Success In Parenting Series

“SUCCESS IN PARENTING”

5th in Series: Searching For Success

Rev. Todd G. Leupold, Perth Bible Church, February 7, 2010 AM

INTRODUCTION:

In the beginning of this new century, a Christian statesman concluded a 50-yr. study of Christian and non-Christian families. He says that in American culture today most young adults following Jesus Christ either come from non-Christian homes where they were converted to Christ in their teenage years through a dynamic youth ministry, or they come from homes where they grew up in love with Jesus because mom and dad were so in love with Jesus that love permeated their lives. Very few believers come from homes where there was a kind of indifferent, apathetic commitment to Christ. It is sobering and thought provoking to suggest that, in American culture, the chances are better for a child growing up in a non-Christian home to become a Christian than for a child growing up in a home that has an indifferent, apathetic commitment to Jesus Christ.

(cited by Ron Lee Davis, “Introducing Christ to Your Child,” Preaching Today, tape #92)

Howard Hendricks writes: “Like a sand castle on the water's edge in a rising tide, the Christian family stands in a precarious position. What started as a sporadic spray that slowly pocked the walls of family values has now become the crashing waves of mainstream American society. . . Today, the waves rise even higher . . . The walls of isolation we have so carefully constructed are no longer guaranteed to keep out antifamily values and influences. . . Do we give up? Do we retreat even further? Is it time to hide our light under a bushel to keep it from being extinguished by the waves of a degenerate society? Or perhaps, with our frigate badly damaged and facing a larger foe asking for surrender, we answer back like John Paul Jones 'We have not yet begun to fight.' . . . As parents, we no longer have the luxury of long-distance warfare . . . and letting the 'professionals' do the dirty work. Parents must be intimately involved in hand-to-hand combat, spending more effort at becoming models of Christian health and more time with their children, infecting them with personal exposure to Christian values.” (foreword to Guiding Your Family In A Misguided World, by Dr. Anthony T. Evans)

Our children will become what they see, hear and learn from their parents, teachers and culture. When it comes to successful parenting, there are NO shortcuts. It requires an intentional and relentless commitment to raising our children God's Way and at the cost of plenty of time, hard work, sacrifice, blood, sweat, and tears!

Zig Ziglar reminds us: “Our children are our only hope for the future, but we are their only hope for their present and their future.”

PRAYER

BIBLICAL KEYS TO PARENTING SUCCESS

1.) Recognize The World For What It is: Corrupt

ALL that is natural and 'normal' in this world is the result of generations upon generations of growing corruption under the curse of sin!

This world is NOT a safe place, it is NO longer inherently good, and it is NOT trustworthy!

Acts 2:40 And with many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, "Be saved from this corrupt generation!"

The world's corruption is especially concerned with the equal corruption of God's children.

Ephesians 6:12 For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

2 Timothy 3:1-8 But know this: difficult times will come in the last days. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the form of religion but denying its power. Avoid these people! For among them are those who worm their way into households and capture idle women burdened down with sins, led along by a variety of passions, always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Our children are under daily threats of exposure to and even bombardment from our culture's corrupt values, idols and temptations! They are on TV, on the radio, in the movies, throughout the news, flaunted on the streets, and even taught in many of our schools.

Our children are easily influenced by what society tells them are important.

The world and everything natural to it is diametrically opposed to our godly purpose and success as parents. WE may neglect the spiritual discipleship of our children, but have no doubt that the devil and the world do not!

2 Peter 1:4 By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires.