Respect is something that certainly seems to be fading. We go in a coffee shop or you travel someplace or you’re in a school, and we see kids who oftentimes are disrespectful. And I feel sorry for them because I know that they weren’t raised in a way to be taught respect. So we want to dig into that today.
Really this will be a very different sermon for you. Rather than it being a verbal sermon, I think this one will be more of a visual sermon. And what I want to do is I want to talk about three different times of the day that are very important when it comes to teaching your kids respect.
Of course, the first one is an obvious one, and that is mealtime. [Dave motions to a table which is fully set next to him onstage. He then sits down at the table.] Mealtime provides you with an awesome opportunity to be able to pour into your kids and to communicate with them and to teach them some of the basics of respect.
So we begin with mealtime because of the fact that this one hour, if you were to do it on a regular basis, reaps some incredible benefits. I’m not even saying you have to do it seven nights a week. But let’s say if four or five times a week you could say, “We’re gonna eat dinner together as a family,” do you know what would happen? There is a forty percent better chance of your kids getting A’s and B’s in school, three times less likely to experience with marijuana, two times less likely to experiment with alcohol or with cigarettes. Forty percent less likely to be obese as they enter into adulthood. All of that comes from just sitting around the table together? Yes. Study after study confirms it.
One of my favorite studies was done by Dr. Catherine Snow of Harvard. She followed and worked with 65 different families over an eight year stretch. Here was the conclusion that she came to: “Dinner time is of more value to child development than playtime, school time and story time.” Even more valuable than school time! Can you imagine that? It’s stabilizing. It breeds security.
If you have your Bible, turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6, or grab the one that’s right in front of you. Deuteronomy is the fifth book…fifth book of the Old Testament…Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And in Deuteronomy chapter 6 there is a passage that we’re quite familiar with, because it’s actually re-quoted in different forms over in the New Testament by Jesus. But in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4 it begins: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” In other words, You are the one and only God. Verse 5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Jesus quotes that in Matthew 22. We pick it up with verse 6. This is written just for families: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
Now Deuteronomy doesn’t say specifically “around a mealtime setting,” but it does say that when you’re at the home and when you sit down together. So for me, I think that’s mealtime. And when you come together, the table represents something. It gets across the idea that there is something deeper that’s taking place here.
I mean, if you think about it, all throughout the Bible, whenever you see people eating together, there is a relationship that is being formed. It’s going beyond the shallow. It’s taking it one step further around that mealtime in the home.
In Luke chapter 19 we see Jesus going to the house of Zacchaeus, and He eats a meal with him. And what happens? Spiritual transformation takes place in this dishonest tax collector.
I think about in John chapter 12 where Jesus has a meal with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. There is a close kinship there.
Why did the Pharisees get so angry and upset with Jesus when he would eat meals with prostitutes or with tax collectors or with sinners? It was because they realized that He was forging a relationship with them. That’s what bothered them. That’s what made them upset and mad.
And this is a setting where you can teach manners, you can teach respect, where spiritual truths can take root. And in our fast-paced society going so many different directions it’s very difficult, and it gets tougher the older your kids get.
My son just finished his baseball season, and for the last two and a half months we’ve had to get very creative to try to have four meals together as a family each week. And so lots of times we ate our meals at 5:15 or sometimes at 8:45 at night. Now that’s not optimum, but one is more important than the other.
Use your time at the meals as an opportunity to help your siblings get along with each other and to affirm and encourage one another. My wife came up with something years ago called the “Fruit of the Spirit plate.” So whoever got the Fruit of the Spirit plate…well, they had all the fruit of the Spirit right there…we would pray for that individual that night, and you picked out whatever fruit it was they were exhibiting. You would say, “Lord, I’m thankful that I saw Sadie show joy yesterday. When she was…could’ve been upset on something; instead she showed joy.” And you’d pick out a characteristic and you’d pray for that individual.
