Foundational Principles on the Family

Have any of you ever had foundation problems with your house? How many of you ever had foundation problems? It costs a lot of money to fix that, doesn't it? The problem is, once you have foundation problems, the whole rest of the house becomes unstable. When Kim and I moved here from Texas, we looked at a lot of houses. There was one house. I really, I think I've told you this. I really wanted it. I really liked it. It had a huge yard, it had a beautiful barn, it had its own cemetery. I mean, how cool was that? It was this beautiful brick house. And I just said, wow, we've got to have this house. And we went through the inside and there was a big attic that was unfinished. And I looked at the realtor and I said, if I finish this attic, how much would this house go up the value of this house? She looked around, she said, probably take about 10,000 to fix it up. She did some calculations. She said, the value of this house would go up 50,000 dollars. And I'm thinking, wow. And we went outside and we're walking around the house and my wife says, what is that crack? Now, at this point, I'm seeing nothing but good, right? And there's a crack, a big crack that starts at the top of that house, winds all the way down the side of the house. And when it gets to the foundation, the crack is a major crack right through the foundation. And the real estate agent looked at me and said, you don't want to buy this house.

Because you know, when there's that much foundation problem, the whole house can become unstable.

Well, everything in life, I mean, we talk about God as the foundation of our life.

What I want to talk about today is something that has come up when I keep asking for ideas for sermons that are congregational meetings. It's something that's come up a lot, especially in Nashville. So, you know, do the same sermons between the two congregations.

People have been asking for sermons on family, marriage and family, dealing with children, dealing with, you know, just the world that we live in.

And as I've gone through, we've been going through the 10 Commandments. And the other reason I didn't do the 10th Commandment this week is because it has to do... That 10th Commandment really teaches us something about the Feast of Tabernacles.

And I want to give it here a couple weeks as we get closer to the Feast of Tabernacles. But when I talk about family, what I want to talk about today are some foundational concepts of a Christian family. So, in a way, we're talking about some very general concepts. In fact, the first two that we go through will be that I've covered, to a certain degree, in the 5th Commandment and the 7th Commandment.

The 5th Commandment guarantees the sacredness of parenting. It's about protecting the family. And of course, the 7th Commandment, about adultery, protects marriage. That there's a sacredness to marriage. So, we've covered a little bit of that, and I'm going to touch on those things because we're going to look at foundational concepts. And once you get the foundation laid, you get into all kinds of brickwork.

How you build this house. And we'll get into some specifics today. We'll do more specifics as time goes on, and occasionally give a sermon on marriage and family as we look at what the Scripture teaches. Because what the Bible actually teaches about marriage and family is not what is common in our society today. And to tell you the truth, some of the concepts, if we're not careful, are beginning to erode inside the Church itself.

Is that the Church itself? So we need to look at what are the foundational concepts.

I read a book years ago. It'd be interesting if this book was written today, what the conclusions would be. But it was an interesting book. It was called, The Traits of a Healthy Family by Dolores Corin. And what she did was she interviewed 551. I always like surveys that are done with larger numbers of people. No, not 10. 551 people who deal with issues within families. And they included ministers, doctors, medical doctors, family counselors, principals, teachers, coaches, social workers. So they were coming at this from a lot of different viewpoints. Some of them were Christian, some of them weren't. But they were all...she went through all these different people to say, okay, what are basic traits that we all could agree on? All these people could agree on. And she came up with a fairly exhaustive list of, here's something that all these people, and there was a football coach, or a minister, or a medical doctor, or a social worker, they could all agree, these were the traits of healthy families. And one of the most common traits that they all agreed on, that they saw when children came in, when they dealt with children, when they dealt with families, when they counseled with them, one of the most important foundational concepts was that they shared a religious core. In other words, that family had a common set of religious beliefs.

The first foundational principle of Christian family is it has to be God-centered. Now, we talked about that when we talked about the Fifth Commandment. But you say, you know, that's rather obvious. But here's something that happens in society, and to tell you the truth, it can happen. I've seen it happen in the church many times. What happens is, because we see the evil in the world, and we want to protect our families, we can insulate our families so much that our lives become family-centered. Now, family is important, right? But we're talking about priority, we're talking about foundation.

How do you... what do you build your family on? And it has to be on the foundation of being God-centered. It was interesting, because as this woman interviewed all these different, like I said, doctors and counselors and teachers, they all said that a problem that they saw was that a family could become so myopic that the family was the purpose of everything in life. Now, we're not talking about... obviously, the whole sermon is about the importance of family. But it's the priority that's the issue here. I want to read a statement that this author made. There are families among us today who idolize the family to the point that they expect the impossible for themselves.

