Murphy’s Laws of Parenting:
One pastor tells the following story: “My wife was busy one evening pursuing her hobby of making porcelain dolls at a doll-making class, leaving me at home to watch our two children, Melinda, age seven, and Craig, age five. While I was chatting with a neighbor on the front porch, the phone rang. I was proud to hear Craig answer the phone promptly and politely. My pride vanished as I heard my son’s response to the caller’s request to speak to my wife: ‘No, my mom’s not here. She’s out making a baby. But my dad is here if you want to talk to him.’ Naturally, the phone call was from one of the elders of our church!” (Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion, p. 35).
John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester said, “Before I was married I had three theories about raising children. Now I have three children and no theories.” We’re all experts on parenting until we become parents. Then we realize it’s not as easy as we thought.
Today was to be the final sermon in this series on parenting that we have been in for the month of June. Due to the fact that we are baptizing about 20 people today in the three services, I am going to split this message in half and we will conclude the series next week. Many of you have found it to be helpful and hopeful. Some of you may have been inspired and I need to warn you that the inspiration you felt will probably not last more than a couple of weeks if that.
The only way for you to be successful as a parent is to be in community with a group of fellow parents and people who will pray for and with you. This is yet another reason why we endorse being in a small group as being essential to your walk with Christ. You need to be in community with people who will stand by you when you wonder if you can make it another day. You need to be in community with people that you can be honest with and express your sense of loss as to what to do.
There is nobody in this room that is an expert in raising children. There are some of us that have or are walking through it and we need each other.
Today we are not talking about the how to of raising godly children but we are going to fly through an overview of five things (Two this week and three next week) that you need to make sure your children understand by the time they are grown. Parenting in the long run is not about strategies or programs it is simply about who you are.
It is about you being a fully devoted and surrendered follower of Jesus Christ. How do you do that? It takes a radical willingness to walk a different road than most. It takes a willingness to love God enough to hunger and thirst to know that He wants for you and your family. These five things are things that you need to always have in your heart and mind to teach your children. They will allow your children to learn to fight life’s biggest battles. Let’s get right in to this.
1. Teach Them to Suffer Well
A Theology of Suffering: Most children who have grown up in developed countries have gotten the message that suffering is abnormal. When anything goes wrong they feel deprived or that they are a victim. We need to give our kids a healthy theology of suffering.
a. Life is hard, but God is good!
b. Life is unjust (unfair), but God is sovereign.
You need to prepare your kids for a life of disappointments and difficulties. They may work their hearts out and get a B on a test while someone else doesn’t even crack a book and gets an A. It’s just life. They may wonder why the coach’s son or daughter gets to play every game while they sit on the bench. Life is just not fair. Life will be full of disappointments and difficulties.
We teach them these things by teaching them from the Bible.
Old Testament Roots – Joseph (Genesis 37-50) Tell them the story of Joseph. He had some bad days but God was always with Him. (Jealous brother, slavery, went to prison for things he did not do but he also enjoyed some times of great blessing and served at the top level of a countries leadership.) After his most painful days were over and he had saved his entire family from a horrible time of famine he made a profound statement about God’s sovereignty: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” Years of troubles could not rob him of his faith in God.
I can’t emphasize this enough. Do you know how many of us adults need to get our own heads around a theology of suffering. I have said it before, the most amazing thing to me after not pastoring a church for 11 years and then coming here was what had happened to people’s concept of God and suffering. The smallest challenges seemed to shake people to their core.
New Testament Command – “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.” 1 Peter 2:21-23
God will take the unfair, unjust, painful, evil circumstances of your children’s lives and mix them with His goodness and sovereignty. Your kids need to know that they will suffer but that God is good and He is in control. Whatever injustice they face, God will vindicate them eventually. Whatever hardship or struggle they go through, God will bring blessing out of it in some way.
Let your kids learn to model their lives after Christ. Do you realize how many people are eaten alive with bitterness and unforgivness? They are poisoned in their soul because no one ever gave them the ability to suffer well.
Application: Help your child grow through suffering. Let them talk and let them be honest about how they feel. Listen with your ears but more importantly listen with your heart. Find out what is bugging them. Find out where they are suffering. Lead them to embrace a scriptural model. Teach them from God’s word.
Life Myth: Suffering is to be avoided at all costs.
Life Message: Suffering Is Normal!
I read the story of a farmer who had toiled over a bumper crop of grain - a badly needed crop that was going to pay off many creditors and secure the family for another year. But just a few days before it was due to be harvested a freak wind and hail storm ravaged the property, and the harvest was lost. The man stood with his little boy looking over the fields of destroyed grain. The boy expected to hear his father cursing in despair. But instead his Dad began to softly sing: “Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.” Years later that boy, grown into manhood, said: “That was the greatest sermon I ever heard!”
2. Teach Them to Work “Unto the Lord”
A Theology of Work:
a. Work is a “calling,” not a job.
The word vocation comes from a Latin word that means “to call” or “to summon.” Your kids need to know that what they do in life is a response to how God made them. We live in a culture that puts an tremendous emphasis on upward mobility. Often times parents can consciously and unconsciously push their kids to get into the best schools and get the best training so that they will get the best jobs that will provide them with the best salary which will in turn give them the best of everything.
