The subject for this mini-series is freeing our relationships, and I'm returning to a subject that I've touched on several times over the last three years, but I never really have developed it. So some of what I have to say will sound terribly familiar. I confess to you at the outset that in terms particularly of this evening, I'm prepared to defer very readily to any number of you as being far more expert than I am in the whole area of child rearing. The evidence is not in as far as the Howe family goes. And we're very much aware of that. I remember when Kathy was about two and a half years old, I began to pontificate on how easy it was to raise children and that I had proved positive.

And if you just follow a number of very simple rules, your child will inevitably turn out to be as lovely as Catherine. That worked just fine until she was eight years old and along came Jonathan. And then the very same rules ended up producing the opposite results.

So we're still very much learning. I want to step back just a little bit before we come to parents and children in particular and put this into a context that I hope just seeing the context will be as important as anything that I have to say about parent-child relationships. Something that has fascinated me for a number of years is what I have called the structures of authority. The structures of authority. And I'm presupposing that God places each one of us into authority relationships. And that's his good pleasure to do so. Authority, whatever form that we find over us, is not there simply to frustrate us in something against which we should be kicking all the time, trying to find liberty over against it.

Not at all. The thesis on which I'm operating in these three lectures is that God has put us under authority for our freedom.

That may seem a paradox to you. Let me share a couple of scriptures by way of introduction. Romans 13, the classic statement on governmental authority. Paul writing, and bear in mind as we read this passage, that he's writing in the days of Nero,

when the Christians are being thrown to the lions, being crucified by the hundreds, being boiled in oil, being made living torches for his pleasure.

And Paul has the audacity to make this statement, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God.

And those that exist have been instituted by God, including Nero. Therefore, he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. And then he goes on and names a number of different kinds of authorities. He makes it quite clear in this paragraph that God's highest and best will in giving authorities is that they might ensure the public's safety and well-being. But even when they misuse their authority, they nonetheless have been set in place by God. and it's not up to us to resist them.

And so he ends with the summary statement, verse 7, Pay all of them their due, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. There is no authority except from God. Those that exist have been instituted by God. Now, as I say, he's speaking about governmental authority or the authority of the state over its citizenry, And yet he puts it in the form of this generalization.

There is no authority. No authority except from God. Look over at 1 Peter. A very similar statement in the second chapter.

1 Peter 2 and beginning with verse 13.

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Again, a generalization. Principally speaking about the authority of the state, but moving right on to make it a generalization. Every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong, and to praise those who do right. For it is God's will that by doing right, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

And then this very important statement, and this I hope will begin to give a rationale for the title of our series. Live as free men. Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil, but live as servants of God. In Peter's mind, there's no conflict, no contradiction between the first statement in that paragraph and the last.

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Live as free men, yet as servants of God. honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor and then he applies this teaching in a number of other areas servants be submissive to your masters beginning of chapter 3 likewise you wives be submissive to your husbands and so on so again the generalization be subject for the Lord's sake to every human authority it's God's good pleasure to use authority to shape and mold us into the thing that he's calling us to be and do.

Now, I don't know where I read this statement. I wish I did. I read it somewhere, and I've just quoted it endlessly, and I've probably taken credit for it myself, but it really belongs to some secular psychologist. And the more I've read in psychology, the more I think most psychologists would agree. The statement is simply that the single most important factor

in the development of our total well-being is learning to cope with authority.

The single most important factor in the development of our total well-being, our total adjustment, is learning to cope with authority. So that's what's behind the series that I want us to share together, is that God has placed us under authority for the development of our total well-being.

And he will use the authorities in our lives, all of them, to shape us. Some of you are familiar with the teaching of Bill Gothard, and I very highly recommend that. Bill Gothard has a teaching that he does around the country called Basic Youth Conflicts, or Institute on Basic Youth Conflicts. has what he calls the chain of command. And the picture here is that you, I, all Christians, are like a rough-cut diamond.

God is like a hammer wanting to shape that diamond, to cut away the rough edges, to make it a perfect gem so that it captures all of the brilliance of his glory. And in his other hand, God holds the authorities in our lives, whatever they might be. And they're the knife, they're the jeweler's knife. And he very gently but very firmly taps on the jeweler's knife to chip away the extraneous bits of the diamond and bring out its full brilliance.

The second part of the thesis, then, is that to choose, to choose willingly to submit ourselves to the authorities in our lives will be to experience freedom. We freely choose, and in the choosing we discover yet an even greater freedom.