And this is what this does. I've seen people who... a prime example, I saw a man, an Oranova man, who told his children... he didn't want them eating too much sugar. He told them, since they were children, that candy tasted so horrible that they would... and so, I saw people offer his children a piece of candy.

Oh, ew, that tastes bad. I don't want that. What happens one day if one of them tasted? See, we can become so myopic... I mean, actually, he was lying to his children. He's actually telling them to lie, trying to protect them. We become so myopic that the family is the sole purpose of life. So God is the purpose of life. Family is one of the things he gives us. She goes on, This kind of family has a built-in failure device. It believes that it just tries hard enough and focuses hard enough on itself and its needs. It won't have no problems. Think about that. If we can just focus hard enough on our family, we'll have no problems.

Well, I guess if you went and lived in a cave, well, you'd still have problems. That's not life. So we have to see family in a greater context. And seeing family in a greater context starts with understanding that it must be God-centered. That there's something actually greater than ourselves. You think about marriage. I've seen so many people work out marriage problems because they saw God as the center of their marriage. If they only saw themselves, they would have divorced. But if God's the center of the marriage, well, then I don't have that option.

So therefore I must work it out. Same way with the family. God has given us the family. We're defining family here. There's variations of this, but we're not defining family as two men who adopt a baby. We're talking about biblical family, which is a husband, wife, children, grandparents, cousins. They're all related. Now, that doesn't happen always in our society. And some people are living with, okay, I have children from my previous marriage and my wife has children from another marriage and they're trying to come together.

Okay, that's still a family. We're still trying to put together a family. If you're a single woman trying to raise kids, that is one of the hardest things for anybody to do, to be a single parent raising children. But the principles are the same. The principles are the same. The family is an extension of God's family. It's actually an extension of his governmental sovereignty, how he governs the universe. He tells us how family is supposed to work. So we have to see him as the expert.

He has to be the center of what we do. Because to live, to have a Christian family in the world that we live in, we have to sometimes go against our own feelings or go against what other people believe. And yet, having a family brings some of the greatest happiness in life. Marriage, having children, watching them grow up, develop into mature functioning adults, that's what we want to do. Family is also society's basic unit. The core family, the more stable a society is. It's society's basic economic unit. Without family, children have to go to work at age five. Well, there's been times in history where children, the slave labor of children, was quite common.

It is the environment. Now, this is where we'll get into this. We're talking about big concepts. So we're going on. We're going to break this down into a few more practical things we do, ways we build this foundation for family. And then how we build on that, well, that's a whole series of sermons. It is the environment that builds bonds between the people involved, emotional bonds, with common goals and common dreams and common experiences, common successes and common failures. There is a deep, important, emotional reason for family.

Part of the reason we have such problems in society, and throughout the world. I mean, you look at violent societies, you look at dysfunctional societies, and you will find dysfunctional families. You'll find dysfunctional families. It is to supply a stable, secure place for people to go to when they're in trouble. These are the people I go to who take care of me, who protect me, who help me.

And it is to supply a training ground to prepare children to become functional adults. As my dad always said, the great secret to child-rearing is to spend 20 years of your life preparing them to leave you. We don't want our children to be 35 years old living with us playing video games all day. That's not the purpose of parenting. It is to prepare them to move on. Now, I want my kids to live around me.

I want to have a relationship with them. And if trouble came, they're all welcome to move in. But we want them to be able to function at the stand of their own two feet. That's why, once again, we're going back to that sermon, the two sermons on the Fifth Commandment, that's why the foundation of all parenting is Deuteronomy 6. Deuteronomy 6. If we think the foundation of all parenting is making sure our kids get to Sabbath school, and I think Sabbath school is important, but that is not the foundation of parenting.

This is the foundation of parenting. Deuteronomy 6. I want to start at verse 6, because a lot of times we read verse 7, but verse 6 lays the groundwork as a parent. This is God speaking. These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. As a parent, God must be the center of your life. Not your wife, not your children, not your husband, not your job, not all the other things we make as the center.

He says, first of all, these things, what God teaches, has to be in your heart. Or the next verse can't be done. Because the next verse says, you shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Teaching children about God isn't having just a Friday night Bible study with them.

