00:00-00:04
And what a privilege it is to be able to come and open God's word up and to share some truths from God's word.
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What a great day to celebrate, moms.
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And I hope that you are able to celebrate the mom that God has blessed you with.
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And moms, I pray that you can celebrate the kids that God has blessed you with.
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And we're gonna look a little bit about that.
00:20-00:25
When Pastor Jeff asked me to speak, it was probably, I think it was a couple months ago, and we talked.
00:25-00:29
I don't think we both realized that today was Mother's Day when we originally talked.
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And so he said, Jeremiah, we're doing this series, can you do something on parenting?
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And I said, sure, I'd love to do it.
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And then I started to realize it's Mother's Day, and I was like, what mom wants to hear a parent's message on Mother's Day?
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And so I know Jeff was just setting me up.
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I think he knew all along, and he was setting me up.
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But it is an honor to come, and I hope that you have come today to hear God's word.
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And I pray that that's the reason why you've come to church this morning, to hear God's word, and that's what we're gonna look at.
00:58-01:06
And it might not be the nice little bow ribbon message about mothers, but we're gonna talk about parenting.
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I hope the third reason is why I wanna talk about this this morning.
01:09-01:14
And the first reason why I wanted to do this is because it is a tribute to my mom.
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And I was blessed to have a mom and a dad who raised their six kids with the love and a passion for God.
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Were they perfect?
01:23-01:25
No, and they were not.
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I'd be the first to admit that, and they'd be the first to admit that.
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But do they do it biblically?
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Yes.
01:30-01:32
And I praise God for that.
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And I sent my mom a text early this morning.
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She probably wasn't even up yet, so I hope I didn't wake her up.
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But I sent her a text this morning just thanking her and for how she raised us and the unconditional love that she gave us.
01:46-01:56
And I know that if you have a child, that there is a bond, there is a love there that doesn't matter what your child does, that you're gonna unconditionally love them.
01:56-02:00
And I see that now with the four kids that God has blessed me with, soon to be five kids.
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That love that is there.
02:02-02:09
And so part of what I want to share this morning, even on parenting, is really because what I've learned from my mom and dad.
02:09-02:11
I have not arrived, I don't know it all.
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I learned everything from my parents.
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And so it is a tribute to my mom and what she has taught me and what she has done in my life.
02:19-02:22
And then also, I pray this message will inspire you.
02:22-02:27
You know, sometimes when you hear a message on parenting, and you can sit there and walk out defeated.
02:27-02:29
That's not my prayer or my desire at all.
02:29-02:41
My prayer and my desire is that you walk inspired to say, "God, let me have children, "let me have grandchildren that have a heart "and a passion for you." And that's my desire and that's my prayer.
02:41-02:50
You know when you sometimes walk into a classroom and they teach on something and then you walk out just going, "Wow, I can do it this way a little bit better "and I need to work on this." That's what I pray will happen this morning.
02:50-03:05
That as we look at the scriptures, that you'll be able to sit there and say, "Okay God, wherever I'm at in this stage of life, "God, let me take another step forward." And then, the last reason why I wanna share this message with you this morning is hopefully to establish joy.
03:06-03:12
Your theme this year is on joy, and this whole thing you've been talking about is joy in these type of relationships.
03:13-03:19
And my prayer is that maybe right now as you sit here, there's not a lot of joy in your parenting, or as a mother, whatever it may be.
03:20-03:33
But my prayer is that as you apply some of these truths to your life, and you listen to what the Word of God says, then by God's grace, maybe next year as Mother's Day comes around, there will be joy in your heart.
03:34-03:40
You know, I realize more as I have kids that my joy a lot depends on how my kids live.
03:41-03:44
And if you have kids and you have grandkids, you know that.
03:44-03:50
If they're living, seeking after God, how you want them to be, the joy comes and Proverbs talks about that.
03:51-03:54
But if you have kids that aren't, it's hard sometimes to have joy.
03:54-04:11
And my prayer and my desire is that we look at God's word, that you can apply some of these truths to your life and say, "God, I wanna have a family that is honoring, "that is believing, that is seeking after you." Listen, parenting is the most important task.
04:11-04:13
It is so important in our life.
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Martin Luther said this, he says, "This is at least all married people should know.
04:19-04:36
"They can do no better work and do nothing more valuable "either for God, for Christendom, for all the world, "for themselves and for their children "than to bring up their children well." What an incredible gift and responsibility that we have in parenting.
04:37-04:38
Can we pray together and we'll jump in here.
04:41-04:43
Father, I need you.
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God, there is nothing that I can say that will help encourage, inspire a life.
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Lord, it is you and your word.
04:51-04:54
And God, Proverbs is full of wisdom and truths.
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And so God, I pray that you would take us and give ears to hear, Lord, and help every person in here, Lord, to look at your word and to be encouraged this morning.
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For your glory, God, in the name of Jesus, I do pray.
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Amen.
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Now, I know as a preacher, getting up and talking, I'm parenting, I'm putting a big bullseye right on my family, okay?
05:16-05:43
I know everybody's gonna look at my four kids and say, "Okay, you can talk about this, you can do it." I said, "I am the first one to admit it, "my family's not perfect, okay?" Last Sunday I spoke at Harvest Columbus, and as we're walking out, my little girl, Sayla, two years old, was about to climb up on this ledge I didn't want her to be on, and I looked, I'm talking with the pastor right here, and I looked at Sayla, I said, "Sayla, don't get up there." And as cute as a two-year-old can, she looked at me and said, "No!" And got right up on the ledge.
05:43-05:46
And I said, "Excuse me."
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(laughs)
05:48-05:49
I don't care how fast or how embarrassing it is.
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My family's not perfect, and please don't get that.
05:52-06:02
Even as I walk through some of these things this week, and God knows what we need, and I think I have learned more this week than probably you're gonna learn in the next 30, 40 minutes that I have to share.
06:03-06:12
And God is using these truths right here to refine me and to help me, and I have not arrived, my wife hasn't arrived, my family hasn't arrived.
06:12-06:22
I remember growing up as a teenager, I used to look at parents or look at teenagers I look at other kids and go, "Man, my kids will never act like that." I mean, never would they ever do that.
06:22-06:24
Yeah, that's totally changed now.
06:25-06:26
That has not changed.
06:27-06:28
I'll tell you what I look at more.
06:29-06:36
I look at more now how parents and grandparents act or react when their children misbehave.
06:37-06:39
Because listen, children are gonna misbehave.
06:39-06:41
And teenagers are gonna do foolish things.
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It's gonna happen.
06:44-06:54
What I look at and what I want, I wanna make sure that how I react to it and what I do as a parent is according to this book right here.
06:56-06:57
Because that's what's important.
