God's Guidelines For Growing Your Kids - [Ephesians 6:1-4]

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Well, Pastor, thank you, and again, it is a joy for me to have been with you all, you guys, these three days.
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I mean, I don't know if y 'all say you guys or not, but we say you all where I'm from. But it has been a delight, and you have been such a blessing and encouragement to me.
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I was actually here five or six years ago, and so you cannot know the excitement and joy that I have in seeing how
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God has grown this fellowship, and how he's brought so many people to faith in Christ, and then to be a part of a church that loves the gospel, that loves the word, and wants to see that ministry extended.
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So it's been a real encouragement to me, Mike, and I rejoice in the ministry that is taking place here.
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And your pastor said it well. What we talk about this morning is our response to the grace of God in Christ that allows us then to be gospel -centered parents, and to hopefully build gospel -centered
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Christ -honoring homes. So if you would, take your Bible and join me in the book of Ephesians chapter 6.
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Ephesians, the sixth chapter, we'll give our attention to verse 1 through verse 4.
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Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1 through verse 4. We're in the midst of Paul's instruction on the family.
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He has told us back in verse 18 that the key to all of this is being filled with the
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Spirit, which then ushers in an attitude and disposition of submission, where we seek the best for others and defer our rights to them, in verse 21.
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And then he talks about the role of a godly wife and the role of a godly husband in chapter 5, verses 22 through 33.
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And now he moves to talk about the role of parents in the rearing of their children.
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So in chapter 6, verse 1, Paul writes, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
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Honor your father and mother, this is the first commandment which they promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
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Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the
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Lord. She died on April the 26th, 1989, so she's been dead for more than 20 years.
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But even today, people would still know the name Lucille Ball because in her day, she was clearly the queen of comedy.
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And Lucille Ball was a very insightful woman, and shortly before she died, she was interviewed on television by a man named
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Merv Griffin. And in that interview, Merv Griffin asked Lucille a series of very interesting and I would even say very important questions.
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Lucille, you lived a long time on this earth and you are a wise person. What's happened to our country?
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What's wrong with our children? Why are our families falling apart? What's missing?
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And to those series of questions, Lucille Ball quickly said this, Papa's missing. Things are falling apart because Papa's gone.
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If Papa were here, he would fix it. We learned this weekend that in America today, 40 % of all the children live in homes where their biological father is not present.
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Yes, in way too many homes today, Papa is gone. And yet there's another tragedy that's almost as bad as that one, and it is this.
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There's still other homes where though he is physically there, daddy's not there.
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He is tuned out, he is checked out, and he really doesn't have a clue about what's going on in the lives of his children.
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Thank the disappointment and even the heartache that is experienced by many kids was expressed pretty well a few years ago in a letter written to Seventeen Magazine.
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Listen to what this teenage girl wrote. Have you ever heard of a father who won't talk to his daughter?
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My father doesn't seem to know I'm alive. In my whole life, he has never said he loves me or given me a goodnight kiss unless I ask him to.
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I think the reason he ignores me is because I'm so boring. I look at my friends and think if I were funny like Jill or a super brain like Sandy or even outrageous and punk like Tasha, he would put down his paper and be fascinated.
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I play the recorder, and for the past three years, I've been a soloist in the fall concert at school.
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Mom comes to the concerts, but Dad never does. This year, I'm a senior, and so it's his last chance.
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I'd give anything to look out into the audience and see him there, but who am I kidding? It will never happen.
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Now, parents, listen to me. I don't want to overstate anything this morning. I want to be as balanced and honest as I can possibly be, but I want to tell you something.
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I believe for children, knowing that mom and dad care and knowing that mom and dad will be there when you need them, it sometimes can even be the difference between life and death for a child.
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Focus on the Family carried a story in their magazine a few years ago. It had run earlier in Reader's Digest.
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It's a true story. It's one of the most remarkable testimonies I believe I've ever come across in the difference that the love of a daddy made in the life of one of his children.
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So, before we go to God's Word today, listen to what happened on this particular occasion.
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One day, a father took his two elementary school -aged children for a ride in a pontoon boat.
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They were traveling down the river when suddenly the motor stopped. When the father looked behind him, he noticed something familiar about the red sweater now tangled up in the propeller.
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His young son yelled, Sherry fell in. In horror, the father saw his little girl now entwined in the propeller of the boat.
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She was submerged just beneath the surface of the water, looking straight into the eyes of her daddy and holding her breath.
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He jumped into the water and tried to pull the motor up, but the heavy engine would not budge and time was now running out desperately.
