Parenting Q&A (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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April 14, 2019

Parenting Q&A (part 2)

00:00: So tonight it's gonna be probably part one because I got lots of, I received many questions and I'm not gonna be able to cover them all.
00:10: I'm gonna try to talk about different age groups because some of you have kids that are really little, some of you have older kids, and so I'm just gonna try to mix it and match it as much as I can.
00:20: This will go online unless I say something that I think maybe we just ought to keep within the family.
00:27: After every question that I talk about, then if you want to stop me and ask some clarifying question, that'll be great, and then we'll move on to the next one.
00:37: If you have more questions you wanna submit via the email or just wanna write them down, you can give them to me.
00:43: We won't meet next Sunday night because it's Resurrection Sunday. The week after that, we'll probably have a panel and so there'll be ladies, the elders' wives and some kids and ladies at least, and then myself and the elders will meet with the men and we'll kind of split it up a little bit and then probably the next time we meet, we'll do part two of these questions in this format.
01:04: That sound all right? Well, let's pray and then let's talk about the
01:10: Word. Father, I thank you for tonight and these dear parents. What a great privilege it is to have children and then want to train them in the nurture and admonition of the
01:20: Lord. We ask for your wisdom. I pray, Father, that you would help me to help these parents and that we know that this is way beyond our ability and so we're asking for your
01:33: Spirit's power and resources. You have not left us alone as children to just fend for ourselves.
01:40: When our Lord and Savior died for us and was raised, he gave us his Spirit and we're thankful for that.
01:46: I pray for all the children here tonight that they would learn and listen and we want our children saved.
01:52: So, Father, would you please grant them new hearts that they might have fellowship with you and I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
02:02: All right, well, let's turn our Bibles to start it to Proverbs 22. This isn't a question, but just a framework for tonight.
02:10: There are lots of priorities in life, but training children has to be right there at the top.
02:17: You have all kinds of issues with work and friendship and everything else. We're very busy people, but it is very important to train children.
02:27: R .L. Dabney said, "'The education of children for God "'is the most important business done on earth.
02:33: "'It is the one business for which the earth exists.'" In other words, it's very, very important to train children.
02:40: Of course, every one of your children, and mine as well, have eternal souls and they will live forever.
02:48: Right after they die, they live forever, their souls, either in heaven or in hell. And so this is very important, especially when we think of that and that we are stewards of God's children.
02:59: They're not ultimately our children. He gives them to us to steward and stewards are to be found, what?
03:07: Faithful, and so that's what we want to do. And Proverbs 22 is a great verse, and I picked this tonight because people tend to misuse it, and so I want to make sure we understand it properly.
03:19: And Solomon writes underneath the inspiration of the Spirit of God, "'Train up a child in the way he should go.
03:25: "'Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.'" And the best thing you can do when you look at the
03:31: Bible is you ask a lot of questions and what does this mean and what kind of verb is it, et cetera. This is actually, and it probably shouldn't surprise anyone, an imperative, train up a child.
03:42: In the Arabic, which this wasn't written in, but it's a sister language, it's kind of used of a rope in a mouth of a horse and you take that bridle or that rope in the horse's mouth and you can make that animal submit to you and follow you as you lead that.
04:02: You can instruct. I don't care about any kind of noises tonight.
04:08: We're all welcome. Every kind of noise, if you're 10 or under, is fine by me or 12 or over.
04:15: What do we care? And I don't have my phone to go off tonight.
04:21: I rarely forget my phone. It's at home. I feel like something's wrong. You walk out the door, it's wallet, keys, phone, brain.
04:32: Now, typically, we've heard this verse as some kind of promise that if you train your child up in the ways of the
04:39: Lord, he or she will become a Christian, right? But that doesn't work because, A, you're not saved by something that you do.
04:46: Good thing, right? Because what child would ever then be saved? J. Adams writes on this verse, the verse stands not as a promise, but as a warning to parents that if they allow a child to train himself after his own wishes, they should not expect him to change these patterns when he matures.
05:05: Children are born sinners and when allowed to follow their own wishes, will naturally develop sinful habit responses.
05:12: The basic thought is that such habit patterns become deep -seated when they have been ingrained in the child from the earliest of days.
05:21: And so really, it's not a promise of salvation. It's a negative promise. If you don't do this, something bad is going to happen.
05:28: It's hard to look at your little child in the nursery, in the incubator, and think,
05:34: I have been given by God this little sinner. Remember what the Puritans used to call children?
05:40: They look so innocent, but on the inside, they're sinful. And one of the Puritans called them innocent vipers.
05:48: And you look at them and you think, how could I ever discipline? How could I ever train? And Solomon reminds us that we, in fact, should be very careful to train.
05:58: Verse 18 of chapter 19, let's look there and then let's get to the first question. It's also important because not only is it a command, but time is ticking.
06:07: You only have so much time to raise a child and then they're out of the house. For us, we have a couple children still in the house and a couple gone, and so I'm feeling the impact of this.
06:20: Proverbs 19, 18, discipline your son while there is hope and do not desire his death.
06:27: There is a God -given opportunity that you have to shape your child. And you need to do it while there's still hope.
06:39: Final verse we're gonna look at before we get to the question is Hebrews 12, 10, please.
06:45: Hebrews 12, 10. It is fascinating to me that there's a lot in the scripture about justification.
06:51: There's a lot in the scriptures about sin. There's a lot in the scriptures about the personal work of Christ Jesus, but there's not very much about parenting.