We also had something that we called the “You are Special” plate. And we had several different varieties of these, because we kept, you know, dropping them and breaking them. So we’ve got different versions of them. But whoever was the special person they got prayed for. They weren’t allowed to pray that night; we prayed for them. If you had a guest who came over to the house, they were the special one, and we always prayed for them.
Now I know if you’re looking at this and you’ve got a fourteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old, you’re saying, “You know, this is kind of ducky. I don’t think this is gonna go over well.” But if you start it when they’re young, it’s amazing because it’s something that they look forward to. Who’s gonna be the special person?
When I was growing up, we didn’t have a special plate, but my mom would pick a person to be the special one…if we had some great accomplishment. So this only happened like every month or two and my mom would take toilet paper and stream it to the light fixture, and she would pull it down in all four directions. We didn’t have much money, you know? And then she would cook the favorite meal of that individual—whoever was the special one. And it was a huge treat, you know? I mean, if my dad got a raise, he was the special one. If my brother did really well in sports in a game, he was the special one. If I got a “C” on a test, we would celebrate. (Laughter) You know? These were big-time events.
So part of teaching respect is the practice of showing respect and honor to one another. And so through your interaction, what happens is you learn how to communicate with your family. You learn how to show respect. You stay at the table until the meal is over. And when you have little kids…I mean, it’s a gradual process. So you try to get them to fifteen minutes. You try to eighteen minutes. You try to get them to where they can stay there for twenty minutes. But you come up with creative ways to keep them involved.
We used to have a little box of questions, and if things were getting kind of boring in the meal, we’d just say, “Okay, hey! It’s question time,” and grab a question. And they were real life scenarios. And you’d try to find one that was age appropriate for each kid that you were asking the question of. And you’d say, “Okay, you are coming out of the store, and you find a five dollar bill. What do you do with that five dollar bill?” and you let them talk about that. You put them in real life situations. That teaches them respect. It teaches them spiritual truths.
Another thing that I encourage families to do is to come up with their own family mission statement. And you say, “Well, what’s that all about?” Well, it involves your entire family in the process. If your kids are four years of age and older they would be able to help and participate in this. And you try to say, “How would we like for our family to be thought of or remembered? What are we kind of made up of? What are our strengths? What are our weaknesses? How can we honor and glorify God?” And you come up with three or four different phrases. Then you start to pray about them as a family, and then you decide, “Okay, this is going to be our family mission statement. This is who we are going to be.” And through time, once you decide on that, you will run every decision, unknowingly, through that filter of who it is that you are and who it is that you want to become. And it’s a very healthy exercise for you. So you personalize who your family is going to be.
(Horn honking…Dave preaches from a frame of a VW bus) Just trying to beat the traffic like you guys do. (Laughter) it is really weird preaching from in here, believe me. (More laughter)
But we talked about mealtime. Another great place to teach respect is travel time. And when I think about travel time, I realize that in the midst of our frantic and frenzied schedule there is something that screams out at us, and that is those things going in a lot of different directions don’t really build character or depth—they just don’t—unless you take advantage and unless you are intentional about it.
So you have a lot of time in vehicles. Think about it. You take your kids to school. You pick them up from school. You travel to their music lessons, church activities, to tournaments that they’re in out of state, out of town. You have a lot of time in here. There are a lot of opportunities for interaction with your kids. Are you making the best use of that time? I mean, DVD players are a God-send for when you’re on a long trip, but let’s be honest. We have to be careful, because what is healthy when you’re on a three-hour or a four-hour trip can become detrimental and become a crutch if we pop in a DVD in our SUV or our minivan every time we go to Target® five or ten minutes away. You have to use this as a time for teaching and for communication. So you have to say, “I’m going to be intentional about this.”