06:58-07:02
And so I want us to look at some things this morning.
07:02-07:06
If you have your Bibles, you can turn to Proverbs 22.
07:07-07:10
Turn to Proverbs 22, and we're gonna look at parenting here a little bit.
07:11-07:14
And this message is not just for moms.
07:15-07:17
This message is not just for parents.
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I believe it's for grandparents, and I believe for every person that is here.
07:22-07:29
Listen, I believe we all, as children of God, I believe that we all are teachers in some form or fashion.
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And you say, "Jim, I don't have any kids.
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"I don't have any grandkids." Listen, you're all our teacher.
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You don't know when your neighbor or that coworker, or you don't know when maybe your child is gonna come and ask for advice.
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They're gonna come to a situation and go, man, I don't know what to do with my child here.
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I don't know what to do in this situation or how I handle this.
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And listen, I wanna give you some things today that you can apply, that you can help them out with.
07:52-08:01
So no matter where you're at today, I hope that what we talk about today, you can hold onto and grasp and say, listen, I can use this.
08:01-08:01
I don't know when.
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The Bible says, always be ready to give an account for the hope that lies within us.
08:05-08:08
And listen, we should know how to handle situations.
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And if we're ready for that, then I believe God will bring those people along your path where you can reach out and help them.
08:16-08:22
We say, listen, I don't know everything, but listen, listen to what the scripture says, and let me show you some things, and maybe some ways that you can do it in.
08:23-08:31
And then, I believe if you're a teenager here, I believe, I hope that as I go through some of this, you will realize how hard parenting is a little.
08:32-08:34
And you'll give your parents just a little bit of slack.
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Because it is tough, and it is difficult.
08:38-08:42
And I hope that some of these things that you'll be able to look at and go, "Wow, my parents have to do all that?
08:42-08:46
"I guess I'll give 'em a little bit of a break." Okay, so let's look here.
08:46-08:52
Proverbs chapter 22, and that's where we're gonna get our outline from Proverbs chapter 22, verse six.
08:52-08:53
This is where we're gonna get our outline today.
08:54-09:03
We're gonna jump all through Proverbs because Proverbs in most cases is not a book that you just kinda walk verse by verse down because of how Solomon wrote the book.
09:03-09:05
You gotta understand how Solomon wrote this book.
09:05-09:16
And he talks a little about parenting here He talks about it here and then he talks about it here, and he'll talk about wisdom here and here, and then he'll talk about purity, and he kind of jumps around as he writes this book to his children.
09:17-09:21
And so that's what we're gonna look at, but we're gonna get our outline here from Proverbs 22, verse six.
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Let's read it together.
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It says this.
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"Train up a child in the way he should go.
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"Even when he is old, he would not depart from it." Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he would not depart from it.
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Now I know this verse is a very highly debated verse.
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And I'm not gonna spend as much time on the second part of this verse, 'cause that's the part that's really highly debated.
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When he is old, he will not depart from it.
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But this is what I do wanna say.
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I do not believe all the proverbs are promises.
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That's not, they're principles that God is giving to us.
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That they are wise observations, they're underlining principles, they're guidelines.
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Do we need to listen to 'em and obey?
10:03-10:04
Yes.
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But I don't believe you can take this as a promise and say if I train in this perfect way, then 100% he's gonna come out right.
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Because look at, you can just example, look at verse four.
10:15-10:19
It says, "The reward for humility and fear of the Lord "is rich as honor in life.
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"Not every person who is humble "and fears the Lord is rich." But there is a principle that Proverbs teaches and that Solomon helps us understand.
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And so again, we have to understand how Solomon writes and what the genre of Proverbs is all about.
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But I do, we'll say this, that I believe if you train your child up in the way he should go, that I do believe the majority of time that they're gonna turn out the way that you train them up.
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I do believe that, that we take these truths and we do them, but it is still God that has the final say in it all.
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But listen, parents, I'm ultimately, I'm gonna raise my kids and I'm gonna parent like it depends upon me.
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I know it depends upon God and I put full on Him, but I want to live and I want to parent the best that I can, yes, for God's glory, and because it's all about Him.
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So I hope you're ready to take a couple good notes this morning, hope you have your bulletin, have a piece of paper, because I know this, you will walk out with some notes and some truths if you put 'em down and you listen.
11:29-12:03
Now, it's gonna be your choice listen to him if you want to do him, but I will give you some things today. Jeff told me, he said, Jeremiah, will you give some hows on how to do this? And so I will give you some hows, I will give you some thoughts, and you're gonna have to take them and say, okay God, is this how I'm gonna apply to my life? No, the scripture says we have to do it, and I'm gonna try to give some specific hows on how you can. And I hope that you would take these truths this morning, and you walk out saying, God for your glory, I want to do this. Here's the first thing that I see in this verse, that first part is we're gonna look at train up a "and the way you should go." Here's the first thing, identify the way.
12:04-12:05
Identify the way.
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I know it's not the first words in the sentence, but I believe it's the most important one to identify first.
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For you must know where you're going in order to train someone.
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You must know what the goal is.
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You must know, okay, this is where I'm heading, this is the direction that I am going.
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And I believe this verse is challenging us to choose the way we desire for our kids to walk.
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Which way is that going to be?
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And that's the question I'd ask you.
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What is the way that you want your kids to walk in?
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What is the way that you want your grandkids to walk in?
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You say, Jeremiah, I mean, we come to church, and yes, we desire our kids to be all about Christ.
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We want them to be followers of Christ, and we want that to be important in our family.
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We want it to be all about Christ.
12:55-13:03
But let me ask you, by the demonstration of the way that you parent is following Christ the most important thing in your family.
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You know, we live in a world where sports and money and success, a lot of times becomes the way.
13:14-13:19
But by the demonstration of your life, how do you parent?
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How do you, as grandparents, relate to your kids?
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My dad, when I was 13, I think, 13 or 14, junior high, I remember listening to him speak.
13:29-13:30
And he made this statement.
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He said, he did not raise his kids to survive this world, but he raised his kids to change this world.
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And I remember thinking about that and looking even at my brothers and looking at how my parents raised us.
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And I believe you talk to any of my brothers and my sister.
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I have four brothers and sisters, five boys, and I have a little sister who's about 18 years, 16 years younger than I am.
13:55-13:57
And you talked to us, our desire is to change this world.
13:59-14:03
And see, my parents, they said, "It's not just to have good kids, "we wanna have godly kids.
14:04-14:21
"We don't just wanna have kids that kinda go through life "and kinda make it through high school "and hope that they get a job "and they don't mess up too much, "but we wanna raise kids that have a passion "and an obsession for God." So how they parent it and how they grandparent now is not just to have good kids, but to say, "God, we want kids that are godly.