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The father filled his own lungs with air and dipped below the surface, blowing air into his daughter's lungs.
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After giving her air three times, the father took a knife from his son's hand.
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He quickly cut the red sweater from the propeller and lifted his daughter back into the boat.
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Although she had survived, her deep cuts and bruises needed medical attention, so they quickly rushed her to the hospital.
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When the crisis was over, the doctors and nurses came into her room and they asked the little girl this simple question, how come you didn't panic?
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Well, she said, we've gone up on the river, and my dad always taught us that if you panic, you could die.
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And besides, I knew my daddy, he would come and get me.
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Now parents, do your kids know that? Do your kids know that if they did something that disappointed you, that broke your heart, if their back was against the wall, do they know, my dad, my mom, they would be there and they would come and get me?
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You see, I have a basic thesis that's going to undergird most of what I say this morning, and that basic thesis is this, most parents, almost all parents, love their children.
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But that's not really the issue. The issue is, do your children feel loved?
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By the things you say and by the way you treat them, by the things you do, do your children feel loved?
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And so what is it that we can learn from God's word today that would help us understand how it is that we can indeed love our kids in a way that they will understand and thereby follow and adopt and implement some guidelines that will grow them to grow and love and adore and serve the
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Lord Jesus Christ? Well, first of all, let me lay two basic theological principles and then
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I'll move into some practical things we can do as well. So number one, the Bible says we love our children by educating them.
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That is the theme of Ephesians 6, 1, 2, and 3. We love our children by educating them.
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Now the first thing he says in verse 1 is this, it is the proper thing for us to instruct our children.
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Verse 1, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
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That word obey is an imperative, it's a word of command. He is not suggesting, he's not asking, but God commands children, you obey your mom and your dad.
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It's in the present tense, which means this is to be the pattern or the habit of a child's life.
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Now let's be fair with the text and theologically accurate. Will children obey perfectly? No. They're little sinners like we're big sinners.
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And so they will not obey us perfectly. But parents, listen to me, from the time your children are small, you should impart to them the expectation of their obedience.
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In other words, it should be the pattern and the habit of their life that they obey mom and dad.
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So the Bible says, children, you continually obey your parents. Now, he qualifies that statement in two ways.
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He says, number one, it's in the Lord. And number two, this is right.
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In other words, when a child is obeying mom and dad, they're actually honoring the Lord. We were blessed with four sons.
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They're now grown. But as they were growing up, from the time they were tiny, even through the adolescent and teenage years,
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I tried to help them understand, look, ultimately, your obedience or your disobedience, it's not against me.
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It's not against your mother. It's before the Lord. And when you are obeying us, you are honoring the
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Lord. And when you disobey us, you are dishonoring and disobeying the
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Lord. It is in the Lord. But then he says, this is right.
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This is the proper thing to do. In other words, God ordained and structured the home in a way that parents have the responsibility to teach their children to obey.
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So he says, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. But now listen to me.
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I don't think it's enough. I think biblically, it's not enough. Just to tell our kids what to do.
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Over and over and over in the Bible, we are also given motivation.
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Why should a child obey mom and dad? Why should they honor mom and dad?
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And so Paul says, yes, it's the proper thing to do, verse 1. But then Paul says, there's a promise in verse 2 and verse 3.
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And look at it with me. Honor your father and mother. That word is also an imperative word of command.
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It's also in the present tense. So a child is told by God, you continually obey mom and dad.
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You continually honor mom and dad. And this is the first commandment with a promise.
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And Paul, being the theologian that he is, goes back to the Ten Commandments. Found both in Exodus chapter 20 and in Deuteronomy chapter 5.
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And there we discover this. Obey your mom and dad, honor your mom and dad. This is the first commandment with a promise, verse 3.
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That it may be well or may go well with you. You're going to have a better life.
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And secondly, that you may live long in the land. You'll have a longer life. So as a general covenant, hear what
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I say there. As a general covenant and as a general pact that God makes with children.
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He says, you obey mom and dad. You honor mom and dad. And I promise I will bless you with both a better life and a longer life.
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Now, there could be some of you here today who would say, but wait a minute. Hold on. Time out.
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That may be fine if you live or if you grew up in a good, godly home.
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I understand. If you've got godly parents who love the Lord Jesus, then
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I understand why God would tell me to obey and honor them. That makes perfectly good sense,
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Danny. But if you knew the hell on earth I grew up in, if you knew the dysfunctional family that was my experience, or maybe it's your experience today, you would know that God does not want me, does not expect me to honor my mom and dad.
