Producing Good Sons and Daughters
“A good man’s father has good reason to be happy. You can take pride in a wise son. Let your mother and father be proud of you; give your mother that happiness.” (Prov. 23:24-25)
“Didn’t God make you one body and spirit with her (wives)? What was his purpose in this. It was that you should have children who are truly God’s people”
- Malachi 2:15
Put these two passages together and you have parents rejoicing and God rejoicing when the Christian home produces good and godly sons and daughters. A young boy was leaving for Iraq and on his last night at home he went out with his friends. Arriving home about 11:30 he made his regular stop at the refrigerator. The mother and father were in bed upstairs, and as always did not feel right until they heard him come in. The mother said to the father, why don’t you go down and talk to him about spiritual matters. We have always had him in church and he has been a good boy, but I want to be sure he is right with the Lord before he goes. The father went down and in only a few minutes came back to bed. Did you talk to him, the mother asked. The father said; I didn’t have to. When I got to the foot of the stairs I heard him praying at the kitchen table, “Dear God, thank you for my wonderful parents, who taught me right from wrong, and taught me to live for you and trust you. I pray Lord that if I don’t come back from this war that you will give them the peace of knowing that I am with you, and I died doing what I believe is right.” The father said, “I didn’t need to ask him a thing. He is everything we want him to be.”
Where do good human beings come from? Where is character, compassion and courage built? When God was speaking through Malachi about the damage of divorce in Judah, God said one reason he gave us marriage is that husband and wife, mother and father, could work together with him, creating good human beings. He is still doing that today. Christianity is always only one generation away from extinction. Where do the Christians of the future come from? They come primarily from Christian homes. They come primarily from Christian fathers and mothers working together.
A. We are not Perfect
Speaking to fathers today, I include the mothers, and the first word I want to use is perfection. The greatest Christian in the history of the church; the Apostle Paul said, “I do not claim that I have already become perfect. I keep striving.” (Phil. 3:12). There never has been and never will be a parent who can truthfully say, “I did the best I could”. It would be nice if kids came with instructions, like grills, but they don’t. We all make many parenting mistakes. Bill Cosby says the reason we are so good to our grandchildren is because we are trying to get to heaven after all the mistakes we made with our kids. A sociology professor wrote a book, “Ten Iron Clad Rules for Raising Children”. He and his wife had twins and he revised the book, “Ten Principles in Raising Children”. After another child he revised it again, “Ten Suggestions for Parents”.
Failure isn’t all that bad. It reveals our humanity, and the way we deal with our mistakes and sins, helps our children deal with theirs. When we honestly apologize to a child, and ask for his forgiveness, that might be the best lesson we have taught them in months.
B. We Are Partners
When Paul teaches about the Christian home in Eph. 6, the first term he uses is “parents” (mothers and fathers). When he first mentions “fathers”; it is a warning, a correction, a red flag. He says, “Fathers, do not exasperate (frustrate / aggravate) your children, but bring them up in the discipline and teachings of the Lord.” The OT was written in a male oriented society and almost all instructions about parenting are directed towards the husband and father. In a Christian society like ours where men and women are equal, I believe God would use the word “parent” or “mom and dad” where He uses father. Mother and father are co-workers with God in the production of good human beings. I have always had a problem preaching parenting sermons on mother’s day and then another on father’s day. The truth is, every Bible principle given to fathers is also given to mothers.
C. We are Primary
No people influence our children more than we do. No institution comes close to have the impact on character than the home. It is not school, not peers, or even church; it is the home. This is true because of the power of early years. Roman Catholics have always said, give us a child for the first five years and you can have him the rest of his life. Modern psychology has reduced this to three years. The book, “How the Twig is Bent” says the basic framework of character and attitudes towards life are there by age three and the rest of live is formation within those boundaries.
I love the book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. He gives this list
- Share everything / play fair / don’t hit / put things where you found them / clean up what you mess up / don’t take what isn’t yours / say you’re sorry when you hurt someone / wash your hands before you eat / flush / milk is good for you / do a lot of things like drawing, painting, playing and working / take a nap every day / look out for the traffic / look for the wonders of nature / pets die and so do we. Then he says, “Everything you need to know is there somewhere. The Golden Rule; love, basic sanitation, ecology, politics, equality and sane living” (Pg. 6, Villard Books, New York, 1988).
