Raising Cane with Kids – Part 1
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FOR SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN
Raising Cane with Kids – Part 1
THE SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION
FOR SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN
April 30 - May 1, 2011
We’re beginning a new series this week on relationships; specifically we’re going to look at the family. I’m calling this series “Raising cane with Kids: What wise parents know and do.”
You may be saying, I can check out of this because my kids are grown or I don’t have kids and never intend to have kids.
So for the next couple of weeks around Mother’s Day we’re doing a series on family relationships. The whole church will be studying this together.
You may be saying, I can check out of this because my kids are grown or I don’t have kids and never intend to have kids.
You’re dead wrong! You’re absolutely dead wrong. In the first place, you may be ninety years old and your kids are seventy, but they’re still your kids.
And for the rest of your life you are a parent. There are things that you do at every stage.
I used to think that once my kids got out of the house my parenting skills were over. Forget that. You’re a parent the rest of your life.
On the other hand, if you don’t ever intend to have kids or whatever, you still need children in your life. You may be eighteen years old, you may be eighty years old; you need kids in your life for two reasons.
One, kids keep you young. The moment you stop having kids in your life, you get old really fast.
And number two, you need kids in your life because children are God’s way to teach you unselfishness.
When a mom or a dad gets up in the middle of the night to take care of a kid, they’re not doing it because they like to get up in the middle of the night. They’re doing it out of love. It is teaching you unselfishness.
So whether you are a mother or a father or you are an aunt or an uncle or you’re a grandmother or a grandfather or you are simply an adult friend, you need kids in your life.
You need to either get involved in the children’s ministry, the student ministry or become a mentor, after school program, fostering or some way you need to get kids in your life.
They did a study of at-risk kids one time in New York City and Washington, D.C. to find out what is it that kids in inner city, what keeps them on the right path or not. They discovered that the difference between whether a kid makes it in life or doesn’t make it is the presence of a single adult that cares for them.
A caring adult makes all the difference in a child’s life.
What they discovered was this: It doesn’t have to be a parent. It just has to be a caring adult in that person’s life.
You can be that parent, that adult, that mentor, that big brother, that big sister or whatever.
We have many, many ways for you to be involved in that here at Southpointe.
I realize that here in our church we have many young families. This is a young family church.
So I thought, when I was a young dad I hadn’t the slightest idea. Nothing in life prepares you to be a parent.
So I thought, when I was a young dad I hadn’t the slightest idea. Nothing in life prepares you to be a parent. Everybody agree with that? You just do it. It’s not like you know how to do it and then you become one. No. Nobody knew how to do it. You learn how to do it while you’re doing it.
Everybody agree with that? You just do it. It’s not like you know how to do it and then you become one. No. Nobody knew how to do it. You learn how to do it while you’re doing it.
So I thought I’d show you right up front, as we start this series, ten things not to do as a parent.
Don’t do this as a parent. That’s not a good dad model for your children.
Here’s another one. Don’t do this – try to wash your baby and the dishes at the same time. That’s what guys do when wives are off at the women’s retreat.
Don’t do this: Don’t let your baby eat out of the doggie dish.
Don’t do this: This is in Thailand. Here’s a baby washing with a python. I know that’s not going to happen in America, but in case you ever move to Thailand, don’t do that.
Don’t let the older child mark up the younger baby with a marker. Don’t ask the older brother to babysit with a marker because this is what you’re going to get. That’s not good.
Don’t do this: Let your baby get the food for themselves out of the refrigerator.
Don’t try to feed a baby with your toes. This guy is incredibly lazy. He’s trying to feed his son with a bottle in his feet. Don’t do that.
Here’s another one: Don’t give them cigarettes and beer. You don’t want to do that as a dad.
Don’t let your kids get a ticket! That’s real important, because if he’s speeding it’s on his record for life.
Most important of all: Don’t pierce them. Wait until they’re old enough and then if they want to get pierced on their own that’s their decision; but don’t you do that in advance.
We’re going to look the next few weeks at the different needs of children – emotional needs and intellectual needs and relational needs. But obviously we’re going to start with the most important – their spiritual needs.
I’ve actually heard guys – parents – say this, “I’m not going to force my religion on my kids. I’m not going to teach them about God. I’m not going to force them to go to church. I’m going to just let them find their own way, find their own path.”
There’s a word for that: stupid. That’s the most insane thing I know. Some people are so open minded their brains fall out. That’s just dumb. Because this is the most important thing in life.
