[Dan Preston] A few weeks ago, I was surfing around on the internet. I was on one of my favorite websites it's devoted to car culture and it had this interesting article on it about how when they make a movie car, what they do nowadays is they basically make the panels snap on and snap off, so they can change them for the different scenes. So if they need the car really clean, they can just put on the clean panels. If they need it with battle damage and bullet holes, they take that off and they put that on if they need a different color, or whatever. And it was pretty interesting.

It doesn't have anything to do with the sermon. But as I was scrolling through that, I noticed there was a link to one of this website's sister publications over on the left, and it was actually a link to an article and the article title caught my eye. The title of the article was "Godless Parents Are Doing a Better Job." "Godless Parents Are Doing a Better Job." And I thought, "I've got to check this out and see what this is." So I clicked on it. It took me to a website, took me to a blog written by Tracy Moore in February 2015. The website is www.jezebel.com. It sounds a lot worse than it is. It's still not a website I'd necessarily recommend, but it's a website devoted to women's interests.

But the gist of the article was more of less what the title says. She starts the article with a reference to another article, which was actually an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times by a sociologist by the name of Phil Zuckerman. And he takes the position that godless parents are those who mark the None box when it comes to religious affiliation. You may have heard it on some of the different B.T. presentations, this group of people that's referred to as the "nones." Not N-U-N-S, but N-O-N-E-S, no religious affiliation. He takes the position that the nones, the godless parents, do a pretty good job of raising moral children.

He interviewed and cited a U.S.C. professor, Vern Bengston, who says this. He says, "Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the ‘religious’ parents in our study," Bengston said. "The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having purpose." Zuckerman then went on to say that, these godless parents instill good values in children. “Chief among these: rational problem solving, personal autonomy, independence of thought, avoidance of corporal punishment, a spirit of 'question everything' and, far above all, empathy."

Now, Moore, who wrote the original article that caught my eye, drew this conclusion. She said, "The reason of course, is obvious. Morality comes not from a book, or a guy up in the sky," meaning God, "but from the idea that how you treat people matters, because how people feel matters. The Golden Rule. Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you is, Zuckerman writes, ‘an ancient, universal ethical imperative. And it requires no supernatural beliefs.’" Now, I had to laugh a little bit when I read this because she cites the Golden Rule, which of course Christ cites in Matthew 7:12, "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you."

And I had to laugh a little bit at the idea of believing in God as supernatural. I suppose, maybe that's the way some people look at it. So I think I laughed more of annoyance than anything else. But it made me laugh, and then I had to stop and think for a second. You know, we could sit there and laugh at this person's point of view. We could sit there and say, "Well, they're ignorant. They don't understand. God hasn't called them yet," and that's true. But that doesn't mean that we should laugh at them. This is how people think. This is how a significant portion of the population that we live in thinks. This is the logic that's applied in parenting. It's the logic that's taught in our schools.

Maybe most significantly is that, that it's being presented to our children. "You don't need God or anyone else to really guide you or your decision. Just do what's right for everybody. Be nice. Be nice." While you and I might have the choice to say, "Well, you know what, I'm not going to associate with people who think that way, who talk that way, who try to take God out of good character," our children don't necessarily have that same choice. Do they? They're exposed to it. They're exposed to it everywhere they go, whether it's in school, on T.V., the ads you see driving down the road on a billboard, wherever they might be.

Our children are exposed broadly and widely to godlessness. And that's not to say all of society is godless, but it is a significant presence in the society we live in. The scary thing, as your kids get older, you realize someday they're going to leave home. Someday they're going to leave home and they're going to begin asking questions to themselves, of themselves. "Do I really need the Bible to tell me how to live? I mean, does God even exist? Who is God? What is God? What is His purpose? Who is man? What is man? What is his purpose?" The Big Seven, as Dr. Ward mentioned this weekend. The big seven questions of life.

There's going to be a day when our kids ask those questions because this is a battleground that we are in. It's a battlefield we're on. So as we enter into Mother's Day this weekend and think about parenting, I would like for us to examine our battle against godless parenting. Our battle against godless parenting. Now, if you don't have kids, you might think, "Well, this doesn't really apply to me." But it does. The battle against godless parenting is one that we are all involved in and whether you have children or not, it involves you in a very big way. In this battle, it's not a matter of me saying, "Well, we need to have values out of the Bible taught to our children. We need to make sure that we are doctrinally accurate."