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And I have four kids, almost five, and my desire is not just to raise kids who are just gonna go through and survive this world, who are just gonna go through and have a good income and make some money and have a nice little family, but my desire is to have kids that change this world.
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And listen, there is a difference to how you raise kids when it comes like that.
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There's a difference that it comes to.
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And in our minds, we have to identify, okay, what is the way, how are we trying to raise our children, what is it going to look like?
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Identify the way.
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Now, once you have identified the way, now look back at the first couple words in that verse, train up a child.
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Here's the next thing I see is that's maximize the training.
15:04-15:05
Maximize the training.
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Here's our job as a parent.
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It is what we must do if we want to walk in that way.
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We have to train them.
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This, and I know this is not an easy thing.
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Listen, training takes effort.
15:16-15:22
It has tears and it's pain, But it's the end product that we desire.
15:22-15:28
Couple years ago, I got some weird idea and decided to do P90X.
15:28-15:31
And so it was this exercise program.
15:31-15:32
It goes for 90 days.
15:32-15:36
And I said, OK, I'm the type of person, if I start something, I have to finish.
15:36-15:37
And so I started.
15:37-15:38
And I did pretty good.
15:39-15:40
I did about five out of the seven days.
15:41-15:44
When it got to the yoga, I'm just doing these weird things.
15:44-15:45
That just wasn't me at all.
15:46-15:48
And so I didn't really-- I kind of skipped that day.
15:48-15:49
But I did.
15:49-15:59
Now the reason why I did that is not because I enjoy getting up early in the morning and putting that DVD and working out for the hour to hour and 15 minutes that it took.
15:59-16:00
That's not why I enjoy doing it.
16:01-16:05
What I enjoy doing it because what they told me I would look like at the end, that's why I did it.
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I didn't look like that, I don't know what happened, I'm suing the company, but no kidding.
16:10-16:13
But that's why I did it 'cause there's the end product I was looking for.
16:14-16:16
And the whole thing, that's with the parenting.
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It's gonna be hard at times.
16:18-16:23
It's gonna take some, it's difficult walking through those steps and walking through those years.
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But it's the end product that we desire.
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And for them to walk in the way.
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You know, there's a truth that we see in this verse and I believe we see through the scriptures.
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From Genesis to Revelation, you'll find it.
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And it's most clearly the verse in Galatians 6 says it.
16:41-16:51
Says this, "What you sow, you will reap." And listen, I believe what you put into your children and what you put into your grandkids is what you're gonna get out.
16:52-16:54
What you sow is what you're gonna reap.
16:58-16:59
I'm not a very good cook.
17:00-17:06
About a couple of years, when I was in high school, I was sitting down one day and none of my friends could play and I was sitting there going, I wanna do something.
17:06-17:09
And I remember looking in the kitchen going, I'm gonna make some cookies.
17:09-17:10
You know how hard can it be?
17:11-17:13
You know, my mom, I've helped my mom before.
17:13-17:14
This is not a big deal, make some cookies.
17:15-17:18
And so no one was home except me, which was a bad mistake.
17:18-17:32
And so I walked in the kitchen, and I pulled out one cookbook, and I pulled out another cookbook, Betty Crocker, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna compare recipes, "and see which one, and kind of see what it looks like." And so I started to walk down these two recipes, and they were pretty much the same.
17:32-17:35
I had the flour, and so on and so forth.
17:35-17:40
And I got about halfway down, and one recipe called for Crisco, and one recipe called for butter.
17:41-17:43
I was like, "Crisco, it's above the sink.
17:43-17:46
"Butter's in the refrigerator." I said, "They're two different things.
17:46-17:50
"Well, I'll just put both of 'em in." And so I put a whole thing of Crisco in, a whole thing of butter in.
17:50-17:55
And I continued down, walked the whole recipe, and at the end, I tasted the batter, and it was incredible.
17:56-18:03
And I was like, "Yeah, these are gonna be "some good cookies." I mean, it was sweet, and I was like, "Yeah." Well, I didn't read the paragraph at the end.
18:03-18:04
I still don't understand why cookbooks do that.
18:05-18:08
They give you the recipe, then they give you the paragraph that tells you how to preheat the oven.
18:08-18:11
I was like, "That should always be before." But I finally read the paragraph at the end.
18:11-18:13
It said to preheat the oven at 350.
18:13-18:14
I was like, "Man, I don't have time.
18:14-18:19
"I'm ready to in the oven on 350, I was like, well, I'll just put a couple in and we'll see what happens.
18:19-18:24
So I put two cookies and I stuck them in and I think they were supposed to go for like 13 to 18 minutes, something like that.
18:24-18:27
And I was like, well, I'll leave a little bit longer 'cause I didn't preheat the oven.
18:27-18:34
Well, I walked to my bedroom and I came back and about 10 minutes later, 'cause I was just excited to see how my cookies were gonna taste.
18:35-18:41
And I walked in and I pulled it down and looked at 'em and they were burnt to a crisp.
18:42-18:42
I said, what?
18:43-18:45
I said, I only left 'em in for 10 minutes.
18:45-18:51
And so I pulled those out and I took two more cookies and I stuck 'em in and within five minutes they were burnt.
18:52-18:57
I was like, "This is impossible." And so I pulled those out, took two more cookies, stuck it in, and put it in the oven.
18:58-19:12
And no joke, within one minute my cookies were burnt because you could look at 'em and flick 'em and they'd go (imitates explosion) and I was like, "What is going on here?" And so I called up a friend of mine, which that was probably a mistake too 'cause she has not let me live it down to this day.
19:12-19:18
And I called up and said, "Okay, listen." I knew she was a good cook kind of like our youth pastor's wife, and I said, "What's going on?
19:18-19:26
"I'm trying to make these cookies, "they didn't work out." And she said, "What'd you put in it?" And so I kind of walked down the thing, and she said, "Whoa," and I said, "Crisco and butter." She said, "Whoa, Jeremiah, what do you mean?
19:26-19:33
"You put Crisco and butter in?" I said, "Yeah, they're not the same." Well, after she stopped laughing for a little bit, then she said, "Jeremiah, you can't do that.
19:33-19:39
"You either gotta put one or the other, "or put just half of it." And what happens when I put in, they just fried.
19:40-19:41
Now, here's what I learned.
19:41-19:45
Number one is that Jeremiah doesn't know how to cook, and Jeremiah needs to stay out of the kitchen.
19:45-19:46
And that's why I married my wife.
19:46-19:49
She's an incredible cook and makes incredible chocolate chip cookies.
19:49-19:49
So I just let her do it.
19:50-19:54
But here's the second thing I learned, is what you put into something is what you're gonna get out of it.
19:55-19:59
You know, I put the wrong stuff in, and so my cookies did not turn out too well.