07:00: So what do you do? There's hardly anything in the Bible about parenting. Our parenting, there's less on parenting than there is on parenting.
07:08: So what do you do? And I think this is very timely because the right kind of people parent rightly.
07:15: In other words, if you're a godly person, then you will parent in a godly fashion.
07:21: This is not a throwaway line because nothing in scripture is, but Hebrews 12, 10 says, for they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them.
07:31: Again, talking about fatherly discipline and then the ultimate heavenly father, but he, the heavenly father, disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness.
07:42: There's a lot of things you have to do when it comes to parenting that aren't necessarily chapter and verse, but things that seem right to you.
07:50: And so what I'm gonna do tonight is I'm gonna try to give you my wisdom. A lot of it is, you know,
07:57: Kim and I, as we've been parenting together for the last 26 years, and sometimes
08:02: I'm not gonna have chapter and verse. I'm just gonna try to give you what seemed best to us, and then
08:08: I'm gonna try to give it to you so then it can seem best to you. And you say, well, I didn't like what you said about this, that, or the other.
08:13: We're going to cut and paste and we'll do it our way. That was for you. You're from California. You know, we do things the
08:19: Massachusetts way, et cetera. That's fine because remember when you talk to people, this is the
08:25: Bible, they must do it. And if you can't find things in the Bible, this is what I think, this is wisdom, and then you can cut and paste, right?
08:35: So I have to be careful as a pastor if I give counsel that I don't confuse the two because I have no authority over you to just say this is what we did and this is what
08:44: I think you should do. Does that make sense? And even when you counsel other people on the phone, somebody needs encouragement, the
08:51: Bible says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he'll what?
08:57: He'll make your path straight. That is a non -negotiable great truth. And then on some of these other things, when
09:03: I tell you I allow my children to eat goldfish in the service or don't, you can figure out how you want to incorporate that, right?
09:12: The way I like to eat goldfish is you kind of put them in half and bite it and you just eat half of one or you eat the head off first.
09:18: That's how boys eat them, right? Are you guys allowed to eat goldfish in the service?
09:26: No, okay, good. Maybe we get some flaming hot goldfish and that would be good.
09:34: All right, question one that I received from one of you. I'm not gonna tell you who gave me the questions because some of them are dumb and then you don't want to be embarrassed.
09:47: Some of my answers are gonna be dumb but I will have to be embarrassed. That just comes with the job. Remember, this is
09:56: New England, we stab in the front. What is the balance between discipline and grace in raising children?
10:09: They need to know, the person wrote, they need to know the weight of their sin and consequences but we also want them to know the love and goodness of their
10:17: Savior who bought the penalty of sin for them. So in other words, how do we discipline firmly and then also have kind of fun and excitement and joy and good things in life as well?
10:31: How do we balance between discipline and grace? Now, if you were asked that question, you might have your own answer.
10:38: My answer is pretty simple. We have required a lot out of our children, not to get to heaven because that's a gap that they can't bridge but we've required a lot of our children as we've traveled in airplanes and been to other churches, or sit here at Bethlehem Bible Church, I think when the sanctuary was flipped around and we have had high, high, high standards for the children and we've expected a lot from them.
11:06: So what do you think that is going to make us do on the other side, on the grace side, on the fun side, on the exciting side?
11:15: The more you expect from your children, I think the more you better make sure that they have a great time and a fun time and a joyous time and an exciting time, otherwise it's going to be lopsided.
11:28: So I think that's the main principle that I want to give there. If you're gonna be a hard parent, that is we expect you to do these things, then
11:37: I think you better have some fun too because I think if you look at the Lord in this character, he has justice, right?
11:45: He is just and he is gracious, right? I think it's probably wrong to talk about an attribute he has justice, but he is just and he is gracious.
11:55: And therefore, we have strict discipline, but then there's also wonderful rewards.
12:04: We'd like to reward the kids. I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but I'll do it anyway. When we would put our kids in nursery, and by the way, if you want to exe
12:12: Jesus tonight, you're gonna have to get like a cassette or something, a track reel to reel, because it's just like a lot of just practical things.
12:21: Steve's in the back laughing. We would bring our children into the nursery and we would tell them ahead of time, we want you to obey, we want you to say yes, please, no, please, we'd have to tell
12:34: Luke, don't hit the other kids, you know, whatever it was. And then we would say, and we're going to ask the teacher, we're gonna ask the nursery leader, how you did.
12:46: They're gonna say fine, and then we're gonna ask them again, how did you do? And if you do well, there's gonna be great rewards.
12:55: And if you didn't do well, this is getting recorded, so something else would happen.
13:04: And we, Kim did it more often than I did. I did it at Summit Grace Church, but since I'm here doing this, I wasn't back there very often.
13:10: And we would do that very thing. And we would ask the teacher, how'd my kid do today? And the teacher always goes, okay, fine.
13:17: No, how did my child do today? And there they are, and we make this little transaction.
13:22: And if they did something wrong and having to ask for forgiveness and all that, but if they did things well, then we wanna reward the kids.
13:29: Because by the way, I don't think Christianity is only no. Right, we should be the happiest people, the most joyful people.
13:38: We don't have to worry about dying and go to hell, and the fruit of the spirit is love and joy and peace.
13:44: And we get to experience the shalom life. We get everything, right? It's all for us by the hand of our gracious God.
13:52: And therefore, that would be one of those things that we would do to kind of balance that out.
13:58: Lots of fun, but lots of holding them accountable.
14:05: And so that's just something that in my mind, and Kim did a much better job than I did on this.
