You know, as a pastor, the biggest portion of my work week is devoted to STUDY as I prepare my sermon for Sunday morning, my Bible study for Wednesday night, and various other teaching requirements. Because of this I spend a great deal of time with WORDS. Sometimes I think I have my nose in a dictionary or thesaurus almost as much as I have it in the Bible. Well, since I spend all this time with adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and prepositions I have come to really appreciate NEW WORDS that give me more tools with which to communicate truth which is why I really enjoyed a special calendar I purchased several years ago for half-price at a post-Christmas calendar sale. It was a word a day desk calendar and it featured ONE, new, mostly unknown word each day. One of the new words I remember coming across in that calendar was Paedarchy.
According to Webster’s dictionary paedarchy is defined as, government by children. Now, in our democratic government, ELECTED LEADERS rule; in a monarchy KINGS AND QUEENS rule but in a paedarchy, CHILDREN rule. To further aid our understanding of this new word, here is an example of how a newscast in a paedarchy nation might sound: Today congress passed a bill written by President Bart Simpson making it illegal for parents to impose mandatory bedtimes for their children. This new law also legislates raising the minimum weekly allowance to $150 per week.
We chuckle but as any experienced mom or dad knows, this comes very close to describing how things really are. Many days parenting seems like a continual struggle in which we are trying to avoid PAEDARCHY in our homes. We battle over who decides when our children go to bed at night. We argue over who decides what they eat and when they eat. We grapple over who says what they will wear and when they will do their homework or chores.
Parenting is tough. It’s a struggle for control that many of us feel we lose more than we win. Someone has said that we spend nine months wondering WHEN our children will get here and then the rest of our lives wondering WHERE they have gone. We spend the first few years wondering WHEN they will TURN IN and the rest of our years wondering HOW they will TURN OUT. We spend the first few months teaching our children to WALK AND TALK and then the next 15 years telling them to SIT DOWN AND BE QUIET.
And, parenthood is not only a perplexing undertaking. It is also an awesome responsibility; for, there in the home, children become what they are to be for the rest of their lives. As a direct result of the way we parent our offspring: they either become selfish or selfless people; they either become industrious or lazy; they either become honest or deceptive. So, you see, parents are not just individuals who BARE children, BORE teenagers, and BOARD newlyweds. Parents are individuals who largely determine the attitudes, outlooks, and philosophies of the people who grow up under their care. And ironically this awesome task of parenthood is the only major task we undertake in life without prior training. It’s one of life’s most important endeavors and yet we are often inadequately prepared to accomplish it.
One thing that makes parenting difficult is that it gets tougher as your children grow older, not because the kids get worse, but because they grow up and change and so the entire process of parenting has to change just to keep up. I mean you can force a three-year-old to sit in a time out corner but that doesn’t work with a teenager. Because of all this, many of us can identify with CHARLIE SHEDD’s testimony about his changing expertise in the matter of parenting. He says that before he was married, he had an expert lecture he delivered which he titled, How to Raise Your Children. When he became involved with families who had children, he changed his lecture and called it: Some Suggestions to Parents. After he was married and their first child was born he changed the lecture again and called it, Feeble Hints to Fellow Strugglers. And, when the rest of his kids came along he stopped giving the lecture all together.
It is INDEED a tough job being a parent these days. I heard the story once of a mother dragging her five children on a bus…and being asked by the bus driver, Are those all of yours or is this a picnic? She retorted, They ARE all mine and it AIN’T no picnic! Well parenting isn’t a picnic and I don’t stand here this morning as an expert. I too am just a fellow struggler. In fact I chose today’s text because, as a parent, I can really relate to it.
You are probably familiar with these verses for they form the beginning of the story of SAMSON, the judge of Herculean strength who was sent by God to help the people of Israel. Turn to the book of Judges chapter 13 and let’s read verses 2-8 together…
2 – A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was sterile and remained childless.
3 – The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son.
4 – Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean,
5 – because you will conceive and give birth to a son.
