To evaluate that and, and I think that's where a husband and
wife can talk together and, and, you know, discuss those things
together and, and determine what the best course of action is.
But most parents are not too hard.
Most parents are too soft on their children, you know, when
it comes to this idea of, of, of expecting that respect and
teaching them the things that they, that they should know when
it comes to this idea of respect and everything else.
We talked a lot about discipline last week and along that line, I
think it's important to understand that you shouldn't
baby your children. Children need a mother that they
can run to when they skin a knee and, you know, they're bleeding
and or they got a broken arm and dad's like, let me feel it.
All right, you're fine. Go play.
And it's dangling by a thread. You know, I've, you know, I've
been in that situation before. It's, you know, kids need a
mother to, to, to give them a shoulder to cry on, I suppose
nothing wrong with, you know, with the dad that is tender
toward his daughter especially, but even maybe toward his sons
when they're young. But the, you know, life is not
easy. And when you baby your children
and you just, everything is a featherbed for them.
And you just, you know, you lift them up on a pillow and carry
them from one place to the next. When they're 14 years old,
they're going to get hit in the face with reality when they
finally make it out on their own.
And they realize that mom is not there to make their bed for them
anymore. And mom is not there to make
sure that they have a little snacky ready for them before
they go to bed. And the nice little glass of
warm milk to, to make sure their stomach is OK and all of these
other things. And, and again, there's a
balance, right? It's it's mothers are, are more
naturally tender toward those things.
Dads are not. Go get your own milk.
You know, if you get your own little snacky, if that's what
you want, right? And you can go work for it.
In fact, go down to the store and get me one too.
But you know, don't, don't baby your children.
And I think I think an important thing is this dad's number one,
your responsibility is to oversee the discipline in your
home, right? You set the rules.
You set what what what things are are there to be disciplined
for, right? And it's up to the mother then
to make sure that she is upholding what the father set in
place when it comes to discipline.
Just because you don't think that he should get spanked for
that or just just because you don't think that, you know, you
thought it was too hard saying that he couldn't go to that
thing because he didn't do what you told him to do.
And Dad's not here. Well, I'm going to let him go
because I think that was too hard.
Anyway, that's, that's not your decision to make.
You can talk about it amongst yourself later on and say, I
think it was too hard. I think you should have let him
go and I think next time you should.
But once that law is laid down, that is, that is complete
disrespect to your husband. We're going to talk about some
of this a little bit more tonight.
It's complete disrespect for you to go against exactly against
what your husband laid down as the law and maybe he was being
too hard. He's going to be the one that
answers to God for that. You're going to answer to God
for whether you submit it or not.
But don't baby your children, you know, you know, Mamas
especially don't get in the way of discipline.
Let the dad do the work. You're too.
You're soft. You're soft and you should be
your mother, right? Mothers are naturally going to
be soft. Your kids don't need soft all
the time. They need hard sometimes.
And dad has a much easier time of coming down hard and then
because they're less soft than the mother is, especially when
it comes to boys. All right.
With my boys especially. And my wife understood this very
early on. I think maybe maybe she just
doesn't say anything about it. But, you know, I understand what
young men need. I was a young man, right?
I understand what young boys need.
I was a young boy. My wife was never a young boy.
She didn't have to go out and wrestle.
She didn't go out and, you know, get beat up on the soccer field.
She didn't do all of those things that I did growing up
that that made me part at least of what I am today, right?
I know what my boys need and I and I know they don't need
somebody to sit around and cuddle them and, and hug them
every time something happens that that that's a little bit
too hard for them, right? They need dad to be hard on them
sometimes. Let him let him be hard on them.
They need it, especially the boys.
But he's the ultimately the one that's responsible.
Now, if, if dad can take it too far too, right?
And it's not your, it's not your position to stop him in the
middle of it and say what you're doing is wrong.
Talk about it. Do it behind closed doors.
And I'll explain why in a little bit.
But it's very, very important, you know, that, that you don't
make excuses for your children. Well, they're this or well,
they're that. And I know that sometimes there
is excuses. Right now he's tired or, well,
he just, you know, he didn't think that.