In fact, if that is the only teaching you do with your children as a Friday night Bible study, and the rest of the week your energies are expended so much in other things that they're not seeing you model God's way, they're not learning it just by the way you talk and by the way you act, and you're discussing it with them, and you're teaching them, and you're helping them along, you know what will happen as they get older?

They'll resent the Friday night Bible study. It's not part of a relationship. It's just another class they're forced to go to like they are when they go to school. So a lot of times, whether they like your Friday night Bible study or not will be depending on their personality. If they're a good sort of student, they may like it. In other words, as a parent, our teaching of our children about God has to be in us first, and that has to be a way of life.

It is what we are. It is what we talk about. So that's how they see us. We are God-centered parents. They're teaching them about becoming God-centered people. Which means, by the way, one of the most important things we can do for our families is to pray for them. Pray for your husband. Pray for your wife. I don't mean, God, please correct my wife, okay? Pray for God's direction and love and help for them. Pray for your children. Pray for them. One of the most important things we can do is bring them before God. So here we have this great concept, part of this foundation. And this is the most important spiritual part of the foundation of family.

The second thing we're going to talk about here is the most important emotional foundation of your family. Because the second great foundational block of family, Christian family, is the relationship between husband and wife. The unity between husband and wife supplies the emotional foundation of the family. If there is constant conflict and war between husband and wife, it will be passed on to the children.

Now, at the same time, by the way, you have to make a comment here to parenting. You can have a very good marriage and be very good parents and still wonder why your kids turn out bad. It's because you and I aren't the only influence on our children. And for one thing, Satan is an influence on our children. Society is an influence on our children. And there's all kinds of influences on our children. But we have a responsibility to play our part, to do what we're supposed to do.

And it is try to help them lay that foundation in their lives. And I say, try to help them lay it. You can't lay the foundation of another person's life. You can only help them lay a foundation for their lives. You can help them. You can guide them. You can work with them. They also have free will. And anyone who's trying to control the free will of their children finds out they have free will. But you've almost doomed your family if husband and wife have a bad relationship.

Now, that's just a meaning. Children are going to see the fact that no marriage is without problems. And that's not bad for them to see that either. Because guess what? When they get married, they're going to have some problems. But the more stable that husband and wife relationship, the more emotionally secure they become. Which really translates into usually very good things as they become adults.

Emotional security allows you to have confidence, allows you to accomplish things. It allows you not to become filled with anxiety, or to be overdriven, or to be lazy. All these things can have roots in this emotional security. And this brings us to something that's very sensitive in the Church. It's a passage we've all read. It's a passage you've all heard in the Sermons.

And we're not going to spend a lot of time on it because we're talking about big concepts today. But it is a foundational concept in marriage that is foundational to how your children see you and how they grow in child development. And that is Ephesians 5. So, this passage is the most read when any sermon or discussion of family, husband or wives, it is also, in many times, the most controversial in the Church because it is rejected by so many people, even in the Church.

Because society says this is an outdated and wrong viewpoint of marriage. It simply says that. And so people build their lives on ideas that this is a wrong foundation. Well, if this isn't part of your foundation, you're going to have difficulty in your family. Verse 22, now I'm about to alienate half my audience. But that's okay because in a couple of verses I'm going to alienate the other half.

Remember, this is Paul. I'm just the messenger, okay? Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Man, that's a strong statement! That's a whole other subject. But once again, we're laying foundation. If you say, well, how do I become a better parent? If your wife, first of all, become a better wife. If your husband, become a better husband. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the Church. He is the Savior of the body.

Therefore, just as the Church is subject to Christ, let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. Now, obviously, if your husband tells you to commit a crime, you shouldn't do that. I remember I did a marriage seminar one time and there were people there from another Sabbath-heaving group and they were so offended by me because the women said, no. If my husband tells me to lie, cheat, steal, I will do that because that's the command.

So are you not an equal person before God? If you're an equal person before God, then you're held responsible just as much as your husband before God. So that's not the point. But the point is, what we're just touching on today, is the idea that the husband is the head of the house and that women have a responsibility given to them from God to accept that and work in it. Okay, now let's offend the other half. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water of the Word.

He might present to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but he should be holy without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Okay, love my wife so much that for her sake I'd be crucified.

Boy, surely he doesn't mean that.

I mean, surely he doesn't mean give up fishing and hunting for my wife.

He can't mean that. He can't mean bowling night. Boy, there's a whole lot in this passage. We'll do a sermon just on this passage. What does that mean?

He says, So no one ever hated his old flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church.