It’s more important that your kids know God than that they succeed in business. It’s more important that they know God than they be popular. It’s more important that they know God than they know how to hit a baseball, because none of that other stuff is going to last. God did not create your child to simply go to school, get a job, retire and die. God created your child and created you to know him. If you miss that, you miss the whole purpose of your life and their life.
So if you’re going to get anything done in your kids’ life, whether they ever go to college or not, whether they ever do anything else or not, you need to make sure that they get to know God – because that is the only thing that is going to last forever, for eternity, for on and on and on – they need to know that this life is preparation for the next.
So we have to give our kids a spiritual foundation. It is the most important task of a parent, far more important than teaching them how to dribble a ball or whatever else you want to teach them. That they get to know God, their creator.
Giving my kids a spiritual foundation is important for three reasons. They’re the three verses on the top of your outline.
The first reason is it’s my responsibility as a parent.
My responsibility as a parent. Giving kids a spiritual foundation is not the responsibility of the government. Giving kids a spiritual foundation is not the responsibility of the school. Giving kids a spiritual foundation is not the responsibility of the church. It is not the responsibility of our children’s pastor or our junior high or senior high pastor. Their job is to help you. The spiritual responsibility for the health of your kids spiritually is your responsibility as a parent.
The Bible says this in , “Fathers, do not exasperate your children…” What does exasperate mean? It means when you set a standard so high there’s no way they can meet it, so they give up. It’s when you are an unpleasable dad. It’s when you expect things of your kids that even you couldn’t meet. When you hold such a high standard – my dad, my mom, she’s unpleasable. That is exasperating your children.
The first step in parenting is cut them some slack. Don’t treat them like adults. They’re not adults. They’re kids. And if you hold them to a standard that you yourself can’t even meet, you’re going to exasperate, you’re going to anger, you’re going to frustrate your kids.
That means you don’t change your moods. You don’t say one minute you’re this and one minute you’re that. One guy told me, I didn’t know every day whether my dad would hug me or slug me. That exasperates your kids. The Bible says don’t do that. Don’t frustrate them with irresponsible or irrational or unreachable goals.
Fathers, don’t exasperate your children – don’t hold that high standard that they can’t reach. “…Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Circle “training” and “instruction.” If you are a parent your job is to bring up your children in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Notice this is not optional; it’s commanded. You say Rick, it’s a little late. My kids are fifty years old now.
It is never too late. Maybe you missed it in the early years when your kids were in the home. But it is never too late to bring your kids up in the training and instruction of the Lord. You may be eighty or ninety years old. You can start now. It is never too late and it is never too early. As long as you’re alive and they’re alive, you have a parenting responsibility.
How you bring them up in that training responsibility of the Lord is going to vary with their age. But it’s still your responsibility, even if you’re retired, because they’re your children.
Your role, dads, does change. Let me explain this. There are four stages of life for a dad. The first stage is when you’re small, when you’re a child, you believe in Santa Claus. Stage two, you grow up and you don’t believe in Santa Claus. Stage three as a dad, you are Santa Claus. And Stage four is when you begin to look like Santa Claus. It’s real obvious some of you have already reached stage four and you’re looking like Santa Claus.
The second reason why giving my children a spiritual foundation is important is because it is the key to God’s blessing on my family.
This is a very scary verse. . God gets right to the point here. God says, “My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me…” What does it mean “They’re being destroyed…” Families are falling apart because they don’t know me. The culture is falling apart because they don’t know me. Businesses are falling apart because they don’t know me and my commands. He says when you don’t know me your life falls apart.
“My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me… Since you have forgotten the laws of your God, I will forget to bless your children.” Hello! That’s an important thing. It says there if I forget to teach my kids the spiritual instructions, the principles, the insights and things like that, God says if you forget me in your marriage, if you forget me in your family, then I’ll forget to bless your kids. It’s just that simple. Don’t expect me to bless your family if God isn’t a part of the dinner table. Don’t expect me to bless your family if you’re not bringing me into conversations.
Number three. Here’s the positive side of that.
Giving kids a spiritual foundation is the secret of multi-generational blessings.
What does that mean? Did you know that you can do things now that will bless not just your kids but your grandkids and your great-grandkids? , “God commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, [these principles] even children yet to be born, [that’s the next generation] who in turn would tell their children.”
Notice, there are four generations in that verse. The forefathers teach their children who teach their children who haven’t even been born yet, who teach their children who haven’t even been born yet. That’s four generations.
What he’s saying here is an amazing principle. You can actually influence people who are not even alive yet by what you do and by what you teach. You can not only bless your life and your family’s life and your kids’ life, but if you do it the right way you can actually bless your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren who, a hundred years from today, will be enjoying the blessings because of your godly life. That’s cool!