Again, that seems like a paradox. And yet we pray that every time we say morning prayer. You remember the collect for peace. O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom. We're free men. Peter says, live as free men.

But in the same breath, he says, submit yourself to the authorities in your life.

And in the process, prove yourself to be a servant of God. live as free men yet be submissive choose out of freedom to be submissive and therein discover yet greater freedom that's what I want us to be exploring in terms of these three areas because like it or not and wherever you find yourself in these three basic relationships of parent, child husband and wife and for most of us at least employer, employee these are authority relationships what I want us to discover It's freedom in the midst of authority.

Okay? That's what we're about.

Two more introductory comments.

God's three purposes in our lives through authority are number one, discipline, or if you like, punishment, to correct us where we've been wrong.

it's easy to get angry and rebel against authority, but it may very well be that we were wrong, and that's why the authority is coming down on us. Secondly, perhaps we haven't been wrong, but nonetheless, whatever the authority is, is coming down on us. We need to be looking to God to develop in us, as a result of that experience, ministry.

Ministry. As we suffer unjustly, God will, as we allow Him, take that and shape it as a channel of ministry to others.

And thirdly, we may not even be able to see that. The question is, what is he doing in me? And the answer is, he's shaping me, he's fashioning me more in the image of his Son Christ.

Perhaps the most astonishing verse in the whole New Testament is in the book of Hebrews, chapter 5. it says although he was a son he learned obedience through the things he suffered.

He was perfectly obedient. And yet as he went through the unjust experience of authority coming down on him he learned yet a greater depth of obedience. He went from perfection to yet deeper perfection. That stretches my mind. You remember back in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus was talking about such things as turning the other cheek and giving away your coat when your overcoat is demanded.

And he says, if anyone forces you to go a mile with him, go with him too. What you might not be aware of is that all those examples were taken from the kinds of rights that the Roman government said that Romans had over Jews, and in particular that Roman soldiers had over Jewish subjects. For instance, a Roman soldier could come up to a Jew and say, carry my bags for a mile. It was specified that he could insist on the Jew doing the work of a bond servant up to one mile. That was the limit. By law.

Jesus says, when he commands you to go a mile with him, go too. Freely choose to submit to that authority. And what happens? You rob the oppressor of his victory.

You demonstrate. You're not doing it out of cowardice. You're doing it out of freedom. You gain the victory. And it works a marvelous thing in you. In the process, you begin at least to achieve greatness. The very same greatness of the Lord Jesus who willingly submits himself to torture and crucifixion. Do you remember where he said, My life is something that I lay down freely.

Nobody takes it from me. I lay it down. I choose to lay it down.

Okay, the final then introductory word is that in my opinion, there are in the pages of Scripture, in fact, five basic structures of authority or five basic authority relationships. We're only going to be developing three of them. But there are in fact five, and the five are number one, parent-child, which we're going to be touching on this evening, number two, husband-wife,

number three, state and citizen, number four, employer-employee, and number five though there are some real distinctives about this fifth one it also has similarity to the others pastor flock or elder younger within a spiritual relationship there is a spiritual authority that is unique to the Christian faith and it nonetheless pertains somewhat to the same kind of a relationship it's very helpful to me and I hope it's helpful to you just to step back and take a look at all five simultaneously.

What I think you conclude is that there are two generalizations that we can make about all authority relationships. These two things pertain to all five.

And I think we'll see them over and over in the next three weeks. Number one is within each of these relationships, there's someone who is in authority and someone who is under authority. Within each of the relationships, there are mutual but not reciprocal responsibilities.

Mutual but not reciprocal. What do I mean by that? I mean that it's not only incumbent on the one under authority to behave in a certain way. God has some very strong things to say about the one who is in authority. And as a matter of fact, in every instance he has a great deal more to say to the one who is in authority than to the one under authority.

However, for the Christian, it is not a matter of I will do my part if you'll meet me halfway.

It's not in any one of those five relationships 50-50. It's 100%, 100%.

the husband for instance is not to behave in a Christian manner toward his wife only to the extent that she returns the compliment the husband is called upon to behave toward her after the pattern of Christ even if she is the most miserable wretch

and vice versa the wife is not to behave toward her husband in the way that scripture describes if and only if he treats her as a Christian husband should. It's 100%. Are you with me so far? This is a little bit theoretical. In just a moment we're going to be looking to practical things. Do you see what I'm saying so far?

