Our topic for today is parenting.
Because of the importance of this morning’s topic,parenting, we need to get right down to business. Our text is Colossians 3:21 (NIV) which says,"Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged."A parallel passage we should also consider is Ephesians 6:4 (NIV) which states, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."
These verses are clearly being directed to fathers, but they easily apply to any parent. In one verse, the apostle Paul identifies the biggest problem facing families in his day and ours. This problem is parents who are embittering and discouraging their children. And in Ephesians 6:4 (NIV) Paul offers a healthy alternative, "...bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."
First, a few words about parenting. Psalm 127:3 (NIV) says, "Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him."We live in atimein whichhaving children is not always desirable and when children aren’t always seen as a blessing or reward. For decades, birth rates in the United States have been steadily declining, just as they have been in Europe. The average married couple has something like 1.2 children. For every two adults, a husband and wife, just one child is typically born.
Birthrates are declining for many reasons.
Birthrates are declining for many reasons. In no particular order, the reasons for declining birthrates are as follows.
(1) Feminism. Women are far more career oriented these day— almost as much as men. The thought of bearing children is seen as burdensome and career-limiting. It is a demotion to have a child, or to be a stay-at-home mother. Women don’t need babies anymore than they need a man. Women are independent!
(2) Birth control, movies, music, media and abortion. God created sex for several reasons. One reason is for the husband and wife to form an inseparable emotional and spiritual bond, and to become one flesh,creating a lasting connection between two souls. A second reason is for pleasure and enjoyment between husband and wife, within a covenant relationship. A third reason God created sex is so that we would be fruitful and increase, and produce godly offspring.
Nowadays, sex is all about bonding and pleasure, but it’s less about having babies. Birth control provides the technological means to have pleasure without possibilities. Our media promotes the expectation of pleasure without responsibility. And abortion is our failsafe, should a pregnancy accidentally result. Our president captured the attitude of our age during his campaign when he said, "I’m going to teach (my daughters) about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby."
(3) Gayand lesbian movement. Again, sex is about pleasure and bonding,but it has been divorced from procreation.For this group, sex isn’t about having children, being fruitful, or having babies.
(4) Financial and economic pressure. Families cannot afford children due to personal debt and the need for two incomes.
I’m telling you all this because babies are not being seeing as the blessing they truly are. They aren’t being seen as something special, uniquely created in the image of God. And they arecertainly not seen as being a reward! Children are an inconvenience, a punishment of nature, or a burden. This view is so closely heldthat our culture must defend,at all costs, its right to rip a baby from its mother’s womb.
Don’t believe the lies. Most abortions are not about rape, incest, or the health of a mother. They are indicative of our culture’s changing values. Babies are a punishment, an inconvenience, and a crimp in one’s promiscuous lifestyle.
Raising godly children is our highest privilege and calling.
Here is a revolutionary concept.Raising godly children is one of our highest privileges and highest callings. A privilege, because God gives and God takes away. A calling, because God has made husband and wife one.He desiresgodly offspring! He wants his glory to be reflected in his creation, in his own image, and in the face of Christ-like sons and daughters who grow up to be Christ-like dads,moms, and grandparents.
Living for pleasure isn’t much of a heritage or legacy. But godly offspring sure are! The legacy is having someone to carry your name, and more importantly God’s glory, to the ends of the earth!
Come on, mom and dad! What is your attitude about your children? Is parenting a privilege? Is parenting your holy calling? Are your kids an accident or a blessing? Are they apunishment or a reward? Are they worth the sacrifice andthe inconvenience? Do the joys outweigh the burdens?
I’ll tell you about one group of people who believe that having children is a calling.Muslims. I saw a report this past week that while couples in North America and Europe are having 1.2 babies per couple, Muslim couples are having as many as 7-8 children. Muslim clerics have declared that violent jihads are no longer necessary. Because if present birth rates hold, within the next generation Muslims will become a majority in France, Germany, Britain, Canada, and North America.Christians will be the minority.
God is desiring godly offspring because parenting is part of God’s plan for spreading his glory to the ends of the earth.
Fathers are asked to be responsible in the raising of godly children.
There is something revolutionary about Colossians 3:21 and Ephesians 6:4. Fathers are being asked to take up the mantle of responsibility in raising godly children. We live in a day when many men resent being fathers. Men want the pleasure, and they are quick to move in with a gal, andare quick to marry sometimes.But parenting? No way! When the baby arrives (42% of the time out of wedlock, according to the latest numbers) the men disappear! The mother and child are left to fend for themselves financially, emotionally, or spiritually.
