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“Parenting”

Alex Dvorak
01/26/25 - Sun PM

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(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Scripture reading before the lesson will be taken from Hebrews chapter 12 verses 5 through 11.

Hebrews chapter 12 verses 5 through 11, we'll read from the ESV.

And this passage, uh, exhorts us not to despise the chastening or discipline of the Lord, but to know that it's motivated by love and is meant to produce within us the fruits of righteousness.

Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.

It is for discipline that you have to endure.

God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them.

Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?

For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good that we may share His holiness.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Good evening.

It's uh good to see you all.

If you're visiting with us, we thank you for your presence and uh we look forward to the opportunity to get to know you.

Uh, tonight, we'll be talking about parenting.

This congregation is blessed.

Well, blessed is probably an understatement when talking about blessed by children.

We have so many kids here, wonderful kids.

Um, not only do we have lots of kids already, we got a whole wave of kids in April.

And so that's part of why parenting has been on my mind, because as we're, as we're praying, we're, we're praying, uh, thanking God for the safe deliveries that we've had over the past, past year with the recent additions to our congregation, and we're praying for, uh, the expectant mothers, and we're praying for those who wish to be parents.

There's quite a few, uh, who, who wish to be parents.

And of course, uh, I've got Alan Caleb and I've got Abby, so parenting is always uh kind of in front of me.

As a, as a parent.

Um, And we have some good news to share as well.

Uh, Rockquell is pregnant with our 3rd.

So I, uh, I, I thought, hey, I get to be behind the pulpit.

I think that's a good time to, I can share my news.

Uh, so thank you for your, uh, your, your prayers that that we'll receive for that and, and all you've done for us up to this point to help us with that.

Um, yeah, parenting, uh, it's a, it's a great time to reflect on parenting.

But how do you know this advice is good?

There's a A world of opinions on parenting.

See, it's a, it's a little world, and it's got little opinions there all over it.

Uh, that's my only dad joke for tonight, but if I, if I'm doing a, a sermon on parenting, I need at least one dad joke.

Um, but you can find opinions, uh, you can find an opinion to suit whatever you want on parenting.

There's a book that will give you any opinion on on parenting, and there's another book that says the exact opposite.

So who do you trust, right?

There's just so much information out there.

Some of it good, some of it bad, some of it kind of in the middle, I guess.

Um, so how do you know that this advice is good?

Well, we've got um We've got a couple passages that that teach us how to evaluate information.

Now, the context here is false prophets, but the principle applies.

And uh first one I'll read is from Matthew 7:15 to 63, which reads, Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but in inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will know them by their fruits.

Our grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles.

Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, so then you will know them by their fruits.

In the context of parenting, that is to say, Um, if you have someone giving you parenting advice, and their kids are menaces, don't listen to their parenting advice.

That's kind of like getting relationship advice off the radio from someone who's been divorced 7 times.

Don't trust in that advice.

It's probably bad advice.

Uh, if you want to find good advice, go look for someone whose kids You admire, who's whose parenting you admire.

Look for the good fruits.

Now, in my case, my son is not, not quite 7.

My daughter's 2, so she might be a little bit young to evaluate.

So, maybe my kids are just a bit on the young side to evaluate.

Yeah, you can, you can evaluate them.

Um, but hard, hard to read the fruits just yet.

Um, so, here's another principle.

First John 4:1, and every passage tonight's gonna be from the Legacy Standard Bible.

First John 4:1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

So Tonight, we'll be looking through the scriptures, and It would be good to test the spirits, right?

Make sure what I'm teaching comes from the Bible.

But also, you have another way to confirm it.

Because while my kids may or may not be too young to evaluate, not only are we blessed with lots of children, we are also blessed with lots of experienced parents.

And I would encourage you to go uh get guidance from them, and you can, you can talk about, you know, what you hear about in the lesson and confirm it with them as well, um, and probably get even better advice.

Um, but We have, you know, elders, one of one of the qualifications for elders is having your, your family kind of well run, well managed.

And so, Uh, of course, not every appointed, not every elder appointed everywhere is a qualified elder.