20:00-20:03
And what you put, I believe that's what this verse is really saying.
20:04-20:09
You train up a child in the way he should go, what you put in, and when he is old, he will not depart.
20:10-20:11
That's what you're gonna get out.
20:12-20:16
And so it's important that we understand, Okay, we need to train our children.
20:17-20:19
And I believe there's two important ways to train.
20:20-20:23
One is discipling them, and one is disciplining them.
20:24-20:26
Let's look at these two things here real quick.
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Well, and let's start with discipling.
20:29-20:29
What's it mean?
20:29-20:32
If I'm gonna train my child, I believe you're gonna disciple your child.
20:33-20:35
Disciple, and it means to follow.
20:35-20:37
Listen, really, kids are just followers.
20:38-20:42
And they're either gonna follow you, or they're gonna follow this world.
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They're either gonna follow what the TV says, or they're gonna follow what their friends say.
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They're gonna follow what the internet says, or they're gonna follow you.
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Your teenagers are gonna be discipled, and your kids are gonna be discipled by someone or something.
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And I don't know about you, but I wanna be the one doing that.
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Because I don't trust this world.
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And if I have a way that I want my child to walk, then I want to be the one discipling my child.
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Now, let me say this.
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I do believe that discipling never ends.
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The discipline, which we'll talk about soon, it will end someday.
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Someday as they get older, you basically turn the discipline that you are called to do according to Proverbs, and you're gonna turn it over to God, and he's gonna be the one disciplining them.
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So I believe there's a point where discipline as a parent does end.
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But the discipling, it doesn't end.
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And I don't care if you're 60 here, you're still a disciple of your kids.
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And if you have, how many have grandkids here?
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If you have grandkids, great.
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I believe one of your responsibilities, I'll look at a verse here just in a second on that, but one of your responsibilities is to disciple your grandkids.
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And so discipling never ends.
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Now, one of my favorite verses on discipling, and I'm gonna stay in Proverbs the rest of the time, I promise, Jeff, okay?
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But just for this one, because anytime I talk about training kids, I love this verse.
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So flip over with me to Deuteronomy chapter six.
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Just Deuteronomy chapter six, we're gonna come back, you can keep your finger in Proverbs, we're gonna come right back over to Proverbs, but there's a verse here in Deuteronomy chapter six, couple verses here, there's some of my favorite verses when it comes to discipling.
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Let me read it to you, it says, in Deuteronomy chapter six, look at verse five.
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You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.
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And these words I command you today shall be on your heart.
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You shall teach them diligently to your children.
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Here it is.
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You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." What's he saying here?
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He's saying that every area of your life, you're going to disciple your kids.
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And if we, in Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 9, it says to teach these things to your children, and to your children's children.
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So that puts you in this, grandparents.
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Not only are you supposed to teach your children the great things that God has done as a discipler, but also to your children and to their children.
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So, how?
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Jeff asked me to give some thoughts on how do you do that.
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So here's Discipling 101, okay?
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So it's a right to me say, how do you teach your children?
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Well, I'm gonna grab some from this verse and some from Proverbs.
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And first of all, intentionally.
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Intentionally.
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It says here in this verse, you shall teach them diligently, that's a good word right there, diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house.
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I believe it's intentionally.
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I'm sitting down talking with my kids.
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This is an intentional discipleship.
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Solomon, the book of Proverbs, what is he doing?
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He was intentionally discipling his kids by writing a book to them saying, listen, this is how you need to live.
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So let me ask you a question.
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How are you intentionally teaching your kids and your grandkids right now?
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What are you doing to intentionally teach your kids about who God is?
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You see, we wanna get as much of God on their mental grid as we possibly can.
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So what are you doing?
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And besides bringing them to church, you say, "Jeremiah, take them to church every Sunday." Okay, besides bringing them to church, what are you doing as a parent, as a grandparent to intentionally teach your kids about who God is and about the way we want them to walk?
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I remember some years ago, I was sitting down, I was like, "What do I want my kids to know "when they graduate at 18?" I said, "There are four things "I really want my kids to know.
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"One, I want them to know who God is.
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"I can't force them to know God.
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"I can't do that.
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to force your kids, your grandkids to know God, but I can teach them who God is, and I can make sure they know who God is.
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I said I want them to know I'm obedience.
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I want by the time they're 18, they know what it means to obey.
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And that's an important lesson.
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I want them to know their gender.
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I want them to know what it means to be a girl, what it means to be a boy.
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Our society is starting to blur those lines a little bit.
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I wanna make sure they understand that.
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And then I want them to know that I love them.
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Without a shadow of a doubt, I love them.
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Now, and so my question, I'd ask myself, "Kid, Jeremiah, what are you gonna do "to intentionally teach your kids these things?" And there are different things that we do.
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You know, I'll sit down with my kids, and we'll kind of do like these catechism type things.
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We're all asking questions.
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One of the first things I asked them was, you know, "Why do we live, and how do we answer back, "you know, for the glory of God?" And so I've teached my kids that.
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I've asked them, you know, "Man is a," and they'll say, "Sinner.
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"We are saved by," and they'll say, "Grace." And I'll say, "What's the most important thing in life?" And they'll say, "Love God and love people." I'll say, and rose again.
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I'll ask Had, and he's a little bit older, I'll ask him, what's it mean to be justified?
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And he says, declare righteous.
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What's it mean to be sanctified to live with Jesus, becoming like Christ?
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What's it mean to be glorified to live with Jesus?
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Listen, does Hadden understand what it really means to be justified?
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No.
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This is what I do want, that someday when he opens the word of God up and he reads Romans three or Romans five and it says that he's been justified, I want him to go, you know what?
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I know what that means.
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That means I've been declared righteous.
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You see, right now I wanna get as much as I can in their mental grid, intentionally.
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Maybe it's sitting down and just having family devotions with them.
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My wife goes through and teaches my kids different verses.
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Intentionally, I wanna do that.
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How are you doing that with your teenagers?
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How are you intentionally getting God, getting the way that you want them to walk in their mental grid?
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Listen, if you don't, but you take them to sports practice three or four times a week, Listen, that's intentionally what you're teaching them.
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And then we sit there and we say, I don't understand why my kid walked the wrong way.
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Well, what are you intentionally doing with your children?
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Because that's what your children are gonna follow.
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That's the way that they're gonna identify.
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Even though you can say we want God to be first and we want to, but what are you doing to intentionally teach your children the way that you want them to walk?
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Intentionally, here's another thing that I see in this passage is spontaneously.
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I mean, look at the next part.
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It says you should talk when you sit in your house, And when you walk by the way, I believe even as you walk, take every effort to point your family to Christ.
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Everything that you do, just as you're walking around, to point them towards Christ.
