Teaching Children How to Honor Their Parents

A couple weeks ago, I gave a sermon about family principles and how to create a family that actually teaches children to honor their parents. We had the sermon and then we had the Bible study afterwards. I thought the discussions in the Bible study were extremely good. I appreciated what people shared, what they talked about. What happens when you come from families where they weren't functional? The problems that many of us here have, just because your family was divorced, or alcoholic father, or all these different things. How come everybody else's family is so perfect and mine wasn't? The example I used in that sermon, I said, some of you—and I was surprised how many people remembered the Waltons on television. The perfect family. And then you have the dysfunctional chaos over here of a family that doesn't work at all. But that ideal is an ideal. We're called to move towards that ideal. So there is no ideal family. We're all in our families, in our marriages, everything. We're moving towards that. And we're trying to leave the chaos, the dysfunction, and the terrible hurt and pain and the things that come from families that just don't work right. So when we talk about the ideal, that's what it is. We have to always remember that. And nobody has that. But as Christians, we can move towards that. Whether we're parents, grandparents, or just people in the congregation that are interacting with other kids and the support that we can give each other. We talked about how if there's no perfect families, there's no perfect parents, no perfect children, but we do have a commission from God as parents. It's actually, we're given a commission from God to raise children. When you have children, we're supposed to raise them. We're supposed to teach them. We're supposed to work with them. We're supposed to love them. And in that process, which is a lot of struggle, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of difficulty, we help them learn to stand out on their own two feet when they reach adulthood. One of the things we struggle with when raising children is, of course, that they have their own free will. And I mentioned a child-rearing book I read many years ago where it was said that the purpose of training children was to literally beat the will out of them, or the spirit out of them. Which will produce psychotics.

I mean, it will literally produce very dysfunctional people. I don't mean every person turns out that way, but it is very dangerous what that kind of viewpoint can develop in children. We can't take away their free will. I don't care if you're the perfect parents. You can't decide for your children when they become an adult whether they're going to follow God or not. You can't make their decisions for them. If they're 35 and living at home and you're making their decisions for them, it's time to get them out of the house. They have to move on. Now it's great the relationship you can have with your adult children. I love having adult children, because we're all friends. We have a great relationship, and we do things together. We have fun together. Every once in a while they'll come and, Dad, I have a question and I'll give you some advice. Most of the time, we're just close, and I'm happy to have that relationship. It's not what you have with them as children, because sometimes you're not their friends. You are their parents. Well, what I want to talk about today is expand out what we talked about last time. Breaking it down by the end into a few specifics. We talk about all these grandiose concepts that we try to do, the principles we try to live by, but we need to also break that down into some real things we can do. Sometimes it's just very small, but they're stepping stones. I remember a person telling me one time that they weren't going to try to teach their children about God until they got to the age where they could decide, and then they would decide whether they wanted to follow God. But Satan doesn't play by those rules. I mean, the reality is our children are born into a world which Satan is real, and they're born into a world where they have corrupted human nature, and everything in the world around them, not everything, but much of what's in the world around them drives them, if they listen to it, away from God. So they're in this struggle. They're born into this struggle, just like you and I were. And so we can't wait to work with them. There's a very core, simple ideal that's in the Scripture that we read all the time. I didn't read it last time, but I'm going to read it now. Go to Deuteronomy 6. And let's start in verse 5. Because the statements that come after this are based on this concept. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. In other words, they're to be in the core of who you are. God's words, God's teachings, God's laws are supposed to be within us, as those who are baptized, who have God's Spirit, is supposed to be part of our minds, part of the core person of who we are. And then he says, you shall teach them diligently. Now, that's not a passive word.

In other words, this is an active, meaningful output of work and struggle and sacrifice to do this. You did diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. Now you shall talk of them. Now this is a whole lot more than just having a Friday night Bible study with your children. This was in a world in which the families spent enormous amount of time together as they moved across the desert into the Promised Land.

They were families which made up tribes, which made up the group of Israel. When they got into the Promised Land, it was almost entirely an agricultural society. They worked together. They ate meals together. They plowed the fields together. Everything they did, they fixed the house together. So the family unit was very close. And the instructions are that whenever you're with them, whatever you're doing, be sure to have conversations, and also by your example, you show them God's ways. You show them who God is. The whole idea here is that you teach your children through relationship. Through relationship. I've talked to many people that have talked about their childhoods, and one of the great travesties in some ways in the American history was that the Industrial Revolution removed the men from the house.

