Home Improvements III, The Heart of The Family

If you'll take out your teaching outline, please, we've got some scripture we're going to be referencing there together, and you may want to just jot down a couple of things that we're going to talk about for the next few minutes here. Many years ago, when I went to buy my first car, I was on a mission, I was a student in college, and I needed something, you know, practical and cheap. So a great sports car seemed right to me, and I went about looking all over the place for a little sports car I could afford, and I found several different ones, but the sort of general version of it went like this. I found a car that looked great, you know, the paint was as shiny as it could be, usually it was about a ten or twelve year old car, it had wire wheels on it, you know, the interior was clean, even if it had a few little cuts in it, it looked like a good piece of machinery. And then I found the one that I really wanted to get, and I said to my dad, Dad, you've got to come and just confirm my great selection here. And so dad would come with me, and he'd get out of our car, our family car, and he'd go look at this gleaming little piece of sports machinery I'd picked out. He wouldn't say anything about the paint, wouldn't say anything about the wheels, but right away he'd just bend down and look underneath, and look up underneath on the frame in the front and the back, and then he'd get up underneath the wheel wells, you know, guys, and he'd do this with his fingers, and he'd usually come back with handfuls of metal. Then he'd pick up the hood and look underneath and he'd see, he'd point to all these brown spots that were on the firewall and over the wheel wells, and wouldn't say anything, and then he'd pull the oil stick out, you know, the dipstick, and look at it and, you know, this was black, I mean it was black, and about real low. Started up and a blue trail of smoke came on, and he looked at it and he said, well, I'd give it about two months. Two months? Until I can pay for it? No, until it'll die. I mean that's about the condition of this car. And we went on and on. We ended up, to make a long story short, with a 1954 Buick two-door sedan that was not a classic looking piece of machinery, no sports appeal at all, but it was solid underneath, had 17,000 miles, and I ran it for about eight years. And what this is all about is the fact that if the inside of something isn't right, if the foundation, if the frame isn't solid, doesn't matter what the outside looks like, it's not going to fulfill its intended purpose. And when we come today to talk about parenting our children and building a spiritual foundation in their lives, it's not the outside. It's not the outside things that really matter, it's what's on the inside. If I were to ask how many of you here today as parents hope to pass on the baton of faith, your faith in Christ to your kids, I believe every one of you would want to stand and say, I do. I know for me it's my highest priority as a parent. But if I were to ask you how many, or how are you going to do that, I mean what methodology are you going to follow, we would have lots of different sort of ideas about the best way to lay a spiritual foundation in our kids' lives. Over the years, my observation of the church, and particularly the more evangelical kinds of churches, is that we have tended to evaluate how well we're doing based on the shiny exteriors of kids. Tune in here now, parents, listen. Does the kid look the part? Is his hair the right length? Does he wear the right kind of clothes? Does he know his Bible verses? Does he stay out of serious trouble? Can he let her in a sport or two and make the honor roll a time or two? I mean, all those are great qualities, but they really represent, when you think about it, the shiny exterior of a life. You know, the wheels and the paint job. Not the frame, not the foundation. More and more as a parent, I've come to understand that spiritual maturity must be defined by what's on the inside of your child's heart. Is our child's deepest need for love met by God's love, not by some other person's evaluation of them so they won't bounce from person to person or crowd to crowd or spouse to spouse looking for love in all their own places? Is there significance based on the understanding of the will of God for their lives and not the whole crazy treadmill of financial achievement that seems so elusive and unfulfilling anyhow? Can they find inner peace with God regardless of the circumstances that they're in so that they can overcome temptations and stand firm in the faith when the world wants to tear them up? Can they receive and respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit for their own life so that following Christ is an adventure that it's supposed to be and not some dull religious routine that's been imposed upon them? Can they celebrate their own uniqueness and role and mission in life according to the way that God wired them up with their personality traits and their gifts and their intellectual powers and creative abilities and find a job that fits that? And finally, can they live their life with heaven in view free from the fears of death that tend to stalk so many people when they quietly open up about what's going on inside of them? Do you see the difference between the two lists I