No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.
6 – Then the woman went to her husband and told him A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name.
7 – But he said to me, ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite of God from birth until the day of his death.’
8 – Then Manoah prayed to the Lord: O Lord, I beg you, let the man of God You sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.
Now, I want you to pay special attention to the last verse of this passage. Manoah has just learned that he would soon be a father and because of this he prays to God and says, O Lord, teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born. Teach us how to parent him. Let me ask you, as a parent can’t you relate to Manoah’s question? I mean, how many times in your own child-rearing have you cried out to God for guidance and help? I have lost count how many times I’ve done this myself. Well, if we were to do that this on this Mother’s Day morning…if we were to ask God to tell us how to raise our children what would He say? If we were to pray, God it is so hard to be a parent these days. Watching the news makes us afraid as we see how many children are turning out. We love our kids so much and we want to help them to become all that You intend. God, what are we to do? How are we to go about guiding the growth of our kids?
Well, in my preparation for this message I came across three principles of parenting suggested by Robert Russell that I think God would point us to if we did indeed pray this prayer, three BASICS that God wants all parents to understand and the first is this:
1. I think God would remind us that all children are inherently sinful.
Now that may seem a bit harsh but it is the truth and unfortunately it is a truth that many fathers and mothers have either forgotten or just plain ignored these days. You see, most parenting experts in our culture say that people are NOT sinful and instead are basically good. They believe that a human being is the product of billions of years of evolution and as such is always getting better and better. Because of this misconception people tend to believe that, given the right environment and a good opportunity, children will ultimately choose to do what is good and right. So, according to this faulty philosophy, a parent’s primary task is to help this along by building up a child’s self-esteem.
On LARRY KING LIVE, former vice-president Al Gore, was once asked why he thought teens in America were so attracted to violence like that which occurred at Columbine High School. He said, It’s because of our evolutionary heritage, the nature of tooth and claw. In other words, Mr. Gore believed that we are reverting to our past animalistic instincts and the solution is to press on to our positive future evolution. On the same program a minister addressed the problem by saying, We have got to build up kids’ self-esteem. The teens in Colorado rebelled because they had been put down by the more popular kids as outcasts. It doesn’t matter what religion you are. You need to tell your kids that they are good and wonderful and beautiful.
Now, I agree that our children need to know that they are loved and important and precious and unique. But if that is ALL we tell them then ALL we end up with is prideful, selfish kids. You see, the popular kids in Columbine who ridiculed Dillon and Cledbold HAD good esteem. Their parents told them they are good and wonderful and beautiful. Yet their treatment of Dillon and Kleibold was one of the causative factors in this tragedy. So, self-esteem is not the issue. No, the truth of the Bible and the beginning point of good parenting is the realization that humans are NOT basically good. They are inherently evil. Jeremiah 17:9 says, The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Romans 7:18 says, I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
When I was about 5 years old I got in an argument with my 3 year old little brother, Jon. Now, I have pictures to prove that both of us were beautiful, loveable children. And, my parents would testify that we were-and still are-precious in the eyes of God. We were much-loved. We were taught from birth how special we were. But we two, innocent little lambs, once got into a huge fight over a pencil. I wanted this pencil that Jon had or vice versa. I don’t really remember how it started. But I do remember that things went back and forth and finally my cute little three-year-old brother grabbed that pencil and imbedded it in the top of my head. For a few minutes I looked like Moby Dick but it wasn’t water spouting from the new aperture in my skull.
My point is that all children-even the best children (Ha!)-are inherently sinful. That’s why they need parents in the first place. As Romans 3:23 says, ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. A developing apple that harbors a tiny worm at the core will eventually produce a fruit that is totally corrupted, regardless of how impressive it may appear on the exterior. And the most innocent, beautiful-looking baby is a tainted creature, having inherited the sin nature of Adam. If that sin nature is not restrained and eventually regenerated, the child will soon be capable of horrendous behavior.
Several years ago I came across a report released by the Minnesota Crime Commission that may sound blunt to some today. Here’s what it says: Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it-his bottle, his mother’s attention, his playmate’s toy, his uncle’s watch. Deny these and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness, which could be murderous were he not so helpless. This means that all children, not just certain children, are born delinquent. And if permitted to continue in the self-centered world of infancy, every child would grow up to be a criminal. In The Stanford Observer Dr. Albert Siegel recently said, When it comes to rearing children, every society is only 20 years away from barbarism. Twenty years is all we have to accomplish the task of civilizing infants who are born into our midst each year.
Mothers and fathers, we simply must understand this inherent sin nature of our children. They ARE created in the image of God and have an awesome potential for good, but they are also stamped with the sin of Adam and have an innate craving for evil. Russell says that when he was a teenager, his mother had a rule: Don’t’ ever bring your girlfriend to our house when no one is here. He would always reply, Mom, why? Don’t you trust me? And she would always give the same standard answer. No. I don’t. That is too much temptation. She did not say, IT looks bad to other people. I don’t trust her. I do trust you. She said, No, that’s too much temptation. Russel says, I would act like I was really hurt. ‘My own mother doesn’t trust me. That’s terrible.’ But I would walk away and think deep down inside, ‘My mother is pretty sharp. She knows what I’m thinking.’ This was a good mother because she acknowledged the sin nature. She knew that her son needed to be restrained more than his self-esteem needed to be boosted.
One of the best ways to show our kids we love them is to recognize this fact and be willing to discipline them when they yield to their sinful nature. Proverbs 13:24 says, If you refuse to discipline your son, it proves you don’t love him. Proverbs 19:18 puts it this way, If you don’t discipline your children, you are helping them destroy themselves. Now I think it is important here to note the difference between discipline and punishment. The purpose of punishment is to inflict penalty…punishment focuses on the past. But the purpose of discipline is to promote growth so discipline focuses on the future. We discipline our kids because we love them too much to let their sin nature take control of their future lives.
And then, the second basic parenting principle that I believe God would share with us in answer to our prayer for help is to remind that as parents we must teach our children…
2. …to respect people in authority.
This past weekend in New Hampshire we met several of the teens in the little church there in Conway and I was impressed with the way they referred to me as SIR and Sue as Mam. I know that is not culturally correct here in Montgomery County but I think it is great that these teens had been taught to respect people who were older and more experienced than they were. Unfortunately most children are not taught this lesson these days. In fact, in recent years there has been a breakdown of respect for all authority figures, beginning with parents. This is because many moms and dads in our society see themselves ONLY as their child’s friend which leaves their kids with no real authority figure in the home. CNN recently reported that the mother of a 15-year-old girl allowed a male stripper to appear at her slumber party. The report said, Although she claims her daughter hired him without her knowledge, she said she only let him continue his act to avoid embarrassing her daughter. Parents like this foolish mother have abdicated the moral leadership in the home in a futile attempt to identify with their kids. They want to be seen not as a mom or dad but rather as one of the gang.
Listen, Mom and Dad, of course you are your child’s friend but you are also the first authority figure God has given them. And I guarantee if your children don’t respect your authority, they won’t love you. They won’t see you as a friend because the first essential in all relationships is respect, especially in relationships between children and adults. The fifth commandment forms the first written guidance that God provided for families and it states, Honor…respect….your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. The word honor means a heavy weight and it implies that we assign the greatest possible weight to a person in terms of respect. Honoring someone is measuring their value, appraising it as having great weight in the same way scales were used to determine the value of gold ore.
And our children must learn to honor us in this way. They must respect us if we are to be able to discipline them and protect them from their inherent sin nature. When I was a little boy the parsonage we lived in up in Cedar Grove adjoined a farm. And in the field right next to our backyard the farmer kept a big, angry bull. My parents made a rule. We were not to go near the fence. One day for some reason I foolishly thought I knew more than my mom. I respected my opinion more than I did her authority…and I wandered up to that fence to get a good look at this supposedly dangerous bull. My mom saw me heading for the fence and when she called out and I refused to heed her warnings, she grabbed a switch off of a convenient tree, ran up to me, picked me up and gave me a few licks across that padded region of our bodies that God provided for physical correction. From then on I was much less likely to disobey my mother’s instruction. In this experience I learned to respect her teaching. This reminds me of Proverbs 22:15 where it says, Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. But the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.