But the modern economy has removed the women from the house. So there are many children who are not raised in any meaningful way by mom and dad. They are raised by other people because they're not there much at the time. I know I mentioned to you a while back a book. I didn't read all of it. I read the summary of it.

Written by a famous psychologist. She became an overnight bestseller with this book, and it was how, as a single mother, well, she's married now, but no, she's not married. She's living with a man. And she is a woman who has two children, and now she's married with a man, and she's this real famous person. She said that she had decided to realize, after everything she went through, because she didn't believe in marriage, and she really didn't believe in family, but she wanted to keep her two kids with her, that any family, that there's a husband and wife that have stayed together with the children, so a nuclear family that's actually stayed together during the raising of those children, they should have to pay more taxes so that they could pay for all the people who don't have that privilege.

It was considered privilege. People who have that kind of privilege should pay for the rest of us. I don't know. You're a rich woman. I don't know why you want my money. But they have to pay for the rest of us. That's how this is spiraled and spiraled and spiraled. When the original concept that God gave humanity was, this is a unit of people who are connected with each other, and these parents teach them His ways. Now, a lot of the people here that have teenagers or a little bit older children aren't here today, so I'll be saying this.

But I want to make a comment to children, anyone that can understand this. So if you're six, you can understand this. Let's go to Acts 2. You don't know what little kids get. I asked my granddaughter after the sermon this morning. So after that sermon, I expect you to try a lot harder to be a better girl at she's what? How old is she? Three? Oh, she's five. No wonder her answer was such more intelligent. I thought it would be. And she looked at me and said, I will.

I thought she heard something in there. I don't know what she heard. Does that mean I'm not 49? Paul or Peter is giving this sermon and he's giving it to a large group of Jews who are coming to a very hard realization. They had known Jesus. They had seen Jesus. They had followed him, some of them, you know, and he had been the center of the Jewish world there for a couple of years.

And he was killed and he was resurrected. And they couldn't hide from the fact that he was resurrected. Hundreds of people saw him. You know, you could talk to somebody and say, oh, I've seen him. I talked to him. And he talked to somebody else. I've seen him too. I talked to him. They can't hide what's actually happening here. And so they're being confronted with the realization that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. So in verse 36, this is how Peter sums up his sermon.

Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. So he's talking specifically here to the Jews and the Israelites. Much of the New Testament is written to just the wider group of people around the world, the Gentiles. But he's specifically talking to them because he's in Jerusalem. He says, now when they heard this, the people, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brother, what shall we do?

Peter said to them, repent, let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then verse 39, for the promise is to you and to your children and all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call. He says, this promise is to you and your children and then it's going to go out to everybody because they've been commanded to take it to everybody.

But notice he says your children, when you are called by God and you come into the church and you repent and you receive God's Holy Spirit, your children aren't in that same relationship with God because they don't have God's Spirit. But understand, your children are in a relationship with God where the doors open. The doors open.

When a child comes here into this community, we all assume that that child has an open door to God.

When they pray, God listens. As they move, as they grow, if they wish to follow God, they have an invite. Now God won't force them to stay. He never forces anybody. He never forces anyone to become converted. And sometimes a person just doesn't see their call and wonders off. God says, I'll work with you later. But understand, they're not just here because the adults are here.

They're here because they received an invitation from God. And as parents, we need to see them as people with an invitation. We need to see them as people that we, as the privileged parents to have a potential child of God, we have a responsibility to teach them, to live with them, to have a relationship with them, to love them, to try to lead them in this way. It is responsibility that we have. So we want them to understand that we are teaching these things because we think, we believe, we know that God has opened the door for them, and they have a better life if they go this way. And God wants to live with them forever. That's a big concept when you're three. Okay, but as you get older, those things can become real concepts, things like salvation, forgiveness, repentance. So we already read we're honoring your parents as a command. So that's the honor to children. Now all of us are children. I'm a grandfather, but I'm still a child. Both of my parents are dead, but for many, many years as an adult, I still honored them as parents.