Now he switches the whole subject here. There's two profound things in this passage. In verse 30, he starts the first profound understanding. For we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother to be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. Okay, so he goes back, he's talking about Christ and the relationship between the church and Christ, and he goes back to the first commandment given to the Bible about marriage, the institution of the marriage covenant, and now he's going to apply this in a way that's never been applied to the Bible.

Quite the way I can't say never, because God kept saying he was married to Israel. So that's not true. Last week I talked about telling the truth, so I have to tell you, wait a minute, that statement is not true. But a profound spiritual concept. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. In other words, we've talked about types a lot, right?

We've been talking about types every holy day. We've been talking about the mercy seat as a type of God's throne, and the Passover, the leavening, and the sacrifice of the lamb. These are all types of realities. Your marriage is a type. It is created by God that teaches the spiritual relationship between Christ and the church. I don't know about you, but that puts a little pressure on us here. That's a little pressure. I've got to love her the way Christ loves the church.

Yeah. So the first point is, this is a type. Now, it's an incomplete. Remember, all types are incomplete. All types are imperfect. God didn't say, and don't come a time in your life where he'll just be like Christ and you'll be just like the church. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, learn the lesson here. You can see this in a greater context.

Because your husband is a Christ, if you haven't figured that out yet. So if you're expecting to be, you are really going to fail. But the point being, he says, look, there's a whole spiritual context here which marriage fits into this. The next statement is the most profound understanding of marriage and the whole Bible of the relationship between husband and wife. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. The core of most marriage conflicts can be brought down to husbands.

We have to learn to love our wives. And what that actually means. And wives, you are commanded to respect your husbands. And what does that mean? Those are at the core of most marriage problems. A man not loving his wife properly and the wife not respecting her husband properly. So we'll tear into that subject at some point, too.

Because that's at the core of it. So how do I become a better parent? Well, we've got to get our relationship with God right so that it's in our hearts so we can teach it, which is what Deuteronomy 6 says. And then we've got to put enough energy into our marriages. That's hard what you have children. In fact, it's very natural for women, and they should to a certain extent. Before the children come along, the husband is the center of their relationship in that family.

And the children come along and sometimes the husband finds himself outside. Like, wow, I'm not the big man anymore. Yeah. And that's part of the stages of life, too. But there comes a point where, to be a stable family, you have to move away to make sure that that relationship is strong enough to deal with the relationship with the children. I've seen people get married because they had a bad... or have children because they had a bad marriage and say, oh, good, we'll have some children and that'll make our marriage better.

Nope. It just brought out more cracks to the foundation. So the stability of this relationship... So here we have these two concepts. Now, we're going to look at a couple other concepts. And this next one is interesting because this was found out when the people... or the woman did that... sociologist did the survey with the 551 people who deal with family problems.

And she said, okay, what are the traits that create children that function well? And one of the things they found out, I thought was very interesting, is that in stable families, there's well-defined and shared concepts of right and wrong. Well-defined and shared concepts of right and wrong. In other words, the husband and wife, first of all, have a consensus of what right and wrong is. And they model that behavior and then teach that behavior to their children.

And when children are younger, it's difficult to get them to understand it because they can't reason through it. Then they get to be a teenager and you have the opposite problem. They reason too well. So you have to understand, too, the methods you use to teach a child at 5 and 10 and 15 are not the same.

And if you're trying to teach your 10-year-old and your 15-year-old the way you taught your 5-year-old, boy, is that going to be a mess. Some of you may have seen this before. This came out many years ago. It came out from the United States Chamber of Commerce. They published a little track called How to Train Up Your Child to Be a Delinquent. How many of you have ever seen this?

Oh, okay. Let me explain to you... This is very interesting. They gave 12 steps. Here's how to basically ruin your child. Here's the 12 steps to do it if you want to ruin your child. One. When your kid is still an infant, give him everything he wants. This way he'll think the world owes him a living when he grows up. Two. When he picks up swearing and off-color jokes, laugh at him, encourage him. As he grows up, he'll pick up cuter phrases that will for you.

Three. Never give him any spiritual training. Wait until he's 21 and let him decide for himself. I've seen people in the church say that. My children will have to decide for themselves, so I'm not teaching them. They go to church and so forth, but I'm not really teaching them. What did Deuteronomy 6 and 7 say? As parents, we are commanded to teach them. God in this way. Then they make a choice.

I guarantee you Satan doesn't play by those rules. He'll teach them. Society doesn't play by those rules. The kids at school don't play by those rules. So you... I mean, it's just... it's naive. Four. Avoid using the word wrong. It will give your child a guilt complex. You can condition him to believe later when he is arrested for stealing a car, that society is against him and he's being persecuted.