We are primary in the building of character because of the time we have. Between infancy and maturity, a child has 108,000 waking hours. He will spend 1,000 of them in church, 7,000 in the public school, and 100,000 under the supervision of his parents. You cannot carve rotten wood. And every school teacher and Sunday school teacher will tell you that a spoiled or selfish or mean or lazy child at home will be the same in school, in church, and in life, unless Jesus Christ comes in and makes a change of heart. And even then, they will have a long uphill battle in their Christian lives. It’s hard, even for a new born child of God, to shake off the effects of bad parenting.
C. We are Pals
There is a four point cross that is in every balanced life- worship / work / rest / and play. The Bible says, “A merry heart does good like a medicine.” (). We need to play and have fun as a family. Working on this sermon I was driving down the road and thought of Prof. Kenneth Chafin’s list. He asked the kids in his church to give a list of things that make a good daddy. The first four were: Can pump up a bike tire / Can fish / Can get a cat out of a tree / Can fly a kite. About that time the girl on WRAF radio, playing Christian songs about fathers, said she wanted to tell about her father in Indiana. Here’s what she said, “I remember when we were young how my daddy would cook popcorn on the stove (Before micro-waves). When I get home for thanksgiving, I am going to ask him to make some.”
D. We are Policemen
Prov. 23:13
“Don’t hesitate to discipline a child. A good spanking won’t kill him. As a matter of fact, it might save his life.” (Prov. 23:13)
Proverbs 29: 15-17
“The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to itself disgraces his mother. . . Discipline your son, and he will give you peace, he will bring delight to your soul” (Prov. 29:15, 17).
Somebody has to be in charge and in the Christian home that somebody is the team of mother and father. The great Bible word used by Paul for Christian parenting in Eph. 6 and by God for His parenting of us in Heb. 12 is discipline. Christians argue over spanking and kids hope the OT use of it is symbolical not literal. The fact is their may well be a place for spanking, but it is not the highest and best form of discipline, and it should be used as a last resort. A few points about discipline are:
1. Be the Boss
To refuse to discipline is to disobey God and to damage your children. Assume responsibility in leadership in the home. You are not to be a tyrant, but you are the leader. One distraught father said, “When I was a kid my father ruled. Now that I’m a father, my kids rule. I never got to rule anybody.” That is the tragedy of the modern home - children and youth calling the shots.
Children in charge is the source of much misery and conflict in the home. It is amazing how many two and three year olds there are who are in control of their homes. They rule with an iron hand and are ruthless in their demands. They set the temperature in the home. They are on center stage. They control the conversation. Their mothers are their slaves, running behind them, picking up after them and trying to keep them happy. Fathers would rather work overtime than come home and put up with them. And this challenge to authority begins early. The little baby who screams and holds his breath to be held is already trying to take over. By the time he approaches age two he is a wily veteran in the campaign against authority. Comedian Bill Cosby says, “Give me 200 active two-year-old’s and I can conquer the world.”
A mother and her daughter were shopping for father’s day when a little boy pitched a fit in the store, fell on the floor, and kicked his mother as she begged him to get up. Seeing that as a teachable moment, the mother said to her daughter, “Do you know what that boy needs?” (She expected her to say a good spanking.) Her daughter answered, “He needs a good mother and daddy).
2. Set Limits and Guidelines
Some things will not be tolerated. My children got sick and tire of the four “D’s” that would get them in trouble- actions that were disrespectful / disobedient / dirty (nasty) / and especially dangerous.
My mean mother and grandmother never let me jump on the running boards of cars that drove into our yards. I managed to jump on a few when they were not there, but to get caught was to get “whupped”. They believed in spanking. One day I learned why they were so narrow minded. A boy about three miles from our farm jumped on a running board, slipped under the car and crushed his hip.
Loving rules with punishment are not something we do TO our children, but something we do FOR them.