Friends, you are looking at Exhibit A of this verse. I certainly do not deserve all the blessings God has bestowed on my life. But I am the recipient and benefactor of four generations of godly ancestors. My parents walked with the Lord, my grandparents walked with the Lord. And my great-grandparents walked with the Lord; and they were praying for me before my parents were even born.
The reason God has blessed my life is because I had a linage of parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and actually further on back than that. I’m enjoying the multi-generational blessings of godly parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. And my life has been so blessed because of that.
You say, “Rick, my parents weren’t even Christians, much less my grandparents or great grand parents.”
It’s time for you to start the chain! You start it. You right now, man. You right now, woman. You say, we’re going to start it right now. This family from this day forward is going to be a godly family. I’m going to have my kids and my grandkids and my great-grandkids be so blessed because I walked with God.
That’s your choice. That is the coolest thing you could do. Do you want to leave a legacy? I’ll tell you what you do. You do what we’re talking about today and it will bless multi-generations. Somebody in your family could be doing something amazingly great for the Lord as a child, a grandchild or a great grandchild simply because you decided from this day forward I’m going to focus all my attention on a godly legacy.
Far more important than your hobby, far more important than your financial success, far more important than the business you build will be the family you leave behind. And you can leave a multi-generational blessing.
What we’re going to do today is I’m going to teach you instruction and training of the Lord – the eight truths about God that every child must learn, whether that child is five or fifty. All eight of these are from the Lord’s Prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer is not simply a prayer to be prayed; it is a template for life. It is a lifestyle to be lived. The cool thing about this is that the Lord’s Prayer, these eight truths that we’re going to look at, is the antidote to the eight biggest emotional problems kids have growing up. They are the antidote to the major problems kids have, and they are the truths that counter the eight biggest lies that our world teaches children.
The first truth that the Lord’s Prayer teaches is this:
1. God wants an intimate relationship with me!
God wants, he desires, he delights, he created me for an intimate relationship. This is his person. The Bible says that we start by saying, “Our Father who art in heaven.” That implies a relationship – our Father.
You need to understand how radical this was. Because before Jesus taught us to say Our Father, nobody thought of God as their father. The Bible tells us that we are to pray not, our dictator, our master, our tyrant. We’re not even to pray our creator, although he is. We are to pray, Our Father. That is a loving, intimate relationship. So the natural question is, what kind of Father is God?
Write down these four words: caring, close, consistent, capable. Our heavenly Father is caring, close, consistent, capable. That’s the kind of Father God is.
Some dads are kind of apathetic. They don’t really care about their kids. Today twenty-five percent of all white kids grow up without the presence of the father in their home. Fifty percent of all Hispanic kids grow up without the presence of the father in the home. Seventy-five percent of all black kids grow up without the presence of the father in the home. It’s no wonder people are having a hard time relating to God.
Our Father. God is a caring Father when a lot of other dads don’t even care. God is a close Father when a lot of other dads are distant. God is a consistent Father when a lot of other dads are moody and inconsistent and fickle. You don’t know if they love you or not. God is a capable Father when a lot of other dads are saying, I’m good at my business but I’m not good at fathering. God is our heavenly Father.
Why is this so important? Why is this the first truth you teach your kids, that God wants an intimate relationship with me?
Because it is the antidote to the number one problem kids have growing up. The number one problem kids have growing up is this: insecurity. They feel insecure. They need boundaries in their life in order to feel secure.
We know this. Little babies, we wrap them up real tight. We swaddle them. To swaddle a baby means you put them in a real tight blanket. Why? It gives them a sense of security when they know there are boundaries.
We know this today with autistic children. We put pressure shirts on autistic kids, which makes them feel secure. It calms them, because the boundaries give them a sense of connectedness.
Kids instinctively know they don’t belong at the center of life. We’ll come back to that in a minute. But the point is with intimate relationships with God, very few people feel good about themselves because they feel insecure. They battle insecurity their entire lives.
There’s this epidemic of low self worth because they don’t know that they’ve got a heavenly Father who is consistent and close and caring and capable. When you teach this to your children as early as possible, then they learn to understand that the God of the universe created me and created the entire universe because he loved me and wanted me alive. And he loves me unconditionally and he’ll never stop loving me. So then kids start growing up with the attitude, I like me and God likes me and if you don’t like me, what’s your problem? Very few kids have that kind of confidence, because they haven’t been taught that God is their heavenly Father.