My wife was really good at this. I would drive carpool a lot of time in the morning and she drove carpool a lot of times in the afternoon. And as soon as our family, our kids and the neighborhood kids would get into her van, she would say to them, “Okay, did you encourage someone?” or “Did you show respect to your teacher today when everyone else was showing disrespect?” And she would pull out her encouragement jar, and it was filled with candy…all sorts of different candy in there. And she’d say, “Did anybody do it?” And one kid would say, “Yeah, there was a kid sitting alone today and I sat with him in the lunchroom” or “People were being rude to this other kid, and I stuck up for him” or “They were being disrespectful to the teacher, and I showed respect.” And you give them a piece of chocolate because of it, you know? We’re not the healthiest family but we’re very encouraging, you know? (Laughter) So you look for those opportunities.
Think about it…Jesus taught while He traveled. Now He didn’t have a van. He had to walk everywhere that He went. And He didn’t have children, but He had the disciples who oftentimes acted like children, right? So Jesus took advantage of His travel time, and He taught them. A great deal of His teaching and the parables that He shared were in the process of Him traveling and walking someplace.
Think about the Samaritan woman that He talked to alongside the road. Think about the teaching He did with the disciples after that. Think about after His resurrection on the Road to Emmaus when He shared Scriptures with people and they said later, “Didn’t…didn’t our hearts burn within us as He shared those Scriptures?” Jesus taught while He traveled and you can do the same thing.
I want to encourage you, when you are five minutes away from wherever your destination is, to use that time as a teaching time. You could call it “before you arrive,” or you could call it just “a time of review” or “the last five minutes.” And what you do is you go through whatever the age-appropriate needs…the things that you’re working with, with your kids…you go through those things. So if you’re going to somebody’s house, you say, “Okay, in just a few minutes we’re gonna pull up at the Webber’s Home, and when we get there, let’s think about what we’re gonna do. We’re not gonna run around inside. Do we all understand that? What are you gonna do when the meal is over?” And you ask them questions, and you go through those things; and you review and you remind. You’re teaching them respect. “When I say, ‘We’re going to be leaving in five minutes,’ what does that remind you that you’re supposed to be doing?” “Well, that’s the reminder, Mom, that we need to clean up.” “That’s exactly right. And we need to go thank the host. We need to thank them for letting us come over.”
I am so proud of so many of you all who are doing a great job of things like this, of teaching respect. In the last week or so, I just jotted down a few different reminders. Our next door neighbor who is fourteen years old is named Cade. My wife was out mulching in the yard. She was working on that, and some kids came past. They said, “Hi, Mrs. Stone. How are you?” “Hello. Good to see ya.” Talked for a minute and then they headed on to go fishing. Then a few minutes later Cade came along, and he said, “Hi, Mrs. Stone. How ya doin’?” and talked to her. And then he said, “Would you like me to help you with your mulching?” And she said, “Wow. That is really nice of you. But no, you don’t need to do that, Cade.” And she said, “That is so kind of you to offer.” And he went on to catch up with the others. And our own son was in the first group, you know? (Laughter) So we’ve got a way to go.
I think about another kid in our neighborhood. Last Sunday night my grandson and my dad were in town, so I was kind of walking around the neighborhood showing off my grandson. My dad came over with me, and we were over talking to a couple and their kids were playing ball. And one of their kids, Garrett, came walking over and stood there. I introduced him to my father, and he said, “Nice to meet you,” and he looked him in the eyes the whole time and had a brief conversation. The whole while the kids who were playing baseball said, “Come on, Garrett! Come on back! We need ya! Come on back!” He stayed there. He kept his focus. He talked for a few more minutes, and then he looked at my dad and said, “It was good to meet you.” He shook his hand, and then he headed back to the game. Those things don’t happen if parents aren’t planting those seeds and teaching respect.
My daughter babysits for a six-year-old girl. Her name is Ella. And Sadie had Ella out at Qdoba® a few weeks ago. And while they were finishing up their meal Ella pointed over at a man across the room and said, “Oh, before I go, I need to thank that man.” And Sadie said, “Oh, okay. Great.” So she thought she knew the guy. So Sadie kind of followed a few steps behind her and watched Ella walk over. The man was in the army and he was wearing fatigues. And Ella walked over and said, “Hi, my name is Ella. I just want to thank you for fighting for our country.”
