this in church things, right?

Why does the pastor get up every Sunday and just yammer on,

Dad, what's that all about? Or what's with the cups and the bread, right?

Question and answer's not just that. Again, one of the things that stands out in my mind, this is one of the things

I remember. I was putting the boys to bed.

This is when we didn't have any girls yet. So I was putting the boys to bed and one of them asked me this question.

Dad, why are sharks mean? I'll never forget that. Why are sharks mean?

Well, you can just say, well, you know, that's sharks. That's the way they are. Or you could say, you know what? Sin descended on this earth because of Adam and all the perfect harmony of our universe was disrupted.

Right? What a great opportunity to talk about the curse of sin and how the perfect environment was ruined.

So they'll ask you all kinds of questions. Our kids naturally ask questions. And you know what?

Most of the time, those are opportunities to teach them the word of God. Most of the time, those are opportunities to teach the word of God.

Dad, why are some kids so mean at school? There's some kids at school that are just plain bullies.

Why is that? Right, you can say, well, you know how kids are. Well, you can talk about the fact that they're depraved.

They're depraved in every part of their being, right? There's all kinds of opportunities to teach by question and answer.

There's also teaching by normal life situations, all right? Like we just read, sitting at the table for dinner, playtime, bedtime.

When there are crises, right? You know, when your four -year -old has a crisis, you can use that to teach when your 16 -year -old has a crisis.

You use that to teach them about God when they have to make decisions or choices, right?

Wow, you know, what should I do? Should I get a job or should

I go to college? What do you do? Do you just say, well, let's put all your strengths and weaknesses down and, you know, we'll figure it out that way?

Well, you can do that, but do you also bring the word of God to bear? What are your gifts like? What does God say about the way you're made?

What are your gifts like? There's opportunities to teach. When they're complaining and they need to learn contentment, okay?

When they're complaining and they need to learn contentment. I'm not gonna tell you this story.

Communing with God. How do they, do they know how to commune with God? Do you ever pray with them?

Do you teach them how to pray? When the boys start calling or the girls start showing an interest, right?

You're gonna teach about that? What does

God have to say about term papers and projects? Do you have anything to say about those? Yeah, you know what he has to say?

He has to say, you do your best, Colossians chapter three. You don't do it just to get a grade.

You do it to honor God. You do your very best on that paper. When they get jobs, right?

When they get jobs. When babies are born into the family. When he doesn't or she doesn't make the team.

Those are all opportunities to teach the word of God, okay? I remember one of my mentors saying they had a little cat they called

Snowball. It was a white cat. And Snowball got run over, as cats are wont to do.

And so he took that opportunity. You know what he taught his kids? He said, you know what? You know what the

Bible tells us? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He gave us

Snowball for a while. Now he's taking him, right? Those are opportunities to teach.

Now, I'll be honest with you. I think our kids learn the most in our informal times as we dealt with life and all those sorts of situations.

But notice this. They're gonna learn by your example. Do not discount that, never.

You should never, let me say that one more time. Never say to your children, do what

I say, not what I do. And by the way, it's not practice what you preach.

It's preach what you practice. Now here's why I say that. Look at 1

Corinthians 4, 14 through 16. 1

Corinthians 4, 14 through 16. Someone read that for us. Okay, come on.

I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel,

I urge you then to be independent of me. All right, so there he really makes this point.

I've been a father to you. But then what does he say? Imitate me.

Now, I don't know about you, but that used to really bother me. That used to bother me.

Because he does that, I think, five times in the New Testament. Says, do what I do.

It's like, what? Are you arrogant or what, Paul? No, he's not being arrogant.

He's using the biblical model of learning called discipleship. Discipleship is the way the

Bible teaches. It's show and tell. You don't just tell people, you show it. And so what he's saying to them is, you saw that here's

God's truth. You saw how I put it into practice. You know, our children are gonna learn truth not just when we talk about it, but when they see it lived out in front of them.

Then they will learn the truth, right? You know what? One of the most,

I will never, never, never forget this night. This one night, my mom had died and we went to the hospital.

Of course, you know, they said, you need to come to the hospital right away, right? We went to the hospital.