Instead, we teach them things that make them insecure. Our society is built on competitiveness, competition and on comparing. From the very beginning children learn to compare. They compare their hair, they compare their clothes, they compare their parents. They compare everything. We compare appearance and we compare aptitude and we compare academics. And we compare athletic ability. And we compare achievement. If you’re in a school of a thousand people, only one can be the valedictorian. That means everybody else feels a little inferior, unless you understand how much God loves you.
When God becomes your Father and you become his child this issue is settled. You matter and you’re terrific.
2. The second thing that we have to teach our children is that God’s name deserves my honor.
Because his name represents his person. It’s who he is. His name represents his character.
Today we name people just because it sounds nice. But in the Bible a name meant something. It represented your character.
In the Bible, God has many, many names in Hebrew. Each one of God’s names represents a benefit to your life. It’s an answer to a need in your life.
For instance, one of God’s names is Jehovah Shalom, which means “God is my peace.” He’ll give me peace when I’m stressed out.
Another one is Jehovah Jireh, God is my provider. He’ll take care of my needs when I don’t see where they’re going to come from.
Another one is God is my forgiver; another is Jehovah Tsidkenu, God is my righteousness. He’s going to make a way for me to get to heaven, not because I’m good enough but because he’s good enough.
The more you know the names of God, the more you’re going to know the character of God. So the second thing the Bible tells us is “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” That means you recognize that God is able to meet your deepest needs because every one of his names will meet a need in your life. You recognize that God is greater than your problem. That’s why in the big ten, the Ten Commandments, right up there with Don’t murder and Don’t commit adultery is Don’t take my name in vain.
And you do that all the time. You use “God” as an exclamation point. Even if you don’t swear you say, “Oh my God!” What are you doing? You’re using God as an exclamation point. That’s taking his name in vain. You should not be saying, “Oh, my God!” That is using him as an exclamation.
I grew up in a family where not only were we not allowed to say God’s name in vain, we weren’t even allowed to get close to it. In our family I couldn’t even say words that sounded like it because it was like sort of... like I wasn’t allowed to say “Gosh!” Because that’s just a knock off of “God” Or Joshua, which means Jehovah is God. That’s where gosh comes from, from Jehovah.
I was not allowed to say “Oh geez!” because that’s just short for Jesus.
You go back and study the etymology of a lot of slang. It’s just knock offs of swearing. I wasn’t even allowed to say geez because that’s getting close to saying God’s name. It is holy and we just don’t use it.
You go to movies all the time and people say, God this and God that and O my God! And Jesus this and Jesus that and Jesus Christ, and on and on. And you say, it doesn’t bother me. It ought to! If I start taking your mom’s name in vain, that ought to bother you. If I start taking your dad’s name in vain, that ought to bother you. If you’re a child of God it ought to bother you when people take your heavenly Father’s name in vain and use it as an exclamation point.
The next time you stub your toe just say, oh Buddha! Don’t use God’s name. You hit your thumb, go Hare Krishna! You slam your finger in the door go, Oh, Ron Hubbard! I don’t care what you say, you just don’t use God’s name in vain.
And you better teach your kids the same thing. Because you want God’s blessing on your family, you do not take the Lord’s name in vain. You’d never commit murder, but that’s right there in the same list. Don’t do it! “Nothing has the power to save but your name,” we just sang it.
3. The third thing that I teach is God’s purpose for me is part of a larger plan.
That’s the third thing. Your child may be sixty-five years old when they learn that God’s purpose for my life is a purpose of a larger plan.
This is where the Bible says, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God has a bigger plan.
This is where I was saying kids instinctively know that they don’t belong at the center of the universe. They instinctively know they don’t belong at the center of your family. They’re part of your family. But they are not the center of your family. If little Miss Princess gets her way all the time, you are raising an insecure child. They know instinctively that there ought to be boundaries. As kids grow up they’re going to push against those boundaries, but when you say, “Sorry. We’re just not going there,” it’s secure. It’s stabilizing. It’s de-stressing.
So kids need to know they are not the center of the universe. That’s what I was trying to teach in The Purpose Driven Life, in the first sentence: It’s not about you. Until a kid learns that, that kid is going to be self-centered, selfish and doomed to unhappiness. Because the world does not live for your child. And if you treat them like it does you’re setting them up for great disappointment.
Their plan is a part of a much bigger plan. History is his story. We’re just cogs in a wheel. There were generations before us and there will be generations after us. It’s not about us; it’s all about God. When we think it’s all about us it creates insecurity.
God’s purpose – your kingdom come, your will be done – is the answer to the big questions of life. Why am I here? What am I here for? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Does my life have meaning? Is there significance to my life? What is my purpose?