Now those things happen when John and Julie, Rick and Lisa, Jason and Daniela take advantage of mealtimes, and they take advantage of travel times. And when that happens, respect becomes part of their life.
Look again in Deuteronomy chapter 6 in your Bible at verses 6 and 7: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
I’ve made so many mistakes in the realm of teaching respect, and one of the things we talked about last week is that early on parents have got to be consistent. They’ve got to set those boundaries, and they have to get involved in the life of their kids.
But I want to make certain that you understand this: While you’re teaching in your van or in your car, please understand you’re not just trying to curb bad behavior; you’re trying to reach their hearts. You’re trying to go beneath the surface. You’re trying to teach them respect. Behavior is an outgrowth of beliefs, and you’re trying to get the core of what they believe. And that’s why you take them back to God’s Word. That’s why you’re trying to teach them every opportunity you can.
Remember what it is that we talked about last week. Remember we are raising them to release them. This is all a preparation. So that means that you use this time when you’re traveling in the car to ask them spiritual questions. You want them to get to the point where they can defend their own faith, when if a teacher mocks their Christianity they will be able to stand up for their faith. And you want to get them to that point where they understand it’s not just your faith but it has become their faith by choice.
One of my favorite Scriptures is in 1 Peter 3:15. Peter is talking here and he says, “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
So you’ve got to raise your kids in such a way that they begin to understand why it is that they have this faith, why it is that they have this belief.
And children, you need to understand that you are to respect and you are to honor your parents. Ephesians 6 talks about that. It says, “Obey your parents in the Lord.” So you’ve been given a qualifier. It’s as long as it’s “in the Lord,” as long as it fits with what Scripture says. Your job is to obey and to submit to the parental authority that you have.
And if you think about it, moms and dads, you make certain that you never undercut the other person, that you don’t undercut the spouse or another individual…but that you are that united front.
I remember when I was a teenager standing in the kitchen with my mom and dad, and I said something very disrespectful to my mom. That was the angriest that I’ve ever seen my father get. And it was justifiable. I never did it again because of the way my dad disciplined me. And I learned my lesson that Mom and Dad are a team and that they will stand up for one another.
One thing that I have observed is that when a child or children start to kind of become disrespectful and the parents slack off in this particular area when it comes to teaching them respect…one thing that I have noticed is this: That just as quickly as they can get away, in the same way just as quickly they can come back. If you’re sitting here thinking, “Oh, man alive! I mean, I am so far behind in this” or “I need to reign it back in.” Trust me. You can reign it back in. And they can make those adjustments and they can make those changes.
Are you beginning to realize that this parenting stuff is a lot of work? It can be very frustrating. It can be very taxing. But you know what? It can be incredibly fulfilling.
I love the way Craig Groeschel puts it. He’s a pastor; he’s also an author. Craig says it like this: He says, “If you don’t want your family to turn out like every other family, then you will need to raise your children differently than everyone else.” How true.
Well, we’ve looked at meal time and we’ve looked at travel time, and this is the obvious last stop and that is bedtime. [Dave motions to a child’s bed which is set onstage. He then sits down on the side of the bed.] If you’re not in the habit of doing so, I hope you’ll get in the habit of praying with your kids. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. It can just be pouring into them for a few minutes and say, “Hey, I just want to pray with you before you go to sleep.”
And this is a very personal place, because the room is filled with their stuff. It’s got their identity. It’s got drawers with secret notes, things that have been important to them that they’ve kept. It has posters on the wall. It shows their identity. It shows, really, who they are. And they are allowing you to have a peak into their life. You see, this bedroom is a window into their world. It allows you to see what’s important to them. And it is a place of privacy but it is a place that you need to frequently visit and to close out the day by just taking a few minutes just to pray for them, just to encourage them.
We would divide and conquer. And Beth might go and pray with the girls; I might go and pray with Sam. Or we’d switch it up for a few nights. And those would be the times where you would be allowed that peek into what was taking place in their life.