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Listen, you can learn a lot of life lessons just going to Walmart, okay?
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I have taught my kids numerous things, not purposely, but just spontaneously as we walk through Walmart.
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I mean, even like, we went the other day.
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But there were, yesterday, but I'll tell you this story first.
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I went the other, it was probably a couple years ago.
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We were walking down Walmart and my wife enjoys it when we all go to Walmart together.
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Grocery shopping.
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I don't know why, but she likes it when we're all there.
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So what happens usually is she's grocery shopping and I'm kind of pushing the kids around trying to keep them occupied.
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And so we're walking down this aisle one time and about the other end of the aisle, there was this mom and son just going at it.
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And the son was yelling at the mom, the mom was yelling at the kid.
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And Karis, I think she was about three at this time, she looked at me and she said, "Daddy, I shouldn't act like that, should I?" I stopped everything right there.
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I said, "That's right, Karis.
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We don't act like that, do we?
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I said, how do we act?
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And listen, we had a great opportunity to talk right then.
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And just of, hey, listen, I didn't plan that, but it was great, she identified that.
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And spontaneously, I had a great teaching moment.
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And we'll walk through Walmart, and now my kids are like, we shouldn't act like that.
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So we're down, I'm like, shh, don't talk so loud.
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But they'll learn.
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Last night, we were in Walmart, some kid was yelling and screaming, and it was a great time to sit there and tell my kids, we don't act like that, do we?
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No, and they look and they can see that.
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I don't want to act like that. Why harm I? Why do I do that?
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Spontaneously, I remember we were in the mall one time and Karras, I was with Karras and Hatton, just had two kids at this time, and my wife was in a shop and I was in that middle section where all the men sit, and I was sitting there and there's a flower next to me. So I was like, you know, I'm gonna teach my child something.
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So I said, "Karras, come here." I said, "Karras, who made this plant?" And she looked at me and said, "God did." I said, "That's right, Karras." And then she looked at me and said, "Daddy, how did God make that plant?" I said, "Go play with Hatton." Yeah, but in every way, as you're walking outside, this carousel the other day, I said, "God, man, isn't that a beautiful sky, Daddy?" And I said, "Carousel, who made the sky?" Point them towards Christ.
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Spontaneously, you have teenagers, sit down, you're watching the news or watching something on TV, and something comes up that would be against the scriptures.
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You know, what a great time to stop and say, "Listen, what does the Bible say about that?
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"What does the word of God say about that?" You didn't plan it, but just spontaneously getting much of this book.
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You're a teenager, you go to a movie, come back and sit with them for a second, take five minutes and say, "Okay, let me ask you a question.
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What in that movie was against the Scriptures?" Not that you can't go to the movie, but what in that movie was against the Scriptures?
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Because I want to make sure that you have a biblical view of what has happened in this world, a biblical view of what is going on.
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That's just spontaneously.
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Just spontaneously as you walk along the way, teaching them about God.
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Here's another one, exemplary, exemplary, did I say that right?
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I can spell it, it's right there.
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Verse five, look at verse five here.
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It says, "You shall love the Lord your God "with all your heart, with all your soul, "with all your mind." Listen, before I believe you can teach, you must make sure you praxonate yourself.
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I believe that one of the reasons why my five siblings and myself are seeking after God today is because we saw my parents live it.
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My dad, most pastor's kids, most, as they grow up, Man, they can't wait to get out of the church.
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The reason why I believe that we do, because my dad would come up and preach something on Sunday and through the week, and then he'd live it behind the doors of our home.
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And my mom did too.
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You be the example.
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Listen, the best example for your kids and your grandkids is not the church.
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Now, hopefully there are people in here that are gonna be example, that the best example they have is you.
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Listen, you want your kids to be a prayer warrior?
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You be a prayer warrior.
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You want your kids to be pure, you be pure.
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You want your kids to have a love for this book right here, then you have a love for the book.
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You want your kids to follow after Christ, then you show them what it means to have a passion and an obsession for Christ.
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You be the example for them.
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You set the tone for them of what it should look like.
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Here's the next one, consistently.
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It says in the last part of that verse, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up.
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I believe even Solomon, as he walks through the Proverbs, I don't think that was just a one time that he taught that wisdom to his children.
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I think it was over a period of time.
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Consistently teach them.
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And listen, parenting is not for wimps.
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And consistency is one of the toughest things for me.
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I'll be the first to admit it.
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Some days I do a lot better than some days I do a lot worse.
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But we need to be consistent.
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And a couple ways that we try.
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One way that helps me be consistent is I have to nail down a specific time when I'm going to do something.
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It has to be a habit.
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And so one of the habits we have in our family is before we go to bed each night, I pray with my kids.
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That's just a habit that we do.
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My dad did it to me, that's how I learned it.
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My mom and dad, my dad every night before I went to bed, he'd come pray with us.
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And so every night before I go to bed, I pray with my children.
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And I would say 98% of the time we do that.
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Because I know, and I'll tell you, 100% of the time I think about it.
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There's sometimes, you know, they're already asleep or something else, may walk in the room, pray over 'em.
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But I pray with my kids every night.
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We take turns, we go around, and we pray.
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Family devotions, another thing.
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You say, "Well, we'll kinda try to get to it this week." Unless you have a consistent time when you're doing it, it's not gonna happen.
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It has to be a habit.
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And consistency's important.
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And I know some people get scared of family devotions and they think, "Listen, you come and watch "our family devotions, you'll think "nothing happens during it." And it's true.
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I mean, I have four kids, eight and under.
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If we can sit for five minutes without someone hitting somebody or someone screaming or something, then that's a miracle right there.
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And so, and that's about all, our family devotions literally last between five and seven minutes most of the time.
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But you know what I'm showing them?
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Is the consistency that God is important in our family.
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And this is what we do.
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And we do it every night, we do it at night.
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Every once in a while we'll do it at supper time, but I always know if we're gonna bed, that's the me time, that we'll get together.
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And I know when your kids get older, it gets tougher and how that works.
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And maybe it's just, you can say, "We're gonna insist to do it three times a week "and we're gonna do it this time." but make it a consistent time.
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Because otherwise it's gonna be a hit and miss, the habit that is there.
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Consistency, and then the last one there is creatively.
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I believe Solomon even demonstrated that to us here in Proverbs.
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I mean, he gives word pictures to his kids, he gives daily life lessons.
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Say, Jeremiah, I'm not a creative person.
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Well, then ask somebody.
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Say, hey, I need some help.
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How do I do this in a way that my kids maybe enjoy a little more?
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I need some creativity here.
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And ask.
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But discipling them is so important.
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Let me quickly go on to this next thing.
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What do we disciple them in?