Although I look back now and I think, you know, as adults, sometimes it's easy not to think to honor them. I wish I would have honored them more. Because you just, you know, you're going on through life. They're going on through life, and it's like, I should have honored them more. I should have said a few more things or done a few more things to make sure they understood that I was, I honored them. So we're still children in a relationship. We still have a, with our parents as we go through life. At an early age, we start to realize, sometimes at a very early age, that that little baby has its own will, and they are going to be influenced by the world we live in.

They're going to be influenced by Satan, their own human nature. They're in a struggle with their own human nature, their own selfishness. Even as a little baby, sometimes you see it, that selfishness is there. And we, God has commissioned us to help them work through that as much as they will participate with God. Notice Ephesians 6. And this is something that helps children, if they can grasp this, how we communicate that, though, is very important. Ephesians 6.1. Children, we read, now we did read this scripture last time. Children, obey your parents and 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 your, that you may live long on the earth. Obey your parents and the Lord. So obedience and honor are tied together. You cannot honor your parents if you're constantly resisting obeying them. But you think about it, isn't that our relationship with God? We honor God. One of the ways we honor God is we obey Him. When you, you and I, disobey God, we are dishonoring Him. And when we, or when children, disobey their parents, they are dishonoring their parents. It's hard for children sometimes to understand that as a Christian parent, we have their best interest at heart. But when you're best, you think your best interest is a big bag of gummy bears, and they don't, then they decide you don't have their best interest at heart. And they have to be trained through these, the development of the character. Now, remember we talked last time about how you can have the two extremes of an unhealthy family that is based on being parent-centric. In other words, everything's about the emotions of the parents. Because if everything's about the emotions of the parents, the kids are going to think, okay, I won't do this wrong thing because if I won't do this wrong thing, they won't get mad at me. In other words, they're not going to avoid it because it's wrong. They're avoiding it because they're afraid of what mom and dad's going to say or do. So somewhere in this we have to teach them that there isn't absolute concepts of right and wrong. But also, we talked about not having a child-centric home.

If the whole functions of the house is around the feelings of the children, boy, are you going to have a hard life. And they're going to have a hard life.

Because all they're going to do is make everything into a dramatic fight so that their emotions are what control everything. And you know, if you grow up and carry that into adulthood, it's not possible to have good relationships with other people. You can't have good relationships with your spouse or with your friends or your children because everything is about you. So those are two things we have to avoid.

So as parents, we realize, okay, it's not about our emotions, but it is about our commission to expect obedience. We are to expect proper obedience. Now, I say proper obedience.

We, it's something, just what Paul says, we should expect it.

That children are given instructions that are appropriate for age and understanding.

They're given instructions because it's good, not just because you're trying to control them.

And then they are expected to carry those out. And there is some kind of discussion or some kinds of consequences for not doing those things. And this is where we're going to get into the concept here in a minute of virtue. So we're going to talk about virtue in a minute. Let's go to Luke 2. Once again, I put this in here for, this one is for the young people who can read the Bible, which most aren't here. Luke chapter 2.

But a few are, so you need to look at this. Luke 2, verse 41. Because this is written for children and teenagers. Children and teenagers.

I say teenagers. There wasn't really a concept of Judaism of teenagers.

You were a child until you reached about 12 or 13, and then you ended up in the adult world. You weren't completely an adult yet, but you were expected to act much more like an adult than we expect young teenagers to do.

Verse 41. His parents went to Jerusalem, this is Jesus' parents, every year at the Feast of Passover.

When he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.

When they had finished the days as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother did not know it. But supposing him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances. Now you think, well, what were they doing? They didn't even pay attention to him. Well, okay. You have to think about there are estimates that at this time, up to a million people came into Jerusalem during the spring and fall Holy Day seasons.

All these Jews are coming in, not only from Judea, but from around the world.

And here they come into this city, these huge throngs of people, and they're with their acquaintances and their families. So the whole extended family and all their friends, they all went into Jerusalem. It's time to go. Now, they didn't jump into their minivans.

They're all walking out. The lucky ones are on a donkey.

So they're all leaving maybe a wagon of some kind. So they're all walking out, and they're all headed back home. And you've got to think about the throngs of people leaving. And, you know, the kids are playing, and they're all leaving, and they're not too worried about things. And after a whole day, Joseph Mary says, well, it's time for dinner or whatever. Where's Jesus? I don't know. Was he with you? No. They go around and ask the other friends, the other family members, no, he's not with us. And the panic sets in. You know, all these people, all these people.