Those are the questions that only God can answer. The government can’t answer them. Nobody can answer them except God. When you teach the third part of the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth ...” you’re teaching that first, God has a master purpose for the world, “your kingdom come” and God has a personal purpose for your life “your will be done” – personal plan.
4. The fourth thing you need to teach your children in this nurture and admonition of the Lord is that God can meet all my needs.
I don’t need to look at anything else. I need to just look to God to meet my needs. This is God’s provision.
The Bible says “Give us today our daily bread.” It doesn’t say annual bread. It doesn’t say monthly bread. It says daily bread. God wants you to learn to depend on him.
Follow me on this. This is the path of parenting. Your goal is to raise your children from dependence upon you to independence to dependence upon God. That’s the process, as a parent, you want to teach your children. First, they’re one hundred percent dependant upon you. Then you want to teach them to be independent of you. They have to learn to be independent of you. Then you want to teach them to be dependant upon God. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Bread represents every kind of resource.
This is the antidote to worry. If kids don’t learn this they’re going to learn to be worry warts. Provision is the answer to worry. God says I want you to trust me. I want you to relax. God says you need to teach your kids first that I can meet every need, that I want to meet every need, and that I will meet every need if you will look to me.
So before you give your child something, first let them pray about it. You need to teach them that he is the source of supply, because you’re not always going to be around. You need to teach them that God can meet all my needs.
5. I want to teach them that God forgives me so I can forgive others.
God forgives me so I must forgive others! In life, your children are going to be hurt. You can’t stop that. You were hurt and your parents couldn’t stop you from being hurt. And you have hurt other people. And I hate to tell you this but your kids are going to hurt other people.
The twin emotions of guilt and resentment keep most people in bondage their entire lives. I am guilty over the things I’ve done to others. And I am resentful over the things people have done to me. These twin emotions – guilt and resentment – are like the twin crosses. We feel guilty over the past and we resent other people and we mess up today.
The next phrase of the Lord’s Prayer says this: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” None of us is perfect and you need to teach your kids they can’t expect perfection of themselves and you can’t expect perfection of them. The Bible says all have sinned. That means you, me, and the pope. Everybody. And as a result, we all carry regrets. Everybody does. We all carry guilt and we all carry shame.
But God doesn’t want that. So that’s why he says “If we confess our sins he’s faithful and just to forgive us.” So we need to teach our kids how to confess their sins to God.
God forgives me. None of us are perfect. When I hold on to guilt I do stupid things. Tom was talking about this last night. You notice that when you do something and you feel guilty you often counter balance it by doing something else and it looks real stupid. Sometimes when kids are growing up, particularly in the teenage years, they go off and do all kinds of wacky things. If you look deeper beneath it, it’s because they don’t feel forgiven. The real issue is shame. The real issue is guilt. The real issue is feeling regret.
God’s answer to guilt and shame is his pardon. God’s answer to worry is his provision – give us this day our daily bread. God’s answer to my loneliness is his person – our Father who art in heaven, his presence. God’s answer to everything in life is himself. And he says I will give you my pardon. Forgiveness comes through Christ.
Not only do I need to learn to be forgiven, I need to learn to offer forgiveness. As a parent you have to teach your child to ask for forgiveness, to accept forgiveness and to offer forgiveness. And there’s only one way to do it. You model it. Have you ever asked forgiveness from your kids? Maybe you need to go back right now and ask for forgiveness for something you did twenty years ago. You ask for it, you offer it, and you accept it.
He says “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” God’s answer to our guilt is his pardon. God’s answer to our resentment is his peace.
Let me tell you why this one is very important. Your children’s biggest problems in life are not going to be financial. And your children’s biggest problems in life are not going to be intellectual. And your children’s biggest problems in life are not going to be some other area. They’re going to be relational. They’re your biggest problems in life. Relational. So you have to learn how to get along, which means I accept, I ask, and I offer forgiveness. You’ve got to learn how to do that.
6. The sixth truth that I have to teach as a parent is that God will help me do what’s right.
The Bible says this “Lead us not into temptation…” This is God’s protection. Not his provision, not his pardon, not his presence, not his power. It’s his protection. “Lead us not into temptation.”
God has said I will protect you from doing the wrong things and I will help you do what’s right. This is important for you to teach your children. God doesn’t just expect us to do what’s right. He empowers us to do what’s right. He will give you the ability. He doesn’t just set a standard and say now you’re on your own. Sheer willpower. He says if you trust me I will give you the strength to do what’s right. I’ll give you the power to do what’s right.