Five. Pick up after him his books, shoes and clothes. Do everything for him so he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility on others. Six. Let him read, or we could say today, watch anything he wants to. Sterilize the silverware, then let him feast his mind on garbage. Seven. Quarl frequently in his presence, then he won't be too surprised when his home is broken up later. Eight. Satisfy his every craving for food, drink and comfort. Every sexual desire must be gratified. Denial may lead to harmful frustrations.

Nine. Give your child all the spending money he wants. They'll make him earn his own. Why should he have things as tough as you did? Have you ever heard that before? I've heard people say that. Ten. Take his side against neighbors, teachers and policemen. They're all against him. Eleven.

When he gets into real trouble, make excuses for yourself by saying, I never could do anything with that kid anyways. And number twelve. Prepare for a life of grief. That's a pretty remarkable list, isn't it? There's a lot of truth to that list. And at the core of this message, this list, is the realization that children must be taught moral behavior and held responsible for their behavior.

But if you don't teach it, how do you make them responsible? So they must be taught, they must be held responsible. Including sometimes you have to let them suffer the consequences of their wrongdoing. You can't always protect them. And you can't make life fair. So you also have to teach that sometimes life's going to be unfair, and people are going to treat you badly, and that doesn't give you the right to do what is wrong.

That's not easy either. We must discuss these issues with our children. You know, you can't just simply quote the Bible. Well, God says, we have to say, we have to be with them. We have to talk to them. We have to help them work through the problems they're going through. And remember, children, even teenagers, will tend to judge moral issues emotionally first, not objectively. That's not because there's anything wrong with them. It's because all children respond emotionally to things first, objectively second.

So if we just say, thus sayeth the Lord... I'll give you an example here. I'm tempted to try and experiment. There's not that many kids here under the age of 12 and under. Do this at home. I've actually done this publicly, and it always comes out where so many kids, when this question is asked, are conflicted. And some of them will say one answer, and some of them will say the other. And it's not because they don't have moral training. It's because they're responding emotionally.

You say, well, you can look at your child and say, boy, have you got that wrong? No. They're responding emotionally. If you have children, go home and ask them this question. Which of these children is being naughty? A child sneaks up into the cupboard to get some candy and drops the candy jar and breaks it. A child is helping mother set up the table and accidentally jerks on the tablecloth and breaks a whole bunch of mommy's favorite dishes.

Now, as an adult, you all have, I know which one is the worst here, right? To children, it's not that simple. See, the first one is, what? The child's stealing. That's an objective standard. Since the child is stealing, this is the worst of the two events. What do many children decide? One jar, a whole bunch of dishes, or mommy will be so upset. Those are her favorite dishes. She'll cry. Therefore, this was the more evil, the more wrong of what happened. That's not a lack. You say, well, boy, my kid has no moral understanding.

No, it's because children judge morality emotionally first. And that goes clear up into the teenagers. In fact, if we're not careful, we still do that sometimes as an adult. We don't use objective standards. We judge things emotionally. And so, how many of you would really punish the child who broke the dishes?

Now, they may have a penalty. Well, you were just being careless. But you were treated totally different than the child who stole. I've asked children this before, I've done it with groups of children. And some of them get it right away, and so many of them, it's such a moral dilemma. Because mommy will be so hurt. We have to understand that. We have to discuss that with them. We have to help them work that through. Yes, I'm upset for you for doing this, but I'm actually more upset for this. But it was just a jar.

But you were stealing candy! There's the moral, the greater moral issue. One of the most important things that you could teach a child is that right and wrong, that in every endeavor of life, your success, your happy relationships, even your personal happiness, depends upon a fight that you fight within yourself. A fight of self-control to do what is right. Because many times, your normal, human feeling is to do what is wrong. It's going to corrupt human nature. That term won't help your six-year-old. But your feeling, you normally feel to do wrong, but it is wrong to fight it.

Look how many adults today are just big children, no self-control, and they do whatever they feel. They're just big children. It doesn't matter how old you are, success in life is a battle, and it's an internal battle with self-control over right and wrong. So they have to learn there's going to be a battle.

Or they just give in to the wrong eventually. But eventually, they just give in to the wrong and everything. So when we teach them about right and wrong, we have to deal with the emotional exercise of that, self-control. Now, something I've found over the years, by the way, with we little kids, just little point, it doesn't work all the time, but it helps with small children. I learned it from a teacher. When they're losing self-control, the more you try to reason with them, the more out of control they get because they can't process what you're saying.