We knew my mom had died. We walk in the room and there's my dad. Of course, he's weeping.

And then he looks up at, he looks up at my brother and I and he says, boys,

I thought I could tell this story. He said, boys, don't ever be ashamed to love a woman like I loved your mom.

I knew what he was talking about, right? Because I'd seen that.

I had seen, I just preached, husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church.

But I saw that. I saw that happen. So never discount the example.

It's the way of the Bible when it comes to teaching. It's not just telling. It's showing and telling, okay?

Do they see an example of Christ's love? Do they see you live consistently with your value system?

Or do they see you compromise? Do you show how a husband and wife can communicate to solve problems?

Can you see that? Do they see that? Do they see endurance and joy or giving up and grumbling?

What do they see? These are the things that you need to say. One of the biggies,

I think, is how to handle mistakes and failures biblically. Do you seek forgiveness or do you make excuses?

If you teach about forgiveness, you need to do it. They need not just to hear it, they need to see it.

Show and tell, that's the way we learn, okay? So those are ways of how we teach informally.

What should we teach? Well, everything the Bible has to say, okay?

I'm just gonna give you a bunch of them here, okay? Teach the gospel. Be talking about the gospel.

The gospel should be a normal part of conversation. I was convinced of something when we were bringing up our kids, and that is

I'm not gonna look for the moment of decision. I can tell you some of my children had the moment, some did not, but this is what

I thought. The gospel needs to permeate our lives because it is the gospel that regenerates a heart.

I was looking for regeneration. I was looking for transformation, okay? And so the gospel should permeate everything, and the gospel should be part of your conversation.

And in that way, it's there, they hear it, okay? Teach the purpose of limits.

Teach the purpose of limits, okay? Tell them why they can't do whatever they want to do.

That's life. That's the way life is. Teach them attentiveness, obedience, and honor of parents.

Again, we take too much of our, we take too much of our culture, too much influences us.

We are suspicious of authority all the time. Teach them doctrine, okay?

Teach them doctrine. Let them leave your supper table being the fire -breathing

Calvinists you want them to be. All right? Teach them biblical values.

What are they? I love Jeremiah 9, 23, and 24. I absolutely love that passage.

Let's look at it. Jeremiah 9, 23, and 24.

Let not, thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom.

Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches.

Let not, but let him who boasts in this, that he understands and he knows me, that I am the

Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things

I delight, declares the Lord. So don't boast in your wisdom, or your strength, or your riches, but boast in the fact that you know

God. Do you have those kinds of values? I've put up here the world's four Bs, right?

Beware of the world's four Bs. Beauty, brains, brawn, and belongings, right?

Who are the popular kids in high school? The ones, the smart ones, the pretty ones, the athletes, and the ones who have the best cars, right?

And so our kids learn. They live in a culture that's saying, these are what's important, and we need to be teaching them biblical values about the joy and the value of knowing

God. Teach them to be good stewards, okay? Teach them to be good stewards, not just treating property badly, but treating it well.

This is what God's entrusted to you. Teach them to solve problems and to make decisions biblically.

You know how you do that? When one kid comes and tattles on the other, and you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, have you talked to her about that yet?

Well, no, well then you go talk to them and you seek to try to settle it, and if you can't settle it, then you come to me, all right?

Teaching them to solve those problems biblically and to make decisions biblically.

You know, I think this is really important. I think this is really important in terms of our teens, because, right, they're starting to move away from us.

They're starting to be on their own a little bit more. They start knowing things that their friends are doing that no one else knows, right?

So we need to teach them. If you see your, Galatians 6, if you see your brother caught in a sin, trapped, you go get him.

You go get him. Don't leave your friends to go down the path of destruction.

Go after him, right? Teach them to love and serve others.

Put others' interests above your own. Teach them to live by faith and not by feelings.

Man, I don't know if you've noticed this, but I listen to newscasts.

I listen to what people are saying, and right now, the ruling philosophy of our culture is whatever makes you feel good, you do it.

It doesn't, no one else can tell you what to say, to be, or to do, because you have to be you, right?