Now the rod of discipline here can refer to corporal punishment like my Mom exercised that day and sometimes that is the best disciplinary tool. But most times there are other methods we should use. I am thankful for a mom who loved me enough to use various disciplinary tools to teach me to respect her rules and guidelines. She taught me at a young age to listen to what she said. And, her loving discipline has deepened my friendship with her. We are closer today as mother and son because of it.
For any family relationships to be healthy, children must relate to the parents in a way that communicates this quality of respect or high value. I read of a Jewish Rabbi once who was known for the way he highly esteemed his mother. When she wished to get up on to her bed, he would stoop down and make his bent back a stool on which she could step up. On another occasion, his mother’s sandal split and broke so she had to walk across the courtyard barefoot. Well this Rabbi responded by putting his hands under her feet at each step she took so that she might walk over his soft hands and not over the rough cobblestones all the way. Now I don’t know if God wants us to go to this extreme but I do know that respecting our parents makes sense because they are more experienced travelers on the road of life than we are. They have learned more than we possibly could so we can gain literally life-saving truth from their knowledge. No society would function very long if each generation had to start over when it comes to learning how to live on this planet. We all benefit when we honor and respect the lessons learned by our forefathers. No wonder Proverbs 1 warns, Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. A parent’s wisdom is heavy. It is valuable so children must learn not to take it lightly.
But you know so often, especially when we enter our teen years, we suddenly believe we know more than our parents. We think they are behind the times and can’t possible understand life as well as we do. We cease to respect their input in our lives. This reminds me of a humorous story. One day four people were flying in a small, four-passenger plane: a pilot, a minister, and two teens, one of whom had just won an award for being the Smartest Teenager In The World. As they were flying along, the pilot suddenly turned to the three passengers and said, I’ve got some bad news, and I’ve got some worse news. The bad news is, we’re out of gas. The plane’s going down and we’re gonna crash. The worse news is, I only have three parachutes on board. This meant, of course, that someone would have to go down with the plane. The pilot continued, I have a wife and three children at home. I have many responsibilities. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take one of the parachutes. With that, he grabbed one of the chutes and jumped out of the plane. The Smartest Teenager in the World was next to speak. He said, I’m the Smartest Teenager in the World. I might be the one who comes up with a cure for cancer or AIDS or solves the world’s economic problems. Everyone is counting on me! With that, the Smartest Teenager in the World grabbed the second parachute and jumped. The minister then spoke up and said to the other teen, Son, I’ve made my peace with God, and I’m willing to go down with the plane. You take the last parachute and go. Relax, Reverend, said the other teenager. The Smartest Teenager in the World just jumped out of the plane with my backpack.
Many of us were like that teen. We ignored the guidance of our parents. We foolishly did not HONOR or RESPECT them and we jumped out into the world without their wisdom to hold us up. It is important for parents to teach their children to avoid this mistake.
But, you know, another reason for us to teach our children to respect earthly authority figures is the fact that unless they do, they will never learn to honor or respect God. You see, the first step to teach your child to respect God is to teach them to respect you as a parent. And of course all of us must learn to ascribe honor or great weight or worth to God’s guidance if we are to be happy in life. As Proverbs 19:23 says, The fear of the Lord leads to life: then one rests content, untouched by trouble. And parents our children will learn to respect God if they see us respecting God. If they see mom and Dad reading His word, attending His church; if they see us making time for prayer, then they will be far more likely to do the same. You see faith is caught as much as it is taught! We should never forget that our ultimate goal as parents is to lead our children to not only know ABOUT God…but to someday of their own free will to repent of their sin, ask for God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ death on the cross…and commit to follow Him as Savior and Lord.