They are, I believe they are here, and I believe every elder here gives good, uh, advice for children, but You can, you can look at their children for yourself and say, Do I have confidence in their, in their child raising ability?

I, I'm gonna pick on the McKees tonight cause they're not here.

So, Um, if you were to spend any time with Clark or Audrey, Their character is evident.

It doesn't even take that much time to see they're wonderful, wonderful people.

You can quickly tell that uh their parents, Eric and Leslie, knew what they're doing.

So, if you hear advice, parenting advice from Eric and Leslie, you can have high confidence, that's good advice, because you can see the quality of the fruit, right?

So, since we have so much experience in this congregation, experienced parents with good fruit, I would encourage you, you know, after the lesson, go, go to, go to Tim, say, Mr. Tim, Mama Bev, you know, can we, uh, can we sit down some time and, you know, talk about parenting, or, or do that with any of the elders or, you know, anyone who's, um, who's experience and children, you You think, uh, is good.

Uh, so, as, as we get into that, into this lesson, just consider that as a follow up to this lesson.

We're gonna start tonight in Deuteronomy chapter 6, and we're gonna pull three things from this passage.

Deuteronomy chapter 6.

And we'll read 43 through 9, but we'll just, we'll start off with half of it.

Starting in verse 4, Here, O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one.

You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might.

These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your sons.

I'm gonna pause right here before we continue.

Look at the first principle.

I've got it, I've got it in the header.

You teach what you are.

It has to be on your heart.

How are you gonna teach your children something that you don't know?

If it's not on my heart, I can't put it on their hearts.

That would be more of a do as I say, not as I do parenting model, and that's not a model that works.

So, if we um If we don't have it on our hearts, the word of God on our hearts, loving the Lord diligently with all of our heart and all our soul and all our mind, that's not on our heart, how are we gonna teach it to our children?

Furthermore, how are we gonna do it diligently?

It's not on your heart, it doesn't occur to you all the time.

You're not gonna be able to do it with the diligence that you need to.

So, the first step before you teach them is you have to be what you are going to teach.

It has to be on your heart first, and then you can teach your children.

Now, there's a few implications that come with that, one of which Is, uh, when do you start preparing for parenthood, right?

Is it when the child is born, when your child is born, you start preparing for parenthood?

Little little late.

OK, let's move it back a little bit.

OK. Um, how about when the pregnancy is announced?

Still a little bit late.

What about when you're married?

Is that OK?

You get, you get married, OK, time to start preparing for, for parenthood.

Well, if you need to prepare who you are, everything that you do that prepares you for who you should be is preparation for parenting, and that starts, that starts as early as you can.

Uh, as I'm, as I'm training my son's character, I am preparing him for parenting.

I don't expect to be a grandfather anytime soon, uh, but we start, we start preparing as early as as we can, but everything you do that impacts your character, that's training, that's preparation for being a parent.

Because you teach what you are.

That order is important.

Uh, it's it's not quite like the adage, you are what you eat, but it would be you are what you teach, that gets the order backwards.

Uh, you have to be, and then you can teach.

OK. Let's continue on with uh with our reading.

I'm just gonna pick back up in verse 7, where we left off, uh, starting back in verse 7, you shall teach them diligently to your sons.

And you shall speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as flactories between your eyes, and you shall write them on your doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Uh, this passage really emphasizes diligence.

I mean, it directly states it, but, uh, you're, you're teaching them when you're, when you're in your house, and also when you're out of your house, when you're on the way.

OK, you teach them when you lie down, and also when you get up, uh, in, out, up, down, you're always teaching.

When are you not teaching your children?

That's diligence.

That's also tiring.

That's also inconvenient.

It's hard.

So, as we're parenting, Uh, sometimes.

It's not gonna be a convenient time to discipline your child.

You need to do it, even when it's not a convenient time.

Even when, when you come home from a long day at work and you're tired.

You still need to teach them about God's word, even when you're tired.

At the times when it's not convenient, you still need to be diligent in doing it.

You can't, you can't do it.

A little bit here, a little bit there, is it kind of, as it works for you on your schedule, it's all the time.

You are always a parent.

Diligence is a necessity.