14:15: But the kids in the neighborhood, whose house did they wanna go to? They all wanted to come to our house because it was the most fun, right?
14:23: We wanted to have the most fun. The one that I always think of is when all the neighbor kids came over and we played our own version of, what's that game where you have to do crazy things?
14:32: Fear Factor. We had our own Fear Factor game. And I guess
14:38: I can say this because the Statue of Limitations has passed, but how long you can put your hands in the snow without trying to take them out and all these different things and the food and the fun.
14:47: Remember, we had one kid in the neighborhood and he wasn't really allowed to eat anything except like flaxseed oil cookies.
14:54: He'd come to our house and eat like 19 peanut butter cookies. Okay, eight, enough to make him throw up.
15:00: I do remember that. So I don't think it's wrong in the economy of God.
15:07: If you do this, it will go well with you. There are consequences to wrong behavior and there are benefits to good behavior.
15:17: So I remember when Kim, if she'd go out of town, I would come here on Sunday night to preach and I would tell the kids ahead of time, okay, daddy's gonna be preaching and people are gonna watch and here's what they say about pastor's kids and all that.
15:29: Here's your stuff and here's what you're gonna draw and here's what you're gonna do. And if you take good notes and we're gonna go get an ice cream afterward and everything else.
15:36: And if you don't and if you do things wrongly, then when we get home, dad will take care of it. And the dad's signal was always, get on dad's bed.
15:44: That was always the signal. You didn't want that, go get on dad's bed.
15:50: And I remember one time, somebody did the wrong thing and I had to say something while I was preaching a sermon to the kids who were doing something wrong because I didn't have
16:01: Kim there to kind of help, right? But you don't wanna forget about the other ones where you can go reward the kids for good behavior.
16:09: Like if your kids sit through this tonight with good behavior, I think you ought to praise them and kids, what do you want tonight?
16:18: What would be really good? Ice cream. See, that's what I say. It's right down the street.
16:26: No school for a month. Now listen, this is important. Every kid's kind of wired differently and you figure out what really makes them want to obey.
16:37: And then you use that. For one kid, it's ice cream. It's another kid, it's not having broccoli or whatever.
16:43: I mean, there's ways to do exciting things. I was just thinking about my mom the other day. She's been with the
16:49: Lord now for 12 or 13 years. I mean, I don't wanna be that kind of, I know
16:54: I'm kind of grumpy sometimes and kind of crabby and all that, but I don't wanna be that kind of guy with the kids. I wanna be like my grandmother.
17:00: I mean, my mom, who is a grandmother to my kids, it was Saturdays, it's ice cream sandwiches for breakfast.
17:07: I mean, it's that kind of stuff. That's what kids remember. Who wants to go? I mean, I think some of you do this kind of like broccoli for breakfast.
17:15: Does anybody's parents make broccoli pancakes for breakfast? I think some of you nutty crunchies do here.
17:20: I mean, what are you thinking? So we're gonna get back to this. In general though, if you're gonna want that standard up there, and I'll just say it since I'm your friendly pastor, many of you have standards that are too low for your children here at Bethlehem Bible Church.
17:34: You expect too little. And you will do things like, oh, we'll say hi to the pastor.
17:40: And then they'll look at me and they won't say hi. They put their head down and you'll say what? My kid's just shy.
17:47: Your kid isn't shy. Your kid is rebellious and they're disobeying right in front of you right now. You said, look at the pastor and say hi.
17:54: And they won't look at the pastor and say hi. To me, that's high treason in my life. Not for your kids, but I mean, my kids, if I say, look at John MacArthur and say hi, and the kid goes,
18:04: I'm shy. I don't have to Morris code you to what's gonna figure out what we're gonna do later when we get home.
18:15: So I think you want high standards, but I don't want you to be the downer parent and the no parent and the no fun parent and the parent that is always just giving law, law, law, law without gospel.
18:29: Does that make sense? That's just in general. So high standards, but have some fun and put yourself in the eyes of your children.
18:38: What turns them on? What do they like, et cetera. All right, number two. This is what
18:43: I wanted to get to more tonight. How should my children act on Sunday? This is gonna be good.
18:52: Well, not because I'm doing it, but because this is just important. How should my children act on Sunday?
18:59: You want to train your children in such a way that they can sit with you on Sunday for the whole service. When they're a little tiny and they're nursing or this, that, and the other,
19:07: I understand, but your goal is to have all your children sit with you. I don't mind any of the crying, by the way.
19:16: Look at that. That is perfect. And by the way, don't we wanna do that as a church too?
19:26: Some children are just really obedient and some children are a little older and some other children have cranky, fussy, this, that, or the other.
19:32: We just wanna be nice to one another as they parent their children. And I'll see you on my bed.
19:41: Yeah. But here's the thing.
19:47: Your children aren't going to sit still with you here in church if you haven't been able to control them at home.
19:54: It starts at home. So just to give you a few ideas on our little children and then we'll talk about bigger children.
20:01: At home, we had different times. We had times on the couch that would start for 10 minutes and there'd be reading time.
20:11: What else did we use, Kim? Clay. Clay time. Maybe not on the couch, but on the kitchen table.
20:18: There was iPhone time. No, there wasn't iPhone time. There were, it's time to read.
20:26: It's time to take a nap. It's time to do this, that, or the other. We had these set schedules.
20:32: 10 minutes they do this and 15 minutes they do this and a half an hour do they do this. So they could just learn to sit and just kind of be still.