So it says in verse 45, so they did not find him, and they returned to Jerusalem seeking him. And so it was that after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and his answers. Now, I want you to think about how strange this situation is.

No parent here has ever had anything like this.

You can't find your 12 year old boy. It takes you three days to find him. You go into the place where the greatest religious minds of the world are. As far as Judaism, this is the greatest religious minds of the world. These are the teachers of the people of Israel. These are the priests. And this 12 year old boy is sitting there having a conversation with them and asking them questions and then answering their questions. And they're accepting this. He's so brilliant. They're simply accepting this. That this 12 year old boy gets to come in and talk to them like this and have these discussions. And it's been going on.

You know, he just found a place to sleep at night and showed up the next morning.

Verse 48. So when they saw him, they were amazed as his mother said to him, son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously. Do you know what you put us through? You can see it right now. Do you know what you put us through?

We've been sick. We were a whole day's away. You know, took a day to get back.

And then we wandered around Jerusalem for another day. And here we find you in the temple. You didn't tell us.

Now, I want you to... the next statement has to be put in context.

Mary knew that the baby that was in her was miraculous. She was told by an angel, basically, this is the Messiah. When Jesus was born, she said, this is the great one of God, the anointed of God. Joseph knew this too. So it's not like they think Jesus is just a normal guy, a normal kid, but still the shock of this and the fear of this as parents. And he says to them, verse 49, why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business? But don't you know who I am? Now, as a parent, it'd be like, young man.

But, you know, it's like, well, yeah, we know who you are, but you can't do this. Now, he had sinned. He was doing what he's supposed to do. He's 12 years old now. He's in the adulthood.

But his parents, of course, no, you're supposed to be with us. But they did not understand the statement which he spoke to them. Then he went, this is important. This is important for every kid in this room. I don't care whether you're eight or 17 or 18, you know, coming into adulthood.

Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart. Understand if you are a child or a young person. We say, oh, we all have to be like Jesus Christ. We're supposed to follow his example. He actually gave an example and had it recorded for you. And that is, when you're 12, you do what your parents say, even if you're the Messiah. That's a pretty incredible thing when you think through that. When you're 12, you do what mom and dad says, yeah, even if you're the Son of God.

So this is an expectation of children. Now, once again, depending on the age, beyond the understanding, I mean, there's a lot of things that go into the maturity level of children, but this overall expectation is there. So when we get into, okay, what do we teach them then?

Well, the first thing we think of is we teach them not to sin. We got to teach all the bad things, against all the bad things. And there is some truth to that. But it's more than that.

Christianity just isn't, thou shalt not. Now there's plenty of thou shalt nots.

Christianity is about Christian virtue.

Virtue is the character of God. It's how God does things. It's how God it's how God's mind works. It's his values and it's virtue. When we look at sin, we're looking at vice, which is the opposite of virtue. Vice is the exact opposite of virtue. Okay, what is the virtue?

What is the virtue? Jesus said, a man came to him and said, what should I do?

What, you know, I want to obey God. He says, well, love the Lord with all your, you know, I wish the two great commandments was actually accident. He says, love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and love your neighbors yourself. Now it's very interesting.

If we are going to do what Deuteronomy says, and we're going to follow the two great commandments, and sort of this is the foundation we're going to build off of, then we must teach our children that they can have a relationship with God. The doors open to love God is at the core of what we're to teach our children. God, you know, and you try to explain at whatever level that they're at the best you can, and they begin to realize after a while, you don't know everything about God. No, we don't. This is way bigger than us. But that you love God, and they should love God. That God is actually there. He's real. And in that, you should love your neighbor.

But the priority first is God. We live in a world that defines ethics as loving your neighbor first, and the defining God, however you want to define Him, love your neighbor first, and the define God, however you want to define God. The problem is, if I have to love God in the context of what comes out of that is love my neighbor, then I have to find out, first of all, something about God, and secondly, how He defines love. We don't define it. Because we define it as feelings. And there are emotions involved in love.

But the love of God is greater than that. So if we say, how does God define love?

Okay. What do we start with? We start with principles that break down into very practical behaviors.

