Raising Spiritual Champions Series

* Revolutionary parenting. The goal of this type of parenting is to raise children who make their faith in God and their relationship with Him their highest priority in life. Barna discovered that for revolutionary parents “Parenting is their full-time job; the job they get paid to do is simply an addendum to the most important work they will do in life” (“Revolutionary Parenting,” page xiv).

According to Dr. James Dobson, 80% of parents feel like they’re failures! This “crisis of confidence” is affecting families all around the country. While parenting is demanding, too many of us find the task burdensome. Parents today have saddled themselves with unnecessary guilt, fear, and self-doubt. Listen to what he writes in his book, Parenting Isn’t For Cowards: “Throughout the Scriptures, it is quite clear that the raising of children was viewed as a wonderful blessing from God – a welcome, joyful experience… We’ve had enough self-condemnation. What we need now is a doable dose of confidence in our ability to raise our children properly.” (Page 16)

My intention this morning is to communicate a biblical perspective on parenting so that we can do exactly that – have the confidence as parents to raise our children properly. As I’ve thought about the many perspectives in the prism of parenting, I’m convinced that teaching our children to obey rises to the top. Purposeful parenting must involve truthful love and loving truth. This is not always easy, is it? It’s like the little boy who was overheard praying, “Lord, if you can’t make me a better boy, don’t worry about it. I’m having a real good time like I am.”

While our children may think they’re having a good time disobeying, the fact of the matter is that they will be much happier and more joyful if they can learn the biblical discipline of obedience. George Barna states that “revolutionary parents believe they are in charge from day one, behave like people who are in charge, and never allow doubts to linger as to who are in charge.” Some of my points in this section come from John MacArthur’s excellent book entitled, “What the Bible Says about Parenting.”

Teaching our children to obey is more than a matter of good parenting advice, it is a bedrock moral principle that is given a place of prominence among the Ten Commandments, and emphasized repeatedly throughout the Bible. When you distill it down to the bottom line, here’s what you’re left with: It is the child’s duty to obey, and it is the parent’s mandate to teach obedience. Or, to say it another way, God gives to all parents the responsibility to build their children’s moral character by teaching them to obey God and their parents. And we’re to do that with truth and with love.

Not an Easy Task

This is no small task but revolutionary parents must be up for it. It’s difficult for at least three reasons.

1. The corruption from society on the outside. It’s not news to you that our whole society is hostile to biblical truth and often seems bent on teaching children to rebel against authority. The Bible predicted that such a time would come in 2 Timothy 3:1-2: “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents…”