OPEN - I read a poem several years ago that went this way:
If you love something, set it free.
If it comes back to you, it is yours...
If it doesn’t, it never was.
But, if it just sits in your living room, messes up your stuff, eats your food, takes your money, and doesn’t appear to realize that you’ve set it free.....
You either married it or you gave birth to it.
APPLY: This month we’re going to be talking about how to have a happy home.
We’re going to be examining Scripture to discover God’s blueprint for a model family
And this morning, we’re looking at a passage that tells those of us who are parents, or grandparents, or uncles & aunts, or whatever… this passage tells us how to be the best influence we can upon our children
Now, I Thessalonians 2 isn’t actually talking about how to BE a good parent.
What Paul is doing in this passage is explaining that - when he’d planted the church at Thessalonica - he had made every effort to treat that church like a good parent would treat their child.
Look again at verses 7: “…but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children.”
And in verse 11 Paul writes: “For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children”
Paul tried to be a good parent to that church, and so he ended up giving us the basics of what a good parent LOOKS like, and what a good parent ACTS like.
If you treat your children in the way Paul describes here you’ll be raising your kids the way God wants you to raise them. AND, you’ll be the most successful parent you could possibly be!
So… how do you go about being this KIND of parent???
I. Paul told this young church that when he and his fellow missionaries spoke…
They spoke “…as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel” II Thessalonians 2:4
Paul realized that God had given him a special responsibility - a special responsibility for this congregation that he had given birth to.
Likewise… we must realize that God has given us a special task: to influence our children. This is your God ordained responsibility and you must regard it as more important than
· your personal goals
· your hobbies
· or even your career
This responsibility is so critical that when God commanded the church to select Elders, He told them they were to be men who were known to be good fathers.
“(An Elder) must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?” 1 Timothy 3:4-5
ILLUS: It’s been estimated that it costs an average of $160,000 to raise a child today. $160,000!! Someone might say: I’m paying for them… I own them!
BUT that’s not true. We don’t OWN our kids… our children are a sacred trust from God. In fact, the Bible teaches that our kids are a gift from God.
Psalms 127:3 says “Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.”
II. Therefore - because children are gifts from God - God is the one we should seek to please when we raise our children…
Paul wrote - that when he and his team worked with Thessalonica:
“We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.” II Thessalonians 2:4
“We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else.” II Thessalonians 2:6
Paul’s primary objective was to make sure that his actions pleased God. Even if those actions pleased no one else. Even if his actions upset the church that he had given birth to.
LIKEWISE, when we raise our children, our major concern should be:
· will our actions please God when we’re done?
· is our goal to bring our children up to honor God?
· or is our goal just to make sure they are happy with us?
Too often, parents raise their children with an eye toward whether or not they return our love.
They raise their children with an eye toward whether the kids like them or not.
ILLUS: When one man visited the United States, he noted: “The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.”
Once in while, parents need to make tough choices… and they need to take difficult stands.
ILLUS: Have you seen these commercials – “Parents – the Anti-Drug”?
The faces of teenagers fill the screen as they angrily tell their parents:
“Who do you think you are?”
“How dare you search my room?”
“How dare you where I can go… with whom I can go… when I should be back!”
The commercial is so well done, you can almost sense a parent cringing at the hatred that is bound up their teens’ screaming.
And yet, the point of the commercial is that good parents MUST deal bravely with their children... they must make the tough choices, if they want to keep their kids off of drugs, and out of the wrong type of life style.
ILLUS: As I was thinking about this point, my mind drifted to a Biblical story about a son who became angry with his father’s rules at home. In fact, it became so serious that the boy left home. He took his inheritance and went off to a far country where he spent his money on hard living and false friends. Once the money was gone… so were the friends. And the boy was reduced to working for a pig farmer and he finds himself hungering for the food fed the pigs.
At last, he got to thinking that his father’s servants ate better than he did and he made up his mind that he’d go home, tell his dad he was no longer worthy to be called his son. All he wanted was to be hired a servant so he could have something to eat.
While he was still a long way off, the dad saw the boy coming and ran to his boy. As the boy began to recite his speech, “I’m no longer worthy…” the father interrupted him, embraced him, put a garment over his shoulders, killed the fatted calf and had a feast.
Now when the boy first left…
Do you think the father grieved because his son had rejected him? – I’m sure he did.
Do you think he prayed for his son every day he was gone? - I’m convinced that he did
But he didn’t chase the boy down
He didn’t send him extra money to make sure he could live comfortably in the lifestyle he had chosen.
The father left the boy to struggle in the choices he had made… and every day, the dad watched the road to see if his son would return.
Now… those are tough choices.
But sometimes that’s what a Godly dad has to do.
How do I know that?
Because when Jesus told the story of the Prodigal son… the dad in His story was God. We were the sons and daughters who chosen to live our lives our own way outside of His directions and desires.
III. God has given us the privilege of influencing the lives of our children.
God did that because God believes you are capable of modeling the qualities those kids will need.
Paul said that he “dealt with each of (the Christians in Thessalonica) as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God…” II Thessalonians 2:11-12
When we’re dealing with our children… that’s not always easy to do. It’s not always easy to encourage them… comfort them… urge them to live lives worthy of God.
But we are the only ones whose words of encouragement REALLY count.
We are the only ones whose words of comfort REALLY make and difference to them.
Our respect and our love for them are the only true issues that matter to them.
ILLUS: Years ago, Erma Bombeck wrote:
”For the first 4 or 5 years after I had children, I considered motherhood a temporary condition -- not a calling. It was a time of my life set aside for exhaustion and long hours. It would pass.
Then one afternoon, with 3 kids in tow, I came out of a supermarket pushing a cart… when my toddler son got away from me.
