Last Monday, like many of you, we Adamses piled into the mini-van and braved the traffic on the Bay Bridge in order to get over to the Eastern Shore, but we weren’t heading to the beach. Instead, when we came to the RT. 301 – RT. 50 split we took the left fork and made our way up to Dover to celebrate Memorial Day with our family. We all gathered at Sue’s mother’s house, and since my mom lives only a few miles away, she was able to join us as well. Our moms get along great.
Sue’s brother, Lewis, has become renowned for his skill at the grill, so he brought all his gear and cooked burgers, hot dogs, spare ribs, pulled pork, and barbeque chicken. Here’s Lew hard at work. The backyard smelled wonderful! And, if two huge grills (charcoal and gas) full of various kinds of meat weren’t enough, Lew also brought his deep fryer and filled it with peanut oil to make chicken wings coated in either mild or very hot sauce. In addition to all this meat, that afternoon our table was piled high with corn on the cob, baked beans, several kinds of salads, a cooler full of sodas, and peach cobbler for dessert. Suffice it to say, we didn’t go hungry! Plus, God blessed us with beautiful weather, sunny but not too hot, and we had a great time!
There was a crowd of us present, Adamses and Bausterts and Kohls filling the house and backyard. If I counted right there were 8 grandkids, one great-grandkid, three grandmoms, one of them also “great” in the numerical sense, five siblings, two brothers-in-law, two sisters-in-law, and one girlfriend. We all ate and laughed and told stories and played games and caught up on the news, and basically just spent several hours enjoying the wonderful blessing of family.
How many of you had a similar experience this past Monday? Aren’t family gatherings like that wonderful? It’s incredible how much joy, and strength we can experience by simply being with our parents and children and brothers and sisters, and cousins on holidays like this. A happy family is truly one of God’s greatest gifts, and as I sat in the midst of all that, watching cousins play and siblings talk and laugh, and the great-granddaughter make her first steps while everyone cheered her on. As I soaked in all this family joy as a preacher, I couldn’t help thinking about all the sermons I’ve delivered recently that have dealt with how to get marriage right. It hit me that those sermons would provide a great segue to a message geared to help us understand how to get parenting right, because right parenting is the source of happy gatherings like we had last Monday in Dover.
The joy of our Memorial Day family gathering stemmed from at least three generations of couples who have worked hard to try and be good stewards of the children God blesses us with. Don’t get me wrong. We’re certainly not perfect. Adamses and Kohls and Bausterts have made their share of parenting mistakes, but like most moms and dads, we do sincerely want to get this one right. We want to do a good job raising our kids. On with the segue, what does the Bible say about this? What principles do we need to embrace in order to join God in His work when it comes to raising our precious children?
Well, first, I think we all need to realize that this is indeed a proper segue because GOOD marriages and GOOD parenting DO go hand in hand. I’m not trying to rub salt in the wounds of anyone who has gone through a failed marriage, but we need to know that children of divorce suffer, in many ways more than their parents. When marriages fail the children endure intense grief, which often lasts for many years. Studies show that even as young adults they are nearly twice as likely to require psychological help as are those kids whose parents remained married. Plus, children from disrupted families have more academic and behavioral problems in school and they are nearly twice as likely to drop out of high school.
Many times moms and dads call it quits and justify their decision by saying it’s better for the kids, but even secular experts now say that this way of thinking is flawed. They say that from the kid’s perspective a “good” divorce is much worse than a bad marriage. It’s better for the kids if mom and dad work to stay together as husband and wife. But, suffice it to say that to be good stewards of our children, to get parenting right, we have to do all we can to get marriage right. The simple fact is to be good moms and dads we have to be good husbands and wives. With that in mind let me quickly address two of the principles of right marriages that positively impact right parenting.
(1) First, spouses must show their love for each other.