On both sides of the relationship there are obligations if we would be faithful to the Lord, but they are not dependent upon the other member of the relationship doing his or her part. I am totally responsible for my half of the bargain even if the other person doesn't come one iota of the way. Mutual but not reciprocal responsibilities. Number two, the second generalization, is the authority, again, in each one of these five relationships, the authority stops at the point where it contravenes the express will of God.

So whereas in those two passages, Romans and 1 Peter, if you took only those, it might sound as if God was giving carte blanche to whoever is in authority. But when you read Scripture in the light of Scripture, you find there is a very definite limit to the authority, and the authority stops at the point where it would command what God forbids or forbid what God commands. Alright? For instance, book of Acts, chapter 5.

The very same Peter,

who we've just read,

saying, submit yourself for the Lord's sake to every human institution, in Acts chapter 5, when he is ordered not to preach about Christ, says, we'll look at verse 27 and following, When they brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest questioned them, saying, We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us. He was ordered not to preach, and yet he filled Jerusalem with the preaching of the gospel, and Peter's answer is, We must obey God rather than man.

Do you see what I'm saying? Submit yourself for the Lord's sake to every human institution up to the point where that human authority forbids what God has commanded. Peter is saying, look, the Lord Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords, told me, go into all the world and make disciples. I'm under obligation to a higher authority.

Where the authority forbids what God has commanded or commands what God has forbidden, that authority ends. Back in chapter 4, we see the same sort of thing. where they first give the commandment. Verse 19, Peter and John answered them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge. What an extraordinary statement. Whether it is right in the sight of God.

What's he saying? You, whether you know it or not, whether you admit it or not, whether you acknowledge it or not, whether you care about it or not, you are answerable to God for what you judge about me. But you judge.

you judge you are in authority you go ahead and judge but you're responsible to God but he says we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard he acknowledges you are in authority over us and you may pass judgment you may throw us in jail you may do with us whatever you see fit to do you answer to God but so do we and he's commanded us to preach and we're not going to be silent Do you see the point I'm making?

There is, in short, there is, there is a basis in the New Testament for civil disobedience. There is. We do not give away our consciences to the state. If the state commands us to do what God has forbidden, it's not a matter of my having the right to disobey. I must disobey. because I'm under a higher authority.

The problem is that in the last 15 years or so, we've taken an entirely biblical principle of civil disobedience and we've broadened it to the point where people are protesting all manner of law, not on the basis of it being against the will of God, but simply, I don't like it.

It's inconvenient. I think it's silly. Everybody else is breaking it anyway, do you see? You go back to the early days of the civil rights movement, and in particular to the teaching of Martin Luther King, and he was operating entirely on this principle. It wasn't that we have a right to break this law, we have a responsibility because the law itself breaks the law of God. I think this principle runs throughout the whole of scripture.

So those two generalizations I find enormously helpful in stepping back and looking at all questions of authority. Number one, whichever side of the relationship I'm on, I am responsible to God, not a matter of reciprocal relationship with the other person. He's got to meet me 50% of the way in order for me to meet him. No, it's 100%. I am responsible to do my part, regardless of whether or not he does his part. And number two, authority stops at the point that it contravenes the will of God.

Daniel, I mentioned this in a sermon a couple of weeks ago, Daniel gives us a lovely example in the Old Testament of dealing in two different ways with unjust authority. The first thing he does in chapter 1, when he's commanded to eat food that's been offered to idols, is he comes up with a creative alternative. He doesn't simply say no rebelliously, Neither does he simply say, yes, I have no alternative but to go along with it.

Instead he says, how's about you let me put together my own diet and you see what the results are.

That's a biblical principle that we do well to bear in mind. If there's somebody in authority over us who would hinder what we believe to be our responsibility to God, let's see if we can find some alternative that would satisfy the same goal that that person has and yet not be a violation of conscience. That in chapter 1. But in chapter 6, you find another incident in his life

where some conspirators put together under King Darius of the Medes and the Persians a law that prohibits any prayer.

They're out to trap Daniel. Daniel sees right through it. He knows at this point there is no alternative. And we read in verse 10, And when Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem, and he got down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously. I love Daniel, I've got to tell you.

When he knew that the law was signed, there was no creative alternative to it, he went in front of his window, threw it open for the whole city to see, knelt down previously and said, I'm prepared to take the consequences. I'm not going to hide it. Not some little quiet, card-carrying but silent Christian.

Hang it out there for everybody to see. I'll take the consequences, but I'll be responsible to God. You see the point. The authority ends where it contravenes God's will.