And teach them early.

That's also important.

Uh, I've expanded and highlighted part of that, um, says the same thing, and you shall speak of, of the commands when you teach them, when you, when you send in your house, and, and so on and so forth.

And I'm, I'm trying to, to pull out that you have to be with them. Right?

How are you supposed to teach your children as you walk on the way?

If you're not on the way with them. Right?

That seems like a really obvious point, doesn't it?

You have to be, you have to be with them when you lie down and when you rise up.

You have to have time with them.

I, I make this point because time is, uh, I think the American Achilles heel, right?

We are a busy people.

Uh, and if, if we're not busy, we find, we find things to do to occupy our time.

Uh, we are, we are always on the go.

We have to be careful to not be too busy for our children.

And um that can be difficult.

You know, when, when, when this was written, you know, pre-industrial revolution, children would, you know, sons would work in the fields with their father, um, your children would work with you, and you get time with them as they work with you.

It's a lot, you have a lot more time with your children.

Now, we go off, uh, long day of work.

They have a long day of school, we come back, we don't see each other for most of the day, and then, and then we're tired at the end of the day.

We just maybe we go, you know, do our separate things, uh, at that, and it's just not a lot of time together.

15 minutes is not enough time in a day for your child.

You need to give them as much time as you can.

Simply because we have much less time uh together than uh.

Then that society would have had. Right?

Well, how, how do we manage that?

Well, I'll, I'll tell you what I do with Alan Kaleb.

Um, kids are, are pretty capable, um.

When, uh, when we cook together, Ellen Caleb cooks with us.

That's time together.

When I mow the grass, Alan Mos with me.

When I wash clothes, Alan washes clothes with me, we do a lot of things together.

You'd be surprised how much time you can find together when you include your children in, in your, in your obligations.

Include them in as much as you can.

It's just good for them anyway.

Roquel does a lot of gardening with Alan, but we try to spend as much time as we can.

With our children, because that's how we're gonna have the most impact, and that's gonna give us the most opportunity to diligently teach them God's ways.

So time Very important Well, put this down.

I'm not, I'm not passing from this just yet.

Um, If you think about elders, again, Um, Wait, did I do that?

Oh, OK. Who scared me.

Um. Uh, when you think about elders, that requirement, uh, you've got They need to have run their house while this is a paraphrase, maybe new living translation, uh.

Uh, but, you know, they need to have run their household well so that they can run the, the house of God well, right?

Uh, I almost feel like I need to read it to get the exact phrase, but that's, that's the idea.

And you can Uh, it is implied that in order to shepherd the house of God, you first need to shepherd your own house.

And so, I mean, drawing parallels between fatherhood and eldership, and the lessons you can learn, that's a treasure trove of insights, but I'm only gonna grab one thing.

Uh, it's become one of my favorite phrases.

It came from one of Uncle Alan's sermons.

It's, uh, shepherds smell like sheep.

Well, That that that's because they're they're in the field.

They're tending the wounds of the sheep, they're leading the sheep to green pastures, they're leading the sheep to water, they're, uh, they're helping the sheep.

They're, they're with the sheep.

They are with them an awful lot.

You can't be a shepherd if you are not with the sheep.

You can't be a father if you are not with your children.

You have to give them time.

You have to.

Um, Parallel of the phrase would be, uh, you know, if shepherds smell like sheep, uh, what would fathers smell like?

I'll leave that assignment up to you.

Uh. But that's, that's a principle that's, that's important.

We need to be spending time with our children.

We can also look at God the Father.

You know, we might expect.

God is as the king.

God is the the creator of the universe whose ways are higher than our ways.

You, you, you might expect for God to be, you know, far off, aloof, separated from us, you know, well, we can't, we can't get an audience from God.

I mean, that's the king, that's, uh, that's kind of far away.

That's, that's not what we find.

That's not the king we have.

We have God the Father, who draws close to us.

Who desires to be near with us, who walks with his people.

That's what, that's the perfect image of fatherhood that we have.

God the Father, who dwells with his people.

So his fathers, we need to be with our children, spending time with them.

Alright, 20 minutes in and I'm done with the first passage.