You may ask, “How does that relate to successful parenting?” Or, in the words of that classic hit by Tina Turner, “What’s love got to do with it?” The answer is “everything!” The quality of the love relationship between a husband and wife, especially it’s visibility, has a great deal of influence on how our kids turn out. I think this is one reason that in Ephesians 5:28 husbands are commanded to “love their wives” and in Titus 2:4 wives are commanded to “love their husbands.” Now, these commands do not refer to just a feeling kind of love. No, these texts allude to a love that is visible in our actions toward one another as spouses.
Remember, as 1 John 3:18 says we are to love one another,“..not with words or tongue but with actions and truth.” If instead of visible love, there is obvious hostility between parents, it makes our children feel very insecure. But, if on the other hand the husband-wife relationship is strong and amorous, if it is characterized by noticeable devotion, if kids see their parents laughing at each other’s jokes and enjoying each other’s presence, and displaying affection, then they feel safe and secure. Kids need to know and see that their parents love each other.
In one of his comedy routines Rodney Dangerfield once said, “My wife and I sleep in separate rooms; we have dinner apart; we take separate vacations. We’re doing everything we can to keep our marriage together.” Husbands and wives who are not together are doing their kids harm, and will have a very difficult time raising them to be happy, healthy, productive adults. Children need to understand that mom and dad have something special going. They may deny it, but they need to see us show affection for one another. This is one thing that tells them that our marriage is solid and that it is something they can count on in this unstable fallen world of ours. It’s a source of stability that they rely on even when they become young adults.
I’m reminded of the story of a man in Phoenix, advanced in years and feeling ornery, who picked up the phone and called his son in New York and said, “I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you, your mother and I are getting a divorce. Neither of us can go on together. 45-years of this misery is enough.” “Dad, what are you talking about?” His son sounded crushed. “We can’t stand the sight of each other any longer. And besides, you and your sister are adults now, so there’s no reason for us to stay together. Matter of fact, I’m tired of talking about it, so you can tell your sister in Chicago for me.” With that he abruptly hung up the phone. Frantic, the son called his sister, who immediately flew into a fury and shouted, “There’s no way they’re getting a divorce! I’ll take care of this!” She called Phoenix and before her dad could finish, “Hello…” she tore into him, saying, “You two are not going to throw away forty-five years of marriage just like that. You are not getting a divorce. Don’t do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother back and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing, do you hear me!?” Without waiting for an answer, she slammed the phone down. This old rascal of a dad hung up the phone, turned to his wife, and said with a smile, “Well, both of them will be here for Thanksgiving and they’re paying their own way.”
As this story shows, our kids never outgrow their need to know that mom and dad have a loving relationship. Without that knowledge, in many ways their world begins to fall apart. Plus, when they see that we can love one another in spite of disagreements, then they know that we love them with the same unconditional love.
In her book, Growing a Family Where People Really Like One Another, Karen Dockery writes, “Spirituality is showing love when you feel like attacking, joy when you’d rather whine, peace when you’d rather argue, patience when you’d rather demand, kindness when you’d rather be cruel.”
Parents, is your love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness showing? Do your kids enjoy the stability and security of being able to see these things in your relationship?
By the way, another factor of this parenting principle is this: the way we relate teaches our kids how to relate. When a husband and a wife interact in a loving way, then their children are more likely to relate to each other and to their peers throughout life in a loving way. Moms and dads must show their kids that they love each other.
(2) And second, spouses must show that they love God.
Again you might ask, “What does this have to do with parenting?” And again I would reply, “Everything!” because the quality of the relationship we have with God will influence our children’s spiritual development. Moms and Dads, our kids are watching, they are looking to see if God is indeed real to us. They see how much we pray. They see whether or not we trust God in the tough times of life. They notice how often we apply the teachings of the Bible to our daily life. And they emulate what they see. A recent study indicated that if both Mom and Dad attend church regularly, 72% of their children do so when they grow up. If only the Dad attended, 55% remained faithful to the church. If only Mom attended on 15% did so. If neither attended regularly, only 6% of their children continued to be active in church in later life.