And then, one final basic parenting principle that I believe God would give us in answer to this prayer is this…
3. …He would tell us that we must accept the ongoing responsibility of parenthood.
These days there are a lot of parents who quit too early. They think their parenting ends when the child is potty trained and can fix a bowl of cereal without their help. This parental drop out rate is easy to see because if you go to a Tee-ball game of seven-year-olds, all the parents are there with camcorders running. But if you go back to the stands of an athletic event when the kids are 14 or 15, you will not see near as many moms or dads. We’re very involved in parenting our kids when they are young but when they get to be older children or teens, we tend phase out. And I can understand. It is a hassle to be a parent as our children age. You keep saying to the 11-year-old, No, and they keep whining and nagging. It’s tough. It’s a lot easier to say, Yes and look the other way when your 14-year-old wants to roam the mall unsupervised. It is easier to ignore what your 16 year old is doing rather than have an unpleasant confrontation. Because of this many parents give up and disengage when the teenage years approach which explains how they don’t know what kind of music they are listening to or what sights they are visiting on the Internet or what kind of peers they are hanging around or the fact that they are building pipe bombs in their garage without their knowledge. Parents of our culture must remember that none of our resources are more important than our children. They are worth the effort it takes to guide them all the way through adolescence!
Sue and I watched a TV news magazine the other day that told the horrible story of a teenage girl who, with the aid of her boyfriend, murdered her own mother, stole her credit cards and car and fled across the country on a spending spree. As I watched I wondered, How could this have happened? How could a daughter kill her own mother? And I found the answer to my question as the story unfolded because the reporter told that as parenting became more difficult, this single, divorced mom simply gave up. She let her daughter do whatever she wanted. They lived in the same home but rarely saw each other or spoke. And in answer to a cry for the love her mother would not give her, this girl got involved with a boy who had been abandoned by his own parents when he was only 2 and ended up involved in drugs and crime. This is a mom who gave up on her parenting responsibility when it got tough and many people young and old have paid a high price for her lethargy.
Christian Moms and Dads you are responsible for your child until they leave home and are completely financially independent. God holds you accountable. So stay involved in the life of your child as he or she grows. Remember rebellion is a cry for attention. Show your love for them by giving them the time and discipline they need. Romans 15:14 says that an indication of our love for others-including our children-is our willingness to, …admonish them when necessary or as Philips translates it, our willingness to keep [our children] on the right road.
Now, your older kids or teens will tell you they don’t want any rules and they don’t want you around, but that is not true. They want and need you and your guidelines. They want you to be there at the ball games and recitals. They still need your praise and love.
You know, ALL of us need a parent. No matter how old we are, we need Someone wiser to guide us…to correct us when we do wrong. We need Someone to love us…Someone Who knows us better than we know ourselves. And the only being in the universe qualified to parent us in this way is God and the Bible repeatedly tell us that He loving offers to fulfill that need. In Galatians 4 it says, When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, So that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. The good news of the Gospel then, is that God wants to be our parent and that’s great because He is the perfect parent. He knows about our inherent sin nature and loves us enough to provide us with necessary discipline: In Revelation 3:19 He says, Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. And when it comes to lovingly guiding us through life God is in it for the long haul. In Joshua 1:9 we are promised that God, …will be with us wherever we may go. If you are not a Christian I urge you to allow Him to adopt you this morning. Admit to Him your sin, your need for His forgiveness and guidance. Put your faith in Jesus Christ. Give Him your life to use as He sees fit.
If you are here today and are already a Christian but don’t have a church home perhaps our Heavenly Father is guiding you to join this church family. You may need to respond to this message by asking God to help you be a better parent. And, teens, if you have a parent who has followed these three principles you may need to go to them sometime soon and thank them for all they have done to guide your growth. Parents like that are rare in today’s world.
If you have a decision that you wish to make public I encourage you to do so now, as we stand and sing, by walking forward and sharing it with me or Steve.