I mean, those things are all true. I think that's a given for all of us here today. The question really, rather, is how do we fight this battle? How do we fight this battle against godless parenting that is becoming so common in the world today? I think the first thing we need to understand when we fight this battle is this: it's not the battle against godless parents. It's not a battle against godless parents. We must be very careful as we enter into this battle that we don't wind up becoming character assassins of people who are raising their children this way. We must be careful that we don't enter into a battle of character assault.

For example, let's imagine you have a child in school and they come home, and they tell you about their best friend, Johnny or Susie, whoever it might be. And they really like Johnny and Susie, and they're a lot of fun to be around and they're so glad to be with them. But somehow, over the course of time, you find out that little Johnny or Susie is being raised atheist because their parents are atheists. What reaction might we have? It would be very normal, very easy, I should say, if we were to say, "Man, I cannot believe that. How could anybody with half a brain who loves their kids teach their kids there is no God?" And then we could give a sermon on Romans 1, talking about how creation itself manifests God's existence.

The hard part is, those thoughts enter our mind and the words then begin to come out of our mouth, and we begin to say things like this, things in front of our children. But the problem is, what we might be trying to tell our children, that people, parents and children alike, need God in their lives, they need to have an understanding of who God is, what God is, what His purpose is, if we are not careful and we become character assassins, that's not what our words sound like to our children. Our words might come out sounding much different to our children than what they sounded in our head and may sound something like, "I don't like your friend. I don't like your friend's parents. They can't possibly love their own kids because they don't know there is a God."

We have to be careful. I have a good friend I went to high school with. From the age of about 12 years old, she was a devout atheist. She has two children, loves them, loves them very much, cares about them. If we begin going off the rails and taking the assault to the personal character of people who have wrong ideas, what sort of example are we setting to our children? Let's turn to Proverbs 18, Proverbs 18, and notice a couple of things, what happens when we start confusing the issue of people not understanding with people not loving or caring? Proverbs 18, let's start in verse 2, Proverbs 18:2. It says, "A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart."

Now, we often might look at this and say, “Yeah, that godless parent, they don't understand what a fool they are." But wait a minute. Don't we tell our children not to jump too quickly to conclusions about people we don't even know? What happens when we start tearing apart the character of a parent we've never met? Do we become that fool, because we don't understand or even know that person? Now, I'm not saying their position is right, please understand. But we must be very, very careful that we don't make this a personal character assault and become guilty of this very thing.

Reading on verse 13 says, "He who answers a matter before he hears it, it's a folly and a shame to him." Now, we presume that somebody who raises their kids in an atheistic way is a terrible person, because, well, they don't believe in God. So, therefore, they can't possibly care about their children. Is that true? Or does the Bible say that if we assume that, it's a folly? Verse 17 says, "The first one to plead his case seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him." Again, we spend our lives teaching our children Matthew 7, don't judge before you know the whole case. Because however you judge people, that's how you'll be judged.

Do we like people to assume that we're fundamentalist Christian wackos that burn churches down because people don't believe with us? No, we don't want that kind of assumption portrayed upon us. So we must be very careful not to become hypocrites. Because if we become very quick to judge and we make this an assault on people and not a wrong idea, then we've caused some severe damage to our own character. Notice what it says in verse 19. It says, "A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle." What happens when that brother we offend is our own children? Because we become hypocritical, we become hypocritical in our stance.

We must be careful. We must be careful that what we tell our children godly character is and using wise judgment is, is what we do. It's what we practice. So point number one, be very careful in the battle against godless parenting that we don't become character assassins. Always remember, the enemy here is not misguided people it's Satan, the devil. 1 Peter 5:8 tells us that Satan is the enemy. When we get into what it is we really want our kids to learn, what is that? In a fundamental, I think we could say all those of us who are parents, or who may be parents someday, what we really want above all things is we want to teach our children, we want to see them live God's way.

We want them to take out the trash. We want them to clean their rooms. We want them to get a job, pay their taxes, put money into Social Security, all those things. We want them to grow up to be leaders of the next generation in the Church. Absolutely, those are all good. But you know, they're symptoms of something much larger and that much larger thing is growing in godly character, living their lives in a godly fashion, pursuing the mind of Christ. So in the battle against godless parenting, let's be careful not to be character assassins.