Paul Harvey once said, “If you don’t live it, you don’t believe it.” And, while some might say that statement was too harsh, here’s a statement that is more difficult to debate: “If you don’t live it, your children won’t believe it.” If you want your kids to believe in God and live in ways that please Him, then you have to do so as well, having a deep faith in God is not enough, we must also model it.
There were once some gold prospectors who discovered an exceptionally rich vein of gold ore. One of them said, “Hey, we’ve got it made as long as we don’t’ tell anybody else before we stake our claims.” So they each vowed to keep the secret. When they ran out of provisions, they headed for town. After buying all the supplies they needed, they hurried back to the mine site. But they weren’t alone. A crowd of people followed them, because in spite of what they didn’t say their discovery was written all over their faces. As these excited gold miners discovered, what happens on the inside shows on the outside!
So the question for us as parents is this: are we letting what God has done on the inside show on the outside? Does your love relationship with God show? Telling our kids to pray is not enough. We must pray with them. Telling our kids to read the Bible is insufficient. We must read it with them and talk to them about how it’s principles apply to our lives.
As Deuteronomy 6:7 says we are to teach our children God’s commands, “…when we sit at home and when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up.” The reason God told us to use every opportunity to talk to our kids about Him is because we are not always going to have our kids. The day will come all too quickly when they will be out on their own.
Monday at my mother-in-law’s home I spent some time wandering around looking at pictures on mantles and end tables and walls: pictures of weddings and of proud parents holding their kids shortly after their birth, pictures of family vacations when they were young, pictures of high school graduations. I took many of those pictures myself and it is amazing how fast all those cousins have grown up. In parenting, time literally flies, so while we have our children with us, we need to show them how important it is to us know God personally. This is one way we literally redeem the precious time that we have with them.
Three little boys were once playing and they got into one of those “My dad’s better than your dad” routines. One boy proudly said, “My dad knows the mayor of our town!” Another said, “That’s nothing, my dad knows the governor of our state!” Then the last little boy topped them all when he said, “That’s nothing, my dad knows God!” Let me ask you moms and dads, does your child know by the way that you live that you know God? It’s unlikely that they will want to know and follow God unless you do!
A little boy was asked why he loved God. He responded, “I don’t know. I guess it just runs in the family.” Every child ought to be able to say that about his family. And, this leads us to another sermonic segue, because the best way to get parenting right is to emulate our Heavenly Father. We must pattern our parenting after His.
Take your Bibles now, and let’s turn to Psalm 103-a psalm that talks about God’s parenting style. I want us to look at verses 8-14 and 17.
8 – The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 – He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever;
10 – He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 – For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him;
12 – as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
13 – As a father has compassion on His children, so the Lord has compassion on His children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
14 – For He knows how we are formed; He remembers that we are dust.
17 – from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’S love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
What do these verses tell us about when it comes to getting parenting right? What principles of Godly parenting do we find here?
(1) Well first, this Psalm tells us that Godly parents believe in their child’s potential.
As verse 14 says, God “knows how we are formed.” As our Creator He knows what we can do. He knows our talents and gifts and He’s in our corner, cheering us on. God is on our side. He wants us to succeed. This should give us a great deal of confidence for, as Paul puts it in Romans 8, “…if God is for us…who can be against us!?” Well as earthly parents we must have the same kind of confidence in our kids’ potential and our children must see this in the way we cheer them on to be all God made them to be. Parents who refuse to “root” for their kids. Parent’s who don’t make a point of letting their little ones know they believe in them by being a part of their lives and cheering them on, they are sinfully robbing their sons and daughters of a source of strength and confidence that they need in this fallen, discouraging world of ours.