20:40: We'd work our way up to, and by the way, I needed this because I was working two jobs at the time and Kim would have to go run errands.
20:47: So when it was pack and play time and they'd have to sit in the pack and play, our couch time, that was my couch time too.
20:53: And then I would lay down and take the nap. I mean, it was just a self -serving thing. But we would work at home with the children so they would be ready to sit at the service.
21:03: There was a preacher that once said, if you'd like to damn your children, excuse them to the nursery and the preschool every time the pastor preaches.
21:12: And he was trying to be in your face in terms of saying, people get saved by hearing the word preach. Don't you want your children to hear the word preached?
21:19: Well, they get saved other ways. You know, hearing the word preached at nursery, I understand that. So at home, we would do all kinds of things to teach our children to just sit still.
21:31: Now, I'm gonna go back to that, but on the way to the church, I want to say probably 2000 times in my life,
21:37: I have given the speech to the kids. We're on the way to church. And when people say hello, you look at them in the eye and you shake their hand.
21:46: And when they ask you, how are you doing? And you say, I'm doing well. And then you say to them, how'd your week go?
21:53: Right, instead of just kind of hello, we'd tell Luke specifically, since he was a young man, there's handicap spots right out there.
22:01: And when you see, it was like with your grandma, Dottie, when you see Dottie getting out of the car, you quick go run over there and open up the door.
22:09: Kim would give specific assignments, different girls to go say hi to Carol Jemison or go say hi to somebody else.
22:16: And she would send them off. Our kids knew when they were little, you don't leave the sanctuary.
22:22: You run around and have fun, but you do not leave the sanctuary. And here's a little assignment. You go talk to this lady.
22:28: You go talk to this man. You go do this, that, or the other. You go talk to Bill Walls about World War II and when
22:35: Wilt Chamberlain picked you up at the airport. Did you know that happened by the way? We're trying to recruit Bill Walls to be in track at Kansas.
22:41: And so he flew into Kansas and the guy to help recruit him was Wilt Chamberlain. And he got in Wilt's car and went to Kansas.
22:49: Wouldn't you too? I guess so. Let's get here early.
22:54: And Luke, you get the shovel and you go out there and shovel and help put the sand down and everything else. But we would have that conversation every single time we went to church.
23:04: I mean, I think every single time. And it's funny because the kids didn't do it every time, but when they did do it, we of course were very thankful for that.
23:15: Our kids got older and here's what we expected our kids to do on Sunday. Bring your Bible, stand for scripture reading, sing, take notes, do everything up to communion.
23:27: They were required to do all of that. And we would have, do you remember Haley what we did? We had for every three sermon notes, what'd you get, like a dollar or something when you were littler?
23:37: By the way, did you collect any money for reading the Bible, talking about grace? A hundred dollars.
23:43: You read through all the Bible in the Abendroth household? Well, you have to be in Abendroth. You just can't come to her house and read it.
23:49: But if you read the Bible, you get a hundred dollars. Check them off and go.
23:58: I mean, whatever you want to do to try to encourage that. And you say, that's a reward. You're trying to bribe your children.
24:06: And, okay, when we'd come to church, by the way, parents, if you come with that heart of drudgery, don't want to show up, it's not exciting, they're going to get that vibe, right?
24:19: But if you say today, we're going to go learn about God's word and here's what we're going to go do. After Sunday night in Los Angeles, we would always take the kids for a
24:28: Bonilla cones is what we would always get. You know what a Bonilla cone is? I didn't know what a
24:33: Bonilla cone was either, but I went to Los Angeles drive -thru at McDonald's and I'd say, I'd like four vanilla cones.
24:39: And they're like, okay, como? Como se dice? Vanilla, Bonilla.
24:44: And so I just take the V and make it into a B. You guys in the back know. And I take the two L's and I make it into a
24:51: Y instead of saying Bonilla, it's Bonilla. And they're like, okay, pull up. Two Bonilla cones, pull on up.
25:00: There's, of course, sometimes at church, there are things that go on that maybe aren't that exciting, but it's just like when you're training your children with the
25:06: Bible at dinnertime that I'm going to talk about in a little bit. Let's see. I've told you this story before.
25:13: When I would teach the children the Bible, I would say, I love the Bible. I love the
25:18: Bible. I remember even doing this in front of the kids. Can you see the
25:23: Bible? I love the Bible. You're looking at me like, who are you? But I was trying to tell the kids, this is not exciting because,
25:31: I mean, this is exciting because what's the opposite? All right, it's Bible time. Everybody line up, alphabetical order.
25:40: You're going to love this. That's not how you're going to encourage people.
25:47: I get to study the Bible. And by the way, there are exciting things in the Bible. We'll get to that in just a second.
25:58: No, I'll just talk about it. At home, okay, before I forget, if you have older kids and you come to church,
26:09: I would give them assignments, right? I would tell them, here's what I'd like you to get done today.
26:15: Here's what I want you to do for ministry opportunities. Here's who I'd like you to go talk to. Don't, you know, hover around me and everything else.
26:22: Go do this, that or the other. And one of the most difficult things was trying to figure out things for them to do.
26:28: So in our house at home, I know Luke was a young man and men struggle with laziness more than girls do.
26:35: So I would have Luke do an hour's worth of outside work at 13, 14 years old. Every day he had an hour's worth of work to do.
26:42: The hardest part about that job was what? Trying to figure out what he was gonna do.
26:47: Remember what you did yesterday, Luke? Undo that and put it back. And then kind of redo it.