The second thing to consider in what it is that we do as we fight this battle is the old axiom, "It's not what you say. It's how you say it." Now, at first, this might seem contradictory to the first point where I talked about it's very important on what we actually say. Let's think about it this way. It's not just what we say it's the actions that go along with it. As we move beyond people that we want our children to be influenced by and into that core question, that core desire of wanting our children to develop godly character, we need to be careful that we live the message and not just give the message.

Perhaps, you've heard that old saying, "Don't give me a sermon. Show me a sermon." Right? Show me how it's done. Tell me… or rather, don't just tell me, show me. How do we do that? Let's take the Sabbath day itself for an example. We tell our kids, "Okay. It's Friday night. We're not going to be doing this activity. We're not going to go to a movie. We're not going to do these things. It's the Sabbath." Right? What do we do on Sabbath day? What do we do on Sabbath day to show that we are honoring God and we are honoring the Sabbath day?

Do we treat it with honor? Do we talk about the Sabbath, about what a joy it is? Do we take time to notice the fruits of the Spirit that we see growing, maybe in other people, maybe even in our own children? Do we take time to say, "You know? Here's something I've been working on, kids, and I need your help." When we see the fruit of the Spirit growing, when we see those things: the joy, the love, the peace that's beginning to occur in people's lives, do we take time to point that out? Do we delight in the Sabbath? Do we honor it? Do we take time to back away from the cares of the world? Do we take time to stop thinking about work, money issues, politics, sports? Do we really honor the Sabbath?

It's a rhetorical question, one that I'll let you all ask yourselves and one that we should consider as we go about giving a daily sermon to our children. That's just one example, the Sabbath day. I think one way to help manifest the importance of this point is a technique I heard about once upon a time that says if you find yourself in a difficult situation of some kind, whatever it might be… it could be you're having an issue with work. It could be you're in contention with someone. It could be financial concerns. Maybe it's just juggling the concerns of time and space, and the logistics of getting from point A to point B. And we start to deal with it, human nature comes out.

We get a little grumpy, unfun to be around, take a step out of that for a minute and think, "20 years from now, when my kids are in this same position and they're just having to adult, they're having to live life, what do I want them to do? Do I want them to act like I'm acting right now? Do I want them to say what I'm saying right now? Or do I want them to do what I've been telling them to?" And if those two things don't match up, then it's time we really take a step back. It's time we really take a step back and make sure that the sermon that we're living matches the sermon that we're giving because that's exactly what we're doing.

Every day, the examples we are, are what our children become. I talked to someone this morning who relayed an interesting story. This particular person has a father who is left-handed, and they grew up watching their dad write. But they're right-handed. So to this day, they write right-handed, but they write the way a leftie does in that weird way that I can't quite figure out. But they do it with their right hand like this. Lefties do it to keep from smearing ink on their hand. This particular person, they do it, they wind up smearing ink on their hand because they're right-handed. Why did it happen? Saw Dad doing it every day. And that's not right. It's not wrong. It's kind of funny, but it just happens.

We give a sermon every day. We give a sermon with how we live. What we say has far less impact than what we do. Proverbs 23, just over a couple of pages here in my Bible, excuse me… Proverbs 22:6, Proverbs 22:6, very familiar scripture, one that we often go to when we think about parenting. It says, "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 they go, they should not depart from it." It seems pretty self-explanatory. We need to have hands-on parenting. We need to be involved. We need to train them. But let me give you a slightly different take on this particular scripture.

I went to school to be a mechanical engineer. The school I went to had a co-op program, University of Cincinnati. If you're not familiar with the co-op program, this is how it works. You basically go to school for one year, and then you're middle three years, you alternate. You do, well, it's semesters now, it was quarters then, of school, and then you go and work for a company that basically has you be an assistant to an engineer, so you can kind of learn what engineering is all about. And you do that for three years, and then you go back to school full-time for another year. It makes it into a five-year program, but well worth it if anybody is thinking about going into engineering or any other field that offers co-op.