Uh, wait, not yet.

Let's, uh, let's do a concrete example of these three principles.

You know, you are what you teach.

Uh, no, I said it wrong.

You teach what you are, and you know it has to be on your heart.

Teach them diligently and be with them, OK?

Uh, the big, big bible in there is what we're trying to teach.

We're trying to teach child, uh, to be diligent in God's word, to meditate on, on, um, his statues.

OK, let's say it's not on your heart.

And You know, you don't, you don't really meditate on the Bible yourself, you don't really read, um, but, you know, it's, it's a good thing for your kids, so you tell them.

Uh, kiddo, you should, you should read your Bible, you know, that's important.

Are, are you gonna be successful in passing that on to your child?

Again, that that's the do as I say not as I do model.

It, it doesn't work.

You you're not passing that on to your kid.

OK, let's change the scenario a little bit.

Uh, this time, it is on your heart.

You study regularly, you meditate on the word.

But let's say, uh, you do it in the morning before the family wakes up, and You know, you go off, they don't, they don't see you do it, they don't do it with you, and you come back and you don't really talk about what you studied.

OK. To them, If they don't see it, it doesn't happen, right?

You can't, you can't pass it along if they're not with you.

If you have no influence on them, because you're not there, Doesn't, doesn't do you any good as far as teaching, right?

So you have, you have to be with them, even if it's on your heart.

I, I think of King David, man after God's own heart.

How did his children turn out?

Well, he was gone an awful lot away from his children.

How much was he with him?

Doesn't matter what his heart was if he wasn't with him, right?

He was a shepherd.

He should have known better.

Um, OK, let's change it again.

OK, so it's written on your heart, you're with them.

I'm not so diligent.

OK, you do it a little bit.

OK, maybe this week you did a little bit more, maybe the other week a little bit less, but not kind of sporadically, not not consistently, not a whole lot.

Um, Do you wanna, do you wanna bet your child's soul that they're gonna value the word of God?

You're gonna get the best results with sporadic.

You need diligence So as parents, if we want to ensure that we pass on the love of God's scriptures, It has to be on our hearts.

We have to be with them, and we have to be doing it diligently, as often as we can.

All right.

Now on to the 2nd passage.

Um, what do we teach them?

Actually, we could, we could teach this, we can answer this from Deuteronomy 6 as well, but I'll go to other passages.

Um, We teach them everything.

Um, we teach them how to act, their behavior.

We teach them what to say, how to talk, teach them how to think, we teach them their character, we teach them everything.

What I want to hone in on is where everything comes from.

It comes from the heart.

Uh, Proverbs 4:33 says, guard your heart with all diligence, for from it, flow the springs of life.

And, and I've got below that, James 3:2, which says, if we, if we bridle our tongue, if we control our tongue, and we're perfect in all that we say, we can control our whole body.

And if you pair that with Luke 6:45, which says, uh, from, uh from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, you kind of get an idea of kind of the ranking.

If we control our speech, our actions will follow, we can control our actions, and if we control our heart, we control our speech.

So really, if we control our heart, we got it all, right?

So, we're really, we're really trying to teach our children heart.

And that's, that's to avoid, uh, what we see uh in the Pharisees.

And in Matthew 5, you get a glimpse of the Phariseaiaical attitude, their, their righteousness, and it says we need a righteousness that surpasses that.

And uh for time, I'll I'll just summarize this passage.

um, but their thinking is, well, the commandment is, you shall not murder.

But I can be angry with my brother, you know, it doesn't say anything about, I don't have to be angry with my brother.

I just can't murder him.

Well, You, you can't murder him, but Jesus says, uh, don't be angry with your brother either.

Jesus says, the heart matters too.

Well, the Pharisees neglected the matters of the heart.

Um, if you look through the other examples in Matthew 5, you, you see a checklist that the Pharisees have, and they're missing the heart every time.

And so for us, And we could, we could try to control our children's actions and, and be successful at controlling their actions, but if we miss their heart, It's not gonna do us any good.

We have to control the heart.

We must teach the heart.

In, in addition to the actions, not just the actions, you, you can't, you can't neglect either one.