So, that by way of introduction, very briefly this evening, I want to begin by taking a look at the parent-child relationship. I call this the primary structure for the very simple reason that you may not find yourself under all of the others, but everybody finds themselves under this one. You may never get married, so that may not be a relationship in which you have to deal with authority.

You may never have a job, or at least you may not have one right now. That may not be an area in which you find yourself under authority, but everybody finds himself under the authority of his parents. And secondly, because here, in a very special and unique way, our first impressions of God are inevitably being formed.

Like it or not, this is especially true of the father, but both parents are, to their children, the image of God. And so we need to deal with the question of authority. I think the most frightening verse in the whole Bible is Exodus 20, verse 5. Middle of the Ten Commandments. The sins of the fathers shall be visited to the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Do you wince at that?

I really do. The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children. That's not a statement of justice. But that is very much a statement of fact, that what the parents do will have an effect upon the children.

We can see that in kind of gross ways all the time. What alcoholism in the parents does to the children, what divorce in the parents does to the children, what crime in the parents does to the children. But it's certainly true on a much lesser level as well. all the things that we're doing affect our kids. It's absolutely frightening.

I want to deal with seven statements about the responsibility of the parents to their children.

Mind you, the problem is that so often I find parents coming to me about their teenagers and they're at their wit's end. They want to know what to do and my answer, unfortunately, is you need to begin 16 years ago.

Nonetheless, the principles apply at every age, I think. Let's begin with the word training. Look in Proverbs 22.

And if you've never done this, could I recommend to you that you would sit down at your earliest convenience and read straight through the book of Proverbs.

It will be a shocker, and it will be an eye-opener, and it probably will be a very great encouragement to you. And if your kids are old enough, share that reading. It is a fantastic book. There are all sorts of extraneous statements that you'll just kind of scratch your head over, but it is a fantastically practical book for child rearing and for dealing with both sides of the parent-child relationship.

Proverbs 22, verse 6, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. I think that's the summary statement for the whole book of Proverbs. Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old, he will not depart from it. I need to say two things about that. First, there's a promise from God here.

But like virtually every other of God's promises, there's a part for us to do which is the antecedent. It brings the promise into effect. God says, if you will do your part, I absolutely promise you, I'll do my part. What's your part? Train up the child. And of course, there are going to be some hard times. And there may be some real rebellion along the way. But God's final word on the subject is, if you've done your part, before the last word is spoken, that child will not have departed.

He will come back to that relationship with the Father. I want you to know that I am claiming that promise. Not that Karen and I are doing the job perfectly. We make all sorts of mistakes. We have much to learn. But I will have a very severe argument with God.

And I mean that absolutely seriously.

We are taking Him at His word and we're doing absolutely everything that we know how to do in the light of Scripture, trusting Him for help with our mistakes. And we believe Him. You know the scandal with preacher's kids. We believe Him that when all is said and done, our kids will not depart. Because He's promised that.

Second thing, in addition to the promise, I want us to understand clearly that the word here is train. It's not just teach, it's train. Training includes teaching, but it's more than teaching. Training is a matter of setting God's standards and reinforcing our expectation of them. Again, I say that begins very, very early. If you've come to faith in Christ after 12 or 15 years of living on some other basis with your kids, there's an awful lot of backpedaling to do.

But even then, it can begin. Setting God's standards for our home.

And it may be that your child has to choose at that point whether he's going to live under the discipline of your home, And perhaps you need to allow him to make that choice. We can explore that in just a moment. But training is a matter not only of teaching, it's a matter of setting those standards and reinforcing them. We bought a little puppy just a couple of days ago, and it was fun to watch the trainer, who runs a very large kennel down in the Fredericksburg area, working the dogs,

setting the standard, insisting on it, and reinforcing it. That's training. When the dog made a mistake, back to the place where he had made the mistake, and redo it again. Insist on it. There's rewards and punishments there. But it's not allowing the mistake to go unchecked.

That's training. That's training. So it's deeper than just talking about it.

In the same chapter, let's move on to the word discipline. Same chapter dropped down to the 15th verse.

This will be a delight to some of you parents. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Chapter 23, verse 13 and 14. Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you beat him with a rod, he will not die. If you beat him with the rod, you will save his life from Sheol, or from hell, from destruction.

Chapter 29, verse 15.

The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. Do you realize that if we choose not to discipline our children, we're not only disobeying God, but we're inculcating in them the thing that he says will lead them to destruction.

That's a very strong teaching.