described? The one list is all the shiny exteriors. These are the things that go on in the hearts of people. This is what makes a person a true believer in the heart. This is what Paul is writing about. And let's put this scripture up, please, in Ephesians 3. Either look at your notes or read it on the overhead. This is the text. Would you read it with me? This is the goal of every parent, I believe, who wants to see their child secure in their faith. Read it out loud, would you? And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love, and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God's children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high His love really is. And to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you'll never see the end of it, or fully understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God Himself. Parents, that's love on the inside. That's God living inside our children. But the question for today is, how do we form this in our kids? How do we get this into our kids' hearts? Now, someone's got to be thinking, well, it's Mother's Day, it must be Mother's job. Is that right? I don't think so. Being a mom is a difficult job, enough as it is. I mean, as one person wrote, I don't know who said it, but it's true, if it was going to be easy to be a mom, it never would have started with something called labor. But being a parent that's going to raise a child to know God on the inside, like I described in this scripture, takes a full-on partnership of mom and dad, and the church, and any other Christian institutions that might support you along the way, school or club or whatever. Nothing less than that will do it, as far as I'm concerned. And in the time that remains, I want to just outline a simple three-strand approach, my experience in child raising, from God's Word, that will give your kids a strong rope, cords of love, upon which they can build their life in a secure and firm foundation. Three things, and here they are. Number one, creative instruction. Number two, clarification and interpretation of life. And number three, the consequences approach to training. All right, let me talk about each of them. First of all, creative instruction. Look at the next scripture and read it with me, under Roman numeral one, under creative instruction. Fathers, don't exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Would you circle, bring them up? Notice it doesn't say, force it down them. You see, to me, the Lord calls us to raise up our kids, to lift them, to see their faith as a positive thing that they can rise into. The key is bringing them up in it, in a wise and loving and nurturing approach. And that's not easy to do. How many of you have tried, in your own little journey with your family, to have family devotions? Can I see your hands? Family devotion hour. Now, if you're next to your husband or your wife right now and she's not in with you, whack them on the side. Say, listen, you need to hear this, honey. Okay? Because if you've tried family devotions and you've failed, you probably feel guilty right now. Let me take you back to when Pastor Daddy used to have family devotions. My daughter Amy's here, and she can confirm this. Here's my experience, and this is with all kudos to those of you who've done it successfully. Pastor Daddy Jay could never do it. It went something like this. I'd get them when they were younger, and Amy was six, and David's four, and Jonathan's three, and we'd sit them around the family coffee table, and I'd roll out all my props, you know? I'd have my Bible, and I'd have the flannel board and the whiteboard, and I'd have had a virtual reality mask for each one of them. I could have done it. Because I wanted them to get the Word of God in some creative way. So I had them all sit down, you know, and they knew something big was up. So they'd sit there, and they all got what I used to call dancing eyes. And that's when they'd start looking, not at Pastor Daddy trying to do home Sunday school, but they'd start to look at each other. And they knew they should be serious, and they knew they should really be into the family devotional hour, but it was just kind of hard. They were trying to be quiet and interested, but, hmm, gee, Dad, this isn't all very good. And dancing eyes would go back and forth, and all of a sudden, one of them would find the whole thing hilariously funny and go... And as soon as the hand went over the mouth, that was the cue for the other two just to lose it, and they'd start laughing. And here I am, you know, right in the middle of making the theological point about original sin. And they'd start laughing, and I'd say, No, I'd think that. And we'd get over it, and they'd all sit down again, and they'd watch, and Daddy go up, and I'd turn to the flannel board and put something on, and I'd turn around, and they'd be going... Again, laughing. And this would go on two or three times, and finally I'd lose it, and I'd yell at them or do something like that, and then they'd turn to Mom, cry and say, Mommy, why is Daddy yelling at us and telling us about God's love while he yells at us? Mommy, is Daddy an original sinner? Yes. And I have to tell you, my kids, if you ask them that, they probably would not say they learned everything they know about God in family devotions. I mean, do I have any friends here? Anyone else ever fail at that little trip? I discovered fairly early on that even though I had a couple of earned degrees from seminary and so, I couldn't do it very well. And I want to see some of you who haven't been able to do it very well. There is another way. Look at the next scripture. Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up. This is not license for you to go, you know, every time your kid's moving that you walk up with a verse and say, Oh, here's a verse for that. Some interpret this as being, you know, you just constantly bombard your kids with verses. Get enough verses into them and they'll come out okay. Well, that isn't necessarily true. I prefer an interpretation of these verses that I want to call today the teachable moment approach. You see, there are certain moments throughout every day when your child will be ready to receive something that you can instruct them in of God's wisdom and purpose, of His design, of His plan and of His will if you're just tuned in to those moments. What the scripture is saying to me is whether you're kind of walking along or sitting down at the table or playing, you know, together or up in the morning or at bed at night, look for the moments when your kids' hearts are soft and step in right then and make a point about who God is and about what He feels for each of them, about His love and plan and purpose. This can happen at the strangest of times. I remember when our son Jonathan was really little, maybe four years old, we were getting out of the car one starlit summer evening, beautiful, bright, starlit evening, no moon, and we were kind of lugging everything into the house and we stopped and we said, look at all those stars, Jonathan, and he said, yeah, wow, there's a really bright one up there, and I said, well, that's not a star, Jonathan, that's the planet Venus. He said, that's the planet, huh? I said, yeah. He said, wow, that's really bright, they must have all their lights on. I gave him an opportunity to talk to him a few minutes about, well, wait a minute, let me just explain God's creation, let me just talk for a second or two and then we went in the house. I mean, it can happen very unusual times. We were riding along and I had a little Honda three-door coupe, maybe this was, I don't know, eight or ten years ago, ten years ago. Jonathan, he said, gee, Dad, how old's this car? I said, I think it's about three years old. He said, wow, pretty big for three. You know, we talked a little bit about, okay, let's talk about that, things like this don't grow, Jonathan, and sometimes this can backfire. I mean, sometimes this can really come up and hit you. We were talking about Christmas time and we were talking about all the Christmas characters and all the different people that came to see Jesus and all that kind of stuff and we went together down to get some ice cream down at Baskin Robbins and as we stepped in, there were three men from India there and they were all wrapped in their little, they were Muslims and they had their turbans and they were all ordering ice cream and walked in and in a very loud voice Jonathan would go up and say, hey, look, daddy, the three wise guys. We backed out of Baskin Robbins and said, okay, we're going to go back and do some training on this one. So much for my evangelistic opportunity of the day. But, you know, this can be challenging, it can be difficult at times, but it's very effective in helping your kids sort out what's really going on with God in their life and it doesn't just happen when they're young, it can happen when they're older as well. Parents, a little question for you. How many of you talked with your teenager about Oklahoma City? How many of you just wrung your hands and said, oh, those terrible things that happened? How many of you used it as an opportunity, a teachable moment to talk about evil and the effects of it in our world today? I guarantee you every teenager had some kind of feeling about it. We need to seize those moments and build on them. One more thing, if I might just mention it right here is, in order for this to work well, it's best when it's done in partnership and that creative instruction can also take place here at the church. I want to say something that I've discovered in talking with our children's ministry leaders and teachers. I was speaking with a group of them recently and I said, what would be the single most beneficial thing I could do to help your impact as you train our kids, as you spend time teaching them? And I fully expect them to say, well, we could use more equipment, we could use more staff maybe, we could use more volunteers, but you know what they said? They said, Jay, if you could tell the parents that nothing helps our job to succeed like consistency, that it's very difficult to sense progress when we see a child one week and then they miss two or three or we see them for a couple weeks and then they're gone for a month. Consistency, parents, in the kids' ministry, is a very important ingredient in raising them up. And the second thing they said is this, tell the parents that if they could come to the same service on a consistent basis, that pretty much helps the bonding process because that same teacher and assistant will be there every week. And I just want to say, parents, listen, maybe you don't feel you need to be in church each