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Well, I believe Proverbs is full of truths that you can pull out, but let me give you some key ones that I'm trying to do with my kids, and I hope that you will try as we look at Proverbs here.
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One thing you can disciple your kids in is just the whole area of money.
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I mean, Proverbs has numerous verses on money.
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Proverbs 13, 11, it says, "Dishonest money dwindles away, "but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow." Proverbs 23, four, "Do not wear yourself out to get rich, but have the wisdom to show restraint.
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You need to teach your kids about money.
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Listen, if you don't, then the world's gonna teach 'em, and I don't want the world teaching them what money is.
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I wanna teach 'em what money's about.
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And I'm trying my kids right now to teach 'em when they get money, not just to spend it all, but to save some, and to give some, and to spend some.
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And so teaching your kids about money is important right now.
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Here's another one, purity.
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Proverbs chapter seven.
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As we know the passage, as the adulterous woman.
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But listen, the man was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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And there's lessons that you can teach your child, your son, about not being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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And there are lessons you can teach your daughter about not being like the adulterous woman.
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And that's just one passage, but all through Proverbs, he talks about purity and the importance of what it is to be pure.
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Listen, you need to teach your kids what it means to be pure.
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You need to ask your kids, are they being pure?
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Don't just expect it.
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My parents tried at an early age to kind of help us out in this whole area of purity.
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When Steven was like four or five or something like that, he was in a club, a kids club, and some little girl was going on a kissing rampage.
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And so my dad started to talk to him, said, "Steven, listen, if you don't kiss a girl "until you're married, I'll give you $5,000." And, you know, that kind of meant nothing really as much as a six-year-old, but he told all of us that at seven, eight years old, that if we didn't kiss a girl until we were getting married, he'd give us $5,000.
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My wife and I got married 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago this year.
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And the first time I ever kissed my wife on the lips was on our marriage day.
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And I went through high school, I went through college, and I told friends in college that, or in high school, and they'd be like, "What, are you crazy?" But listen, I knew what I wanted.
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I knew what I needed in a wife, with the word of God said, and I didn't have to kiss a hundred different girls to figure that out.
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And it was such an honor to be able to stand before my wife on my wedding day and say, "Listen, you were the first person I ever kissed.
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"I have no scars.
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I have nothing to look in the past and go, yeah, I did it with that person, I did it with that person, I did it with that person.
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No, I could look at it, I don't look back and regret that at all.
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I have the rest of my life to make out with my wife.
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And we've made up for all the years that I've missed.
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And so I don't look back and regret that at all.
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But I'll tell you, there's a lot of people who look back and regret what they did.
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And what my parents did was this, they knew if we didn't, it's not wrong to kiss before you get married, don't get me wrong, at least in and of itself.
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But what my parents knew, If we didn't kiss before we got married, we probably weren't gonna jump in bed before.
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And so they went after our purity.
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And they said, "Listen, let's challenge you to be pure." My dad in high school would ask me, "How are you doing, Jeremiah, in your purity, in your thought life?" You know, I challenge you, dads, if you have teenagers, you need to ask your boys how they're doing morally.
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And I'm not saying it's always a fun conversation, but it needs to be asked.
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Because if you're not, then every teenager, every teenage boy, every teenage girl is struggling with it.
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And I want to have that relationship with my kids that I can ask them that.
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And listen, if you're going to ask them, you've got to be honest how you're doing too.
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And I would ask my dad, I'd say, "Dad, how are you doing?" He'd have to be, "I'm a pastor." And he'd have to tell me.
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And we'd keep each other accountable in this whole area of morals.
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And listen, that's what Solomon was doing here in Proverbs.
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Purity.
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Don't just say, "Well, I hope they make it." Listen, two out of every three high school students do not graduate as virgins.
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If you just hope they make it, they're probably going to fall into that stat.
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Don't let that.
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Be proactive on that purity.
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Even as a grandparent, you can be, I mean, you can challenge your grandkid.
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"Man, Doug, you don't kiss someone to your mirror, I'll give you 5,000 bucks." "Maybe you say a thousand, you know, I don't know." And again, it's not that, it's just, let's challenge our children in this area of what it means to be pure.
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Here's another one, just to fear the Lord.
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Fourteen times in the book of Proverbs, it talks about fearing the Lord.
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Proverbs 1:7, "Fear the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." What does it mean to fear the Lord?
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The fear of the Lord is to have the continual awareness that I am always in God's presence and that everything that I'm doing is being Judged by God. Listen, we need to teach our teenagers that. Yes, we need to teach our teenagers that God is love And we didn't teach our children that God is love But we also need to help them understand that everything that they do is being judged by God That is to have the fear of the Lord There's another one working hard Proverbs 6 We need to teach our children how to work hard.
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I remember as a youth pastor, we'd have work days at our church, and I could tell which parents taught their kids how to work hard and which parents didn't.
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Because some of the kids that knew how to work hard, they would work hard.
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And I'm trying to teach my kids that right now.
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My kids yesterday with my wife, they went outside and they cleaned the van.
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And some of them, Kara, she thought picking up toys and taking them up to the, into the house was too hard.
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And we had a long talk.
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It's amazing, I'm going through this right here, And God gave me tons of lessons yesterday.
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And what I can do, okay, listen, dear, let me tell you what the Bible says about working hard.
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I want my kids to understand what it means about working hard.
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Friends would be the next one.
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Or honesty, excuse me, honesty.
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Teach them what it means to be honest.
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Proverbs 12, 17, "So whoever speaks the truth "gives honest evidence." Listen, we need to teach our kids what it means to be honest.
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Here's the next one quickly.
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Friends, Proverbs 13, 20 says, "Walk with the wise, you'll be wise, "but the companion of fools will be destroyed." Listen, wrong friends will destroy your kids maybe quicker than anything.
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Teach your kids what it means to have the right friends.
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I challenge you if you have kids in high school to sit your kids down and say, write out your top five friends and let them write it out.
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And then take this verse right here, Proverbs 13 20.
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You can also take down First Corinthians 15 33 and also Psalms one.
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And all those First Corinthians 15 33 says, "Bad company corrupts good morals." And just say, okay, the kids that you're hanging out with, what are they like?
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Let's talk about them.
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And then ask them, should you hang out with them because you're gonna be like them.
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That's the word of God says.
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You walk with the wise, you're gonna be wise, but to hang out with fools, you're gonna be a fool.
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And teenagers, I tell you, it's gonna happen.
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Who you hang out with is who you're gonna become like.
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Bad company corrupts good morals.
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And it's a great exercise just to walk through with your teenagers and say, listen, do you wanna be like them?
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It's not even you preaching at them.
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Sometimes you start preaching at your teenagers, they're gonna turn you off real quick.
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But if you say, okay, listen, here's what the word of God says.