So if you're going to build a model for raising children or being a good grandparent, you start with the two great commandments, and then you go to the ten commandments.

But you just don't say the thou shalt nots. Remember, in the last sermon, I said, one of the things we do with human sexuality with children is sometimes to try to get them not to sin, we make sexuality like a bad thing. And we have to teach them that sexuality is good in the context in which God made it. It is good in the context in which God made it. It becomes something hurtful outside of that context. It's something destructive on the person, on the people involved outside of that context. So we start with the ten commandments and okay, thou shalt not kill. Of course, the virtue of that, as we go through this, you start thinking about virtue. The virtue of that is I must not hate. And then I must love even my enemy. That's virtue, you see?

Virtue is, I mean, if you're murdering, there's no virtue in that at all. They're just evil.

You move forward from that into, okay, I must not hate people. Then I must love even my enemy. That's virtue. Virtue is taking the very mind and character of God and making that our purpose. That's what we want to do. And as much as we can, I mean, you can't do all that with a child.

And there's certain things only God's Spirit does, but we must orient them towards virtue.

You don't do this, but you do this. You don't steal. Not if you not steal, you don't just go around messing up other people's property. Property has value because God gives all of us time on this earth and says you can own things. Eventually, the virtue of not stealing is generosity. I actually gave something away. Now you have virtue. Not stealing is good, but you could not steal and hate it all the time because you want to steal. So you could not, you could keep the Ten Commandments and hate every moment of it because it's not what you want. Virtue is the movement towards the actions and the mindset that is like God.

Once you go through the two great commandments, the Ten Commandments, you move towards the Sermon on the Mount. And what? I'm going to build my child ring. No, no, let's go to this. No, no. What is it that we're trying to accomplish?

It's now we're into, in the Sermon on the Mount, all the teachings about what the law is really all about, what God's doing. Okay, you know, blessed are those who mourn. No, blessed are those who are happy 100% of the time. There aren't any people that are happy 100% of the time. Blessed are those who just, you know, they're born perfect. They look perfect. They never get depressed. Nothing bad happens to them. Yeah, that's a fantasy. There's nobody like that. Nobody. Blessed are those who are more blessed, are those who suffer. Blessed, why? Because God is with them. Well, you got to be at it. It's right there. You have the fruits of the Spirit. Now, it's interesting in the fruits of the Spirit. We don't do this very often. We've all memorized the fruits of the Spirit.

But when you look at, you know, the list of the fruits of the Spirit, go up to verse 16 before. And then in Galatians 5, start in verse 16. And what you read is, Paul says, let me tell you the lust of the flesh. Here's all the dysfunctional, here's the behaviors of people that destroy people, that destroy who they are. And there's just lists up there. It's a much longer list than the fruits of the Spirit. So when we start talking about virtue, virtue has to explain what the opposite is. So virtue doesn't like, oh, we're going to be virtuous here, but we don't have to worry about sin anymore. No, virtue explains what is the opposite of sin. And he contrasts the two.

And then 1 Corinthians 13. Those are all virtues. So you have all these virtues that, yes, takes God's Spirit to really develop, but you can also see children without God's Spirit begin to develop some of those virtues. And sometimes they're just born with it. You ever see a child that's just born kind? It's amazing. Because it's just not normal. Most of us are selfish, right? And you see a child that's just born kind. And you see, wow, what a virtue. Or a child that has this natural compassion on others. And it's like, wow, and I'm not even that compassionate, right? And I'm an adult. We see that compassion. We see that virtue. And then when you work with children, you'll see them learn to start actually learning virtues. I don't want to do this.

I want to do this. They're making decisions, not just because I'll be punished, because punishment happens, you know? It's because I have a love of virtue. I love God with all my heart and my soul and my mind. I love God, so I love virtue. Now, you can't... no child's gonna be perfect in this, because you know why? There is an adult in this room that's perfect in that. Not one of us.

We don't have perfect virtue. But as we learn it, we pass it on. We pass it on. We help them to be able to understand it. You know, the parenting from the Tree of Life classes we did a couple years ago, there were some couples here that were involved in that. One of the big lessons in that was 19 lessons or no 17 lessons. It was a long, that was a long course. But I was glad we did it.