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These verses, they're not for me. And in fact, some of you might even say, you know,
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I bet you grew up in a good home. So you don't really understand what some of us have experienced and what some of us are going through today.
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And you would be right and wrong. You'd be right in that I grew up in a good home.
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Had a good dad, a good mom. They loved me. They took care of me. They came to my ballgames.
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I have really no complaints at all about how Lowell and Emmalue Aiken took care of Danny.
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No complaints at all. But folks, in contrast, God gave me a wife.
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And her experience as a child was exactly the opposite of mine. You see,
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Charlotte was born into the home of alcoholic parents. And when she was seven years old, they divorced.
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After bouncing around from one home to another and then to another, at the age of nine,
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Charlotte, her brother and her sister were all three placed in the Georgia Baptist Children's Home outside of Atlanta, where she would live until she was 18.
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During those years, she never saw her mother. In fact, when we began to date, she thought her mother was dead.
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And folks, we'd been married for more than 25 years before she told me this, but we were talking one day, driving somewhere, and I don't remember why, but I said, well, honey, you know, when you left to go to the children's home, did you see your mom?
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And she looked down at the floor and she said, well, yeah. She said
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I was sitting out on a bench on the front porch. And my mother walked out and looked at me and slapped me in the face and knocked me off the bench out in the front yard and said all of this is your fault.
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She turned around and walked back into the house. She would not see her mother again until she was almost 18 years old.
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Her daddy came to see her a couple of times the first month that she was there. And then she would not see her father again until after we were married.
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In fact, we'd been married again for more than 20 years. We were in the car again one day, and I said, you know, honey, you know, did you ask your daddy to come see you?
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And again she looked down and she said, yes, I would call him and I would say,
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Daddy, because he's on a Thursday or Friday, will you come and see me this weekend? I'd really like to see you.
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And she said, you know, my daddy said the same thing every time. Yeah, babe, I'll come and see you. So my wife would get up on Saturday mornings.
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She'd go out and sit on the front porch of the cottage home where she stayed, and she would wait. Two, three, sometimes she'd sit there for four hours waiting for her daddy, who never showed up.
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When we got married, we were at my mom and dad's home in Atlanta, and she gets on the phone and she calls her father.
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Daddy, I'm getting married, and I want you to give me away.
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He's kind of quiet for a few moments, and suddenly I see the tears start running down her face. I'll never forget it.
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She said, well, I know you're shy, and so if you don't want to give me away, that's okay.
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I just want you to come to my wedding. And even though he lived about ten miles away, he said, well,
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I won't be able to make it, but I do hope you have a great day. And he didn't come. I remember one of the first times
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I met him. We were back in Atlanta. We were living in Dallas, but we'd come to Atlanta for Christmas.
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We were at her mother's house, and she had reestablished a relationship with her mom, and so her dad came over.
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And I admit to you all, I didn't act as I should. I was angry at him for how he had treated my wife and his daughter.
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And so later that evening, we took him back to the Veterans Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, where once more he was going through a detox treatment for his alcoholism.
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And as he got out of our van and was walking back into the hospital again, very insensitive, I looked at Cheryl, and I said, you know, your dad is just pretty sorry.
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He's not worth much. And she looked at me, and once more, with tears streaming down her face, she said down there, forget it, because it so convicted me.
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She said, well, yeah, I guess he is, but he is still my daddy, and I will always love him.
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Her daddy died lost. Unless something happened on his deathbed that we don't know, her daddy is in hell today.
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He died never telling his daughter he loved her, never. And yet, in all the years
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I've known her, I've never heard my wife say anything ugly or unkind about her daddy.
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Not one time. By the way, her mother, because of the love of a daughter, was saved on her deathbed one week before she died.
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A dear friend of ours went and shared the gospel with D. Lee Ramsey, and literally on her deathbed, she prayed to receive
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Christ because of a daughter who never stopped loving and never gave up on either her dad or her mother.
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Folks, I want to tell you something, and I say this with great joy. My wife is one of my heroes.
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She's one of my heroes. She's a great wife. She's a wonderful, wonderful mother.
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She's not on drugs. She's not in counseling. She's not in therapy. Oh, she has some scars.
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There are some tender places in her life as a result of how she grew up, but she is a wonderful, wonderful, godly woman.
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You see, even though she grew up in hell on earth, she, to the best of her ability, obeyed the word of God, and God kept his word and has blessed her with a good, long, blessed life.