The guys I worked with my first co-op job had a saying they kind of developed over the years, and it went along these lines. It says, "Train up a co-op in a way that he should engineer, and when he is your age, he'll be your boss and make twice as much money." The funny thing about that, it's true. It was true. It happened a fair amount of time. And while in the business sense it may not be exactly what we want to happen, if we have an employee's interests at heart, we want to see them succeed. Don't we? How much more so then, for our children? We train up our children because we want them to succeed. We want them to do a better job than we did.

When we see ourselves in a situation, when we realize we're not handling it right, that moment in time is the time to step back and say, "You know what? It's not the way. It's not the way." The word for "train" here, in Proverbs 22:6, is the Hebrew word chanak. I probably did not say that even close to correctly, so I'll give you the spelling. C-H-A-N-A-K. C-H-A-N-A-K. To me, it looks like chanak, but apparently the correct way is chanak. What it actually means is to initiate or to discipline, but not discipline as in corporal punishment. It means discipline, as in to train to be a disciple, to disciple our children in the way that we should go.

This past weekend at the G.C.E., I had an opportunity to sit in on a seminar given by Mr. McNeely. It was a session about discipling and being disciples. In the roundtable discussions that occurred afterwards, someone brought up the point, the best model that the Bible gives us for discipling is Deuteronomy 6, training our children. I thought that was profound. What better understanding could we have about how to train disciples— discipling than raising our children? Let's turn to Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 6 in verse 6, and note what the scripture says.

Deuteronomy 6, starting in verse 6 says, "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart." Not just coming out of your mouth. Not just coming out of my mouth. In our heart, part of who we are, how we live, the sermon that we live, not just the sermon we give. Verse 7, "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, when you rise up." In the battle against godless parenting, it's not just a matter of getting our kids to Sabbath school on time or telling them they can't play football Friday night.

It's taking the opportunity to show them at every turn, when we sit down for dinner, hopefully as a family. If we're not, we're missing a golden opportunity. When we get up and have breakfast when we walk by the way, we don't necessarily walk by the way so much anymore, we usually drive by the way, but in the car, when we're driving to the grocery store, or if you're teaching them how to drive. We have an opportunity not to just talk, but to live God's way. When someone cuts us off in traffic or takes that last chuck roast that was on sale this week right before we get there. How do we live? What's our reaction? Does what we do match what we say?

There's a book entitled Intentional Parenting. It's written by Sissy Goff, David Thomas, and Melissa Trevathan. Full disclosure, I have not read the book. It's on my short list of books to read but the subtitle of this book, I think, says volumes. The subtitle of the book is this. It says, "Autopilot is for planes." "Autopilot is for planes." The concept is basic: to be a parent that's teaching your children godly character, it needs to be intentional. Not just words and repetition, not something that we walk through. It needs to be intentional at every step in the way.

It's a continuous job, and it's one that we have to lead by example. It's one that we lead by example, not just as parents, but as the body of Christ, and we'll talk a little bit more about that in just a few minutes. But it's a continuous job that must be done intentionally, and it must be done by example. Our children will learn. They will be taught by example, one way or the other. What example will we allow them to learn from? One that tells them they don't need God, or one that shows them how much we do? The arguments for godless parenting are pretty sneaky. They sound pretty good on the surface, and like most deceit, they're often mixing truth and error.

Continuing from the article written by Moore here, she says this. She said, "I'm not one of those people who thinks anyone who is religious is dumb, or narrow-minded, or any such thing." In other words, "I'm not judging." It says, "Mad props. Even kinda jealz." That's short for "jealous." She says, "I'd love for God to be something I could catch. I'd be like how I am with football: If only I could like it, I'm sure I would if nothing else, have way more friends… So I've known wonderful people who believe in God, and wonderful people who don't. But what I really prefer is that people don't need religion to figure out why it's worth being a good person. Who do good things because it's what makes a community better, an existence better, and not because it's how you get your salvation points."

I think we understand as adults, this logic is flip-flopped. Isn't it? It's because we do understand God, we do understand His plan for mankind, His love for family. That's why we do what we do. That's why we want our children to have godly character. She goes on to say this. She says, "We don't need Bible verses to tell your children how to be good or nice or kind, or how to give back to others, to help those less fortunate, to accept people who are different from them. When you tell your kid that you're on earth for as long as you're on earth, and no one really knows what happens after, it can be liberating." People not understanding what happens after we die doesn't make them bad people.