This is part of training, is the willingness to discipline. Now again, we need to make a distinction immediately because we're all aware of the horrors of child beating and violence that's gone unchecked. The distinction that I think we need to make is between discipline, godly, biblical discipline, and angry punishment.

Discipline, biblically, is never a matter of anger. Discipline should come into effect long before anger has ever begun to well up. The problem is that most parents will not reinforce the thing that they insist on. They'll let it go and let it go and let it go. Meantime, something's building up inside of them. frustration and anger, and finally, when it's gone on 18 or 19 times, it explodes.

And then they inflict not discipline, but angry punishment. What the scripture is talking about is just like that dog trainer. She wasn't angry with those dogs. There wasn't a hint of that. She was immediately reinforcing the thing she insisted upon. It's discipline rather than anger.

That for a very small child at least, of reinforcing the standard. Not a matter of losing your temper and getting angry. A matter of reinforcing and saying, I really meant it. May I suggest this to you? I know some of you have worked this through long ago, and it's very basic, but some have very, very small infants, and you might not have done this yet.

Could I suggest to you that you are, inevitably, no matter what your style, you are training your children.

And if you refuse to use discipline, what you're training them to understand very clearly is daddy and mommy don't mean what they say.

You are teaching them that lesson. If you tell them to do something, they test you at that point, and you don't do anything to reinforce it. You are training your children. You're training them to understand you didn't mean it. And kids are very wise about that, aren't they? You know, they've got your spiritual temperature worked out. They know exactly when you mean it.

It's when Daddy puts down the paper and beads of perspiration stand out on his forehead, right? That's when he means it. The first 15 times I can ignore it, but when he puts down the paper, sit up and take notice, right? And in the meantime, you've lost your temper, and if you inflict discipline now, you're inflicting punishment.

Do you see? I'd like to caution you, if you've got a very small child, a helpful thing here. Most of us make infinitely too many pronouncements about the rules of the house. Sift it down. Sift it down. Get as few rules as possible and then insist on those.

And be prepared to hold your kids to those standards. Leave them free in the other areas. You know, what's frustrating to the kid is constantly being told what to do and what not to do. Sift it down to a few things that really are important and then be prepared to reinforce those, to insist on them and reinforce them.

Now the third thing in relationship to all of this is we're talking not simply about what I happen to like or what will make my life convenient as a parent. You know, put my kid in the right box and get him out of my way so I can go on and do my thing. That is not at all training my child in the way he should go. However convenient it makes my life, that in no way qualifies for this promise. Let's look at Deuteronomy 6.

And just a footnote while you're turning to that, I found, have found, with all three of our kids, that the very best time for communication

is immediately following discipline in love. In love. The difference is, you know, if it's done in anger, there's a barrier. There's just a ghastly thing between us. if I have moved quickly enough that that discipline comes as an expression of love, I have not lost my temper. This may seem inconsistent to you, but I can put a swat on Jonathan's behind and immediately embrace him.

He gets a message that he could never understand philosophically at this point, but he gets it very clearly. Daddy is not going to tolerate what I've done, but he still loves me.

there's no inconsistency there because it's not a matter of temper it's a matter of discipline but what we're trying now to inculcate as I say is not merely the things that will make my life convenient but Deuteronomy 6

drop down to verse 4 and following hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord summary of the law here and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your might and these words which I command you This day shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise.

And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frumplets between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

This is what we're talking about, is godly standards. We're inculcating not just my own gut reaction to the situation, not society's changing values, but what does God have to say about it? And we're trying to share that with our kids constantly. Could I urge you, at whatever age and whatever style is appropriate, you've got to apply this to the exigencies of your own situation. Again, how lovely if you can begin with very, very young children.

Find a way. Make this the priority of your life to find a way to be sharing together. Family home evening, family altar, study of scripture, prayer together as a family. It's more important than the food you eat. It may be much more important than some of the meetings you come to here at church.

Set your schedule in such a way that somewhere quality time is given to the children to share with them, not just to pound it into them, that's awful, but to share with them the adventure of discovering what it is to know God and to know His Word. And share your life with them so that they see you struggling to apply that in your life.

It's not just you sitting there on the lofty pedestal making pronouncements, but we're in this business together.

It's God's standards that we're talking about. We're going to discipline as necessary and the whole process is a matter of training our children in the expectancy that God will keep them. We'll do our part. He'll do His part.

Ephesians 6, verse 4.

Ephesians 6 and verse 4.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Do not provoke them. Two things that would be most provocative, I think, to our children, and again, psychologists would tend to agree with this very widely, number one is overharshness or possibly laxity, but overharshness is a provocation to the child, Again, a matter of losing our temper and confusing that with discipline.