I’m not interesting in beating up on husbands this morning. Colossians 3:21 is a commandment for husbands to reengage and step up to the plate. It is a commandment to take responsibility and fulfill God’s purpose, and to shine! Don’t allow yourself to be relegated to the human waste pile. You have a higher purpose to live for than for sexual conquest and sexual pleasure. You have a heritage, a child, provided by the hand of God himself.
Your heritage isn’t your work, house, business, athleticism, intelligence, charm, good looks, or wealth. It's what your child becomes! Don’t just sit there on the sidelines, and don’t run away! Be a godly influence on your baby, on your child, and on the mother.You train up that child, you instruct that child, you discipline that child, and you make who that child becomes your top priority. The child is second only to your spiritual growth and your unconditional love for its mother!
Colossians 3:21 is all about fathers playing a positive role in their children’s lives. Do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged! It is very interesting to parse the word "embitter" in the Greek. The word embitter means to provoke anger, despair, and resentment. It means to agitate or frustrate.
It is too easy to embitter your children.
Parents, there are two ways you can embitter your children. One way is by being a total jerk, or even a partial jerk. Jerks tend to be more dictatorial than directive. Jerks have a way of reprimanding and scolding, belittling and criticizing, and holding their children to high standards while providing relatively little direction. They are big on the "what" but don’t invest in showing their children "how" or even "why."
Parents, it doesn’t take any leadership to criticize, to be a fault finder, or to tell your kids that they, "need to be more like so –n- so."It doesn’t take any leadership to throw your weight around and be the tyrant. It does take leadership to have a plan, to chart a course, to come alongside your child, to encourage hm, to pray with him and not just for him, to understandhis challenges, to get intohis world, to stop demanding and start loving, to begin coaching, and to cutout the constant criticism!
You don’t have to be an aggressor to embitter your child. You can also embitterher by being passive and disengaged. So many parents these days, and fathers in particular, don’t raise an eyebrow over the things their children are doing or becoming. What embitters kids as much as anything is parents who don’t care. You don’t care who their friends are, what music they listen to, what images they see, what they do on the weekend, who their boyfriends or girlfriends are, or what’s going on in the bedroom while you are busy at work or sitting on your butt watching television. You don’t care if they smoke, if they drink, if they eat junk food, if they're obese, if they'readdicted, if they’ve been abused by a boy, or if they’re the butt of jokes at school.
Embittered children act out in rebellion.
Neglect embitters children. Andneglected children act out in rebellion. They will act out until they get the attention that they think they deserve. And parents, your neglected child prefers negative attention over no attention. If it takes getting kicked out of school, or thrown in jail, or becoming pregnant by a boyto get you up off the couch, or to get you to put family before work, they’ll do it!
Parents usually err at one extreme or the other. They'reeither overly harsh and aggressive, or they'repassive and uninvolved. Whether you err on the side of being harsh or err on the side of passivity, the prescription is still the same. If we take Colossians 3:21 and sort of turn it inside out, it gives us two important principles for parenting.
First, parent with assertiveness.
There is a huge difference between being aggressive and being assertive. And there is a huge difference between being assertive and being passive. It’s a mistake to ride roughshod over your children, and it’s a mistake to run away. You need to be present and engaged in your child’s life. You need to be actively training him, guiding him, andcoaching him. The Church can help you, but the Church isn’t the solution. As a parent, you are God’s solution. Youare God’s plan A.
Second, parent with empathy.
There is a huge difference between apathy and empathy. Apathy says, "I don’t care. Leave me alone." Empathy says, "Help me understand." Incidentally, there is a huge difference between empathy and sympathy too. Sympathy says, "You poor thing, you poor victim…"Empathy says, "You can grow. You can learn. Let me come alongside you and help you. Let's work this out."
As you read Colossians 3 together as a family, take special notice of Colossians 3:12-17. The essence of a godly family, the essence of Christ-likeness in relationships, is being assertive and showing empathy. It’s not sitting on your laurels while pain and anger festers, and while misunderstandings compound. Instead, it's actively loving, and forgiving, and making peace, and teaching, and worshiping together, and setting the spiritual temperature of your household!
And the essence of a godly family is certainly not in being apathetic or enabling. It’s coming alongside family members, showing empathy, showing consideration, showing understanding, bearing life’s challenges together as a family, striving for unity and peace, and possessing a generous and forgiving spirit.
The Bible pictures a godly family in Colossians 3:12-17 (NIV).
"Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.And be thankful.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
Children who enjoy the active involvement of mom and dad, and who feel understood, and who feel mom and dad arefor them,succeed in life. Parents, encourage your children. Praise their strengths. Don’t overcorrect, harass, frown, roll your eyes, or fail to smile. Use your strength to build them up, to guide and direct, to show them the way of wisdom by your example, to listen, and to understand.
Proverbs 22:6(NIV) says, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will notturn from it."