The problem with a lot of parents is we tell our kids what’s right but we don’t teach them how to get the power. They’re guaranteed to fail if they don’t know how to plug into the power. God will help me do what’s right.
There are a couple of verses I want you to write down. The first one is . This is an important passage. This passage teaches the three basic temptations of life.
The only good thing we can say about Satan is he is entirely predictable. He hasn’t had any new ideas since the creation of the world. The same three temptations he used on Adam and Eve he used on Abraham and Moses and Joseph and Gideon and Isaiah and Jeremiah and David and Saul and Jesus in the wilderness. And the same three temptations he uses on you. They are called the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, or passion, possession and position. Popularity, power, whatever. These three values are the values on which our society is built. I want to have fun, I want to get more, and I want to be idolized. Passion, possession and position.
They are the three working philosophies of life on which our culture is built. Passion, which is hedonism… if it feels good do it. Have fun. If loving you is wrong I don’t want to be right. That’s passion. Do whatever feels good. That’s called hedonism.
Then possession – the lust of the eyes. I see it and I want it. That’s called materialism. I see things and then I want them. It’s greed.
Satan doesn’t have to work very hard these days because advertisers have come up with a great tool to increase your greed. It’s called catalogs. This week I was teaching in Orlando to several thousand church planters. I’m coming back and I pull out one of those in-flight catalogs and I go, “How did I ever live without that! I’ve got to get me one of those things. That is good!” And because I see it, I want it. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t want it.
I told you once I collected last Christmas all of the catalogs. The very first Christmas catalog came in August. It was Mrs. Fields Cookies. Don’t tell me they don’t do target marketing to Rick Warren! Very first catalog I get – Mrs. Fields Cookies. I saved them. They were about four feet tall, that stack. About seventy, eighty pound of catalogs. They wouldn’t send those unless it worked. I see it and I want it. That’s materialism.
Then the pride of life is ego. I want status. It’s sex, salary and status. Pleasure, possessions and position. It’s the temptation to feel, the temptation to have, and the temptation to be.
The temptation to say, I don’t need God in my life, that’s called secularism. That’s the third big philosophy. Materialism, hedonism, and secularism are simply the three basic temptations of life.
“Don’t love this evil world and all that it offers you. For when you love the world you show that you don’t have the love of the Father within you. For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, [that’s pleasure] the lust for everything we see, [that’s the lust of the eyes] and the pride of life. These are not from the Father. They are from the world.”
When my kids were small I used to teach them to identify which of these three… every advertisement ever created appeals to one of these three. I’ll feel better, I’ll have more, or I’ll be worshiped – I’ll be idolized, people will give me status, people’ll be envious, they’ll be jealous, have it your way, we do it all for you, you’re number one – and all that. You’re your own god. I used to pay my kids a nickel every time they could identify which of these three temptations the ad was producing.
I realize that, in itself, was materialism. But at least I was getting the message across. As a parent you want kids to understand that when they cheat, when they lie, when they steal, when they do something dishonest or anything else, it’s not because they’re bad. It’s because of one of those three things.
God has said I’ll help you do what’s right.
. This is one of the most important verses for parents to share. You need to share it at every age and stage of life. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.” You need to teach them it’s not a sin to be tempted. Do you understand that? It’s not a sin to be tempted. It’s a sin to give in. You can’t stop all the thoughts that go through your mind. You can’t stop the birds from flying overhead. But you can keep them from making a nest in your hair.
Temptation is not a sin. And by the way, neither is attraction. Attraction is uncontrollable. Arousal is uncontrollable. It’s what you do with it. A guy might be attracted to a woman. A guy might be attracted to another man. It’s not attraction that’s a sin. You have attractions all the time. What is a sin is what you do with it. I might have an impulse to hit you in the nose, but if I don’t act on it, that’s ok. You may make me angry and Satan puts in my mind, slug that guy! That’s not my idea. That was his idea! It’s not a sin until we act on it, because he puts ideas in your mind.
I’ve told you this before: If Satan gives you an idea, it’s temptation. If God gives you an idea, it’s inspiration. If you get an idea, it’s stupidity!
God says I’ll help you do what’s right. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.” The good news is we all have the same temptations. So you need to tell your kids, every temptation you’re going to have growing up, I had. So don’t feel embarrassed. Don’t feel ashamed. You can tell me about it because I had the exact same temptation. It’s all right!
Every young mother, when a baby is screaming its head off and you can’t get that baby to be quiet, has had the temptation to strangle that baby! Not me? Liar! Every mother and every father has wanted to strangle the baby. That doesn’t mean you did it. That’s one of those things you don’t do in parenting!