But number two, inconsistency. Inconsistency in what we're expecting of them. I think our children, I think your children would far rather have you be a rather rigid parent

if he would just know what it is that you're going to be rigid about than he would to have you sometimes hot and sometimes cold.

And as much as he made protest, all the other kids are doing it, Mom. If he knows his limits and those are expressed in love, and you're consistent in them, I think you'll win the child infinitely faster than if you give in on one day and then decide you were wrong and reinforce it the next day and then give in again.

Colossians 2 says much the same thing. Sorry, Colossians 3, 21 says much the same thing. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. They might get angry or they might get discouraged.

Fifthly, affirmation. That's the other side of the coin. The affirmation that every one of us needs. Children need from their parents. The whole process of getting to know, to recognize, to appreciate them individually. To delight in them. And to demonstrate to them, again, I use the phrase quality time. It's not necessarily an enormous amount of time, but it's time well spent.

I look at my life and one of the continual battles that I have to fight with myself is that when I spend time with my kids too easily, we just turn on the tube. You know what that is? That's parallel entertainment.

They might as well not even be there. I'm absorbed in what's going on. They're absorbed in what's going on. We're not really spending time together. We just happen to be parallel to each other. Quality time. Getting to know them individually. If you've never done this, could I suggest that you would begin the process of dating your children.

Making an appointment. It might be once a month. It might be more frequent than that. But setting aside some time where one at a time you could go out and spend time with that child. I began to do that with Kathy when she was two and a half. I called her up from work one day and she could just about hold the telephone, you know, and get one thing here and then had to lift it to speak.

I said, Kathy, this is Daddy. You tell Mommy to get on your best party dress and we're going out on a date. So I picked her up for dinner and we went out to the Holiday Inn and she held up the menu upside down, read it very carefully and ordered a hamburger.

And we went through the meal and suddenly I'm faced with a two-and-a-half-year-old. What do you talk about with a two-and-a-half-year-old? I was astonished to see what an adult conversation she could carry on. Absolutely amazing to begin to discover my little girl.

End of the evening she said, Daddy, where's the date we're going to eat?

I said, it's not the kind of date you eat, it's the kind of date you go on. She looked under her chair. She thought she was on it.

find out where your kids are and spend time with them Charlie Shedd has a little passage he was on his way out to a meeting and his daughter said Daddy please read me a chapter and he said okay sat down and read her a chapter of the book he said it only took three or four minutes to do it got to the end of the chapter and he said that's an exciting book honey I can't wait to find out how it ends and she said Daddy I know how it ends Mommy reads it to me all the time

what's happening she didn't need the information

not the information the affirmation

daddy cares about me

how does that apply to teenagers

well when's the last time you spent time just getting to know your teenager spending time with him not just harassing him you know telling him to pick up his dirty socks but getting to know him affirmation

do we try to force our kids into our expectations for them or can we begin to delight in the things that delight them

you're a lawyer and you want your son to grow up and follow in your footsteps and come into your firm with you after he's of course done an appropriate apprenticeship somewhere else

and what he really loves is taking apart his hot rod and putting it back together could care less about the law can you appreciate his hot rod maybe he has a tremendous skill for automotive mechanics

can you affirm him at that point or do you have too much of your own self image at stake

sixthly the whole business of modeling for our children the thing that we expect of them

the promise again and Paul calls attention in Ephesians 6 to the fact that it was a promise he says this was the first commandment with a promise

was honor your father and your mother that your days may be long

honor your father and your mother that your days may be long and blessed

do you know that it was fairly standard practice in the ancient world

for the elderly to be taken out and left for the wild animals to destroy

that is still being done in some parts of the world when they get old and feeble and useless and they're non-contributing members of society take them out and let them freeze to death or let the animals get to them and that solves the problem.

The commandment comes down from God on Mount Sinai and it says, Honor your parents that your days may be long. That is one of the most practical statements that was ever given. What it's saying is you take care of your elderly parents and model that for your children that they might do the same thing for you and then when they grow up they're not going to abandon you out there in the wilderness.

you know the little parable of the parents who had the old father the father's father lived with them he was feeble and his hands shook and he couldn't see very well and he didn't have any teeth and so they used to feed him in his own room on a little card table because he made such a mess of things and one day they noticed their little boy about 3 or 4 years old was playing with some bits of wood and they said what are you doing He said, I'm practicing making a table for when I get big to feed you in your room.

