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Parenting Young People 2

Joe Harby on January 30, 2011

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Introduction

The hardest thing to maintain in this unbalanced world is balance. We react, we pull away, we lurch, and we tumble. We do this in many ways. And, having heard the exhortation that we should teach our children to love the standard and, if they don’t, to lower the standard, what temptation will confront us? The temptation will be to think that laziness and apathy are grace, and that defensiveness when confronted is zeal for the law of God. But loving God with all your mind, soul, heart and strength is a love with balance.

The Text

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:1-4).

Summary of the Text

Here are some of the basics of Christian living within the family. We begin with the duty of obedience (v. 1). When children are young and living at home, honor entails obedience, necessarily. When children are grown and out on their own, the duty of honor remains, but it is rendered differently (Mark 7:10-13). This is obedience rendered by children in the Lord (v. 1). The word for obedience could be rendered literally as listen-under—or, as we might put it, listen up. This attentiveness to what parents say is described here by Paul as a form of honor, and he goes on to describe how much of a blessing it will be to the children who learn how to behave in this way (v. 2). This commandment, to honor parents, is the first commandment with a promise. The promise from God Himself is that things will go well for you throughout your long life on the earth (v. 3). And then fathers are presented with an alternative—one thing is prohibited and another is enjoined. Fathers are told not to exasperate their children to the point of wrath or anger (v. 4), and instead are told to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (v. 4). Note that they are not told to provoke their children to wrath with the nurture and admonition of the Lord —one excludes the other.

Stop Experimenting on Children

In construction work, one of the good things about a concrete pour is that, no matter what, a couple hours later, you’re all done. This is also one of the really bad things about it. You don’t want to start out with a long foundation wall and wind up with a patio.

Kids are a concrete pour. The time they will spend in your home goes past a lot faster than you thought it would. Fathers are tasked with the responsibility of bringing them up in the Lord, which means that fathers are tasked with the responsibility of working in harmony with the nature of the child. It is of course debated what that nature is actually like, and so how are parents to deal with this?

Too many Christian parents are like that old joke about the Harvard man. “You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can’t tell him much.” Because we have successfully established the principle that parents have true authority in the home, many foolish parents have concluded that this means that anything they may happen to think about child-rearing, or education, or training, or courtship standards, is therefore automatically blessed of God. But fathers are told not to provoke their children because, in this fallen world, this is a very easy thing to do. This is a very easy thing for Christian fathers to do. If it had not been an easy temptation for Ephesian fathers, Paul could have saved his advice for somebody who really needed it. Paul does not make the mistake of thinking that authority makes folly impossible—he cautions against authoritative folly.

The hallmark of whether or not a father is experimenting on his kids, as opposed to bringing them up in obedience, is how open he is to the idea of someone else actually measuring what he is doing. How open is he to true accountability? “Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding” (2 Cor. 10:12). Note that phrase “without understanding.” How can you tell if parents have undertaken their solemn responsibilities as parents with a demeanor of humble confidence? “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head” (Ps. 141:5).

A Road and A Way

The Christian faith is a road, sure enough. But it is also a way. This means that how we walk is as important as where we walk. If someone has questions about what you are doing, it does not answer the concern to point at the road. It does not answer to bring out your books and web sites that argue for this particular kind of asphalt. That’s as may be, but there is something else going on.

How do you conjugate the verb firm? Do you say I am firm, you are stubborn, he is pig-headed? If you do this easily, then you have wandered from the way, whatever road you are on.

Another way of measuring this is by whether or not you require obedience of your children for their sake or not. If you don’t require it, that is selfish. If you demand it for your own reasons, that is selfish. If you require it as a gift to them, then you are modeling the same kind of obedience you are asking for.

And God is Our Father

There is no way for any parent to hear these words without conviction. And conviction is good. But always remember there is a hard-riding guilt that is from the enemy of our souls, and not from the Holy Spirit. Remember that as God is teaching us not to provoke others with impossible standards, He models this for us. He is not provoking us with impossible standards either. Our Father in Heaven requires nothing in this that He does not do Himself. He is the Father of all grace. The one thing to remember about this grace is that He—because He is a loving Father—requires us to freely extend what we have freely received (Matt. 10:8; Col. 3:13).

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Parenting Young People 1

Joe Harby on January 16, 2010

http://www.christkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/1600.mp3

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Introduction

When it comes to parenting, you have often heard me say that our parental responsibility does not consist in getting young people to grit their teeth and conform to the standard. The task before us is to bring up our children in such a way as to love the standard. This is not possible to do with externally driven rules. It is a function of loyalty, and loyalty is based on love and relationship. We should consider what this looks like.