I’m reminded of an excerpt from Garrison Keillor’s book, We Are Still Married, where he writes:
“The town baseball club was the Lake Wobegon Schroeders, so named because the starting nine were brothers, sons of E. J. Schroeder. E. J. was ticked off if one of his boys hit a bad pitch. He’d spit and curse and rail and him. And if a son hit a home run, E. J. would say,
‘Blind man coulda hit that one. Your gramma coulda put wood on that one. If a guy couldn’t hit that one out, there’d be something wrong with him I’d say. Wind practically took that one out of here, didn’t even need to hit it much.’ – then he would lean over and spit.
So, his sons could never please him, and if they did, he forgot about it. Once, in a game against Freeport, his oldest boy, Edwin Jim, Jr., turned and ran to the center-field fence to try and catch a long, long, long fly ball. He threw his glove forty feet into the air to snag the ball and caught the ball and glove. When he turned toward the dugout to see if his dad had seen it, E. J. Was on his feet clapping, but when he saw the boy look at him, he immediately pretended he was swatting mosquitoes. That play was the third out of the inning. Jim, jr. ran back to the bench and stood by his dad. E. J. sat chewing in silence and finally said,
‘I saw a man in Superior, Wisconsin, do that a long time ago. But he did it at night, and the ball was hit a lot harder.'”
Mr. Schroeder may have been a good baseball team manager, but he was a lousy father because he robbed his boys of one of the things all children need most.
All kids need their parent’s blessing. They need to know we believe in their God-given potential! We are their “coaches” in life and they need to hear us rooting for them!
Benjamin West, a brilliant painter who lived around the time of the American revolution, began to explore his talent as a result of a remarkable incident involving his mother. One day his mom went out leaving him in charge of his little sister, Sally. In his mother’s absence he discovered some bottles of colored ink and began to paint Sally’s portrait. Unfortunately, in doing so, he made a very considerable mess of things with blots of ink on everything. His mother came back and saw the mess, but said nothing. She picked up the piece of paper and saw the drawing, “Why, it’s Sally!” she said and she stooped to kiss her son. After that Benjamin West used to say, “My mother’s kiss made me a painter.”
Let’s be honest, far too many of us parents are too mess-conscious. We focus solely on our kid’s mistakes and failures. I’m not saying we shouldn’t discipline them but if we’re not careful we’ll see only their faults. We’ll see only their depravity and become blind to the marvel that God made and put in our care. Our kids need us to believe in them.
Parents, are you more like E. J. Shroeder or Benjamin West’s mom? Moms do your kids have your “kiss?” Dads do they know you are for them? Remember parents, as Proverbs 25:11 says, “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” And this is especially true in parenting! Our children need to hear words of praise and appreciation and encouragement aptly spoken. These words are precious to them, vital to their development!
(2) Second, Godly parents are patient with their children.
Look at verse 8 where it says, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger.” This phrase means that God has a long fuse. He is not easily angered. This verse is actually a quotation of something Moses had written some 500 years earlier. It’s recorded in Exodus 34 and comes from the time Moses was up on the top of Mt. Sinai conferring with God.
You’ll remember while Moses was having a mountaintop experience with God, down below the Hebrew people were having a party characterized by drunkenness and immorality. Plus, these people whom God had just delivered from bondage in Egypt were expressing their “gratitude” to God, by worshiping an idol of a golden calf made from discarded jewelry. When God told Moses what was going on, Moses came down from the mountain and angrily shattered the original copy of The Ten Commandments. This, by the way, was the only case we know of in the Bible where all Ten Commandments were broken simultaneously! That’s how mad Moses was! God was also angry and He told Moses He wanted to destroy all the people and start over. He warned Moses to step back and said, “Mo, I’m going to nuke these party animals.” (That’s the Living Bible paraphrase.) God even promised to give Moses a new copy of the Ten Commandments. But in answer to Moses’ pleading on the people’s behalf, our Heavenly Father reconsidered.