Kids are a lot smarter than you think they are #1 and many times
they're playing you and you don't even realize you're
getting played and they're winning.
And then you make excuses for them and allow them to keep
winning when what they need is discipline.
What they need is for somebody to call them out on that and
say, no, you're not doing that. I don't care if you think you're
right. I don't care if you think this
or you think that. I don't care if there is an
excuse. Don't make excuses for your
kids. The kids are not the ones that
are in control. The parents are in control.
Your kids don't tell you what they're going to do and then you
agree to it or not. You tell your kids what they're
going to do, especially if they're if they're living in
your home, right? 19202540 They're still living in
your home, right? Hopefully by that point they're
not anymore. But it's your home and it's your
rules, right? They want to bring some woman
into the house. No, you're not bringing some
woman into the house, right? You want to bring alcohol or
something in that? No, you're not bringing that
stuff in there. Now, hopefully you've raised
them right to the point where they don't want to bring those
things in. But it's still your house and
it's still your rules. And when they're home, they
follow your rules, right? If they're living at home, I
should say, and I'll you got a 45 year old kids that comes back
to visit for Thanksgiving and you tell him to take out the
trash and he doesn't. You take him to the bed bedroom
and give him Swatch. That's a little different,
right? But I'm, I'm talking about if
they're still living at home, right?
That, so that goes down all the way to 123 year olds all the way
up to 2223 year olds. If they're living at home,
they're under your rules and you are still in, in, in charge.
And what happens in your home when they're living there is
still your responsibility. So you must be in control.
You tell them what to do, not the other way around.
And discipline will come naturally.
It'll be easy for you to to discipline them the way that
they need to be disciplined, but it'll also that they'll respond
to that discipline in the right way.
So we said, first of all, expect respect.
The number 2, I want to get into this tonight.
Reward, respect, reward, respect.
One of the greatest and one of the simplest ways to reward your
children for being respectful is to let them know that you
noticed them. Third, John 4, the Bible says I
have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk.
In truth, I was just talking to my wife the other day about this
and I said, you know, one of the, one of the toughest things
has got to be to have children that know better, that grow up
and don't live for the Lord. I can't, you know, I can't
imagine my kids are not old enough yet.
I can't imagine what it's like to have a child that does not
want to live for the Lord and doesn't follow the Lord.
But I can imagine that one of the greatest joys, one of the
greatest blessings is to have children that do follow the Lord
and and John here is talking about, you know, his children in
the faith, I believe. But third, John four, I think
it, I think it's still it, it fits perfectly with the family.
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in
truth. So first of all, I want to say
this, praise your children for respect.
Praise is a powerful motivator. Mark Twain said I can live for
two months on a good compliment and he's right.
You know, if somebody gives you a compliment and it, it goes a
long way, You know how it makes you feel when somebody
compliments you for doing something that you did that was
right or something like that. But when children are praised
for doing what's honorable, then they're encouraged to continue
doing those things that are honorable.
Turn over to Proverbs chapter 12.
Got a good number of verses for you tonight.
Try to turn with me to as many of these as you can.
We'll see how far we get. I may, I may.
I've got a kind of a section at the end that I'm going to give
you, but we'll see. We'll see what time it gets to
be and how far we get into this. I may save that for next time.
I'd rather, I'd rather go through this a little bit slowly
and help you get it and make sure you understand it.
Then try to speed through just to get done.
But Proverbs chapter 12 and verse #25 heaviness in the heart
of man make it a stoop, but a good word maketh it glad.
Proverbs 2525 few pages over verse 11.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of
silver. Sometimes that that fitly
spoken, that word fitly spoken is well timed.
Sometimes that word is yours, and it can go a long way in
helping your son or your daughter show honor when you see
your child show respect towards somebody else.
Whether your son is holding the door open for somebody or you
know, your daughter saying yes ma'am to a teacher or whatever
it happens to be, strike up the band.
Let them know that you noticed that, right?
Especially when they're young. Now, after a while, it gets to
the point where they should just know better, right?