26:54: But you're trying to plan on, okay, what would I want my children to be doing?
27:00: You just have to tell them very specifically. Here's who I want you to go talk to. Here's what I want you to end up doing.
27:05: Here's after the service, go through, I mean, lots of times, did we not, Kim say, go through all the different aisles and pick up the trash or something like that to just try to get the idea that we're here to serve the other people and they've got something to do, then just show up.
27:21: I know people that say, well, my kids don't sing. My kids don't stand up and do scripture reading.
27:26: My kids don't pay attention. My kids don't read the Bible. They don't bring the Bible. Now, if you're a brand new
27:32: Christian, I understand. But if you're not a brand new Christian, that's on you. And I don't think it's too late to change.
27:38: But the Abendroths, we sing, well, I'm not a Christian. I didn't ask you if you're a Christian, you sing.
27:44: And by the way, I know how to make things very hard for you at home, or I know how to make things very good for you at home.
27:51: And so the Bible teaches clearly, the way of the transgressor is hard. And if you don't wanna do these things, there are gonna be consequences.
27:58: And I will try to coach you in a variety of different ways to do the right thing. But parents, if your kids are little, you just expect them to obey and you coach them and you tell them good things, you correct them.
28:10: If you have older kids, I think there's things that the children who are older, 15, 16, 18 year olds can come and do and serve while they're with you.
28:21: I'm going pretty fast because time goes by fast. Question so far about what do we do in church?
28:30: All right, let me help you have your kids kind of sit with you at church as I describe what we do for Bible time at home when the kids were little.
28:39: You can tailor it whatever way you want. For us, it was the dinner table was better than breakfast.
28:46: So we'd have dinner and then we'd clear all the food and the plates and the drinks away.
28:52: Why would we put all those away? Because the kids will play with them, right?
28:58: So let's get rid of all those. We'd have Bibles for every kid and a hymnal for every kid.
29:05: And so they'd get those out and it'd be somebody's job to go get those. And we sat down and the first time
29:13: I did it, I think we probably went like three hours and 45 minutes. Start off just basic, we're gonna just study the
29:21: Bible for a few minutes and the kids sitting there and what you want your kids to do on Sunday, have your kids do there.
29:29: So what's a good idea? Okay, everybody go to the bathroom before we start, right?
29:35: Any no's that need to be picked, pick now, right? Just take care of all those things. Put your phones to the side and get rid of all those things and then sit down and tell the children, all right, you're gonna just sit here as we do this because it's gonna be exciting.
29:50: And by the way, our children, they would have to say before they got up from a meal, Haley to remember, may
29:57: I please be excused? No, you may not because we're gonna have Bible time. The next thing that they had to say was, mom, thank you for dinner tonight, it was good.
30:06: Well, you can't make them lie, it was mostly good. No, just kidding, when I made it, it wasn't as good.
30:13: And what was the third thing I had to say? May I please be excused?
30:22: That was, oh, and then when they finally got up after Bible time, push their chair in. Nobody pushes chairs in anymore.
30:32: I'm telling you so many people come to my office and don't push their chairs in, but the discipleship guys know, push the chair in.
30:39: I would hire people based on, did they push the chair in or not afterwards? Okay, good.
30:45: May I please be excused? No, we're gonna have Bible time. That was a good dinner, mom, thank you.
30:51: And then when they're done, push the chairs in. So now it's Bible time, everybody's got a Bible, everybody's got a hymnal. And of course, if you've got little tiny kids, they can have a beginner's
30:59: Bible, et cetera, and a hymnal. And I would just go through sections.
31:07: For instance, I would have every kid pick their favorite song and we would sing it.
31:12: The little kid gets to pick and we would, I don't know how many times we sang This Little Light of Mine, a lot.
31:19: Climbing, Climbing Jacob's Ladder, a lot. Little Bunny Foo Foo, a lot. No joke, they have to be
31:25: Christian songs. And everybody take turns, we would sing, right? So the two year old gets to pick.
31:31: Zacchaeus was in a tree. And then the old ones get to pick. And then mom and dad get to pick if we've got enough time.
31:37: So one of the things we did is we would sing. And the kids would sing and I would sing. And so by the way, if you're at home singing with your kids, guess what your kids do when you go to church?
31:47: We sing. Well, why aren't you singing? Well, I don't want to. Okay, well, then now we'll deal with that. Then I would get the
31:55: Bible out. And here's the easiest way to do it. Men go to, if you're the dad, you should be doing this.
32:01: Of course, when the dads are gone, moms can, of course. But the dad gets the Bible out and says, today we're gonna learn from God's word.
32:08: And it's gonna be from, we're gonna look at the book called Exodus. And then I began to ask questions of the children about what we learned the day before.
32:17: So let's say today is Exodus two. The day before or two days earlier, what's Exodus one?
32:22: What did it teach us? And I would tell the older kids, you don't get to answer first. And I would look at the little kids.
32:28: What's Exodus two about? Or Exodus one about? And the little two year old would do the right answer.
32:33: Jesus. Good. All right. Sometimes we'd put M &Ms out. And if you got the right answer, you got an
32:41: M &M. And if you're willing to bet high stakes, because I used to go to Vegas every other week. I did, but that was for work.
32:51: I like that laugh. All right. Anybody want a five M &M question? But it's gonna be harder.
32:57: And if you get the five M &M question right, you're gonna be set. So I'd go ask every child one of the questions.