So the best thing to do is have them close their eyes, fold their hands, and take about three or four big breaths. There's teachers who do that in the classroom. Okay, everybody, it's time to relax. Fold your hands, close your eyes, and take three or four big breaths. And then they get them calmed down. And sometimes that can work with a child who's struggling with self-control because at that point, it's so emotional. You can tell them the objective truth, and it won't matter to them.

They can't process it. So we have to deal with our children with what they can process at the time. A fourth basic foundational concept is a willingness to communicate with each other. Well, we're all trying to talk here. I mean, we're all trying to communicate. We're all trying to communicate. We're all willing to communicate. We get that one down. I don't know. How many times have you heard a parent say, you know, I just...

they never... they never listen to me. How many times have you heard a wife say, he never listens to me? How many times have you heard a husband say, she doesn't understand me? That's what... you always get... they don't listen, they don't understand. How many times have you heard a kid say, my parents just don't understand me? So everybody's talking, but nobody's listening or understanding. Part of the problem with children is we have to get into their skin.

And remember that when we were 10 years old, we saw life differently than we do now. You know, the human brain isn't even totally developed at 10 years old. Now, they're capable of an awful lot, but we have to get into where they are to teach them where they are. I'm not saying compromise was right or wrong. I'm talking about communication. I'm talking about being able to connect. So what we want them to do is to connect with us as an adult.

Well, yeah, there's times they should. There's times we have to go down where they are. Okay, where are you coming from? Stephen Covey in the Highly Effective People talks about this concept, and he gives this little story.

How, if we're not careful the way we can deal with things as parents, he says, suppose you've been having trouble with your eyes and you decide to go to the eye doctor for help. After briefly listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and hands them to you. Put these on, he says. I've worn this pair of glasses for 10 years now. They've always helped me. I have an extra pair at home. So the children come, we give them the solution, but we have not figured out, first of all, where are they?

Now, your solution may be absolutely right and correct, but remember, with children, if we do not deal with the emotional side of issues, you probably, we only deal with half the issue.

They are more emotionally driven than objectively driven. The younger they are, the more that's true.

So, here, put my glasses on. So you put on the glasses. And then it only makes your problem worse. This is terrible. I can't see a thing. The doctor says, well, what's wrong with you? They work for me. Try harder. So you tell her, you can't just try harder. I'm trying, but everything is a blur. What's the matter with you? Just think more positive. You're too negative.

Okay. I positively can't see a thing. Boy, are you ungrateful. The doctor says, after all I've done for you.

Yeah.

You're trying to get that person to see things the way you see them, without first understanding how does this person, how does this little person see that?

I'm amazed, you know, having five grandkids around, all at different ages, I just love to ask them, why did you do that?

Because they all have different reasons, you know. Tell me, why did you do that? And sometimes they give a reason, you think, in a strange little way that somehow makes sense.

They couldn't see the consequence, right?

And I especially found out with the five-year-old, because she just turned five. She, you know, just barely five, and she tried to keep up with the seven-year-old and the nine-year-old. And I realized I would get frustrated with her. Why are you doing something bad?

And then I asked her, instead of, you know, hey, stop that. Come here. Tell me, why did you do that? She explains it to me. She's trying to be nine. She can't figure out why she can't be nine.

And she gets frustrated. So she punches the nine-year-old. Okay. Punching's wrong, and we're going to deal with that. But let's talk about the fact that you're only five, okay?

See, it's emotional. It doesn't make sense.

And I've been very frustrated with her, but I'm learning enough to be so frustrated as I ask her why. Because I'm finding out she's just a frustrated little kid that can't keep up with the other two. And she can't figure out why she can't.

But behavior's got to change.

It's like the father once said, I just can't understand my kid. He just won't listen to me.

I mean, I can't understand my kid. He won't listen to me. Those are two different statements.

I can't understand my kid. Period. He won't listen to me. Period. Okay, we get two problems.

But in this man's mind, it was one problem. If you'll listen to me, then I'll understand him. Now, uh-uh. If you'll listen to me, he'll listen to you. If you understand him, you'll understand him. Those are two different things. And they're related, but they are two different issues. Proverbs 18-13. You and I have to do this as parents, and then I'm going to tell you a case where I learn this.

With my own son. Proverbs 18-13.

He who answers a matter before he hears it is falling in shame to him. Do we ever think about that with our eight-year-old? Or our sixteen-year-old?