The Texts

“My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be a chaplet of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck” (Prov. 1:8-9).

“My son, forget not my law; But let thy heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and years of life, and peace, will they add to thee. Let not kindness and truth forsake thee: Bind them about thy neck; Write them upon the tablet of thy heart: So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man” (Prov. 3:1-4).

“My son, let them not depart from thine eyes; Keep sound wisdom and discretion: So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck” (Prov. 3:21-22).

“My son, keep the commandment of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thy heart; Tie them about thy neck. When thou walkest, it shall lead thee; When thou sleepest, it shall watch over thee; And when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee” (Prov. 6:20-22).

Summary of the Texts

In the texts quoted, there is a great deal of material—more than I am able to address today. What I would like to do is draw out one basic theme. First, the instruction of your father and the law of your mother should be treated as a garland of grace for the head, and as an ornamental chain around the neck (Prov. 1:9). Second, a young person should take care to bind kindness and truth around his neck, and he does this by not forgetting his father’s law, and by cultivating a heart that keeps his commandments (Prov. 3:3). The result is a blessed life. Third, sound wisdom and discretion is life to the soul, and grace around the neck (Prov. 3: 22). And last, take up the commandments of your father, and do not abandon the law of your mother. Tie them onto your heart, and hang them around your neck. These are not a good luck charm, but Solomon almost speaks of them as though they were. But this is blessing, not luck. This is the triune God of all grace, and not some rabbit’s foot.

Obedience and Glory

Obedience to parents is therefore a young person’s glory. What do you do with what your parents have asked? You do not trudge off reluctantly, muttering to yourself. No, the standard set forth in Scripture is to take what you have been asked to do and hang it around your neck like you would do with an Olympic gold medal that you had just won. If an athlete comes in first in the Olympics, he does not stuff the medal into his gym bag and slouch off halfway through the national anthem, No . . . what do you do with your glory?

A High Standard for All

Now this is the point where many parents are elbowing each other, and praying that their little pill of an adolescent is listening. This is the point where some are doing all they can to refrain from looking down their row to see if somebody is paying attention. But this is not a life of ease for parents, and the glory of raw obedience for teenagers, an obedience that drops mysteriously out of the sky. It does not work this way. Obedience, the kind described here, arises from personal loyalty, and this loyalty arises from love. Where does love come from? As always, God models it for us. What He asks us to do, He shows us how to do. And we love Him because He loved us first (1 John 4:19). And if we want our young people to love us, with grace around the neck, then we must show them how it is worn.

Raise the Standard by Lowering It

If you cannot get the kids to love the standard, then lower the standard. I am not talking about God’s commandments, which you have no authority to lower, but rather addressing the questions that surround your house rules. Lower the standard to the point where everyone in the family can pitch in together. This is not simply “lowering standards,” and “why is a preacher telling us to do that?” It is actually raising the parental standard, which is the real reason we don’t like it. Parents must embrace the task of communicating, in a contagious way, love for the standard.

Now some parents might protest that this is impossible. But what does this example teach the young people in the home? It teaches them that nobody around here has to do “impossible” things, and since the requirement to make your bed, or to comb your hair, or to stop texting so much, are all clearly impossible, then they don’t have to be done. If you want your children to be obedient, then show them how.

Apart from a context of love and loyalty, parental discipline is just clobbering a kid. And since clobbering a kid is not what God said to do, the child is learning the fundamental lesson that in this house, we don’t have to do what God says to do. Instead, we learn to be sneaky enough to not get clobbered.

All Together Now

Each member of the family is supposed to understand that the whole family is a unit. All of you are on the same team. If you have drifted into an adversarial set of roles, then the parents have to do something to stop the game, change the rules, do something that works. Let us suppose the whole family is flunking high school calculus. Wouldn’t it be far better to all go back to sixth grade and pass that grade together?

The standard set in the passages from Proverbs is not an impossible standard. That was not written for angels in Heaven. It was written for us. These things are set before us now.

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Honoring and Obeying Parents

Christ Church on February 15, 2009

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Text

“Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” Deuteronomy 5:8-10

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Loving Little Ones #4

Christ Church on March 2, 2008

https://www.christkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/1448.mp3

Introduction
Thus far, we have considered the context of all child-rearing, the attitude underneath all child nurture, and the mechanics of discipline. We will finish this short series on loving little ones by addressing a miscellaneous collection of remaining issues.