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And so we need to trust God, and we need to educate our children. But now, secondly, we also need to encourage our children as well.
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And verse 4 is very interesting. Look at the very first word, fathers. Fathers.
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Gentlemen, it is a reminder that we are called to the leadership assignment in the home. It's not that the mothers are not involved in this, but it is the father who is to take the lead in what follows.
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I think that Paul was basing his argument out of what we read yesterday morning,
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Deuteronomy 6, verses 1 through 9, where the Bible says, where Moses says, the fathers and the grandfathers are to teach their children to love the
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Lord their God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their strength. We're the ones who are to teach our children when they lie down, get up, sit, and walk.
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It is the man's responsibility to be the spiritual leader of the home.
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So Paul says, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but, there's the negative word, but, positive word, bring them up in the discipline, the child discipling, and in the instruction, the admonition of the
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Lord. Paul says, don't provoke your children to anger. Don't be the kind of dad that gives them an unsettled situation so they really never know what you're going to say.
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They really don't know what you're going to do. Are you going to hug them or slap them? Don't be like that. Are you going to affirm them or yell at them?
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Don't be like that. No. Don't push them toward anger and wrath, but, nourish them.
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It's the same Greek word that's translated, bring them up. Back in chapter 5, when it talks about a husband is to nourish and cherish his wife.
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So he says, cherish your children. Nourish them in discipline, discipleship, and in the instruction of the
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Lord. Now again, sometimes parents have said to me, Daddy, it sounds nice, but it doesn't work.
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And I'm like, what do you mean it doesn't work? It doesn't work. Kids don't listen to mom and dad. All the intellectual experts tell us that they are far more shaped and influenced by peer pressure than they are parental guidance.
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And I want to tell you something, if I could just be blunt. The experts are idiots. I could try to say it in a nice, fancy PhD kind of a way, but there's no need.
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They're just idiots. They do not know what they're talking about. The fact of the matter is, your kids do care what you think.
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They do listen to what you say. And they pay a whole lot of attention to what you do.
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You see, there's the problem. Sometimes what we say has a disconnect with what we do.
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And so no wonder that they write you off for the hypocrite that you are. See, some of us are really good at talking it.
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Just not really good at living it. The fact of the matter is, your children are little eagles who are eyeballing you all of the time.
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Largest survey of American teenagers in the history of our nation took place in 1998, 12 years ago, 13 years ago.
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A lot of fascinating things were discovered, but one thing in particular stands out. In fact, it was so significant,
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Newsweek commented on it, and I'll just quote what they said. In a recent national survey, teenagers named their parents as their number one heroes.
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Did you hear that? Who's your hero? Athlete? No. Movie star?
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No. Politician? Are you kidding? There may be some here, so I'm sorry.
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Don't take it too personal, okay? But no, who's my hero?
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That's easy. It's my dad and my mom. You see, they do care what you think, and they do listen to what you say, and they pay a massive amount of attention to what you do.
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So, very quickly, we're going to turn now to practical theology. What do you do? If you look through Scripture in books like Genesis and Deuteronomy and Proverbs and some
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New Testament passages, what do you discover are the kinds of things you and I ought to be doing day in and day out that will let our kids know that we love them and that will guide them toward faith in Jesus Christ?
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I'm going to run through a number of things very quickly. You can jot them down if you want. You can get the tape later. They're not profound, but they're true because they all come out of the
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Word of God. So, number one, you love well your kids by entering into their world.
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I call this incarnational parenting, and I draw it from the analogy of God invading our world in the person of Jesus Christ.
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You love your kids by getting down on their level and entering into their world. You step back and you ask,
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How does my 5 -year -old, my 10 -year -old, my 15 or 18 -year -old, given their sex, given their age, given their maturity, given their interest, how do they look at the world?
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And you love them well by entering into their world. How do we know this morning that God loves us?
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We know because He got down on our level and He entered into our world in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.
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Now, I'll be the first to admit that is much easier said than done. It is not always easy to get into the world of a child.
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I heard about a little boy. His turtle died. Broke his heart, cried all day. Dad came home from work, and Mom said,
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Honey, he's in the backyard crying. His turtle died, and I can't get anywhere. You need to do something.
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So Daddy said, Well, let me go back there. So he goes back there, and sure enough, the turtle is not moving.
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The little boy is crying. Dad begins to rack his brain and says, Son, I'm sorry your turtle died, but I'll tell you what.
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We can have a turtle funeral and celebrate your turtle going to turtle heaven, wherever they go when they die, and I'll tell you what.