You see what I mean? We come into a situation, we see where they're wrong, and we deal with it. But why? Let's figure out why. Let's teach them why this does not work.

Because sometimes they can... well, that's wrong. Because daddy says it's wrong. But when daddy's not around, it's not wrong. It's only wrong because daddy says it. You see what I mean? When my son was... and I can't remember how old he was. He was in high school. I guess he was about sixteen. I got a phone call one time. Teacher said, I hate to bring this to your attention because your son is a very good student. But your son is disrupting my classroom. And I said, really? She said, yeah.

She said he's hilarious, for one thing. He's very funny. And she said, no matter what I do, he'll say something funny. And there's all the boys in the class sit around him and they all laugh. And it's gotten to the point where he just disrupts my classroom. And I can't get him to stop.

Now, my first reaction is, boy is that... I'm going after that boy. Right? I said, well, I'll talk to him. Try not to show. That was upset. She said, would you talk to him right now? And I said, what? And all of a sudden, dad? He's on the other end. And I could tell by his voice that he was highly concerned that he was talking to me at this point. And I said, Chris, what's going on?

He said, well, dad, I need to explain this to you. And just the way he said it, I said, well, you know, Chris, okay, let's talk about it when you get home. I need to hear your explanation. I said, but right now, understand that classroom is hers. When you're in that classroom, you do what she says. But we'll talk about it when you get home, because obviously there was something you wanted to talk about. So he said, okay, I heard him as he handed her the phone, I heard him say to her, I'm sorry, I won't do that anymore. So the teacher got on the phone, she says, I've never had a student treat me that way before.

He just looked at me, and she says, I have no idea what you told him. You know, the only thing I told him was, not because I was wise, I didn't know what else to do at the moment. I said, we'll talk about this when you get home. You know, you need to tell me what this issue is. Well, he comes home, and, you know, hey! He said, dad, I need to talk to you about this. So he sat down. Now, I knew the school they went to, by the way. We had gone from a little town in rural Wisconsin, where the biggest problem was, there were two, I remember my daughters, and there were two big problems in school.

There were a couple boys who got caught smoking. And another time, there was a girl who got pregnant, and she disappeared. You know, she was just going. She wasn't in class anymore. They didn't know what happened to her. She's going. Now, they're in a school of 5,000 kids in San Antonio. A school that is... The buses are stopped on a regular basis, because the police come in and just clear out all the drugs. Kids taking guns to school is normal. It's a difficult place. He said, Dad, he said, you know, we've got an interesting problem here.

He said, it is a very racially diverse group of people. It's probably about 60% Hispanic and about... Well, 40% Hispanic, 30% black, and 20% white in the school. 5,000 kids. He said, Dad, there's gangs all over the place. Well, I noticed that when we first saw we went to school.

Kids said, look, all those boys are dressed the same. Look, there's a group of kids over here all wearing the same jacket. What was really funny is, of course, there's an Air Force base right just across the street from the school, just a couple blocks away. So, you know, there was all the ROTC kids. The military kids were their own gang.

You know how you knew it? They're all walking around in clumps with their uniforms on. Don't mess with us. Okay? That's the message. You can see six, eight boys walking along, their uniforms are on, and they're together. It's all gangs. The whole school, even the ROTC, is a gang. And Chris said, Dad, you know how I survive in this? I asked him if he wanted to be old school, and he said no. No. He said, I survive because there's one Hispanic gang where I'm so friends with them, that when people come to pick on me, they show up and say, he's with us.

And he says, I have one black gang where I'm friends with them. And when someone comes up to me, he says, because I'd be fighting all the time. They say he's with us. He said, the reason I act up in class is because they look up to me. It's my way of surviving. After hearing the story, I did not punish him. I simply told him, you do what you have in class, she's in charge. Outside that class, you do what you have to survive. What's amazing, he went all through high school and never had a fight. He was a big guy.

People were always picking on him. Any time he told me he came home one day, he says, I almost had a fight today. I said, why didn't he? He says, I lost my temper. He said, I was afraid I was going to kill him. He said, I would have killed that boy. He said, I realized I couldn't. That's a tough environment. Because you fight the survive. Fight the survive. We have to find out where they are. We just keep putting our glasses on them and saying, look at the world the way I do. That went and helped him one bit. We have to go where they are and then teach them about right and wrong.