The Text
“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children; To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them” (Ps. 103:13-18).

Overview
The Lord does not look down on us with contempt. Rather, He looks down on us with pity, the same way a human father pities his children (v. 13). He does this knowing our frame; He knows how we are constituted, and knows that we are but dust. He knows our frailty (v. 14). We are here for a brief time; our days are like the grass (v. 15). One brief summer, then we are done with it (v. 16). But in contrast to this feeble existence, the mercy of the Lord is not feeble (v. 17). His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting to those who fear him, and His righteousness is bestowed on grandchildren—to those who keep His covenant, to those who remember His commandments (v. 18). We see here the general outline of this series of messages: the context of all is God’s pity and compassion for us, and His realization of our frailty. For precisely this reason, His covenant (which includes means for forgiveness) and His law (which reveals His holy character) are not dispensible.

Be Encouraged
Think in terms of generations, and try to get your head and heart out of the day you are having, or the week you are having. Look past the dishes, look past the pile of laundry, look past the swats you have to give today for the same offense you gave swats for yesterday. Look past it all because child-rearing is a generational labor. God knows your work; it is not in vain.
There is such a thing as parental failure—we are not offering sentimental comfort here. But failure is not measured by discovering that today is very similar to yesterday. This is also true of all long-term successful enterprises. When you want godly feedback on how you are doing, take care to look in the right place. And if you are looking there— in Scripture—be encouraged.

Understand the Nature of the Process
Your children are being raised up to maturity, and one day they will occupy the same station in life which you currently occupy. This means that you must understand that you are dealing with a very different situation when your child is fifteen years away from leaving your home and two years away from leaving your home. Too many Christian parents get this part exactly backwards.
When children are little and sin is still (comparatively) cute, it is easy to go easy on the discipline. You relax a little bit too much and the roof doesn’t fall in completely. All the sins committed are at a toddler level. But when your child is old enough to seriously destroy his or her life, you panic and clamp down. This is backwards. Young children thrive in an environment of strict, loving, predictable, and enforced discipline. Teenagers thrive when they have been trained to be trustworthy and then are trusted. But if you are still doing “the same thing” fifteen years later, the central thing this should tell you is that the standards have not been internalized. If your sixteen-year-old still has training wheels in his bike, something is messed up. External rules are training wheels, and not a permanent part of the bike.

Education is Central
In many Christian circles, it is commonplace to speak this way: “We don’t want to emphasize academics so much—we want to focus on character issues.” The problem with this is that it presents a false dichotomy. Academics is a character issue. It is the work that children have been assigned to do—for good reason—and to set it aside for the sake of “character” is really misguided. Picture a number of men sweating away with pick-axes and shovels, digging a ditch. Off to the side we see one of them leaning on his shovel, and we look long enough to tell that this is not a well-earned break. We might go over and ask him what he is doing, and, if we did, we would probably not expect him to reply that he is “emphasizing character instead.” That is precisely the one thing he is not doing.
This said, it is cheerfully acknowledged that getting the academic work done is not the only character issue, but it is an indispensible character issue. “The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason” (Prov. 26:16). This can certainly apply to the parents or teachers as well.

Boys and Girls
Remember that we are created in the image of God, and this means we were created male and female. That is how we bear the image of God (Gen. 1:27). But you are not rearing generic human beings until adolescence, at which point differences make their first appearance. When Eve gives birth to Cain, she notices right away. “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD” (Gen. 4:1). Bring up your children with stereotypes in mind, but carry them and apply them in all wisdom. Generalizations are true, but they are true as generalization. Use them to nurture your girls, not to insult them

Faith and Works
God has set a pattern of good works for us; He has established good works for us to walk in. Among these good works, we must certainly include the good works you are doing as parents (Eph. 2:10). But this means that all your parental efforts must be ground themselves in God’s grace, appropriated through faith. Your children will not “turn out” by works. Viewed from the side, your parental efforts will look like a lot of work to others. But viewed from within, everything proceeds from grace and to grace. This is why you can extend grace to your children—because you are a non-stop recipient of it (2:8-9).

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Loving Little Ones #3

Christ Church on February 24, 2008

https://www.christkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/1447.mp3

Introduction
Mankind has had, in various cultures, different metaphors to describe the workings of our internal psychology. For example, we easily speak of the difference between the “head” and the “heart.” The head represents propositional assent while the heart represents genuine commitment. But the biblical writers had a different set of internal organs to represent (roughly) the same thing—the “heart and reins” (e.g. Ps. 7:9), which is to say, the heart and kidneys. All this is to say that in using a particular metaphor for this message, it is important to note that this is a metaphor, and is not intended as any kind of “scientific” image.