But what happens is they take this argument, and they make it sound like, "We have all these good points. See? We don't need God to tell us to be good, to help others that are fortunate, to be nice, to be kind, to give back to others," and we give those points over to them. They say, "Well, yeah. Okay." And we can't just say, "Well, yeah. Okay." We must let the points that they make for godless parenting: being good, being kind, loving, we must make sure that those points are our points as well, and that they are our points because of God. And we must do that through action, through how we live. Because when we stop living that, when we stop showing it and just go back to talking about it, that's when we begin to lose the battle on godless parenting.

Don't let the battle against godless parenting be lost due to a lack of action. At this point, you might think again, "Well, okay. This is interesting information, but I don't have kids.” Or, "My kids are already grown." As an adult child, I can tell you, your parents never stop being your parents. You can ask my mom and dad. They have been my parents all my life, even more so the past couple of years, and I say that with a lot of joy and gratitude. As we get older, we still need our parents. Those parents still have a role in our lives and a very important one in helping us in this battle. But if you don't have children, you still have a role.

The third thing I want us to consider in this battle against godless parenting, it's not a battle for parents to fight alone. It's not a battle for parents to fight alone. Of course, we understand, we have God's Spirit, we have God, we have Jesus Christ helping us, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about physically, you and I, all of us in this room, we all have a role. This is not to say that parents aren't the ones responsible. Let's turn to Ephesians 6 for a moment, Ephesians 6, and read some of the specific instruction that Paul wrote in regards to parenting. Some of the most specific instruction we have, by the way, that was given by someone who, as much as we understand, didn't have children himself, but notice what he has to say.

Ephesians 6:1, it says, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.’ Honor your father and mother,’ which is the first commandment with promise: ‘that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.’" That's a promise. Now, I've heard that used as a threat before too, to say, "If you want to live to see sun up, you better get your room clean." But that's not what it's talking about. It's saying that God honors those who honor their parents. It's the first commandment with promise, we've heard whole sermons about that, "that you may live long upon the earth."

Verse 4 says, "And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath,” boy, it takes a while to learn that lesson, doesn’t it? "But bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord." Let me say that again, "but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord." Fathers are specifically mentioned, but we understand this applies to moms as well. Parents, it's our responsibility. It's not someone else's. It's mine, my wife's. It's my responsibility to make sure my kids don't run in the hallway. It's my responsibility to make sure my children honor the hoary head. It's my responsibility to make sure that my kids learn to clean their rooms, to respect other people, to love and honor God.

What's interesting about this, Ephesians 6 here, is this is actually, of course, at the end of the book and it's part of a much, much larger context. If we go back a couple of verses at the end of chapter 5 here, we read about the relationship of husband and wife, and of Christ to the Church, and the description in those verses isn't just about who gets the final word. Verse 25, it says this. It says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for her,” chapter 6 then talks about parenting. What environment and context must we be showing our children, how we treat our spouses. It's out of an attitude of give, concern for them, concern for the family as a whole.

But even this isn't the complete context. The book of Ephesians has a general theme of unity. The first three chapters more or less outline that as doctrine from a doctrinal standpoint. The last three chapters, chapter 4, 5, and 6, then we begin to get into application. That's where it talks about the role, the body, the environment that raising children comes in, and that's the very last thing that's mentioned there, towards the end there in chapter 6. But building up to that, we see the environment that we want our children to live in.

Ephesians 4:1, Ephesians 4:1, it says, "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling which you were called,” “Therefore," whenever we see that word in the Bible, "therefore," or "wherefore," what that means is, "Because of all the other things I've just told you.” Because unity is important, because unity is a requirement of the Church, because of all that, walk worthy of this calling. The King James Version, instead of a "calling," it says a "vocation." Your job, our job, my job, as the Body of Christ, we're to do this, we're to create this environment of unity.

Verse 2, it says, "With all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love,” When we come to Sabbath services, we should give an example to all the little ones running around what it looks like to bear with one another in love. Verse 3, "endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." What does peace look like? What does it sound like in our conversation? When we're talking about someone who's not there at the moment, is that peace? Is it unity? That's where we as a church play a critical role in the battle against godless parenting.