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I'll get a shoebox, and we'll put him in there. I'll dig a hole, and we'll bury him right back here in the backyard. And since we're going to have a little funeral service,
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I will preach a little sermon for your turtle, and you can invite all your friends over to the house to be a part of the service.
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And since we're celebrating his going to turtle heaven, wherever they go when they die, we'll have a party.
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And I'll get your mother to make a homemade cake, and I'll make some homemade ice cream, and we'll just have a little party celebrating your turtle's funeral.
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And after that, if there's time, we'll go down to the park, and we'll run around and ride some of the rides and take our bat and ball.
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And so what do you think if we were to do all that for your turtle's funeral? Well, he's still crying, but he looks up and he says,
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We can have a party. Oh, we can have a party. And I can invite all, you can invite every one of them.
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And you'll make ice cream. I'll make ice cream. Your mom will make a cake, son. We'll do all that. What do you think? The little boy thought about it for a little bit longer, and the tears stopped.
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And a little smile came across his face, and he said, Well, Daddy, that'll be okay. Well, Dad felt great. He'd saved the day.
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Took his son by the hand. They began to go back to the house, and can you believe it? At exactly that moment, out of that turtle's shell, boom, comes that head.
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He begins to look around and check everything out. So the dad saw it, and the dad said,
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Well, look, son, look, your turtle. He's not dead after all. He's alive. And the little boy, he began to scream and cry.
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Kill him, Daddy. Kill him. I want to have my party.
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Now, that may not make sense to a 54 -year -old. That makes all the sense in the world to a 5 -year -old little boy.
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So if you're going to love them well, you're going to enter into their world. Number two, you love them by loving your mate.
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By loving your mate. We're told in Ephesians 5, 25, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.
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Even women are told in Titus 2, 4 to love well their husbands. You say, Why do you think that's so important?
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Because great partners almost always make great parents. You say, Why? Because the number one need in the life of your child related to love is security.
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And few things bring greater security in the life of your child like knowing my dad loves my mom, my mom loves my dad, and they'll always be here for me.
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So if you just love your mate well, you'll give your kids about 95 % of all that they need.
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Number three, you love your kids by giving them discipline. Proverbs has a massive amount to say about that because here's the deal.
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They come to the world screaming, Where are the boundaries? What's right? What's wrong? And so I'm not an expert here.
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As I said over the weekend, I raised four sons, so I have a lot of experience. But I don't consider myself an expert, but I'll share some things
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I found from Scripture and some common sense kind of things from sort of, you know, just God's common grace that helped us.
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You can try them and see if they work for you. But a couple of guidelines and then some very specific biblical principles.
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First of all, I think it's wise to give your kids a big playing field and not a little box.
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A big playing field and not a little box. You say, Why? Two reasons. Number one, if you say to your children,
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You must live in the little box all the time. That they won't. That they can't.
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You say, Well, why not? Because they're children. And I can at least tell you this much. God did not design little boys to live in a little box.
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That He did not do. I know that from empirical verification, alright? Secondly, and this is crucial, you will not be consistent in your discipline.
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And here's the deal, parents. Wherever you draw the lines, you must be rigorously, rigorously, rigorously consistent in your discipline.
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So draw the lines where they really need to be drawn and be very, very rigorous and very consistent in enforcing those guidelines.
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When our boys were little, we had a rule. You do not go into Mom and Daddy's bathroom.
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If you do, you'll get a spanking. You say, Why'd y 'all have that rule? Because Jonathan, excuse me,
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Nathan, one of the twins, went in there one day and got some Camp Fopinique and swallowed a bunch of it. So we took him to the hospital, doctor's hospital.
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And then they said, Well, no, he needs to go to the pediatric hospital. So we took him over to Parkland Hospital there in Dallas where they took
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John Kennedy when he was shot. And we went to the pediatric unit, and we sat there until about 1 o 'clock in the morning.
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And finally a doctor came out, and he said, What's wrong with him? And we said, Well, he swallowed
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Camp Fopinique. And he said, Well, when did he swallow it? And we said, About 6 .30. And he said,
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Well, if nothing's happened to him by now, he's fine. Y 'all can go home. And they charged us.
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I had to pay for that. So I'm still kind of bitter, but I'm working through it. I'm working through it.
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So we decided, You know, they just don't need to go in there. There's too much stuff in there. They could put their mouths. They're still too dumb to know what goes in, what doesn't go in.
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So they can't go in. If they go in there, they're going to spank it. Two weeks later, Jonathan, the other twin, the three at the time, comes into our bedroom.