And on numerous occasions I would think that Beth was coming back downstairs in two or three minutes, and she would end up being up there for half an hour. And she’d come down and she’d be squinting because she’d been in a dark room for thirty minutes. And she would come down, and I would say, “What happened? I thought we were gonna watch this together.” “Well, you know what? She started opening up, and I just listened.”
That’s what you do in this room. You just listen. You just love. You just encourage. And merely through your presence you are teaching them respect. You are teaching them that you respect them and through osmosis they’re picking up that they respect you.
I like the warning that James Dobson gives especially to dads. Dobson says it like this. He says, “If you have a daughter, you had better show her Christ’s pure love and appropriate touch. For if she doesn’t get it from you, she will begin to seek it elsewhere.”
Love on your kids. Start when they’re young. Appropriately let them know through hugs and through kisses and through the words that you say that you affirm them, that you believe in them, that they have got what it takes.
I’m telling you, that’s what your kids have got to walk away with from their relationship with you. They’ve got to have a faith in God, and they’ve got to know that in your heart, if you could choose any kid out of the entire world, you would choose them to be your child.
And this is a place where you can do that. My mom when she would pray with me at night…sometimes she would just say, “I can’t wait to see how God is gonna use you.” And so I fell asleep at night not wondering whether or not God could use me, but instead falling asleep wondering how He might use me.
You see, the challenge is that we want to be distinctive. We want to raise kids who are different. We want to raise kids who respect the Lord and who respect their parents. Why? Because that looks really cool, or it’s neat to hear some kid say, “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am”? No. It’s because we’re trying to model for them the relationship that we want them to have with the Almighty God.
And parents, you have to teach responsibility. You have to teach respect and obedience. And for that to happen, there have to be some consequences when they don’t show respect. And let me say to every young person—whether you are a child or whether you are a teenager—there is only one command in all of the Bible for you—just one: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” That’s it. Because when you submit to parental authority, in essence you are submitting to godly authority.
So do you want your kid to turn out like everyone else’s? You want your grandchildren to turn out like everyone else’s? No. Grandparents, that’s why you get involved in the mealtimes and you make something special and creative for them. That’s why you go to their ballgames. That’s why when they’re at your house you pray with them at night.
You want all these different layers of a legacy, so that the family tree branches out with branches of respect and of love and of encouragement. And the Bible says that we as Christians are to be separate. We are to be different. We are a holy people. We are a nation that belongs to God. So when we show respect to our parents and when we teach respect to our kids, you look different, they look distinctive, and God is honored. Let’s pray.
Our Father in heaven, we thank You for the homes from which we’ve come. They’re not perfect homes. No perfect parents and there are no perfect kids. But Lord, we pray that we will become the family that You want us to be, that we will look to Your Word and look to Your will. It’s in Christ’s name that we pray. Amen.
At the heart of teaching respect to children, there is a takeaway for every one of us as God’s children, and that is that God has raised us to be in a right relationship with Him and He has asked us to submit to His authority. We have our own agenda. We have the things that we want to do. God says, “Here’s My will for your life and here’s My agenda for your life.” Are you willing to swallow your pride and to say, “Lord, I will follow You”? If you want to make a spiritual decision and accept Christ as the Lord of your life—or maybe you’ve already done that and you want to become a part of this church family—today could be the day. I can’t think of a better time than a time where we’ve talked about showing honor and respect through submission. This is a time that you can make that decision for Christ. You come as we stand together and as we sing.
Unless otherwise noted: "Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. 2012, Southeast Christian Church of Jefferson County, Kentucky, Inc. Provided by license agreement for non-commercial use by authorized users only.
Accompanying Resources for the series by Dave Stone:
Raising Your Kids to Love the Lord (2012 Dave Stone, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
Building Family Ties with Faith, Love & Laugher (2012 Dave Stone, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
How to Raise Selfless Kids in a Self-Centered World (2013 Dave Stone, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
www.pastordavestone.com; www.southeastchristian.org