I don't want to say it's, it's hard only.

I mean I want to be clear about that, because, you know, then the illustration would be, oh, I can't be angry with my brother, but it's OK if I kill him.

That's, that's no good, um.

Actions have to be in line, it's a reflection of your heart, um, so you, you need both, but it's heart centric, not behavior centric.

That makes sense.

Um, actually, one more thing before I, before I pass on.

Uh, some of the parenting advice that we got, we went to quite a few people.

We, we went to uh David and Jules, uh, great advice.

I recommend talking to them as as parents.

Um, one of the things they, they recommended uh is what they call the fourfold apology, and it goes like this, you know, I'm sorry because I, I did this, and and it should be specific, it should be a confession.

Next time, I will, and then you lay out the the repentance, what the change will be, can you forgive me?

So you get a, you get a much broader view of repentance than just, I'm sorry.

One of the problems we were having with Allan at that time was, you know, he would say, I'm sorry, but a lot of times it was a You know, I'm sorry.

Now get off my back, right?

I'm sorry.

Now, now that I've said I'm sorry, everything is good.

You know, there wasn't that, there wasn't that heart that was involved.

And so, uh, when we first implemented this, he had the hardest time with, with the confession part.

I'm sorry because I, you couldn't get the words out of him.

Um. It was just difficult for him to acknowledge his wrongdoing.

But by by doing that, we were, we were able to, I guess, touch deeper.

So when we corrected his action, we were able to go deeper into the heart than we otherwise would have.

And so that's our, that's one of our objectives.

As we're correcting actions, we're trying to go deeper into the heart.

And that's uh that's been very, very helpful for us.

I would recommend 10 out of 10.

OK, how do we teach them?

What are, what are the methods that we use, uh, to impart, um, In part the lessons.

I've got, I've got 4 things here, um.

It wasn't 213, uh, should be 1234.

Uh, I had them, I had them ordered.

Uh, this seems like the most logical order to me, and I'll just give a summary of these passages.

Deuteronomy 6, we already looked at, uh, speak to them about these commands, uh, have it on the doorpost, you know, you see verbal, you see visual teaching, uh, Proverbs 1822, you see, um, you know, hear my word, uh, hear, hear my words, my son.

Uh, you have Joshua 28 where they, where they build the pillar.

It's a memorial.

And so when the children see it, they ask their parents, and, and the parents then teach their children.

And so you see, you see instruction, and you see them uh in different ways, verbal or visual.

Um, we also have an example.

Ephesians 26:24 is, uh, imitate God as beloved children.

Children are natural imitators.

Uh, they, they can't help it.

They just do what you do.

It's a great way to get them to eat their vegetables, by the way.

You eat your vegetables, uh, because you can't just tell them, eat your vegetables, and if you don't eat your vegetables, they won't either.

Uh, you teach by example.

In First Peter 26, Uh, 24 through 23, uh, it talks about how as obedient children, we don't conform to the world, we conform to God, how he is holy, so we should be holy.

And so, example is one of the ways in which uh we learn, but also we teach our children.

Uh, Hebrews 123:212, you know, uh, solid food is for the mature, uh, who because of practice, uh, discern between good and evil.

So we see practice being a way to learn.

Um, and we're gonna talk a lot about discipline for now.

Um, Well, let me, let me pause on discipline for just a second.

Uh, the 26st 236, I'm not going to spend tons of time on because those 3 are kind of natural to us.

Um, that's how we learn most of our skills.

If you go into a classroom, The teacher is gonna give you the lecture, and he's gonna turn around and and write an example on the board, and you're gonna work through it together, and then the teacher's gonna hand you homework so you can practice it, you know, that's instruction, example, and practice.

You know, the practice really makes it stick, um.

But we, we learn most of our skills in life through those 3.

Um, Discipline is where a lot of people have trouble.

That's, that's the, the hardest one.

So we're gonna spend more time on that.

Discipline, if, if you notice, it's, it's like the word disciple.

It comes from the same thing, disciple is a, a follower or a student.

So discipline is us.

Making a follower.

We are teaching.

Discipline is teaching focused.