I think God did this to teach Moses and us a very important principle, one that all parents should embrace, the principle of patience. God took Moses back to the top of Mount Sinai, and before He began dictating these moral imperatives a second time, Exodus 34 says that God passed in front of Moses proclaiming, “The Lord…the compassionate and gracious God, is slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
Don’t get me wrong. God does get angry. All parents do. But God puts up with a great deal before reaching His boiling point. He is patient with us. And earthly parents should follow His example. We get mad at the things our kids do, but we must learn to control our anger. We must remember they are children and learn to be patient with them.
When I was about 10, I was active in the R.A. program of our church. And I still remember the patience of our leader, Mr. Trap. He was the most patient man I have ever met. His middle name must have been “Job!” I remember one Saturday about a dozen of us boys were involved in a work project in which we cleaned out the lot behind our church. We were using Mr. Trap’s pick up truck to haul garbage and brush out of the area so the church could use the land for a softball field. All day long Mr. Trap let each of us have a turn driving his three-speed on the column straight shift truck through the field. I know we must have burned out his clutch that day. He must have been frustrated by our inability to handle the shifting of gears without making grinding sounds, but it never showed. He was so patient with us, because he knew we were just boys. He didn’t expect us to be more than we could be.
God is patient with us for the same reason. As it says in verse 14, “…He remembers that we are dust.”
This reminds me of the story of a little boy who was sitting in a Sunday school class listening to his teacher describe how in the beginning of creation, God made mankind from the dust of the earth and how after death our bodies will decompose, and we’ll return to dust. The little boy turned to his friend, and he said, “You know, I think I have somebody under my bed at home but I’m not sure whether he’s coming or going.”
God knows we are fragile, like dust. As our compassionate father, God, understands our tenuous nature. God factors in our frailty when He weighs His responses to us. And we earthly parents must copy God in this if we want to positively impact our sons and daughters. We must not follow the example of the father who once screamed angrily at his elementary aged son, “Why can’t you act your age?!” We must emulate our Heavenly Father be patient with our children. To get parenting right we must believe in our kids’ potential. We must be patient,
(3) And then third we must be forgiving.
Remember what it said in verses 9 & 12? “God will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever, as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” So not only does God have a short fuse, He also chooses to have a short memory when it comes to our sins. This is good because Psalm 130:3 tells us that if God kept a detailed record of our sins, none of us would ever be able to stand before him. In Isaiah 57:16, God says, “If I kept throwing up in your face your past failures, if I chose to retain an angry disposition toward you because of your sin, your spirit within you would grow faint before me. You would wither up and die.”
Can you imagine how this would be? I would go to God for forgiveness because I’d done something wrong. I’d say, “I did it again, God. I doubted Your provision and got panicky thinking I wouldn’t be able to get my sermon ready in time. Oh, please cleanse me from this sin and give me the courage to trust You in the future.” And God would say, “You say you did it again? That’s putting it rather mildly, Mark. This is the seventy-third time you’ve done it during this sermon series. And I stop forgiving after fifty. Sorry, pal, but your punch card is all punched out.” Thank goodness God isn’t like this. Once I’ve sought His forgiveness, He doesn’t keep on accusing. He doesn’t keep on harboring His anger toward me. He chooses to have a short memory where previously forgiven sins are concerned.
Scripture says God doesn’t treat us according to what we deserve. He treats us according to what we need. He forgives us, and forgets our sin. In fact, if you ever wondered how serious God is about taking care of your sin, look in the Bible because He has all sorts of metaphors in Scripture like this one to describe what He desires to do with your sin. For example: Micah 7:19 says, “He will trample it under foot and throw it into the deepest part of the sea.” Isaiah 38:17 says He’ll put it behind His back where He can’t see it. Isaiah 43:25 says He’ll blot it out. Isaiah 44:22 says He’ll sweep it away just like a morning mist that gets burned off by the sun. Jeremiah 31:34 says God will refuse to remember it; He’ll just block it out of His memory.
And we need to follow His example in forgiving our children. They need our forgiveness. They need us to give them a chance to start over when they fail. Remember as 1st Corinthians 13 says, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.”