“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. But God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. [This is a promise.] But when you are tempted he will also provide a way out so you can stand up under it.” So when a teenager comes to you and says, “Mom! Dad! I couldn’t help myself!” They’re not telling the truth. God says I’ll always provide a way out; you’ve just got to take it. Sometimes that means run. Get away from the situation.
You don’t put yourself in tempting situations. If you’re trying to stop drinking alcohol, you don’t go to the bar to eat pretzels. It’s kind of obvious. If you’re trying to break the habit of pornography, you don’t intentionally walk into an airport bookstore or a Seven Eleven. If you don’t want to get stung you stay away from the bees! God will help me do what’s right.
7. The seventh thing that God wants to teach is that God will protect me from evil.
Every child needs to learn that God has promised to protect me from evil. The Bible says “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Why is this important? Let me ask you a question. Is the world getting safer for children or more unsafe for children? Nobody’s going to debate that one. It’s far more unsafe today for my grandchildren than it was for my children. And it was far more safe when I was a child than when my kids were children. And it was far safer to grow up as kids when my parents were growing up than when I was growing up.
The world is getting more evil. There are more wackos, more weirdoes, more ways to get at your kids. Evil people can get at your kids in your house, in their bedroom. It’s called the internet. They can teach them all kinds of stuff that will mess up their minds. And they can see all kinds of things that will mess up their minds. By the time a child is eighteen years old, that child has amassed eighteen thousand hours of television viewing. And the number of murders and the number of sexual assaults and rapes and sexual experiences with people you’re not married to that they have seen numbers in the thousands. That’s being fed into their mind all the time.
The Bible says “Deliver us from evil.” God’s answer to evil is his power. You cannot protect your kids from everything that’s going to happen. The moment they start heading off to school you don’t control most of their time. You cannot control what happens to your kids. You cannot protect them all the time.
But God can. What’s out of your control is not out of God’s control. You better be praying. You better be praying like crazy. You better be praying for them every day. When they’re fifty years old you better be praying for them every day. And when they’re sixty years old you better be praying for them every day. God can use them and protect them. God can deliver them.
8. The eighth truth we must teach our children about God is there’s more to life than here and now.
This is so important because our entire society is built on now; that all that matters is now. And all that matters is here. It’s no long-term thinking. No long-term thinking at all. The biggest problem in our society today is short-term thinking and the inability to delay gratification. I want it and I want it now. And I’m going to live within my means, even if I have to charge it!
Our nation! I’m frightened for our nation because we have nobody acting like an adult about the national debt. You can’t just pretend that it isn’t happening. That enormous five trillion dollar debt which is two and a half trillion more than it was two years ago is because of our inability to delay gratification. It’s irresponsible to buy things you don’t need with money you don’t have. We have to teach people that there’s more to life than here and now. There is long-term benefit. Notice “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.” Circle “forever.” You need to teach your children that this life is not all there is. That you’re going to spend more of your life on the other side of death than on this one. That’s the forever part.
You’re going to get eighty years on this planet, maybe a hundred at the most. That’s not very much compared to trillions of years in eternity. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. God is in control. Yes, it looks bleak and it looks dark but God is in control and we look to God first as our source when we’re in need and he can meet all our needs.
These eight things that I just taught you, these eight things about God that we all must learn and we must teach our kids and our grandkids, the Lord’s Prayer, is the insurance policy for the believer. That’s what it is. It’s the insurance policy. It lists all that we can expect God to cover. In spite of guilt, resentment, worry, fear, anxiety, loneliness, insecurity and all these other things, God says I will give you my presence – our Father in heaven. I will give you my person – hallowed be thy name. My character. I will give you my plan and purpose – thy kingdom come thy will be done. I will give you my provision – give us this day our daily bread. I will give you my pardon – forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I will give you my power – Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I will give you my peace – for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.
Everything you need, everything your child needs, is in God. So I want to teach you a verse. It’s time we memorized a verse together. We haven’t memorized one for a while so we need to get back in that habit. Remember I told you when you memorize a verse, the hardest part to remember of the Bible verse is the address – where it is in Scripture; the book and the chapter and the verse. So you say the book and the chapter and the verse at the beginning and at the end of the verse. You say it twice. You say it aloud and you keep repeating it until you get it.
, “Deep in my heart I say, ‘The Lord is all I need! I can depend on him!’” And by the way where is that verse? .
This week you’re going to experience some things where you think I don’t have what I need. When you think I don’t have what I need right now. I don’t have the energy. I don’t have the ability. I don’t have the money. I don’t have what I need. You’re going to say, , “Deep in my heart I say, ‘The Lord is all I need! I can depend on him!’” .