I know he'd ever act in class after that. Never had one. All the teachers said, this is a model kid. Between classes, he acted up. He was the funniest guy in school. And as he gets bigger, everybody gets a little afraid of him, too. The last point is that family members have strong emotional bonds, but they encourage individual development. It's sort of sad when parents try to live through their children. Have you seen parents try to live through their children? My high school days were the best years of my life. You're going to wear the prom dress I never got the wear. This is about helping them become who they're supposed to be.

That's why it's God-centered. That's why it's the marriage relationship-centered. That's why it's teaching them right and wrong. It's about always taking these children and communicating with them, participating with them, and then helping them become who they're designed to be. It can be frustrating if you were a great athlete and your son can't catch a whipple ball.

I'll never forget my dad told my son. I told my son, It's so frustrating. You're six foot tall, 220 pounds, and you have all this athletic ability. I said, Chris, if I wanted to just play, I had to do ten times more work than you do. If I had your size, your strength, and your ability when I was a teenager, on that football field I would have been a force to be reckoned with. My dad looked at him and said, No, he'd have killed somebody.

Yeah, you're right, Dad. God knew not to give me all that stuff. On the other hand, all this athletic ability plays, and there wasn't that drive, that overdrive that happens in competition. He just didn't have it. We have to work with them who they are. It's very fascinating. In Judges 13, we have the story of Manoah, the father of Samson. We went through this just recently in the Bible studies we're doing.

In the book of Judges. Manoah's wife comes and says, An angel came to me and said that we're going to have a son, and we have to teach him a certain way. Manoah prays to God and says, Send me that angel so that I can know what I'm supposed to do. In verse 12, God sends the angel of the Lord to him. Manoah said, Now let your words come to pass. What will be the boy's rule of life and his work? Isn't that interesting? Okay, God, you need to tell me what will be the rule of life of my son and what will be his work, not the work that Manoah wanted him to do.

We know the rule of life taught by God, exhibited through the life of Jesus Christ, but do we have to help them discover their life's work? Proverbs 22.6. Our last scripture here, 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. Train up a child in the way he should go.

It's a very personal statement. Train up a child in the way he should go, or she should go. The modern language translation says, Educate a child according to his life's requirements. Even when he is old he will not veer from it. The word train here, translated train in the New King James and translated, educated in modern language, is from a Hebrew word that literally means, now they don't figure it to be meant to train, to prepare, it means literally to narrow.

There's like, you have something wide and you narrow this down. Narrow your child down in his life's requirements in the way he should go. The imagery of Hebrew is amazing to me because it's a language that deals with imagery. That's why I'll never give a sermon on the Song of Solomon and explain the imagery.

It's pretty graphic in Hebrew. It's very graphic in Hebrew. So narrow your child in the way he should go. Bring it down to his, her life, where they should go. And that isn't just the morality, the religious part. It has to do with who they are. And we must take a hands-on interest in the development of their character, but also the exploration of their own abilities.

You ever see a person grow up and do a job that their parents wanted him to do? And they might be good at it, but they're not happy? You know? Oh, but Dad always wanted me to be a veterinarian.

What did you want to be? I don't know. At age 6, I wanted to be a clown. At age 10, I wanted to be a race driver. At age 15, I wanted to be something else, but I knew I was always going to be a veterinarian. But in the end, it's not what I wanted to be. We have to help them discover what their abilities are, what they're supposed to be. The erosion of the family has been taking place in this country for decades.

We have sown the wind as a country. We are now reaping the whirlwind. I do not believe our society can come back from where it is. The family structures collapse so much that people are not being taught the very principles we're talking about here. And you can't build a solid society without these principles. I mean, the United States never was had all these principles. It's never been a totally God-centered society, has it? But at least there was some there. There's always been marriage problems, but at least there was some family unity there, continuity there.

And as long as you had some of it, you'd have a strong society. Well, even that little bit's gone. And our society is deteriorating and falling apart. And here we are with our children and our marriages, and we're grandchildren, if we're grandparents. And here we are dealing with a deteriorating society, but we are called by God to represent His family.

And your family is a little microcosm of what God is doing. It's not easy. Building a godly family is hard work, even in the best of circumstances. In this society, it's impossible without God's help. It's impossible without His help. But we must represent a different set of foundational values. And we just went through five today. Now, these will be expanded out into the building of the house. Five foundational values. One, being God-centered. Two, developing stable, loving relationship between parents.

Three, developing and educating well-defined concepts of right and wrong. Three, participating in active listening and meaningful communication. Four, exploring and encouraging individual development among the children. This is the foundation. If you have this foundation in your family, you can then build a strong and stable Christian family.