week, but your kids receive 160 hours or more of stuff outside the context of the church that's shaping them and feeding them and fueling them. And they need that hour, hour and a half every week of training. And I want to appeal to you, be consistent about it for their sakes and try to be at the same service as much as you can. It will help enormously. Number two, the second point that I've discovered is learning the clarification and interpretation approach. What is that about? Well, one of the most difficult issues that parents tell me they face, and I know I have faced it, is watching your kids grow to the age when they start facing the garbage in life, the evil stuff that's out there, the things that are going to come and maybe trip them up possibly temporarily and maybe permanently. And folks, there's some pretty lousy stuff out there, is there not? Interesting little article, a letter to Ann Landers, and there was a person writing saying that they had lived in a depression time and they had suffered and they don't understand why there's so much going on, bellyaching about how bad it is right now for kids. And here's how a person from this generation responded. The reader signed Georgia who lived through the depression and described how hard it was to be a teenager in the 30s, said, kids today have an easy time of it compared to teens in his day. You said you couldn't argue with him. Well, I can. Let me ask your generation a few questions. Are your parents divorced? Almost every one of my friends comes from a broken home. Were you thinking about suicide when you were 12? Did you have an ulcer when you were 16? Did your best friend lose her virginity to a guy she went out with twice? You may have had to worry about VD, but did you have to worry about AIDS? Did your classmates carry knives and guns? How many kids in your class came to school regularly drunk, stoned, or high on drugs? Did any of your friends have their brains fried from using PCP? What percentage of your graduating class also graduated from a drug and alcohol rehab center? Did your school have armed security guards in the halls? Did you ever live in a neighborhood where the sound of gunfire at night was normal? You talk a lot about being dirt poor and having no money. Since when does money mean happiness? The kids at school who have the expensive cars and designer clothes are the most miserable. When I'm your age, Georgia, I won't do much looking back. I'll just thank God that I survived. There's lots of evil out there, folks. There's lots of things that would pull our kids down. And an average parent like myself wanted to do everything we can to protect our kids from all that garbage. And so some parents have adopted what I want to call sort of a barricading approach. Put this fence around their kids and control their environment and keep all the evil stuff from ever reaching their ears and their eyes. And while I do believe it's important for a parent of a younger child to protect their kids and help them discern what is right and wrong, wise parents come to the place of learning to help their child interpret the stuff that they're seeing out there from a Christian perspective to clarify their values rather than to isolate or control their environment because, folks, you can't do it forever. You have to equip kids to live there. And I think that's what Jesus was saying. Turn over your outline on the back. When he said to his disciples, I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from Satan's power. They're not part of this world anymore than I am. Make them pure and holy through teaching them your words of truth. Jesus is saying what I believe every parent should say. Honey, I'm not taking you out of the world. You've got to live in the real world, but I'm going to equip you, empower you to overcome Satan, and to live successfully in this world. Careful, gradual exposure of our children to the realities of life in a sinful world will help them be able to understand their faith, why evil exists, how to overcome it, why living in the love and family of God is the very best way to cope with the crap that the world would want to send their way. And folks, it comes at the most unexpected times. How do you make sense of it for kids? How do you protect them? I know one of the things I was concerned about was when my kids learned to drive. Parents, you ever think about not letting your kids drive so they couldn't get hit by a drunk driver? Carol and I were coming home from a dinner we had on a Sunday evening. That's usually our date night. We'd been out. It was 8.30, 9 o'clock, something like that. We were driving home. It was already dark. We got a half a mile from our home and there was a police car perpendicular on our road. He wouldn't let us pass. I stopped. He said, sir, you can't go off the road any farther. There's been a serious accident. You're going to have to wait until it's clear. I said, I just live up the road a little bit. He said, if you get there, you'll have to come back. I said, fine. I drove up right in front of our house. It looked like a scene out of a Hollywood movie set. There were three or four ambulances with their lights going. There were two fire trucks with their lights going. Three or four police cruisers parked all around. And you can imagine, as a parent, my heart started beating. My mouth got