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And I'm telling you, he walks right up to the edge of the carpet and the tile just like this.
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I mean, just like this. And looks down at it and looks up at me like a little 3 -year -old can do and just grins and, you know, like, isn't this cute?
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And I'm like, Son, I've told you now. You're not to go in Mom and Daddy's bathroom. If you go in there, you are going to get a spanking.
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He looked back down at his feet and looked up at me and grinned and did this. Boop, boop.
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Just one time. Boop, boop. You say, Well, what did you do? I tore his tail off. That's what
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I did. Because I told him if he goes into the bathroom, he will get a spanking.
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So, wherever you draw the lines, you've got to be consistent in your discipline.
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And parents, you don't need to use the line. I'm not going to tell you again. No, I'm not going to tell you again. I tell you one time.
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You do A, B, immediately follows. And you're just consistent in your discipline.
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All right? Very quickly. I think we discipline our children all the days they're under our watch care.
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Okay? I believe we adjust the way we discipline as they grow older. You say,
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Well, why would you say that? Well, a couple of reasons. But I think there's even a principle in Proverbs that would guide us in that direction.
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Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 15 says this. The rod and the rebuke give wisdom.
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But a child left to himself will bring shame to his mother. Let me add a Denny Akin commentary. The rod, when they're young, the rebuke, and in our culture, the restriction, will give wisdom.
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But a child left to himself will bring shame to his mother. So you say, Wait a minute. Hold on. You think it's all right in 2011 in the sophisticated, intellectually adept culture in which we find ourselves.
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You think it's still all right to spank kids. Well, I even heard that there's a book that's just come out by evangelicals who refer to spanking as a form of not only child abuse but violence against children.
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You say, You think it's still all right to spank? You listen to me. Bible or experts,
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I go with the Bible every time. There's the real expert. Okay? Now, hear me. Hear me well.
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I don't only think it's all right to spank children when they're small. I think with certain children and in certain circumstances, it's absolutely essential.
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In fact, again, I have a PhD, which just means I went to school a long time, as I said yesterday.
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But I have a minor in philosophy, which I shared. I tried to use that on my wife. It goes nowhere.
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I tried to use it on my children. It would go nowhere. I could get Nathan, Jonathan, Paul, Tim, and give them this airtight, virtually infallible argument, and for some reason, they just didn't get it.
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But if I got back here, you see their brain is in their buns until they grow up.
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That's where the brain is. And so you get back there, and suddenly, it's amazing. Isn't it utterly amazing how intelligent they can become?
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And so, always under control, never in anger, and in moderation.
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Yes, I think it's all right to spank them when they're small. But I would remind you that in the world of the
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Bible, they became adults at about the age of 12. I have a follow -up question. You think Dad was taking the rod to them when they were 14, 16, 18 years old?
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Highly unlikely, unless it was an extenuating and extreme circumstance. My four sons,
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I disciplined them all until they left to go to college. And actually, I still disciplined them until they got off the meal ticket and the gravy train.
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And they stayed on it as long as they were smart. They stayed on it as long as they could. But as long as I'm dishing out cash, they're under my authority.
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But the rebuke, the restriction, I discovered worked much better for young men in their teens.
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Now, you again may have an exceptional case every now and then. I recognize that. But I do know this. You love your kids, you will give them discipline.
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Number four, you love your kids by the way you look at them. Proverbs 20, 12 says, The hearing ear, the seeing eye of the
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Lord has made them both, and outside of your mouth. Few things are more effective in communicating to your children than are your eyes, which can say to them,
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I'm very disappointed in you. But they can also say, I love you. I'm so grateful for what
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God has done in your life. And I'm so grateful that God gave you to me. So you can love them by the way you look at them.
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Number five, you love them by touching them. Ecclesiastes 3, 5 says there's a time to embrace.
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Can I be gender specific for a moment here? Dads, you've been blessed with precious daughters in a good healthy way.
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You hold them, you hug them, you kiss them. You say why? Because God designed a little girl with a need for male affirmation.
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And God designed that she would get it first and foremost from her daddy. So in a good healthy way, you hold her, you hug her, you kiss on her, and you affirm her.
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Mothers, I have some good news for you. A few years ago, I discovered an amazing thing.
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A teenage boy, a teenage boy will let his mother kiss him in the morning when she takes him to school if she will just do it in the floorboard of the car.
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As long as it takes place where nobody can see, he'll let you do it. Now, understand, I watched the cycle.