Inside your program on the flap, tear this off, and that verse is there for you to remember . You can put this up in your car or on your mirror. I want you to memorize this verse this week, because the Lord’s Prayer teaches, “Deep in my heart I say, ‘The Lord is all I need! I can depend on him!’” And where is that verse? .
Let me give you some resources. Three or four things that will help you with what we just talked about.
First, it’s never too soon, never too early, to start teaching these eight truths to your kids. So I have written a children’s book to read to little kids to babies and older. It’s called The Lord’s Prayer. I got Richard Jesse Watson, who is one of the best children’s illustrators in the world, to illustrate this book. It’s each of the Lord’s Prayer phrases. At the end I explain in real simple children’s language what this means. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done… It’s just a beautiful, beautiful book. I’ve read it to my grandkids. This book is on the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer. It’s never too soon to start doing that. That is a good thing to do.
Then we have Readers Theater. Diana Cleveland who is a member at Saddleback, she has a thing called Playbook Reader’s Theater, where she takes spiritual truths and other truths and turns them into little plays that the parents can read with their kids and they each read a part together. This play book is on the Lord’s Prayer. You can have five different players, the mom and dad and three different readers. And they’re all colored in green, yellow, red, blue, pink and whatever. It teaches the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer like a play. You get five of the books and you read it around the table together. It’s a fun thing to do. All ages can do this.
Both of these are out on the patio. You can get one, but I suggest you get five of them because everybody’s going to need a book to read from. And help your kids and your family to read and understand the Lord’s Prayer.
Third thing: Next week I have taped a three-week small group series called Raising Your Kids Without Raising Your Blood Pressure. I’m hoping that your small groups will watch this the next three weeks. It’ll be available.
The fourth thing is on the back of that flap. On May 14th we’re going to do three community forums, like we’ve been doing; like we’ve done with the Daniel Plan.
By the way, you guys are doing good on the Daniel Plan. We’re losing an average of four thousand pounds a day in this church. That’s amazing! Four thousand pounds a day. I talked to three men last night who all three of them have lost over fifty pounds already.
On May 14th we’re going to have three forums here that morning; a forum for children – if you’ve got grade school or preschool children. We’re going to do a forum on youth – students and adolescents, teenagers, if you’ve got teenagers. And we’re going to do a forum on children with disabilities. If you say my kids are grown up, would you get somebody who doesn’t go to church and bring them to this? If you know somebody whose got kids – preschool, gradeschool, teenagers, or kids with disabilities bring them to this. This is a natural thing for you to bring people to. You can do that.
When I wrote this book we made a little video and put it on the internet – Kids Say the Lord’s Prayer. Watch this right now before we close.
Video
I’m dead serious about this. You cannot teach these eight truths to your children whether they’re five or fifty. You have to model them. You cannot teach your kids to say “Our Father” until you’ve been born again into God’s family. You cannot teach your kids to say “Hallowed be thy name” unless Christ has first priority in your life. You cannot teach your kids to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” unless you are committed to doing God’s will in your life. You cannot say “Give us this day our daily bread” and teach your children to say it, until you’re willing to share that daily bread with somebody who doesn’t have any. You cannot say “forgive us our debt” if you are holding on to a resentment against somebody else and you haven’t let them off the hook yet. You cannot say “Lead us not into temptation” if you are intentionally flirting with a temptation at the office or anywhere else. You cannot say “deliver us from evil” until you desire to walk with integrity and purity. You cannot teach “thine is the kingdom” until it’s the top priority in your life.
Prayer:
I want you to pray this with me in your mind, Dear God, our Father in heaven, thank you that you want an intimate relationship with me. Forgive me for dishonoring your name and using it as a filler in my conversation when I say ‘Oh god. O my god!’ Your name deserves my honor. Thank you that your purpose for me is part of a larger plan. May your kingdom come and your will be done. Thank you that you’ve promised to meet all my needs. Give us this day our daily bread. Thank you that you forgive me and teach me to forgive others as you have forgiven me. Thank you that you don’t just tell me to do what’s right. You help me do what’s right. Lead me not into temptation. Thank you that you’ve promised to protect me and my family from evil. Deliver us from evil. Thank you that this life is not all there is. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. So this week I want to say to you ‘Deep in my heart I say, the Lord is all I need! I can depend on him!’ Starting today, no matter how much time I have left in my life, I want to begin that godly legacy and heritage of four generations. I invite you into my life to take over every area of it. In your name I pray. Amen.