Verse 4, it says, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling." We're one body. We need to act like it. We need to act like it. We need to be unified. We need to be that environment for healthy spiritual growth for the children amongst us. Verse 11, it's interesting here, we get into various roles in the church. It says, "He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,” but notice the purpose for all these different roles inside the body is the same. It says, "for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

All these things that we do, each role that we play individually, collectively, it's to edify the body. It's to help that body be healthy, to be educated so that parents can raise their children in an environment of unity, of peace. Verse 14, I think it's interesting, it says that "We should no longer be children," because guess what? We're adults. We're not children, and guess what? Our children are children. They're still children. It says, "We should no longer be children, tossed to and fro or carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting."

There's a lot of deceitful plotting. When we read some of the excerpts for the arguments for godless parenting. It's all around us. We can help them learn godly character in a world of godless parenting, in a world that tells them they don't need God to be good. Verse 15 says, “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head— Christ— from which the whole body," every single one of us, "joined and knit together by what every joint supplies," we all have something to supply, "according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

We all have a part to play, a necessary function, whether moms and dads, other members, grandparents, friends, associates. We all have a job. We all have a role. Verse 29, we see more specifics given here on how we can be a part of that unified body. Verse 29, "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearer." One thing you learn about kids early on is they hear everything, absolutely, and they will hold you to it. What we're saying is it edifying? Does impart grace to the ears of those little hearers?

Verse 31, it says, "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice." Check it at the door, leave it behind, “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” When we go into chapter 5, we read about husbands and wives. Then, in chapter 6, parents and children. See how these things all build upon one another? We as the body can do much to help all the parents here in the battle against godless parenting.

As we begin to conclude, let's go to Proverbs 20. We're back in Proverbs once more and note something. Proverbs 20:6, it says this. It says, "Most men will proclaim each his own goodness, but who can find a faithful man?" As parents, we often think our example is the perfect and righteous one, or at least we start off thinking that way. It doesn't take us long to figure out what our kids already know, we aren’t perfect. We aren’t perfect, we need help. While we as parents have authority over our children, we need also to have wisdom to understand when we need help.

We have many great resources here, particularly in Cincinnati Congregation. We have many grandmas and grandpas, people who've had years of not just experiencing and parenting, and grandparenting, and great-grandparenting, but people who've had years of experience living God's way of life in a world that's told them, "You don't need God to be good." We sometimes look at a church and say, "Well, it's aging and that's a weakness." I say it's our strength. It's that wisdom. It's that understanding. It's those words that impart grace to those little hearers.

Parents never stop being parents, and one of the first things older parents will tell you is you never stop learning how to be a parent. As younger parents, we need to take a cue from that, and we need to realize and understand when we need help. We need to look to the wisdom that's around us, take it in and utilize that vast resource, that wisdom, that knowledge, help us ask for help, ask for help when we need help. As a part of the body that supports godly parenting, not godless parenting, but as a part of the body that supports godly parenting, we must be there ready, willing, and able to help.

And the battleground that is the world we live in, where the battle for the control of our children's minds is fought, we must be very careful that we battle ideals, not people. That we don't become character assassins and wind up teaching our children a character that is exactly opposite of what it is we want them to learn, that is the opposite of godly character. We must be careful not to become hypocrites. We understand and recognize that being godly parents is far more than telling our kids the rules. It's showing them how to live. It's living that sermon, not just giving that sermon. And every set of parents needs help from time to time, and we can all be a part of the unified Body and help in that battle.

The very next verse here in Proverbs 20:7 says this, and I thought this was very interesting. Because at first, when I read Proverbs 20:6, I thought, "Well, that doesn't necessarily apply so much to parenting." But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it did. Verse 7 says this then. It says, "The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him." We might sit there and we might think, "Why work hard? My kids will have a big inheritance." Well, that might be true. I think we can look at this verse in a much different way as well.

When we live our life, a life of integrity, being active, being intentional in our parenting, fighting the battle against godless parenting, not through character assault, but by teaching, by showing our children what they need to be, the character they need to have. When we live our lives faithful to God and His ways, then our children will have been blessed, learning to have done the same. Our children will have been blessed, learning to do the same. And we understand what a blessing that is, to be called out of this world, a world that tries to tell us we don't need God and a world that so desperately does. The battle against godly parenting is a big one, but it's a battle we can win and it is a battle worth winning.