Remember we talked about it already. We live in a culture that promotes happiness. An illustration of this would be when a teenager ask a parent what they should study in college and the parent responds, “Whatever makes you happy.” Or they might say, “It doesn’t matter to me.” These two response are not biblical.
God has a specific purpose for your child’s life and it is our responsibility not to call them but to shepherd and disciple them to listen for God’s voice. God has a claim in all our lives of service. He wants us to serve Him and often if we listen to His voice He will pick the most amazing places for us to be.
Seventy-five percent of Americans don’t like their jobs. They feel as if they are stuck in a rut, and way too many of them live from weekend to weekend and vacation to vacation, tolerating them until they can get to the next break. God calls us to do unique things and when we see ourselves in those positions as being called it makes a tremendous differenc when your feet hit the floor in the morning.
b. All work is sacred.
Work is not always fun but we create a theology of work that says in essence, “no matter what I am doing I can find a way to do it in a way that honors God.” We worship God with our lives. We teach that here. Everyday at work, in our homes, at play or wherever we find ourselves we believe that as Christ followers we are worshipping God with our lives.
c. Our work is to flow from God’s unique design and purpose for our lives.
God makes us unique. He gives our kids different personalities and characters. Our job is not to make our kids just like us. It is to enable them to embrace who they are and to allow God to use them even when they are young.
Your job is not to force an introverted kid to be an extrovert. Your job is not to force an extroverted kid to be quiet and shy like you.
Your job is not to make an athlete out of a kid that obviously has not interest or real skills in such things.
You want to teach your introverted child some social skills that will help them strengthen their personality and you will want to teach you extroverted child when and where their natural behavior is appropriate.
In all of this we are cooperating with God and His design from our kids.
d. Work is for one audience; the “audience of one.”
One of the greatest gifts you can give your kids is to teach them to do everything in honor of God and His presence in their lives. You know the church has talked a pretty good game for generations but they haven’t done a very good job at living it out. Even this generation of enlightened twenty and thirty something emerging revolutionaries are doing much better than their parents did at instilling the word of God in their kids lives.
Old Testament Roots – “15 The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.” Genesis 2:15
New Testament Command – “23 Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” Colossians 3:23
Application: Help your child discover “God’s calling” for their life so they can impact their world and beyond.
Give your kids weekly jobs and make sure they are done with a good attitude. Become students of your children. No what makes them different and learn to work with God in raising kids who will stand out in a crowd.
Life Myth: Work is to be endured as a means to a higher standard of living.
Life Message: You were created to work.
Erma Bombeck wrote these words.
I had the meanest parents in all the world. When I was seven years old they dared to spank me just because I told them I would not do what they asked me to do to help around the house. My friend next door never got spanked. He didn’t have to help at home. He had nice parents.
I had the meanest parents. I had to eat all my broccoli and carrots before they would ever let me have dessert. My friend next door never had to eat vegetables. He had fast food brought in with burgers and shakes and brownies with all kinds of ice cream.
I had the meanest parents. They made me go to church every Sunday as long as I lived under their roof, sit there in that boring worship service. My friend next door could do as he pleased. He never went to church. Sunday was a fun day for him.
I had the meanest parents. They made me work for my allowance. I had to get a job helping an elderly old man with chores around his house. My friend next door never had to do anything and he was given four times as much allowance as I could ever earn. He had nice parents.
I had the meanest parents. When I turned sixteen, they made me earn points before I could drive the family car. My friend next door was given a brand new luxury automobile. My folks had bought an old jalopy for me to get back and forth to school, but you think I’d drive that hunk of junk and park it beside those Jeep Wagoneers, BMWs, Buicks and Mercedes? My friend had it made.
Or so I once thought, but, when we reached age thirty, I had a change in perspective. I had learned that my parents were not so mean after all. I was experiencing: the pleasure of work, the reward of recreation, the strength of a healthy body, the bonds of a strong marriage, the inward confidence that comes from faith and the wonderful supportive fellowship that comes from the Church as a community of believers.
As for my friend, things were not going so well: he was not finding his niche in the workplace, nothing seemed to satisfy him, he was having difficulty getting along with people who were not willing to do everything just as he thought he knew it ought to be done, his marriage had not lasted even two years, his body was getting out of shape, and he evidenced a cynical outlook without any under-girding that comes from the assurance of faith.
There are some very important things that you and I are supposed to communicate to the children that we influence.
I just wonder today where you are in your own spiritual life. You see one of these days we are going to come to end of our lives and we will look back and wonder about what we did or didn’t do with our lives. We will wonder about our kids and what we could have done differently.
Most importantly, one day we will stand before God facing eternity and it will become clear that the emphasis this world puts on the here and now is so less important than what we thought. We will spend a whole lot more time in eternity then we will spend on this earth. Where are your priorities? Where are you teaching your kids to put their priorities?
In a few moments we are going to baptize some fellow Christ followers but as we prepare for that service will you do some reflecting and committing as you sing and worship the Lord with this great song of declaration. Today we echo the words of Joshua who said, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” May that be your prayer and your highest goal.
This series was developed from the series and book entitiled Raising Effective Kids in a Defective World by Chip Ingrim.