It's not about retribution.

It's not about, um, you know, payment of wrong.

It's about teaching.

Um, that's, that's the focus.

So, let's, let's focus in on discipline.

First point is that physical discipline is necessary.

And this is an important point because the world will say, no, it's not.

You're gonna get a lot of, I guess, kickback from people in the world saying, no, you shouldn't punish physically.

Spanking is bad for the child, they say.

That's not what the Bible says.

Here's a, here's several passages from Proverbs.

The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child.

The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.

He who holds back his rod, hates his son, but he who loves him, disciplines him diligently.

Do not withhold discipline from the child, although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.

You shall strike him with the rod and deliver his soul from shield.

Physical discipline is necessary.

It is not pleasant.

You know, I don't, there there's not a, there's not a time when I have to discipline my son where I'm like, I enjoy disciplining my son.

It's not pleasant for him, it's not pleasant for me.

It's required.

It's necessary.

Now, I will, I will give him instruction, I will give him example and practice as much as I can, but once he stops, once he refuses those three, there's only one option left for me.

And I'm gonna teach him.

Uh, regardless, if, if he chooses instruction.

No discipline needed, but if I only have one option left, it is necessary.

You must teach.

Uh, I, I appreciate, uh, Mr. Weatherford reading, uh, Hebrews 12.

And uh we'll, uh yeah, let's let's read it again.

Uh, it was a little bit too long uh to fit on the screen, so.

Uh, you'll have to open your Bible.

Um, but Hebrews 12, starting in verse 5, and you have forgotten the exhortation, which is addressed to you as sons.

My son, do not regard it lightly, the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him.

For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines.

He flogs every son whom he receives.

It is for discipline that you endure.

God deals with you as with sons.

For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, Then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them.

Shall we not much, shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live?

For they disciplined for us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplined us for our benefit, so that we may share His holiness and all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful.

But to those who have been trained by it afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

We could spend actually quite a lot of time in this passage.

There's a lot to draw from it.

Um. One, the example of God the Father, using discipline.

Ah The fact that it is done with love.

You don't Uh, and Proverbs also mention this quite a lot.

If you don't discipline your child because you hate your child.

It's, it's the opposite.

If you hated your child, you wouldn't discipline them.

Like, like I said at the beginning, Uh, teaching your children diligently, it's inconvenient, it's hard, it's tiring.

It takes love to work at teaching your children.

Without love, Why, why would I spank my son?

if I don't enjoy it?

Why would I do it?

I do it for his good. Right?

And that that's the other thing.

The the discipline hurts for a moment, but it's for their good uh across the long term.

Afterward, it yields fruit.

And the reason why we do it, I like that, I like that phrase in in 10, the end of 63, he disciplines us for our benefit, so that we may share His holiness.

If I don't discipline my son, am I teaching him holiness?

No. It is necessary, it's done with love and for his benefit.

But it can be tricky to do it well.

So, here's some, here's some thoughts on effective discipline.

If the child does not understand the lesson.

It, it's just pain.

There's no warning, right?

They have to essentially discipline, you're saying, here's a bad action, let's connect it with a bad consequence.

Make that link.

Bad action, bad consequence.

That's what you're doing.

If they, if they can't connect, uh, if they don't understand that their action is the reason why they're getting the consequence, You're not creating that link, you're not teaching them.

It's not useful.

So they need to understand the lesson.

Sometimes you think they understand and they don't.

So it's really helpful to have them repeat the lesson to you.

Uh, I can't tell you how many times I was about to discipline Allen, and I said, you know why you're being disciplined, and he gave a reason and it was like, oh no, it's not that at all.

So let's, let's go back to instruction real quick.

Um, it's helpful for them to say what the lesson is, one, that just reinforces it in them, but that also helps you understand that they know and that you are teaching the lesson and not just giving a punishment.

Related to that, effective discipline is done quickly after the wrong.

Ecclesiastes 8:11 is in a different context, but essentially it says, uh, because Uh, because judgment is not executed speedily, uh, the wicked have their hearts fully, fully set on wickedness.