It's amazing. I mean, I heard, I heard,

I don't know, I don't know if this was a January 6th committee or another congressional committee. This woman was speaking about how in her locality, she couldn't say her name anymore because people would associate it with this because of some terrible things somebody did, and the whole thing was about how terrible

I feel. It was amazing to me. It wasn't about, wow, that's unjust.

It was, it makes me feel terrible, and even the questioners were asking, how does that make you feel?

That just blew me away. It's like, what is this all about, right? We're gonna make a law based on what people feel?

Yeah. So teach them to live by faith, not by feelings. Teach them to return good for evil.

This is really important in the world in which we live. They need to learn to love their enemies because we're gonna have lots of them, and so will they.

I love the story of John and Krista Street. My buddy, John Street, and his little girl,

Krista. There was a girl that was picking on Krista and really treating her badly, and so she came home and told her dad and mom about it, and so John said, okay, here's what we're gonna do.

You're gonna bake two plates of cookies, and we're going to go to her house, and you're gonna give her those cookies.

You're gonna have to return good for evil. So that's what they did.

Now, of course, there's also the point that John then was able to talk to the girl's parents, but Krista learned,

Krista learned, this person's treating me badly. I'm gonna go out of my way to do something good for her.

That's what we need to be teaching our kids. We need to teach them to be content, all right?

Teach them to be content. Teach them to be good workers.

Man, you know, the Bible says a lot about sluggards.

I love 1 Thessalonians 4 .12. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and to work with your hands.

Again, my father taught my brother and I, hey, listen, so we grew up in dairy farmland.

Everybody in our church were dairy farmers, right? Which meant they had to milk twice a day.

Back in those days, they milk three times now, but then they would milk at five in the morning and five at night, which meant that Sunday night church for us wasn't until eight o 'clock at night.

So everybody were dairy farmers. I remember my dad, you can almost see us standing there saying, you know what, if you don't think that preaching and teaching the

Bible is somehow superior to the work that these folks are doing, no matter what you do, you work for the glory of God, and you always work your hardest.

You always work your hardest, and when you've done it, you've just done what you're supposed to do, right?

Man, he just, and you know what? I saw that in his life. Here's my dad.

He's been in the ministry, so let's see, from 1947 to 1978, and then he was a pastor in Indiana in 78, and he resigned because he wanted to start an itinerant ministry, going from church to church.

But you know what? That doesn't happen overnight. So here's my dad. He would've been 60 years old, right?

Trying to start another ministry. He got a job, third shift at Piggly Wiggly Mopping Floors.

That's after, what, 30 plus years of ministry. Why? Well, because it's just, gotta provide for a family.

This is what God has for you. This is what I do, right? Teach them to be good workers.

By the way, not to, I don't wanna push this too much, but in our culture today, if you're a good worker, you can write your own ticket, because good workers are rare.

Good workers are rare. Okay, last thing, teach them how to be good spouses, all right?

You wanna prepare them for their future spouse. So teach them that.

Now, is there more things you can teach? Absolutely. There's more things to teach. There's always more to teach.

Remember, you teach them. So there's much to say about teaching our children, but one thing you have to be convinced of, teaching is absolutely essential to get them to God's goal, and so you need to be teaching.

So you need to take this to heart, and you need to become a serious disciple of Jesus so you can disciple your children, all right?

Okay, questions. Okay, all right, just one.

One question. Anybody have a question? Ooh, yeah, that's a good one,

Ann. You know, after all our discussions, I should have included that, shouldn't I have? Let's see if I remember to put it in here.

We need to also teach our children how they can live a single life as well.

We do need to teach them that. I think sometimes in our reaction to the world in which we live, you know, that's so anti -marriage, we really hammer marriage, and I think we should.

I'm not saying hammer marriage less, but we do need to talk about, hey, if you don't get married, how are you gonna live?

What does that mean, right? It means more time to serve God. It means you use your single state to serve others more in a variety of other things.

Okay. Yeah, Annie asked about teaching them about if they don't get married.

Yance. I think sometimes it's hard to just see every single instance and see, sometimes

I just feel like I hammer constantly, telling my kids, they're just trying to have fun, and they're being destructive more, which then could, maybe it's a doing well, but I mean, it could be.