I appreciated the participation of the couples that are in it. They were serious. They were involved. But they have one entire section on the concept of virtue. And so what they do, there's this chart that everybody got that was the difference between the virtue and the sinful state. Okay? And it was pretty fascinating. I just wrote a few down. Benevolence, you know, just being open and kind to others. Selfishness. Two different things. And every child has selfishness in them. And we're trying to move them away from that. Just like you and I are trying to move away from that. Compassion versus mercilessness. We've seen people, you've probably met people who have no mercy at all. None whatsoever. Especially if you do something against them.

You do something against them. You deserve whatever happens to you. And I'm going to make it happen.

And there's no ever an opportunity for compassion. The sermon versus short-sightedness. In other words, people who cannot judge when instant gratification is not the answer. I, late at night, I like watching things on YouTube.

Usually history things. But I'm going to make a confession here.

I watched this family. They've been on now for over a year. And they started with their little boy.

I don't know how old he is. I'm not even sure what language you're speaking sometimes. Sometimes it's English. Sometimes it's not. And their first YouTube was the little boy sitting there and the dog sitting there. Anybody seen this one? Oh, man. I'm the only weirdo. And they bring in a plate of food and set it before the boy. And it's like his favorite fruit. It's like sliced apples with strawberries or something. And he's all excited. And the dogs are all excited, too, because they're just inseparable. And they tell them, wait, you cannot eat that until we come back. And the mom and dad leave the room. But they have the camera on. And the way the boy and the dog look at each other, and then they put little things like they're probably what they're saying, you know, that sure looks good. I'll eat it if you eat it. But the whole thing is how he'll pick it up, smell it, then put it back. And every time he goes to eat it, the dog is not excited. Like, if you eat it, I'm gonna eat it. You know, and then it's like, I can't eat it. And they do these kinds of experiments with this little boy and his dog. But you know what? That kid is going to be, in some ways, way ahead of most children. Because he learned over and over and over again all these different things. Instant gratification isn't what's right. What's right, I don't know why, but right now what's right is I wait. And then soon they come in and he's shoveling in. The dog's eating it. One time the dog ate his food too fast. The little boy's sitting there and gave him a piece of his. You know, it's like, but the whole point is they're teaching him something that's quite remarkable. So now that he's up walking around and stuff, they have him doing all kinds of experiments with him and the dog. But they're all teaching him something. I'm not saying to go watch it. It's, it's, it is funny though. Forgiveness versus revenge. Humility versus arrogance.

Obedience versus defiance. Defiance is not a virtue. Defiance leads to sin. So we want to teach obedience. Self-control over rashness. And that's what they're teaching. This little boy is self-control. Truthfulness versus lying. Wisdom versus foolishness. And they had a page of them. I just pulled a few out. And you think about, this is what we're trying to do. As someone said this morning, yeah, I learned this. I figured this out after my third or fourth child. By that time, the oldest one had left the house. I said, that's the way it is. I know some of this because I learned it by doing it. Not because I knew it when I started.

Parenting doesn't come with, I mean, it comes with a book, but each one of these kids is unique. Each one has their own new personalities, those strengths, those weaknesses. And we're trying to work through that. And in many ways, when you start out, you don't realize that you're almost children raising children. I mean, it's, it's, you're not really prepared for what's coming along, but you learn it just as they learn it.

And I've had many parents say, I was so hard on the first one.

In fact, someone said that to me the other day. They were listening to this, the sermon from two weeks ago and said, I was so hard on my first child. I think that's why God says, I give a special blessing the firstborns. And he said, God gives a special blessing the firstborns because they become so shaped to do it right. God says, let me have those people. They're hard to work with, but they'll do it right.

Sin is God's definition of dysfunctional, harmful, unloving, evil behaviors.

And all those behaviors are rooted in the opposite of virtues. If you make a list of virtues, what's opposite of that is the root cause of sin. So instead of just dealing with the behavior, we try, we try to teach them the virtues.

As we learn the virtues.

Now, one last point. Children, you know they're learning virtue when they try to honor you and obey you, even when you're not around.

If they haven't learned virtue, then it's like, oh, they're not here. I can get away with it.