Uh, the idea is that because they didn't have consequences for their bad actions, then they say, well, let's just go full steam.

Um, for our children, If the the longer we wait from from their action to the discipline, to the consequences, the harder it is to make that association.

So if you can discipline directly after the bad action, uh, it's, it's a much easier association to make.

But if, if you wait, you know, 8 hours to give them punishment, you know, they have had 8 hours of things pass between what you're trying to teach against.

And the consequences of that action becomes a lot harder to learn.

So effective discipline, do it quickly.

It helps a lot.

You have to spank them less.

Also, don't discipline and anger.

Ephesians 6:4 talks about not provoking your children to anger.

Um, one, there's a danger.

If you're, if you're spanking while you're angry, uh, it can change from It being a focus of teaching and learning to a uh a focus of venting, you don't want that.

Beyond that, if you respond to them in anger, they will respond to you in anger.

And uh that that's against Ephesians 6:4.

Uh, there's other reasons as well.

Uh, it's, it's hard to learn and to process when you are dealing with a lot of emotions, and children, as they're being disciplined, they're gonna be dealing with their own emotions.

You really don't need to deal with your emotions on top of that, right?

So, Ah, Sometimes you, you do need to take a step back, take a breather, calm down, then discipline.

Um, don't discipline and anger.

Uh, and finally, the parallel passage in Colossians 3:21, uh, says, you know, lest they become discouraged at the end.

So you're trying not to discourage your child as you're disciplining them.

Uh, that, that can be a challenge, right?

There They're they're about to hurt, right?

Because of their bad action, um.

Sometimes they say, you know, mommy, you don't love me.

You gave me a spanking you don't love me.

It, it can be hard for them to understand, you do love them, you're doing it out of love, you're doing it for their benefit.

And so it's important, so they don't, so that they don't feel discouraged that you reinforce your love for them, that they understand.

That it is in love.

Uh, that's another reason why not to do it in anger.

But we, we, we saw God the Father and his example of discipline.

We saw that in Hebrews 12, but it's also important for us uh to have the balance that God the Father has, because God the Father is also very merciful.

In fact, we're told in Luke 6:36, be merciful, just as your father is merciful.

So not only do we, do we have to discipline, but we also have to give mercy.

But we need to do it like God does it.

God isn't randomly merciful.

God is merciful when we are repentant.

God is merciful when we have a humble contrite heart.

Um, So, when your child is sorry for their actions, Don't discipline, show mercy because that's what God the Father does, and we should be merciful as he is merciful.

We can look at the uh the parable of the prodigal son.

I won't read it for uh for its length, but the son takes his inheritance, goes off, does bad things, and as he's away, he has a change of heart.

Uh, he becomes humbled from his actions, from his circumstances, and he, and he goes back to his father.

And the parable.

It is not that when he was coming back, his father came up and and gave him a scolding and said, Son, you're really messed up this time.

You shouldn't have done that.

You were in the wrong.

That's not what happens.

What happens is the father runs out to him while he was a ways off, and, and, and hugs him and weeps because he is so So glad to see him.

And And that's the attitude we should have when our children repent.

In fact, when uh the conclusion of the parable is when one siner repents, the angels in heaven rejoice, right?

Beautiful mercy.

That's the mercy we also need with our children.

God the Father wants to give you mercy.

We haven't talked a whole lot about obeying the gospel.

Uh, it's mostly been focused on how we raise our children to obey the gospel, right?

Um, But you can be a child of God.

You can be adopted into His family.

God wants to give you mercy.

Just, just like the prodigal son, humbled himself and came to God.

That that's what, that's what you need to do.

If you are not saved, if you are not right with God.

You need to, you need to humble yourself, um, you need to confess your sins, you need to change, repent, and you need to be baptized into the body of Jesus.

Or if you've fallen away, the scriptures say that we must continue faithfully.

Uh, if you need to make a change, You know, you, you have, you're, you know, if you don't want to do it right now, talk to somebody right after services, you know, but we offer you an invitation to do it right now.

Because today Is the opportunity to become a child of God, to be blessed.

Beyond measure, Uh, so we would invite you to come forward to make your life right as we stand and as we sing.