33:05: And of course, the older kids are dying to answer for the young ones, because they want them to get the right questions too. And then
33:10: I would read Exodus two. And I would say, what did this teach us about God? And what does this teach us about sin, our humans?
33:18: Because then that will lead us to that we need the Lord Jesus, right? To bridge that gap. And so we would read.
33:24: And then we could pray for each other. You can have prayer journals. You can read other books like Pilgrim's Progress, whatever it is.
33:32: Do a five minute one to start. Pray. Good job, kids. Way to go. Get the ice cream out.
33:38: Do something fun. And off to the next day. Say, well, what if we miss a day?
33:44: You're gonna miss days. But I would imagine my children would think, when we were five years old, we don't ever remember missing a day.
33:51: But we missed lots of days. Then what happens? You go, we have older children. Guess what the older children get to do now?
33:59: I'd like you to read, right? I'd like you to lead. We have a thing in our discipleship where the guys have to give verses.
34:06: And what we would do is, I'm terrified of public speaking, at least for years
34:11: I was, I would make the children all stand up and then give their Bible verses that they were memorizing or read the
34:18: Bible. And before you know it, you've got Jonathan. Today in discipleship,
34:25: I said, all right, guys, we don't have time to do all the Bible memory verses. So one man, I want to have the
34:30: Bible verses and he will be the federal head. And if he gets these verses right, none of the other guys have to do it.
34:36: And then we pulled a Larry McLaughlin. I said, well, you know what? Will you stand and give your verses? Because it's harder.
34:42: Jonathan's like, okay. I said, how about standing on the chair and do it? And he goes, do you want me to stand on your table and give the verses?
34:48: I said, I do. So he stood on the table in my office. When Larry was doing it, his head was like scrunched like that.
34:55: And he gave the verses. All of a sudden you have your children do that exact same thing. Stand up.
35:01: What did we learn about yesterday? We learned in Exodus chapter one, there was these two people, they weren't going to let those children die.
35:08: And when the babies came out, they got the babies and they didn't let, I was going to say Herod, they didn't let
35:14: Pharaoh kill the babies. Remember those two children? What were those children's names? This is like a five M &M question.
35:19: What were those two children's names? Moses. No, it wasn't the children. I asked the wrong question.
35:25: So now I lose five M &Ms. The two midwives names were Shipra and what? Pua. Who would ever name your kid
35:33: Pua? I mean, this is awful. I think you spilled some Pua right there. Okay.
35:39: So that's how I'm teaching because I want the kids to go, this is exciting. This is Bible time.
35:46: When we got to Lot and she turned into a pillar of salt. What do you think
35:52: I did? I got the salt out. Everybody had to put salt on their hands, even the big kids and have a little lick.
36:01: Salt lick Lot's wife. Remember Lot's wife, Jesus said? What do you think
36:07: I did when David got acted all crazy and he let spit drool out of his mouth and went over by the door?
36:15: What do you think I did? There's some things you can just do as a dad that are just wonderful.
36:21: I just got the, you know, there's spit and then there's spit. The kind of spit
36:27: I like for show is the kind you have to get a lot of that liquid in your mouth and then you have to kind of slush it because it gets foamy.
36:36: So I got the slushy spit and I let it foam all around and then I just let it come out of my mouth and I was reenacting
36:42: David in the house. I mean, if I had a dad like that, I'd be thinking this is pretty exciting.
36:49: Do we march around the table for Joshua 6? How many times do you march around the table for the walls to come down?
36:59: Well, we haven't done that story yet. Okay, good. Maybe Christian. Okay, but you know what?
37:05: Here's the good news. I ask a question and we're getting answers. So right, there's a way to get the young people. You know, by the way, the people who are looking at me now more than anyone else are the young people.
37:15: I have all the young people's eyes right now and you have the Bible and you're like, okay, what are we gonna do next?
37:21: How are we gonna act this out? Then you get acted out, okay? Whoever acts it out the best gets such and such and off we go.
37:29: So when it comes to Bible time, here's what I'd suggest. Pick a time after breakfast or after dinner where everybody's there, clear off the table, just go ahead and open up the
37:40: Bible. Men, you don't have to be a scholar. Can I make a little side note here? If your husband, ladies, opens up the
37:46: Bible and tries, don't blast him. That wasn't as good as Pastor Mike's.
37:53: Oh, boring. Here it comes. Just be glad your husband is opening up the Bible and trying to teach the kids.
37:58: It's hard to do, but if he's willing to do that, I mean, to me, I was just, I just kept thinking, my wife's pastor's
38:05: John MacArthur and now I have to open the Bible and teach the kids and Kim. It's a difficult thing to do.
38:13: But I'm like, well, John MacArthur's not here at the dinner table and I am, so I'm just gonna open up. Read Exodus 1 and then talk about it and then review
38:22: Exodus 1 the next night and read Exodus 2. How hard is that? And the kids are gonna ask questions.
38:28: Side note, this is gonna be an easy way to teach your children about everything in life, including what we call above the high level here, the birds and the bees, because guess what the
38:36: Bible talks about very often? And when certain things were mentioned, I just kept reading.
38:43: Luke's like that. You know how your arm gets so tired you have to hold it up?
38:49: You have a question. I'm like, there's no possible way I'm looking up. I'm reading all the
38:55: Bible to the kids. Nothing's inappropriate to the kids. I, dad, son, get on my bed.
39:06: And then you get to learn the Bible as well, right? What did we do when it was
39:11: Abraham's, the covenant with Abraham and God, like in the form of the fiery pot, went between the carcasses of the animals?