If they're learning virtue, then it's like, no, that's, that's, I remember my dad, he told me, he said, yeah, he says the first time we sanded floors. He said the first time his dad left him to do the last coat on a big gym floor. He said, I thought, great, he left. He said, I was going to go get a cigarette and smoke that cigarette and just man, I'd been working all day. I didn't want to take the two hours to do this. I was going to take a big break. He said, and I tried and couldn't do it. He said, I tried and couldn't do it.

When I was about 17, big floor. Hey, I'm going to go. I get some other things to do. I'll be back in about two hours. Okay. I couldn't do it. I had to do it. I mean, I could not do it.

And I thought, he did the same thing to me. His dad did to him. He drilled it in him until this is your job. This is what you have to do. Go do it. Okay. And he walked in and said, wow, you're right on time. This is I finished. I'm wondering, was he looking in the window? What was he doing all this time?

We, there's an interesting story in the Bible that we miss. And I'm just going to mention, read this because it's so fascinating. What a child learns in terms of virtue won't, will not easily leave them when times get hard.

In other words, if you don't sin and then times get hard, just because you don't want the consequences, well, then sin becomes easy. But the virtue like, oh no, I don't want to work.

I don't know why I'm working. I'm doing this. I'm getting it done. He walks in and says, good job. And I'm thinking, I wanted to hear that. I wanted to hear that good job, right?

And I said that, like I said, he did to me what his dad did to him.

Let's go to 2 Kings 5. It is when it's virtue that it becomes a value part of your value system. And it's a part of your value system, value system, what you really truly believe, that you're going to hold on to that even when the situation around you wants you to do something else.

Verse 1, 2 Kings 5, Now, name and commander of the army of the king of Syria was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the Lord had given him victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper. So here is the top general of Syria, the sworn enemy of Israel. And he's a leper. His skin, his flesh is literally rotting off of him. He used to see, and you know, there was no cure. And the Syrians had gone out on raids and brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel, and she waited on Naaman's wife, a young girl. I would guess that means she was probably under 13 or 13 or under.

Here's a young girl. She was raised in the land of Israel. She's taught this way of life.

She's taught the laws of God. And suddenly her life falls apart. Syrian soldiers raid the village, grab her, they may kill her parents, it doesn't say, grab her and take her off. And she's now the slave into a woman who's married to the top general of their enemy.

That'd be a good time. I mean, you think most people say, you know what? The God of Israel means nothing. I'll just worship your gods because he means nothing to me, right?

Then she said to her mistress, if only my master were with the prophet who was in Samaria, for he would heal him of his flopecy. He says, oh, if he could just go into Israel, there's a prophet of God there that'll heal him.

Now, who would put themselves out like that? This girl believed it. And she was being honest. She's serving her master's wife by saying, you know, if he would go to Israel, he could get healed.

She's doing a caring thing. This is virtuous. She didn't give up on God. She's saying, oh, no, the God there can heal him. My God can heal him. You just have to go there. That's all.

Verse 4, and Naaman went and told his master, the king, saying, thus and thus said the girl who is from the land of Israel, that he king of Syria said, go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So he departed, took with him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold, and 10 changes of clothing. Now, the rest of this is a fascinating story about how this Syrian general comes in to the prophet of God and is going to ask him, can you heal me?

Which took a lot of humility on his part. And that's the great story here.

That little introduction is about a girl who did not give up. A young girl did not give up in her beliefs, her faith, even though a catastrophe had happened to her.

She had virtues. It wasn't just, oh, I don't sin because bad things will happen to me. It's no virtue is the opposite, and it's what God wants, and it's what I learned. It's what I want to be. Okay, here's just wrap it up with some simple practical things. For all the little children, which there's not too many here today, but we can think about this, some actions you can do to honor your parents, thinking in terms of virtue.

Okay, when you come to church, you don't run around and knock people down.

Now, I know it's hard sometimes to not run around. Over the last 40 years, I don't know how many hundreds of times a little kid comes running by and says, hey, slow down, don't run.

And I notice as I walk away, they won't run, but they'll start walking real fast.

They're stretching out in the hall as far as they can go without breaking it, right?

But we teach them that. Why? Because they'll hurt other people. The virtue is you will hurt other people. You'll hurt older people. And you don't want to hurt somebody. There's the virtue. You don't want to do that. That's a terrible thing. So they learn, no, I don't want to hurt somebody.

So they learn, no, I don't want to hurt somebody. It's not just, oh, they won't let me run.