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I watched the boy. They even come to me and say, Daddy, you've got to talk to Mama. I mean, you've got to. We're begging you.
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She's got to quit kissing us and hugging us like she does. And so they went through that middle teenage kind of period.
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They kind of did this, and it kind of hurt her heart. And I said, Honey, don't worry about it. It will pass. I promise you, it will pass.
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I guarantee you, it will pass. And now, 30, 30, 27, almost 26, they see their mother.
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They hug her. They kiss her right on the mouth. They kiss her on the cheek. I mean, they love to physically affirm their mother.
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And so the fact of the matter is, boys need that kind of rough house affection from their daddy, but they also need that tender affection from their mom.
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God designed both boys and girls, little ones and big ones, to be physically affirmed and loved by their mom and by their dad.
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Number six, you love your kids by spending time with them. This is a very painful one, but I just need to point out that we've done some real detailed research in this area, and what we've discovered is not good on average.
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A five -year -old spends about 25 to 30 minutes a week in good quality time with daddy, but they spend 25 to 30 hours a week with a television set and other electronic technology, 20 to 25 minutes with daddy, and 25 to 30 hours a week with a
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TV or other type of things. That may explain this. Reader's Digest took a survey among four - and five -year -olds and asked them this question.
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If you had to make a decision to give away either your daddy or your TV, which would you vote to give away?
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And one -third said, I'd rather give away my daddy than I would my
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TV. You see, love is a beautiful four -letter word. Sometimes it's best spelled
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T -I -M -E. And you love them by spending time with them.
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Number seven, you love them by listening to them. James 119 tells us to what be swift to hear, which means what dads, what moms, put down the paper, turn off the
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TV, put the computer to the side, put the BlackBerry down, eye to eye, ear to ear, heart to heart, and by locking in in that kind of a way, you say to your children,
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I think what you think is important and I'm here to listen. Number eight, you love your kids by blessing them rather than cursing them.
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By blessing them rather than cursing them. Now you say, what do you mean by that? I mean by that your words.
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Have you ever stopped to think what it's like, parents, to be a child again and to hear some of the things they hear coming out of the mouth of mom and dad?
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I've been building a list over the years and unfortunately some of the things on this list, I wrote down because they came out of my mouth, directed toward my children, but just see if you recognize any of these.
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Put that down. Stop that right now. Shut up. I don't care what you're doing. Come here right now. Listen to me.
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Give me that. Don't touch that. Go away. Leave me alone. Can't you see I'm busy? Not like that. Stupid. Boy, that was really dumb.
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Can't you do anything right? You'd lose your head if it wasn't screwed on. Hurry up. We don't have all day. What's the matter with you?
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Can't you hear anything? I don't know what I'm going to do with you. You never talk to a stranger like that.
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We hardly talk to dogs like that. And yet we say things like that to our kids. And parents, listen to me.
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Don't you ever underestimate the power of your words when directed at your children.
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Several years ago I was speaking at a church and afterwards a 65 -year -old man came up to me and said, Brother Danny, can
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I share a word of testimony with you? And I said, sure. He said, I'm 65 years old. I got saved five years ago.
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It's been the five most wonderful years of my life since I trusted the Lord Jesus as my Savior. He said,
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I'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. He said, I'm also a man that went through a number of failed marriages.
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And I'll tell you, I hurt some very nice ladies. All of the breakups were my fault. He said, you know,
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I could go on for a long time, but I think you're getting the picture that until recently my life was pretty much a mess.
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And he said, I'm going to tell you something. I don't blame anybody. I made some really dumb choices and I made some really bad decisions.
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But then he looked at me and said, but you know, when I think back to when I was a little boy, all
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I really remember my daddy saying to me were things like this. Boy, you can't do anything right.
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Boy, you're just downright dumb. Boy, you will not grow up to amount to anything.
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He said, I guess I grew up to be exactly what my daddy said I would be. But then he said this, he said, but five years ago when
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I received Jesus as my Savior, I got a new daddy and my new daddy loves me. And it's an odd way of saying it.
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It's why I still remember it very clearly. He says, my new daddy thinks I can do things. He said, you know,
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Brother Danny, it really does matter what you believe your daddy thinks about you. Ultimately, you're heavenly daddy, but it also matters what you think and believe your earthly daddy thinks of you as well.
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Two more and I'm finished. Number nine, you love your kids by having fun with them. I shared this weekend my parental philosophy can be boiled down to two things.