3. Be Flexible
In the home there are iron clad rules- don’t hit your sister with a hammer; don’t call your mommy or daddy names; don’t lie; don’t steal; don’t curse, etc. But we parents can be too strict sometimes. One comedian said that until he was five years old he thought his name was “shut up”. Bedtime rules can be broken without the house caving in. A kid can eat dessert first sometimes and not be primed for reform school.
4. Fit the Punishment to the Action
Mistakes are not disobedience; they are part of being a kid. Forgetting to do something is not disobedience; it is part of being a kid. If my wife spanked for forgetting, I would not be able to sit down much. Punishment teaches the great lesson that choices have consequences. I have been spanked, but the worst punishment I ever had was not a spanking. I called my grandmother an old “battleaxe”. I didn’t even know what it meant. She told me, “Well this old battle axe is going to make you sit in the corner all day Saturday.” When I was growing up, we played all day Saturday. For early morning to night time, I heard my friends playing outside. They kept coming to the window singing, “Bobby is in the corner!” I had no toys, no books, and no radio (TV had not been invented yet) . I sat in a chair looking at two walls coming together, getting up only to go to the bathroom. I begged, I cried, I made promises; and my grandmother ignored me. One time my crying turned to screaming and she said, “Young man would you like to sit in the corner next Saturday?” I quieted down in a hurry. Two things came out of that experience. I learned that there are punishments far worse than a spanking. And I never even thought of call my grandmother an old battle axe, or any other name, again.
E. We are Preparers
Like it or not, our children are headed toward freedom. This is part of their being created in the image of God. Our children are not so much ours, as God’s, and we are His stewards. They come from Him and return to Him. We house them but do not own them. And part of our teaching must be about their accountability and responsibility. When Cain killed Abel, God didn’t go to Adam and say, “What has Cain done?” He went to Cain and said, “What have YOU done?” (Gen. 4:10). The home, like the church, must see every child headed toward an age of accountability when children become adults in the sight of God.
F. We are Patterns
When it comes to Christian character, it is more caught than taught. It is our lives that teach true Christianity. If we are nominated for deacons at church, and use profanity at home; is it any wonder that our children grow up and reject our faith. If we pray in church and pad our expense account, it is any wonder that our children grow up and discard church as a vital part of their lives? I started with a success story about a good kid, and I want to close with two more.
TWO GOOD KIDS
When two demonic boys went on a killing spree in Columbine High, they targeted Christians. When one of them asked Cassie Bernall if she was a Christian, she stood up, said yes, and was killed on the spot. But there’s a story behind that story. Cassie was at one time a very rebellious teen. Tough love was badly needed. Her parents explained that they felt a need to take drastic action. Cassie’s mother said, I couldn’t pinpoint it, but I just knew something was wrong.” The Bernalls learned Cassie was interested in witchcraft and was involved with drugs and alcohol. They searched her room and found letters that talked about harming parents and others. Stunned, they responded firmly, courageously, and lovingly. “We knew she could not make (wise) decisions for herself, so we had to make them for her.”
They changed her school and cut off contact with friends who had exerted wicked influences on her. They searched her room and backpack. They monitored her actions. Besides school, about the only place she was allowed to go was church. And that made all the difference. It was like she was in a dark room and somebody turned the light on, and she saw the beauty that was surrounding her. She met Jesus! Ladies and gentlemen, that was Christian discipline. That was two parents brave enough to take the controls and call the shots in their home.
And now I give an entirely different kind of success story. Pastor Fred Craddock told of a couple in his church. Every Sunday they brought their daughter to church and Sunday School and went home to get over their Saturday night on the town. The little girl, a radiant Christian, loved church. One Saturday night there was a party in her home. She got out of bed and looked over the second floor rail. Her dad scolded her and asked why she was up. She wanted to know if she could come to the party. They said no, it was a “mommy and daddy” kind of party. She saw plates of food in the people’s hands and asked if she could have some cake. When her dad said, “Yes!,” she said, “Has anybody said the blessing?” She said it and the party broke up. As that mom and dad cleaned up the mess that night, it pointed both of them to the mess in their lives. They asked, “Where are we headed as a family?” The next morning they were in church with their little girl and when they left they told Fred at the door, “Pastor, we’re bringing ourselves and our home back to the church and to the Lord!” Where is your home headed?