Honor your parents that it may be well with you. Model with your folks what you want to see your kids doing for you. You know, as I look at that commandment, it strikes me more and more deeply that it's not something we grow out of, it's something we grow into.

You know, a little kid doesn't really know what it is to honor his parents. If they've done their part, he knows what it is to obey them.

But he doesn't really understand honoring because honoring is something that you more and more freely choose to do. The dictionary defines it as giving high public esteem to someone. Choosing to honor my folks, even after I've long since outgrown the necessity of being under their thumb in the sense of having to obey their every wish. I remember after I was married for several years, calling up my dad one day and sharing a number of problems with him and asking his advice.

And there was a long pause at the other end of the telephone and suddenly I realized that I was hearing my dad choking back some sobs.

He gave me his advice and it was good advice and I followed it. What he said to me is, you don't know what that means to me to have you ask my advice at this point.

Honor your parents. Model for your children what it is you want to see them do for you. Or put it another way, if you want to be the sort of parent whose children find him honorable, begin by being the sort of child who honors his parents. If you go off to that Bill Gothard seminar, you'll think that you're going to get a whole lot of information about how to deal with your kids.

Well, you will. But mainly, you're going to come out of there having to repair your relationship with your folks.

I hope there's time.

Seventhly, could I suggest this list of priorities?

And maybe it all comes down to just this simple, getting our priorities straight. I believe this is the biblical order of priorities.

Number one is God Himself.

Nothing can be as important as my relationship with the Lord Jesus. It's very easy to say,

how does that get translated into my schedule?

Talk about quality time with my kids, quality time with my wife. What about quality time with the Lord?

and don't think that being in the ministry makes it any easier. Most ministers are killing themselves running around trying to fulfill their ministry and leaving the Lord out.

God is first. Second is spouse.

Third is kids.

Fourth is country.

Fifth is job.

and sixth is ministry.

That may surprise you but I believe that if you search the scriptures they'll bear that out. That is the list of priorities that we should self-consciously choose for ourselves. First and foremost is my relationship with the Lord Jesus. Second only unto that is my relationship with Karen.

Not the kids. My relationship with Karen comes first. And then out of that, my relationship with the children,

my country has the right to impose its authority on me, even to calling me off to fight its wars, so it supersedes my job.

Then comes my responsibility to my employer, and then comes my ministry.

We're going to come back to that in a couple of weeks' time. But I would urge you to face up to that and do some searching of the New Testament and see if it bears that out. If those are the priorities, then second only unto God and spouse is our relationship with our kids. Again, so easy to say.

How do we do it? I've already mentioned one thing. Date your children.

Secondly, I'd look for child-sized ways of saying I love you.

You know, it's easy perhaps to say I love you in terms that mean something to us. And they totally miss our children. What is the appropriate way to say I love you to them at whatever their age level might be? As they grow, as they mature, it's appropriate that we would be backing off of the exercise of authority. I believe that so long as a child lives under the roof of his parents, those parents remain his authority. It's their house, and they have the responsibility, again, not right, but responsibility, to set the rules and the standards of that house.

If it comes into the latter teenage years and he wants to live some other way, it is still their responsibility to say, this is the way our family lives under this house, under this roof. It may be that they have to abandon him to say, if you can't and won't live under the rules of the house, you go your own way.

Terribly difficult thing to do. May I suggest to you there is no good alternative to that. you compromise that everybody goes down the tubes seeing parents whose kids are deeply into drugs deeply into crime breaking the law right and left and out of love they won't discipline their child they won't insist on what they know to be God's standards they keep thinking they're going to be able to win him the whole family goes down the tubes better to entrust the child to the Lord and let him face the consequences than to compromise the whole family.

But there is, that's the extreme statement of it, let's put it much more positively, there's a backing away from the exercise of authority and to use Gothard's language one more time, the chain of command is transformed into a chain of counsel as we entrust greater and greater areas of initiative and free choice to our children having long since done the process of training them in the way that they should go. And now they're beginning to come into it.

That I would say very briefly, very quickly, summarizes the responsibility of the parent.

I want to say just two things about the responsibility of the children.

One I've already touched on, the seeking of their counsel.

the commandment really the only commandment giving to children as children is the one we've already read honor your parents as a little child that means obey as you grow up it means not necessarily obeying but even at the point where I must go my own way doing so with deliberate willful heaping of respect upon my parents publicly

publicly So seeking their wisdom. Speaking now especially to teenagers, if there are some present. Isn't it ironic that you'll seek counsel from absolutely everybody but the two people most qualified to give it to you? And you know for a fact that if you ask your folks what they'll say will be in your own best interest.