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Teach your children to love Jesus and have fun with them. So I hope that your house is a
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Grand Central Station. I hope your house is a fun house. I hope that when you have teenagers, if you have them now,
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I hope you're experiencing this, that when you go home on many occasions, you can't park in your driveway because other cars are there.
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You can't watch your big screen TV because the giant cockroaches called teenagers are watching your TV. I hope that they drink your
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Cokes, eat your chips and destroy your home. I hope that happens to all of you. You say you sound bitter.
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I'm getting over it, but no. Actually, I'm not bitter because that is a great compliment.
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That is your children saying to their friends, I'm not afraid of what my mom and dad might say or might do.
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Actually, my parents are pretty cool. We'll just hang out at my house. And I have learned this.
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If you have a fun house when they grow up, when they get grown and married, they'll come back and visit you and bring the grandkids.
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And that's a pretty good deal. Finally, you love your kids by introducing them to a perfect parent.
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By introducing them to a perfect parent. Now, you might think, well, wait, Danny, hold on. By now, it's real clear
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I can't be a perfect parent. Well, I know that. I can't be one either. I don't have us in view here.
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What I have in view is that the greatest thing you can do for your children is introduce them to the
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Heavenly Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, I love Paul Harvey's program that he used to have before he went to be with the
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Lord. The rest of the story. Because I want to close with the rest of the story about my wife.
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You say, Danny, she's your hero. She's one of my heroes. She's a great wife. Fabulous. Great mother.
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Raised four godly sons who are all in the ministry today. People love her. Everybody loves her. But what happened?
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I'll tell you what happened. When she was ten years old at the First Baptist Church in Fairburn, Georgia.
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That Sunday morning, just like this Sunday morning, she heard the preacher preach clearly the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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That we are sinners. We cannot save ourselves. But God in His great love sent
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His only Son into this world. And He died on that cross for your sins. And if you will turn from your sins and put your faith in Him, He will save you and He will become your
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Savior. And God will become your Heavenly Father. And so as a ten year old little girl, my wife gave her heart to Jesus.
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Jesus gave His heart to my wife. And on that day, God became her perfect parent.
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Her perfect Heavenly Father. My wife is a very shy person. She's the quintessential behind -the -scenes lady.
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But in recent years, because she is my wife and I am now a seminary president, she's been put into positions and she really does a great job.
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She just doesn't like doing it. But she's had people ask her about her testimony.
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And she'll say to them like this, Well, if you would have asked me what was the most wonderful thing about getting saved,
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I would not tell you it was having all my sins forgiven. That is wonderful. But it wasn't the most wonderful thing for me.
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And I'll have to tell you that when I got saved, knowing that now when I die, I'll go to Heaven, that I'll be with the
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Lord Jesus for all of eternity, that's precious too, but it still wasn't the most wonderful thing for me.
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And so you're probably like, well, what was it? And she would tell you simply this,
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When I got saved, I got a new daddy. And she says,
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My new daddy made a promise. Most of you know it. I will never leave you.
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I will never forsake you. And she said, He's kept
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His word all these years. And you see the good news this morning is what He did for her.
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He'll do for any one of you this morning. No matter where you've been, no matter what you've done, He'll do the same thing for you if you'll simply receive
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His Son as your Savior. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for your gospel.
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And I thank you that we learn about your gospel through marriage and family. We learn of the great love of God through the
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Lord Jesus Christ who models for men how we're to love our wives because we're to love sacrificially as He loved us sacrificially and died on the cross for our sins.
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But also we learn from parenting that we're to seek to model the
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Heavenly Father whose love for us is so great He sacrificed His only
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Son that we might have a relationship with Him, with you. And I thank you,
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Lord Jesus, that you save us. And I thank you that when you do save us, your
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Father becomes our Father and He becomes a Father who loves us with a perfect love, who loves us in such a way that we never have to doubt that He is there because He has said,
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I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. What a wonderful Father you are. And Lord, I know that there's some people here today who perhaps when they think of God as a
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Father, they don't think immediately of something good. They've been abused. They've been abandoned and neglected and hurt.
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But Lord, help them to understand today that you're not just a good Father. You're a great
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Father. You're a perfect Father. And if we will simply invite you into our lives, we will find a love relationship and a joy and a blessing and a peace and a security that we could never know by any other means.
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So thank you that you do take away all of our sins in Jesus. Thank you that you do give us the gift of eternal life through Jesus.
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And thank you so very much that you become our perfect Heavenly Father when we trust and receive
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Jesus. Hallelujah. What a Savior. Hallelujah. What a great