39:25: I know. So what we're trying to do when we're teaching the children at home, we're teaching them the
39:31: Bible. We're having a high view of God's word. This is important. This brings the family together. We're all under the
39:36: Bible, including dad, and we're gonna just sit still. And then when we're done, may I please be excused?
39:42: Yes, you may. You put your chair in and then you go have fun. And usually what we would do is go wrestle or something like that. Go do something fun and crazy.
39:49: But if you can get your kids to sit at home for 45 minutes, you can get them to sit here for 45 minutes.
39:57: Friends, if you say to me, my kid's got ADHD and they won't sit still. I'll say to you, how long can your child play
40:05: Nintendo or Xbox? Then they don't even have to go to the bathroom. Some people play that so long they've died.
40:12: Did you know that? They sat in for days. Remember that? Sat for days and then never ate and never went to the bathroom and just died because they're just playing those games.
40:22: And so for our house, how to get people to sit still was not every night at the
40:29: TV. We had one big night for the TV and that was Friday night. And dad even served that night.
40:35: We got ice cream and dad served. We had popcorn. I wonder if they have popcorn ice cream. That might be good.
40:42: How about like deep fat fried popcorn ice cream? Deep fat butter on a stick.
40:48: Oh, see, there's a way to engage your kids if you just try.
40:56: You can have your children act things out. You can talk about doctrine. You can get creative. Memorizing verses, speeches.
41:09: As you've heard me say before, it's a sin to make the Bible boring. R. Kent Hughes said this.
41:20: He said, I have the best times when I'm with my family and doing Bible devotions. And I asked myself the question, that's interesting because how could that be fun?
41:31: But we know why it could be. Okay, more next time. But before I get to the next question, any questions about Bible time at home for dads and moms or study or trying to get your kids to sit still?
41:47: Yes, please. Who asked these questions?
41:58: I'm just kidding. But since you did the best job of reading today at the tombstones,
42:04: I'll answer your question. You can start with Genesis is fine. You can start with any book that you'd like.
42:11: I mean, I think probably, I wouldn't do Song of Solomon to start, but if you want to, knock yourself out.
42:17: You can do whatever you want. Lillies, Sharon, Valleys, et cetera. I just like Exodus because, yeah.
42:36: That was good. Exodus is a narrative and it ramps up fast, right?
42:47: With Moses and the baby and the water and Pharaoh and killed somebody and this, that, and the other.
42:53: It happened fast. Genesis, you've got the days and everything else, but you wanna just start in Genesis, that's fine.
42:59: Exodus, the first 20 chapters are really easy to do. 20 to 30 aren't so easy, but you can just kind of skip over that.
43:07: You don't have to do every verse. Okay, another question. Yeah, I was just gonna say, did you do always a chapter a day?
43:15: Like you were saying a chapter, were you always trying to do a chapter a day? Did you go straight through? Did you skip around?
43:21: We probably did a chapter a day. Sometimes it'd get early on. We'd have to talk about some interesting thing.
43:27: We got sidetracked. That was fine. As the kids got older, instead of just reading and then asking about God and sin, then we talk about kind of world events, right?
43:37: And things, you know, it could be same -sex attraction. It could be, what about homosexuality? What about this, that, or the other?
43:43: How do we view the world? Because the world is selling things. And it became more of a kind of a philosophy, theology discussion versus a textual driven thing.
43:52: But if you wanna get through chapter 20 and then skip, you know, I probably wouldn't do a Leviticus if I were you, not because I think it's boring, but it's hard for the kids to wrap their minds around it.
44:03: Kids are drawn to stories. So pick the Bible stories, right? And you got Joseph and he's thrown in jail and he ends up saving, you know, things.
44:11: And you've got Jesus and he, excuse me, he's healing people and he's cleansing the leper and everything else.
44:17: I think those lend itself to easier story, drama, tension, tension relief, et cetera.
44:25: All right, the one thing I do wanna say to wet your whistle for next time, how do you address a child who has made a profession of faith at a young age?
44:33: Your kid says, I'm a believer in Jesus now. How do you respond? What would you do?
44:40: You have a 10 year old kid, I believe in Jesus. What's your response? No, you don't.
44:46: Prove it. Is that the way we respond? Well, what if they said,
44:54: Daddy, I believe in Jesus. I've accepted Jesus in my heart or whatever language they'd use. What would
44:59: I do? That's great. I mean, it's better than them saying, Buddha's real or something.
45:07: That's great. The whole time of my mind, I'm thinking, that could be my faith, that could be their faith.
45:12: But I wanna encourage, because the New Testament, even in 1 John, it's keep believing. You say you believe, keep believing.
45:19: Because I'd say that to an adult. You say you believe, great, keep believing. Because things are gonna come along to test that.
45:25: What will come along? Trials, temptations, hormones, and a car.
45:32: That's it. If they can survive that, they're really saved. Can't believe
45:39: I just said that. But in general, we'll talk about this more, because time's up.
45:47: I wanna encourage that. Good job, way to go. And then when a child says or does something that's opposite of that, you know what, sweetie?
45:55: You say you're a Christian and this is how Christians respond, but you're doing the opposite. You might wanna rethink how you're responding.
46:02: I know Christians make mistakes and sin, but this is not what Christians do. This is not how Christians act.
46:09: And therefore, when children are very small, I don't know if they're four years old and they're regenerated or not.
46:15: How would I know? What I'm not gonna do is say the standards for belief for adults is here and now
46:21: I have a new standard for kids. That wouldn't be any good, right? The standard of salvation is the same.