dry. I heard Carol whisper the Lord's name. We opened the car and door and looked down and about 150 feet past our driveway, there was a van on its side, laying in the middle of the road. And I knew the van belonged to an elder in his church and his wife. And I knew that my kids were coming home from the youth group about that time. As I got out of the car, I saw a man, driver, in a big double axle pickup truck, came up the road too fast and knocked the van down the road. By the mercy of God, nobody was killed or seriously injured. It took a while for the injuries to heal. But I I remember thinking, I wish I could have protected my kids from that and the kids of the other parents. But we can't. We have to help them interpret that. And we spent a lot of time talking after that about what that meant. Why do these kind of things happen? Why do evil people sometimes hurt good people? Where's God in times like that? And you see, parents, that's the kind of thing that we can do. We can help to interpret and to clarify for our kids what life is about. And it comes in all different levels. My kids would ask me questions. Hey, Dad, why do kids get away with lying and cheating all the time in school and never get caught and keep getting ahead and getting awards? How come? What's fair about that? Or what's wrong with listening to some of the music that's out there? I don't think it's that bad. I mean, come on, Dad. And we'd sit down and talk about some of the implications of the lyrics that were there. Or what about my friends, Dad? I mean, some of them are doing stuff that you say I can't do. Why is that? And we have to talk about it. And by the way, you know what, folks? If you don't talk to your kids about these things, can I tell you something? Their friends will. And they will set the agenda for their lives. In 1 Corinthians 15.33, you might want to jot it down, it says this, bad company corrupts good morals. Why don't you write that down? Bad company corrupts good morals. Parents, if there's one prayer that you should have is that God leads your kids to other godly kids because it makes a big difference. Good company affirms good morals would be the corollary to that. Barricading and isolating and overprotecting seems to be natural for a parent who wants to protect their child. But in the end, I think it may leave your child unprepared for the realities of life. Or worse yet, leave them in a position to when they finally leave home to go to school, they're bent on experiencing everything in the first six months of college that they never could have at home. Hello? Know any kids that went off to school and just binged out for the first year or two? Sometimes they're OK, and sometimes they do a lot of damage to themselves. See, wisely and carefully walk through the issues of life, parents. Help to interpret things that are going on with your kids. And your faith and theirs will begin to be solidly laid underneath their life, a foundation that will stand the tests and trials of life. Is it tough? Can I tell you this? It's a lot tougher. Barricading your kids and shutting things down may seem like it's just easier and simpler to do. But in the end, I have to say, it doesn't work. And it doesn't equip your kids. It takes more time. It takes more interaction, more communication. But it's worth it. And your kids will receive your love. Listen, they want to hear from you. They want to know, even if they act like they don't. USA Today this week says this on the headline. It was on the light section, the fourth section. Pre-teens want to be close to their parents. If you have pre-teen kids, 10 to 13, a news they suggest you should go home tonight and have a good talk with them. These 10 to 12-year-olds still very much want to be involved with their parents, even though the number who find talking with their parents becoming uncomfortable doubles between fifth and eighth grade. In other words, it's harder for them. But they want to do it. Parents, you need to take the initiative. Finally, number three, the third way that we learn lessons and have a strong foundation is through natural consequences of life. I suppose if there was a single word to describe how I hope my kids would function in life as they grow up, how they face decisions and make choices and have opportunities and temptations that they handle and responsibilities, one word, if I could say one word, I would pray for my kids, it would be that they function with wisdom, wisdom. Wisdom is God's knowledge applied to life. When God appeared to Solomon, he said, Solomon, what do you want me to give you? Do you want me to give you wealth? Do you want me to give you power? Do you want me to give you a great reputation? Solomon said, Lord, I just want wisdom to lead your people. And God said, that's the most important thing. Get wisdom, and you've got all the rest. But I guess the $64,000 question, parents, is how do we get wisdom for our kids, right? Have you ever said, well, the best way I know is if they just do what I tell them? I'm not so sure anymore. I think wisdom really comes when kids learn to sense the leading of God, to sense what's right, because they've made decisions and experienced the consequences on their own. Now again, this is a process that starts when kids are little. They can't make those choices. But as they grow, you need to help them