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You said this person acts like that.
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Do you wanna be like that?
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If they say, well, no, not really.
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And the question is, should you hang out with that person?
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Just go to the scriptures.
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Let the scriptures challenge them.
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So friends, listen, train is tough and it takes a lot of work and it's hard to do, but we are our children's discipler.
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So are you discipling your kids?
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Train up your child, disciple them.
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Here's the other way you train.
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We'll quickly go through this disciplining.
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The first question that we must ask when it comes to discipline is why do we discipline?
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Well, first of all, because it shows that we love them.
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Proverbs 13, 24 says, "Whoever spares the rod "hates his son, but he who loves him "is diligent to discipline him." Listen, if you love your kids, then you will discipline them.
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It shows that we love them, and then secondly, it pictures Christ.
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Proverbs 3, 11 and 12 says this, "My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline.
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"The Lord reproves him whom he loves." "the Father, the Son whom he delights." Listen, the example of why we discipline our children is because God disciplines us.
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And so we're picturing that for our kids.
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I believe I understand the discipline of God in a greater way because of how my kids disciplined me, how my parents disciplined me.
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And a lot of parents, a lot of parents or a lot of teenagers do not understand God's discipline because their parents didn't do it in the correct way.
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And it's so important that we understand what it means to discipline our children.
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Now, let me ask you, how many of you ever sat in a class or sat at a time with a message where someone showed you steps of how to discipline your kids?
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No one?
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Maybe one, okay.
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I think one or two, three.
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Now, I believe it is so important that we understand the correct way of how to discipline.
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And it does.
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I've spoken with my dad on family stuff all across America, and most people said this, "I've never been taught." And so most just kind of have to figure out themselves, and then they realize that maybe they did it wrong when they look back, or they're saying, "I don't, it's not working." Now, let me give you a couple things, I believe, on how you can discipline your children.
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And again, I learned this 'cause this is how my dad did it to us.
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And if you look at the track records, he has six kids that I believe are following after Christ.
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I think he did right.
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That's what I'm trying to do with my kids.
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And here's a couple things.
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I believe when your son does something, or your daughter does something that is wrong, here's some steps I do.
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First of all is the confrontation.
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So important.
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Don't let them think they can get away with anything.
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Listen, I understand when you're out in public, sometimes you're not gonna be able to do more than just this.
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But even in public, when my kids don't do what they're supposed to do, I try to look 'em in the eye and explain to them, confront them and say, "Listen, that is not how we act." I wanna identify every time they're doing something they shouldn't.
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And so the confrontation is there.
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Now if you're at home or you're in a place, then the next thing is reflection.
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And that is to send them to their room or send them to your room.
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Sometimes you send them to their room, they just come play with toys.
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And so send them to your room, that's what we had to do.
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We had to go sit in my dad's bed.
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And we had to sit there.
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What happened is I knew dad was coming up in a minute or two and I had to think about what I just did.
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And the other thing that does is it gives you as a parent the opportunity to make sure you're coming up in the right way and doing the discipline in the correct way.
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A lot of times when we discipline as parents, you know, they do something wrong and we're in the flesh and we're kind of angry and we discipline right then.
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Well, that's not how it's supposed to be.
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And we've done wrong when we discipline anger.
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And so give some time to cool down, make sure that you're in the spirit, and then you walk up to your children and you walk up to your child.
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Here's the next thing, isn't it confession?
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Ask your kids, ask your child right there, say, "What did you do that was wrong?" And we did this yesterday, numerous times.
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And so I had a great opportunity to walk through this.
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And I looked at my child, Karis, I said, "Karis, what did you do that was wrong?" Why?
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Because I want her to identify what she did.
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If you just spank your kid, and they're like, "Oh, what was that for?" Well, then you didn't hit, you didn't, it didn't get right.
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They didn't get the point.
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So I said, "Okay, what did you do that was wrong?" Well, I hit my brother.
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Well, it had, and he's at this point, where sometimes he'd be like, "Well, I think I," I go, "No, I don't want to think.
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"What did you do that was wrong?" "Well, I might have." "Nope, no mights either, okay?
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"What did you do that was wrong?" to identify what they did was wrong, and a confession.
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And then secondly, a verbal correction.
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Talk to them about it for a second.
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Say, "Listen, that's a sin.
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"Here's what the word of God says.
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"The Bible says to obey your parents.
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"Mom told you to do that, you didn't obey.
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"That's wrong.
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"The Bible says to be kind one to another." That's a verse that we talk about all the time.
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Be kind one to another.
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You know, you hit your brother.
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The Bible says, "Be kind to one another." And so verbally correct them and show them, okay, this is wrong that you do.
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And that's the second one there would be the scripture confirmation.
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And our next fifth one, scripture confirmation.
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And just show 'em a verse.
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Listen, this is what the verse says.
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Be kind one to another.
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And then the sixth one there is what I'll call pointed correction.
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And that, I believe, according to the scriptures, and we see five times in the book of Proverbs where he says, "Don't spare the rod." And I believe the rod there is a stick.
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And I know this can be debated, And I know out here, some say, "No, I never spank my kids." I believe scripture, the Covenant of Proverbs, we see that.
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Now, I believe when you approve with the rod, it should be done firmly and quickly and accurately.
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This isn't where, you know, some kid does something, you start swatting him 17,000 times.
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I don't believe that.
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If it's done correctly, I believe it can be very beneficial.
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And again, you've already walked through five steps before you got to just getting the rod out starting to spank your child.
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Now here's what my parents used to do.
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They would go through this whole step, and then my dad, he would be on the bed, he would sit on the bed, and he'd use like a dowel rod.
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And so he would, he'd put his hand on the bed, and we would put our hands on his hand, and then we'd put our forehead down on the bed.
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And this got us in a great position to be spanked.
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And God gave a great place right here to be spanked.
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This isn't to beat your kid.
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And this is what my parents are doing.
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What we do with our kid, there's one strike for every offense.
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So I don't sit there and hit my kid 17 times.
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I do it one time and all it is to say, listen, what you did was wrong.
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Now, the velocity changes depending on the offense that took place.
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But it is done in the correct way.
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It is done, I believe, how Proverbs says, listen, don't spare the rod.
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You spare the rod, you hate your child.
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So the book of Proverbs says.
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I do it one time and I pick 'em up and here's the next thing after that is restoration and care.
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You can put those next two right back to back because you know what that is?
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That is picking my child up right after that, putting them in my arms, I give them kisses and I pray for 'em.
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I don't just spank 'em and send 'em out.
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No, I wanna make sure they understand, listen, I love them.
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And I tell 'em that over and over and over again.
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Listen, I love you so very much and I don't want you to act like this.
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I love you and I kiss them.