And yet somehow there's a pride that creeps in during the teenage years that I won't do that. I'll seek out my best friend, I'll seek out some other adult,

or I'll make up my own mind and ignore the people that in my life want most to help me to become a strong and mature individual with responsibility of his own.

The irony of the situation is, if you feel that your parents are being overly restrictive to you, the easiest way to get them to ease up is by joyfully and willingly submitting yourself to the rules of the house.

Because the thing that your parents want to lose even less than their money

is you.

And you see what happens is if you begin to come into those years of early adulthood, you outgrow the childish patterns of relating to your folks. You've got to find something to take their place. If you don't find an adult way to say I love you to mom and dad, you know what's going to happen? Mom and dad are going to try to force you back into the straitjacket of a childish way of saying I love you.

The easiest way to convince mom and dad that you don't need that anymore is by willingly, joyfully submitting to it. They say to get in at midnight, you get in at 11.30. Next time they may let you stay out until 1.

try it you'll like it

and then again I said to the folks find child size ways to say I love you to the kids find adult ways to say I love you

you know if long ago you outgrew coming up to your dad and putting a big kiss on his face I'm speaking to the boys now

what has taken its place?

What has taken its place? How are you saying to dad, I love you? Okay, you've outgrown the childish way. What's the adult way? When's the last time you offered to wash his car for him?

Told him to take you out. When's the last time you took him out?

I used to say that to prep school kids. Probably you won't believe this, but not one of them ever thought of doing it.

Had a fellow come back. He graduated from Loomis and went off to Harvard, came back at Christmastime to visit me. He said he was absolutely frustrated because whenever he went home to visit, his parents continued to treat him as if he were a junior high student. You know, we want to know where you are and who you're with and what time you're coming home. He said, you know, all the time I'm at Harvard, I'm not responsible to anybody for my schedule he says no they want me in at 10

he said Charlie tell you what you do he said you go home and you take your dad out to dinner he never thought of that I was very anxious to see what had happened he came back at the end of Christmas vacation I said how was it he said it was awful he said what's the matter he said well I decided I wouldn't only take the old man out to dinner I'd take the old lady out to dinner too He says, we're in the middle of this fancy restaurant, and my dad starts bawling.

He loves us. He loves us.

Adult ways of saying I love you.

Seven things I've mentioned in terms of the responsibilities of the parents. Only two things in terms of the responsibility of the kids.

I warned you there'd be more said to the one in authority than to the one under authority

I summarized by coming back to the beginning it's not a matter of I will do my part if you will do your part I'm to do my part regardless of what you do there's only one side of the river that I can build a bridge from and that's the side that I'm standing on I can't do anything about the other person do something about me.

So, so much for parents and children with one final footnote, particularly to mothers.

I read this a number of years ago in a book called The Phenomenon of Obedience by Michael Essies.

I just think it's a marvelous statement.

The greatest ministry that the Lord can give any human being on the face of the earth is to be a mother.

I wonder how many of you believe that. The greatest ministry that the Lord can give any human being on the face of the earth is to be a mother. If the mother is a godly woman, the son will always be a godly man. We have evidence to prove this. Every king of Judah who had a godly mother was a righteous king before the Lord.

All 19 kings of Israel, every one of them worse than the other, had heathen mothers, even though they had Israeli fathers. Kings of Judah, godly mothers, righteous kings. Kings of Israel, heathen mothers, every one of them worse than the other.

Where the mother brings up the child in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord, the child walks with God. Where he's brought up in idolatry, he walks in idolatry. Women have the greatest ministry that God can give. The child sees the father very little. He's out earning a living for the family, doing what he has to do, but the mother is the one who implants the seed of faith in the heart of that child.

Let's just bow our heads.

Heavenly Father, we've begun a challenging

and sometimes frustrating subject.

how to deal with authority how to apply it very specifically to where we really live help those of us who are parents to raise up our children in the way they should go help us to exercise godly discipline to instruct them both by word and by example in the things that you have said to model for them relationships with our own parents that they'll want to carry out with us help us to find creative ways of saying I love you help us to never provoke them by inconsistency or by too much harshness in our dealings with them and help those of us who are children in relationship to our parents to find adult ways as we grow up to express our love for them and increasingly to move into the business of honoring them even as we outgrow the necessity of obeying them.

And so shape us and mold us after the character of Christ. For we ask it in His name. Amen.