Not every moment's a teachable moment. Or is every moment a teachable moment? Or is every moment a teachable moment?

Well, it could be, I suppose. You know, I'm not making a hard, fast rule here that says when your kids jump into the pool, you say, hey, you know,

God's good. Right? And then they climb out of the pool, and they hit their head, and you go, so God had for you today.

He has an eternal decree that you are gonna fall out of the pool and hit your head, right?

And you wrap them in a towel, and you say, isn't it great how God's provided us these towels? I mean, yeah, you could do that,

I suppose. But no, what I'm saying is don't miss the clear opportunities to teach, okay?

Don't miss those. There's so much. And I would say, Jans, most of our problem is we don't take advantage of the times that we have.

We just don't. And there are so many of them. Without even forcing that, I think there's tons of them that just come naturally, you know?

You know, when, and you know, my kids here could tell you all kinds of stories,

I'm sure, but just the things, like when you don't make the team, and you're heartbroken, right?

I mean, you don't make the team. And that's really, so, okay, you're engaging your children.

You're finding out what's going on. What's going on? Is it because I'm not gonna be with the popular kids?

That's one thing. Or is it because I wish I could do that, but I'm just not good at it?

Well, that's an entirely thing different. There's something going on there that makes this an event that you can use, okay?

I think that's real, I think that is important. I think we, I don't think we have to worry about going too far one way, but I think we don't take advantage of the things that we have, those teachable moments.

But it's still trying to do, it's still seeing its truths. Yeah, the, well,

I was gonna, what about discipling other kids that aren't your own?

How do you instill those truths? Of course, you're limited, because you don't live with them, but there's opportunities.

All the parents here today can tell you stories about how, if my kids were over at the

Haases, or the Fry's, I knew that they would be taught.

When other kids were at our place, there were opportunities to teach them, and we would take those.

So I think you still do that. How do you do that? Well, I was gonna say you can't discipline, but that's not true, because with this generation and our parents now, we had a pact, all of us parents had a pact.

And that was, if my kid acts up, deal with them.

When they're in your, so I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. I think there's, we can still talk.

There's still teachable moments with kids that aren't ours. Being a principal.

Yeah. Well, you know what, Eric, I'd say try that, and see how long it lasts.

Maybe, you know, maybe there's some places you could get away with that. Yeah.

You know, let me answer that. And this is just me.

Okay, maybe someone will argue with me about this. In one sense, I have,

I don't like the attitude that says I'll teach them biblical truth without referring to the Bible. I struggle with that.

I want them to know where it comes from. And I think there's ways of doing that.

You know, hey, this is what you should do. You got this decision. This is how you ought to do it.

And you know I'm telling you that, because I've learned that from the Scriptures. I don't know. Levi, you want to throw in on this one?

Huh? You even know what we're talking? You know what we're talking about, Levi? Yeah.

I mean, you've had to do it. You know, about, you know,

Eric's talking about when you get kids and you want to teach them, disciple them, how do you do that?

Especially in a setting that. Yeah. No? Oh, okay.

All right, now listen. You know what I think? You still do it, even no matter what they're going back to, because you don't know what that's going to do.

Where that'll, if that'll, if God will germinate that. You know what? So many times the kids go back to something that isn't going to reinforce what you said, but man, do it anyway, because you just don't know.

I've heard, you know what? I remember Rodney Armstrong.

Most of you remember Rodney. Rodney became a Christian because he heard something, let's say, at Bible school, and there was no reinforcement of that truth or anything like that, but years later, he was thinking about that, and that eventually led to his conversion, so, you know, take every opportunity, yeah.

Okay, well, let's go have watermelon or something. All right, watermelon coffee, doesn't that sound good?

What's that? Chocolate chip cookies? Yours, Pam?

Pam's chocolate chip cookies. All right, let's, who? Chrissy gets chocolate chip cookies.

Oh, boy, it's a winner on both sides. All right, let's pray. Thanks, Father, for the time you've given us.

I pray again that this would be helpful and profitable, useful for your people as they seek to raise children for your glory, in Jesus' name, amen.