See? We forget the motivation. So don't run or I'm going to punish you. Don't run. You're going to hurt somebody. You want to knock somebody. Look over that person right there. She's nice to you.

But you knock in there. You run into her. She's going to fall down and you're going to hurt her. Do you want to do that? Okay. So think about it a minute. Go sit down for a few minutes. You know, well, let's work through this. Go sit down for two minutes. Think about this.

You honor your parents when you don't interrupt them when they're talking to somebody else.

You know, children run up all the time and there's times you have to say, just a minute, and here's the best thing to do. And this was in the parodying class, which I thought was a really good thing. And we had something similar when we were kids, we were younger. They came up and they have to, they can take your hand.

They let you know that they're there. So you can't ignore them now. That wouldn't be right. But you wait until there's a point. You say, just a minute. And you look at the child and say, what do you need? Because you can only come if you need. You can't come interrupt this adult conversation. You say, well, isn't that rude to them? No, that's teaching them respect.

It's teaching them a virtue. Because as adults, we don't like when someone runs in and interrupts their conversation, right? So they come up, they let you know they're there. You wait, they have, what is teaching them? The patience, the, you know, what's bad when you see them starting to jump and you realize you have to go to the bathroom? Yes, okay, then that's a little different, you know, so you have to be aware of them and you have to look at what they may need, but you don't let them control what's going on.

But you react to it. That's honor.

You honor your parents every time you're honest, every time you don't destroy somebody's property, anytime you don't steal. You know, I mean, you start going through everything that God says to do. We honor our parents when we don't do those things. Now, for older children, you honor your parents when you fulfill your family obligations by doing your chores and taking care of your room and possessions. You honor them by doing that. Or as the parent, you say, okay, you're old enough to know better. You're 16. Fine. I'm not going to clean your room. When they come and beg you, because there's mice in their bed, oh no, no, no, no, you're you're you made this the choice. It's your choice. I'll help you buy some mouse traps if you want.

Remember we talked about sometimes it's just you got to suffer the consequences. But you you literally require them to do things. And in a certain age when they don't, you let them suffer the consequences of it. I don't mean something's gonna hurt them real bad. Yeah, you let them suffer the consequences. Oh, if you're not going to clean your room, I'm not going to wash your clothes.

That's fair enough. If you want your clothes washed, clean your room. I'm not going to clean your room. Good! She said I don't have to clean the room. Mom, my clothes stink. Well, they sure do.

This is why your dad and I don't want to sit with you at dinner anymore. You know, you can sit out on the porch, but but yeah, you sure do. And none of the girls want anything to do with you. Well, you wash my clothes when you clean your room. There's consequences to things. We honor our parents when we simply fulfill what they ask us to do, which is age-appropriate. It's age-appropriate what we should be doing. You honor your parents when you respond the first time they say, ask you to do something. You know, let's play the game. We're the fifth time. Mom and dad go in and say, you know, this is the fifth time we've asked you and you chewed them out and you're all upset and you're all mad and everything. And you go, oh, okay. No. If you have to come in the fifth time and ask him to clean your room, you've already lost the battle. So there's consequences. You honor your parents when you keep your word. Okay, I'll be home by eight. You're home by eight. Or you call and let them know, you know, I can't be, I'll be 810 or 815 or something. But that is honor and that is building trust. They will trust you more and more when you are worthy of trust. Children have to learn their own. There's certain things you you you earn. They don't come. As adults, no one trusts you if you don't earn it. Children, if they're earned it too. God has made a blessing, a promise of a blessing to children. Honor your parents and you have a better life.

It's hard sometimes when you have dishonorable parents, but that's another subject. Okay, I don't want to ignore that. It's a different subject, but it's hard. A lot of times, parents don't know what they're doing and you realize they did the best they could.

It's the best they could do and you honor them for the best they could do. But our children need to know this. God, because the door is open, has offered them something else. He has offered them parenthood. They can become parents, but also God is their father. God says, I'll be your parent.

I will be your parent and I can do things nobody can do. And Christ will be your brother. He opens the door for that relationship. And in the end, that's basically what we hope all of our children will do. We hope they will walk through that door so that God becomes their father and Jesus Christ becomes their brother. And we now enter a very interesting relationship with our children.

We become brothers and sisters in God's family with our own children.