Just outside the door, he ran toward a machine holding bubble gum in a glass dome. In a voice that shattered glass he shouted, "Gimme! Gimme!"
I told him I would give him what for if he didn’t stop shouting and get in the car.
As I physically tried to pry his body from around the bubble gum machine, he pulled the entire thing over. Glass and balls of bubble gum went all over the parking lot. We had now attracted a sizable crowd.
I told him he would never see a cartoon as long as he lived, and if he didn’t control his temper, he was going to be making license plates for the state.
He tried to stifle his sobs as he looked around at the staring crowd.
Then he did something that I was to remember for the rest of my life. In his helpless quest for comfort, he turned to the only one he trusted his emotions with -- me. He threw his arms around my knees and held on for dear life. I had humiliated him, chastised him, and berated him, but I was still all he had. That single incident defined my role. I was a major force in this child’s life.”
We are a major force in our children’s lives.
That’s what God created us to be for our children. That’s why it is so crucial that we place a HIGH priority on…
· encouraging them
· comforting them
· and urging them to live lives worthy of our God.
IV. In addition to what we SAY to our children… what we DO is equally important
When Paul worked with the church at Thessalonica it was his goal to set an example by being “…holy, righteous and blameless… among (those) who believed.” II Thessalonians 2:10
That should be our goal around our children: We should strive to be HOLY and RIGHTEOUS and BLAMELESS in our homes.
When our kids watch our behavior… they should see someone who loves God.
When our kids listen to our words… they should hear someone who’s words honor God.
Our goal should be to be Holy and Righteous and Blameless.
(pause…) BUT we may NOT always succeed..
· Our children may hear us become unreasonable and unfair.
· We may allow our temper to get out of hand.
· We might even get so angry that we use hurtful word.
· We may even curse.
Has that ever happened to you?
Have you ever behaved like that around the kids?
Have you ever gotten so angry that you’ve begun to SCREAM at them?
Have you ever gotten so upset that you’ve behaved in ways that you knew were wrong?
Let’s face it… as parents, we mess up. We do things around the house that embarrass ourselves. We do things AROUND the kids… or TO the kids… that we know are wrong.
And when that happens… what do parents usually do? (wait for audience to respond).
That’s right! We make excuses for ourselves.
Or we blame them for why we blew up…
Or we just ignore that we ever did anything wrong.
That’s dishonest!
Paul told the church at Thessalonica that he tried VERY HARD not to be dishonest in how he treated them
“…the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you." (1 Thessalonians 2:3)
“… we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed…”. (1 Thessalonians 2:5)
You see, Paul realized that if he modeled dishonesty to the church at Thessalonica - that’s the type of behavior they would copy in how they dealt with others.
When we are tempted to make excuses for ourselves.
Or blame others for our failings…
Or, if we find a way to ignore that we’ve misbehaved in front of children:
That teaches our children to make excuses for their bad behavior.
That teaches our children to blame others for their failures.
That teaches our children - to just ignore their sinful actions.
They figure: Hey! Mom and Dad did it… why can’t I?
Do you understand that? The way you and I deal with our own failings is what we teach your children.
ILLUS: As one person wisely observed: "Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."
You can’t be dishonest with your OWN sinfulness around your kids and expect to model Holiness, Righteousness, and Blamelessness around the house
Holiness, Righteousness, and Blamelessness IS NOT about being SINLESS
Holiness, Righteousness, and Blamelessness is about dealing honestly with our sin.
Repenting, confessing, and owning up that IT WAS WRONG!!!
If we’ve sinned IN FRONT OF our children… or if we’ve sinned AGAINST our children…
Holiness, Righteousness, and Blamelessness DEMANDS that we repent.
Holiness, Righteousness, and Blamelessness DEMANDS that we acknowledge our fault.
It means that we sit our kids down and we admit we’ve done wrong… then it means we ask forgiveness from them for sinning against them.
And when we model THAT KIND of Christianity to our children:
· then they learn to be honest in their faith
· then they learn to practice repentance and humility
· then they learn that God’s people don’t fake it
We’re not “holier than thou”
We’re just people who love God enough to trust Him to forgive us when we mess up.
And we want our kids to trust us enough that we’ll forgive them when they mess up too.
V. Lastly, the most important thing we can give our children… is salvation
Paul wrote in verse 4: “…we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel…”
We should realize that our children need to see God so powerfully in our lives… that they just naturally want the relationship with God that we have.
ILLUS: In the last church I served, there was a Godly man named Mick. He was a deacon in the church. His family had always been leaders in the church, and everybody in town knew that he and his family took their faith seriously.
But Mick was worried about his oldest son – Adam. Adam was 17 years old, and Adam hadn’t become a Christian yet. Mick was upset. He couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong that his boy would not have made that decision for Christ yet. He came to me for advice on what he had done wrong, and what he could do to help his son make that decision before it was too late.
I sensed that there was only one reason I could think of as to why his son hadn’t become a Christian yet… they were pushing him too hard. So, I counseled Mick to just leave his son alone. Not to try to push him into a decision… but instead to trust God to work in the boy’s heart.
In about a couple of months, Mick baptized his son into Christ.
Why? Not because my advice was all that wise… but because God was faithful… and Mick and his wife had modeled an honest and Godly faith for their family. They brought up good kids because God was the center of their lives.
CLOSE: Larry Crabb tells about watching his father pray when he was only 4 years old.
"It was Sunday morning, and about 50 people gathered in a circle at our (Lord’s Supper) service. The elements - covered simply with a white cloth - were on a table in the middle. The arrangement was intentional: it spoke of Christ as the center of our thoughts.
"Dad stood to pray. I was lying on the floor, looking up at him. Even now, the memory is clear. I thought to myself, ’He actually thinks he is talking to Someone. And whoever it is means more to him than anyone else...’"