Ernest Hemingway once wrote a story about a father and his teenage son. In the story, the relationship had become somewhat strained, and the teenage son ran away from home. His father then began a journey in search of that rebellious son. Finally, in Madrid, Spain, in a last desperate attempt to find his son, the father put an ad in the local newspaper. The ad read: “Dear Paco, Meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your father.” The next day eight hundred Pacos showed up, in front of the newspaper office. They were all seeking forgiveness, all hungering for the love of their father.
Moms and Dads, we must follow God’s example and forgive our kids when they do wrong. Remember, we pardon to the degree that we love, and that leads to a fourth quality that is found in right parenting.
(4) You see, Godly parents love their kids unconditionally.
This Psalm is full of proclamations of the limitless love God has for us.. Verse 8 says that God is, “abounding in love.” According to verse 17 God’s love for us is, “from everlasting to everlasting…” Verse 11 says, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him.” In these verses the Psalmist is saying that God loves us with an unbelievably great love, a love so great that He gives it to us even if we don’t deserve it. God’s love is a caliber of love that is not based on our actions. As Philip Yancey says, “There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more and there is nothing you can do to make Him love you any less.” His is a truly unconditional love, it is a love that we don’t have to earn. Moms and dads, we need to remember to love our children in this same way. They always need our love, but especially when they don’t deserve it.
In his book Bringing Up Boys, James Dobson writes,
“Now, more than ever boys are experiencing a crisis of confidence that reaches deep within the soul. Many of them are growing up believing they are unloved by their parents and are hated or disrespected by their peers. This results in a form of self-loathing that often serves as a prelude to violence, drug abuse, promiscuity, and suicide. It helps explain why both boys and girls do things that would otherwise make no sense, such as cutting their flesh, piercing sensitive body parts, and/or identifying themselves with death, perversion, and satanic ritual. Some of them, it has been said, ‘cry with bullets.'”
Moms and dads, we need to get this one right because if we love our kids the way God loves us, unconditionally, this gives our children a Godly self-confidence. They feel worth loving, and this makes them able to say no to things that others who are less loved say yes to in order to feel loved. Knowing they are loved makes our children better able to handle life when they become adults.
For example a carload of co-workers, visiting another city and looking to escape boredom leaves the restaurant and heads to the strip club. The security in a young man who is loved gives him the temerity to say, “No, thanks. That’s not the way I live. You guys go ahead; I’ll catch a cab to the hotel.” He endures the ribbing and name calling, but he doesn’t mind. He knows himself. His self-worth doesn’t hang on their approval. Let’ say a young woman falls in love with the man of her dreams. He’s handsome, successful, and respected. But he hides a temperament that eventually surfaces as controlling and abusive behavior. One day, all that turns upon her and he yells, referring to her in a vulgar, degrading way. Because she has confidence and a strong sense of worth and dignity, one time is enough. She’s not desperate for approval and love such that she’ll accept anything and with inner strength and firm confidence she tells the guy that their relationship is over. She may even be bold enough to give him the number of a Christian counselor.
The best way to built healthy self-worth in your kids, is to love them unconditionally. God is indeed the perfect parent and this Psalm reminds us of four of the many reasons this is so. He believes in our potential. He is patient with us. He forgives us, and He loves us unconditionally. Wouldn’t you like to be a parent like that? Or think of it in another way, wouldn’t you like to have a parent like that? If you don’t know God personally can you imagine how wonderful it would be to have a relationship with Him in which you experience His patience, His forgiveness, His unconditional love?
If you are here this morning and are not a Christian, then hear this: God wants to be your Father, He loves you as you have never been loved and wants to claim you as His own. 1 John 3:1 says, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”
If you decide today to become a child of God, by your profession of faith in His Son, I invite you to make that decision public by walking forward and sharing that commitment with me. Others of us may have other decisions to make today, to commit to being more like God in our parenting. Some of you may feel led to join this church family. Any decision you wish to make public, I invite you to do so by walking forward as we stand now and sing.