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You see, there is nothing about physical abuse in that at all.
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That is out of love that I care for them and I'm concerned about their life.
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And so that last point of restoration and care is so important that they know, and they do, they say they know that daddy loves them and I hold them close and then I'll pray with them, Pray God, help them.
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God, I know you love them.
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I usually say this almost every time I pray, God, I know you love them and I love them.
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And so God, help them be obedient.
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And then the last thing is repentance.
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If they hit their brother, tell him to go back and ask forgiveness.
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So we act like this.
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So go back and seek forgiveness.
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And you say, Jeremiah, that's gonna take time.
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Yeah, it does take a little bit of time, but I'll tell you, it's so important.
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And a lot of times the reason why we don't discipline correctly is because we don't have the time.
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But it is so important that we take that time to discipline our children.
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Now what determines the rod?
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Listen, children would do childish things.
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What determines the rod?
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Three things I would say determines the rod is disobedience, if they disobey, that's one SWOT.
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Defiance, if they're rebellious, then that's a SWOT.
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And then also disrespect.
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So disobeying, defiance, and disrespect.
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Those are the things that to me, and disrespect would be to a parent or to another person.
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You hit your sibling, that's disrespect for that person.
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We don't hit, we don't do that.
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Now, if the child is just childish, they act like kids sometimes.
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They're wild, they're crazy, and they're not defiantly disobeying, or they're not defiantly doing this because they're rebellious.
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They're just children.
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Well, then I make them do jumping jacks, or I make them run laps.
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I make them run laps in my house.
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They do a stair lap is what I call it.
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If my kids are just getting a little wild, they're being, you know, hadden, he's a boy, I say, "You guys, you gotta stair lap, go!" And they'll do these stair laps, and they're up and down the stair, we have three flights of stairs, so they'll run up and down.
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Even Eliana, she's four, stair lap, go!
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Okay, and so unless they're disobedient, defiant, or disrespectful, that's the only thing that's gonna cause them to come up, and I'm gonna walk through those steps with them, and I'm gonna pray with them, and I'm gonna use the rod.
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One time, and it's, it really, I don't even really hit them that hard.
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It's more my girls, I can hit them like this.
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And they're like, "Woo!" But you know what?
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It got the point.
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Listen, we don't do this.
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And so next time they're about to do it, they'll go, "Oh, I don't want that." I mean, Eliana, I mean, Selah, my two-year-old, you said, "When do you start?" Well, Selah understands it.
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She understands it right.
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She's two years old.
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And for her, I seriously just gotta go like this.
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And she just, "Bye, Selah!" And, but she's learning.
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And I can look at her and say, "Do you wanna spank it?" "Ugh, she knows, I don't want that." And I believe scripture understands that.
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Discipline, discipling.
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Now listen, parents, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 is, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, "lead not in your own understanding, "in all your ways acknowledge Him, "and He will direct your paths." Trust in God, He'll direct your paths.
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He will help you do it.
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He will help you do it.
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And here's the last one, we'll close, is persevere to the end.
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Persevere to the end.
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Train up a child in the way you should go.
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I believe there is a perseverance undertone right there.
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So when he's old, it's gonna take time.
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It's not, listen, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon.
51:14-51:15
Train up your child.
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Are you gonna be perfect all the time?
51:16-51:19
No, and if you aren't, then go back and ask their forgiveness.
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Some of you might need to go back to your kids today and say, "Listen, I have not been discipling "the way I should or disciplining you the way I should." Well, seek forgiveness.
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We praise God that it doesn't have to, It's not just a one day thing.
51:30-51:31
This is a marathon that you're in.
51:32-51:36
With your grandkids, you say, man, I really haven't been pouring spiritually into the life of my grandkids.
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Well, start doing it.
51:37-51:39
You say, Jeremiah, my kids are grown.
51:39-51:40
Well, you still should be discipling them.
51:41-51:42
Well, say they don't really want it.
51:43-51:46
Well, you give them what they want, what they don't, and you just pray and ask God.
51:47-51:50
You can always be the example of Christ for them, though.
51:51-51:55
And realize, though, it is God who changes hearts.
51:55-51:56
It's not you.
51:57-51:59
So don't put it on you, it is God.
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You keep your focus on Christ.
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Listen, children are a blessing from the Lord, but they're an incredible responsibility.
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And I hope that you see today, I hope that you understand that God has called us to train up our children.
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Is it tough? Yeah.
52:20-52:24
And maybe some of you look back and say, man, I wish I would've heard this about 30 years ago.
52:26-52:30
But listen, there are families right in here that you should be praying for.
52:31-52:39
There's people in that children's ministry that maybe you can, maybe you can go in there and start to help with the children's clubs and you can help train up children.
52:40-52:42
Everybody in here is a teacher.
52:44-52:46
So don't get bitter and angry 'cause of what?
52:46-52:48
Maybe your kids aren't walking with God right now.
52:48-52:50
Listen, I've seen God change so many hearts.
52:52-52:54
It's in His hand, their life's in His hand.
52:54-52:56
So pray and ask God.
52:57-53:00
If you who have younger kids here, listen, you have an incredible responsibility.
53:01-53:03
You have an incredible opportunity because your kids are young.
53:03-53:04
How are you going to train them?
53:05-53:08
You say, "My kids are already teenagers." Well, don't just throw in the towel.
53:08-53:10
Jump back into the game.
53:10-53:12
You still got them for a couple more years.
53:12-53:13
Jump back into the game.
53:14-53:16
You have grandkids coming along the way.
53:16-53:16
Jump in.
53:18-53:24
You say, "God, I want to." Now listen, every person here is going to parent a little bit different, and that's fine.
53:25-53:26
They're the truths of God's Word.
53:27-53:31
You don't have to go through those steps on discipline like my dad did and how I do.
53:31-53:34
That's not right there in the scriptures. I think there's truths up there.
53:35-53:39
But Pastor Jeff, he's going to do his kids different than I'm going to do my kids.
53:40-53:41
And that's fine.
53:42-53:47
And he has the freedom to do how he's going to train his kids, but he's still going to train his kids.
53:48-53:51
He's still going to discipline and disciple his kids differently.
53:51-53:52
Disciple and discipline his kids.
53:52-53:54
He has to do that and I have to do mine.
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And you have to do yours.
53:58-54:03
And so I pray that today that you will say, God, no matter where I'm at, God help me.
54:04-54:07
Don't walk away saying, oh man, I'm such a loser as a parent.
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No.
54:09-54:12
Walk away saying, God, okay, what stage am I at right now?
54:13-54:22
Let me apply some of these truths to wherever I'm at, whoever it may be, and watch the joy flow through your life.
54:24-54:25
Why don't you bow your head and close your eyes with me?