experience some of the consequences of their choices. And as they do, those become the best teachers in life, don't they? When obedience fails many times, consequences will succeed. I remember, again, a long, long time ago when the kids were real little, we tried to teach them about hot things. You know, when they're little, tiny toddlers, don't touch the hot things. Put a little candle on the table. And they look at the candle, and the kid would sit there, and he'd say, hot. No, no, no, hot. And the little kid would go, no, no, no, hot. Next time they get up there, no, no, no, hot. Well, the third time, being a curious little toddler, they'd say, ooh, I'm going to touch that little dancing thing. And they'd put their finger on it. And you'd come in, and they'd be crying. And they'd say, hot. I'm not going to touch hot anymore. And that's the way they learn. And the parents are thinking, look, I told you not to touch, and you never would have been burned. But they don't learn that way sometimes. It's the consequence. And I know, and you know, many, many illustrations of this. I mean, can I just ask you this? How do you learn all your wisdom, parents? I mean, if you stay up all night tossing and turning because you had a cup of coffee after dinner, what do you do the next night after dinner? No coffee. It just takes getting stopped one time on Route 19 in front of the church with the lights going on by the police for you to know, I'm not going to speed on Route 19 in front of the church anymore. I'm not talking about me. You have the wrong thought there. I'm not going to implicate any of my fellow staff members. Consequences, natural consequences. My parents were good. They helped me. I mean, they let me fall sometimes and experience some things just because they were patient and they knew that was the best way to learn. And there's lots of, I mean, life is full of them, right? I spent yesterday, it took me two and a half hours to get my grass cut. Why? Because I didn't cut it last week. What was the consequence of, oh, I'll just pass over it this time? Well, it got three times as high, and it wouldn't grow in the lawnmower, and I had to go over the whole thing twice. And I thought, what a great lesson. Cut the grass the first time. You don't have to do it twice as long the second time. Life is like that. And so you say to your young person, look, you can go ahead and buy those CDs, Melissa. You can use your allowance on that. But I'm not going to give you any money when you want to go out with your friends to a movie on Friday night. Don't come running to me. But it's your choice. Or hey, you can go ahead and play with your friends now, Brian, but if we're going to watch Home Improvements tonight, you won't have your homework done, and I'm not going to let you sit down. You're going to have to do your homework. Your choice, though. And you give them those choices. That's what Kevin Lehman calls in his book on making your children mine without losing yours. He calls that reality discipline. And I think that's a great way to help kids to learn. Help them know there's going to be consequences and then stick to it. It's a very powerful way for your kids to learn what's going to happen in their lives. Let me close the message with this. Parents, I don't know a more difficult time for us to be sending kids into the world. I know that if you're like me, you want the best. You want their foundation to be laid. You want them to be able to stand strong and be all that God wants them to be. But you've got to make a choice early on how you're going to do it. Are you going to sit there with a fire hose and feed guns, word into them, and hope they come out right? Or can you possibly try another method? The creative instruction method. The clarification and interpretation method. And the method that helps them experience the natural consequences of their life. If you don't, I think you might be heading down a road where you might suffer some of the consequences of having kids who aren't underneath, on the inside, really experiencing the great love of God. And isn't that what we want? We want kids who are filled up with the love of God. I don't do it all right, and most all parents are very aware of their weaknesses. But I want to say this, folks. God's grace is very capable. If we cooperate with it in the raising of our kids. How do we do it? That's my recommendation. Creative instruction. Clarifying and interpreting as you go. And letting those natural consequences teach. Would you stand with me, and let's ask God to do that in our hearts today. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we conclude this message today, I thank you right now, Father, for the many challenges that we face as parents because they drive us to trust you. And I thank you for the great grace that makes up for the weaknesses and the challenges that we so often find ourselves unable to work out. I want to pray for parents right now, please. Heads are bowed. How many parents are just facing some tough times with their kids? You want to say, Jay, right now, I need God to come in and straighten some things out in my home. That little skit today reminded me of my home. I need to make some things right. Just pray for me. Hold your hand up real high. I want to pray a prayer. Lord, with the many hands lifted now, I come in the name of Jesu