46:27: God needs to save them through the preaching of the word. I don't wanna believe my children are unbelievers if they're making a profession of faith, but what are some typical things about children?
46:41: I mean, here's one right here that makes me think, all right, I need to keep watering the seed that was planted because I'm not really sure if they're saved or not.
46:51: What does Paul say in Ephesians chapter four? So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.
47:01: What are children known for? They're gullible, easily deceived and flow back and forth so you don't know.
47:08: So tell the children, way to go, good job, keep believing and keep talking to them about who
47:13: Jesus is. I would never say to a child who said they were a believer at 12, moved out of the house, moved in with some girl at 25, et cetera, et cetera, and then say, you know what?
47:23: But I made that decision at 12, therefore I must be a Christian. I would say, I'm not asking you what decision you made back then, are you believing now is what
47:31: I would say. So I encourage the faith. I've told the story before when we watched that one Jesus movie back in the late 90s.
47:40: I mean, I think Haley was, I'll pay a dollar by the way for this story. I think she was probably,
47:46: I don't know, five, four, and Jesus is getting crucified in the show and she starts crying and kind of waddles up to the
47:56: TV and is trying to kiss Jesus because they're beating him to a pulp. I guess
48:02: I could say, you know, well, I think that's when Haley got saved because she could really understand. But while it was sweet,
48:10: I don't think that was saving faith. I think she got saved later, right? Is that fair enough? Okay, good.
48:20: Okay, so what we're gonna do is the hour's up. In two weeks, we're gonna have
48:26: Kim with some other ladies addressing some questions from a female perspective.
48:33: And by the way, if my kids have turned out well, it's of course the grace of God through Kim, basically.
48:44: Right, I'm very thankful for Kim and her parenting. Very thankful.
48:52: It's amazing, you know, what side of the bed do the kids come to when they're sick? They need something. It wasn't my side.
49:00: Dad, I threw up all over. And thanks for telling me the dog will find it eventually.
49:22: By the way, that's my all -time favorite Bible illustration is when the dog throws up and all the kids want to clean it up and you just say, don't do it.
49:32: Huh? Well, I didn't demonstrate it, but I let the dog demonstrate it.
49:38: Because the dog's like, huh, maybe I kind of go back. What is that?
49:44: Manna, what is this? In summary, hold your kids to a very high standard and then give them grace and encouragement and fun and other things and rewards for obedience.
50:00: That's the way the world works. Not unto salvation, but the way of the transgressor is hard.
50:05: And when you honor people and you honor your parents, then your kids should be blessed.
50:12: I wish I would have done it more, but remember R. Kent Hughes said, he put all the kids to bed, he and his wife, and waited about five minutes.
50:23: And they weren't very rich. And so all the kids were in the one bedroom and he and his wife burst into the kids' room and yelled, pajama ride.
50:31: And so all the kids in their pajamas had to go, get in the car and drive down to Dairy Queen for the ice cream for pajama ride.
50:39: So every time that door was shut, you knew the kids were in there going, is tonight the night for the pajama ride?
50:45: And then he said he had to speak in front of four or 5 ,000 people many years later when the kids were older.
50:52: And he needed to go to bed early. And so he went to bed early. Five minutes later, the teenage boys burst into his room.
51:00: Pajama ride. And made Dr. Hughes go get ice cream in his pajamas 20 years later.
51:09: So I think that should kind of be the tone when it comes to the kids, expect a lot and then reward a lot.
51:16: Even when they're older, I try to say to my kids as often as I can,
51:21: I love you and I'm proud of you. I've told you my daddy wounds before. I don't know if I remember my dad ever saying,
51:28: I'm proud of you. And in our household, it was love you. It was never, I love you. So I don't like when our kids say, love you, dad.
51:35: I want them to say, I love you because that's what I end up saying. The Bible says to encourage one another, right?
51:41: And I think that means we can encourage our kids too and reward them for things and tell them what they do well.
51:47: Who else is going to do that? I want that to happen. We had some men who were here yesterday to do the preaching lab.
51:56: And it's a hard thing to stand up there with a microphone on and preach. And one of the men didn't really want to do it.
52:02: And I tried to encourage him to get up and do something that's probably the most frightening thing in all the world is public speak, but not only that with the
52:09: Bible. And he got up and did it. And all the other men, some with tears in their eyes were saying, good job.
52:15: You did it. Way to go. I love you. And I was so happy and proud of this guy.
52:21: I stood up and gave him a standing ovation because he would stand up there in that pulpit and preach the word.
52:26: And so when our kids do something good, let's make a big deal out of it. Kim was really good at, if you do something wrong, we're going to make an impression on you.
52:35: And if you're on your computer late at night, Luke, and you're not supposed to be, and you're IMing people you're not supposed to be, then
52:41: Kim gets that computer and it just sails down the two stories and smashes down on the cement.
52:47: Lesson learned. But then she's also great at, now let's go do something fun and let's go up to the beach.
52:54: And it's January 1st and it's the polar plunge and everything else. Dad's got to sleep in.
52:59: She goes and does the fun. So in our house, I do this and she does that. It works out perfect.
53:10: Okay, let's pray. Father, I thank you for tonight. I just pray for these parents that they would have wisdom to deal with their children and to love them and to have fun with them and to guide them and to train them.
53:28: Father, my kids are almost gone and out of the house and so many things I wish
53:33: I could do differently. But you're a God who works everything together for our good. And even our own sin and laziness and selfishness doesn't stop your plan.