The Text
“Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col. 3:21).

Overview
This text is parallel to the text we used for the message last week, which was Eph. 6:4. Here we are given additional information on the results of parental provocation. In both texts, we see the possibility of childish anger, but here there is the additional result of discouragement. Don’t discourage your children, St. Paul says. It would be very easy to falsely conclude from this that discipline is what discourages, but this is not the case. Children are provoked, either by the wrong kind of discipline or by no discipline.

The Metaphor
The parental task is to break the child’s will, without breaking the child’s spirit. The metaphor is taken—if you like—from the world of training animals. The thing to avoid is breaking the spirit, and the second thing to avoid is that of failing to break the will. All right, so what does this mean?
Given the constraints of this image, there are four possibilities. The first is that a child’s will and spirit could both remain unbroken, in which case you have yourself a wild banshee child—known to all your friends as the Demon Toddler. The second possibility is that a child’s will and spirit are both broken, in which case there is no overt disobedience because all the child can contribute is a lethargic and glassy stare. The child is cowed, like a dog that was beat too much. The third possibility is that of breaking the spirit without breaking the will. The result here is that the child is introspective, moody, self-absorbed, and discourage, but it is entirely impossible to encourage them. They cling to their lousy perception of themselves, as stubborn as the pope’s mule. And the last option, the one that all parents should strive for is that of a broken and submissive will and an entirely unbroken spirit.

Unbroken will and unbroken spirit—this is the condition of the rebellious and dissolute child. An elder with sons like this is disqualified from office (Tit. 1:6). The parents in Deuteronomy with a son like this would no doubt be greatly ashamed (Dt. 21:20; cf. Prov. 23:19-21).

Broken will and broken spirit—this is likely the condition of children in our text. They have been angered, and are discouraged. They are just beat up. When this happens, it is often the case that the father who is doing it has no idea that this is what he has done. He looks at other families, like the one above, and he shakes his head in disbelief. He has eliminated disobedience, he thinks, but there is no constructive obedience.

Unbroken will and broken spirit—when this happens, the children show their uncooperative “rebellion” by passive/aggressive means. In other words, they are not downtown shooting out the streetlights, but they are stubbornly limp and unmotivated.

Broken will and unbroken spirit—the children here are obedient and cheerful. Obedience is a matter of the will, and cheerfulness is cheerfulness of spirit.

It is important to note these four options because if you limit them just to two, you will make false judgments on any number of levels. If your gauge of assessment is simply whether the home is “calm” or “rowdy,” for example, you might find yourself misjudging things radically (Is. 5:20).

Loved and Loving It
Do your children like the discipline they receive? No, not necessarily in the moment of administration (Heb. 12: 11), but do they experience your discipline as an act of restoration and love? “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Prov. 13:24). The man who lets his kids run wild is hating them. He is disowning them in effect (Heb. 12:8). But a man who is clobbering his kid in the spirit, and leaving bruises there, and is making them say that “this is love” is catechizing them in lies. In other words, not spanking is a rejection. But that doesn’t mean that every kind of spanking is automatically love. Obviously not. And the difference between the two is the difference between love and creepiness.

Cheerful Discipline
With this as the standard, here are a few observations that will help parents in this important task with their children. And remember the context of all this that we set in the first two messages—love, grace, happiness, contentment, delight, and more grace.

Discipline should be restorative: discipline is corrective, not punitive. You discipline your children for the same reason that you bathe them. You are not meting out justice at the Last Day, you are teaching and training. And you can measure whether this thrust of this message is functioning in your home by whether or not your children want to be restored to fellowship with you.

Discipline should be simple to understand— predictable and consistent: now in applying this, don’t underestimate your kids. They understand a lot. But what they don’t understand is if spankings for a particular offense are connected to nothing other than the phases of the moon. They understand cause and effect. What they don’t (and can’t) understand is randomness. We tend to switch this around, thinking that they can follow random flukes, but that predictable causation is beyond them.

Discipline should be for disciples: since everyone in your home is a disciple, this means that everyone is under discipline, and everyone should be visibly under discipline. Put another way, the kids are not the only ones in the home who sin. When sin is regarded as the adversary, this prevents parents and children from developing an adversarial relationship.

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