And and you know, you don't get a cookie for saying yes ma'am
when you're 12 years old. They're holding the door for a
lady, right? Congratulations, here's your
cookie. You're 18, but you did a
wonderful job holding that door for that Lady, right?
At that age, you expect them to do those things.
There's other things that you can notice and other things that
you can praise them for besides the things that they ought to be
doing all the time. But especially when they're
young and you're trying to teach them these things.
Those are important things to make sure that you know, to make
sure that they know that you noticed that they did those
things the right way. Our world praises disrespect.
That's one of the reasons why there's so much of it today, you
know, and, and in their immaturity, peers often praise
disrespect as well. You know, when a kid is, is
saying something to a teacher or, you know, being
disrespectful to a teacher and the other kids in there videoing
it and all the rest of them are laughing about it and everything
else. I mean, they're praising that
disrespect, right? They're, they're, they're
showing everybody that they think it's funny and that, you
know, they're encouraging that behavior.
So when your child has you on one hand always on his case,
telling him how disrespectful he's become, and then he has
friends that are, you know, praising him for standing up for
himself or showing him who's boss, or, you know, his friends
are going to to praise him for all these things.
That motivation is going to be a lot more powerful.
Them their friends praising them for for the disrespect is going
to be a lot more powerful than you always criticizing them for
that disrespect. Hope it makes sense.
But that doesn't mean that correction isn't important.
We already established that. But if you tolerate, you know,
your teenager talking back or ignoring those boundaries,
you're wrong and you're hurting them.
But at the same time, if you think you can develop, develop
respect by correction alone, then you're also wrong.
Praise reaches further than correction many times,
especially as children grow into their teen years, you know, they
need a lot of correction. And there's so many things that
they do where you're just like, I've told you this 1000 times.
Why are you still not doing what you're supposed to do?
Or why you, why are you still doing things that you're not
supposed to do? And so when they finally do it,
you're like, finally you, you should have done that.
That's what you should have been doing all along.
But you think about the the way that, the way that you train a
dog, right? What is the what is the best way
to train a dog? Now, obviously they need to be
smacked on the nose when they, you know, go to the bathroom in
the house, right? Smack them on the nose and take
them outside. But then they go to the bathroom
in the yard and what do you do? Oh, you're such a good boy.
Oh, so, you know, wonderful about treating your kids like a
dog every now and then. All right, let them know that
you that they that they did what you wanted them to do.
Show them that praise. Give them the reward of your
noticing that they did what you wanted them to.
Do You think about that in your life.
Who do you? Who do you strive the hardest to
please? A boss that is constantly on
your case, telling you everything that you're doing
wrong, or a boss who mostly praises you for the things that
you do right. Right.
I'll tell you what happens when you have a boss that praises you
for doing what's right. It's much easier to take the
criticism from that boss, right? That boss comes to you and says,
hey, you need to do this differently.
Then you're like, yes, Sir, I'll do it differently.
I just want you to be pleased, right?
My father-in-law was that way when I was an assistant pastor
for him. And I can always tell when he
was about to get on me because he would say, this is exactly
what I would tell my own sons. And I'm like, OK, what did I do
wrong this time? You know, but but I, I, I
appreciate it so much the way that he led and the way that he
praised the things that I did right, that when he came to me
and said, you need to do this differently, I had no problem
with that. No problem changing the things
that he wanted me to change and do differently because I knew
that if I did them right, I was, he would notice it and, and,
and, and he would honor that, you know that or, or at least
notice that respect and it's not respect necessarily that I was
giving, but whatever it happened to be.
Hey, I really appreciate how you do this and I really appreciate
how you do that and I really appreciate your attitude.
And sometimes I didn't have the greatest attitude when I would
go in there, sit down at the desk and, and, you know, we
talked and, and he would tell me all these things that are wrong
and we would have discussions and I would say, well, here's
why I'm doing it this way. Don't you think that this would
end? He allowed some of those
discussions, but then he would say, no, that's not the way
we're going to do it. We're going to do it this way.
And then, you know, he could tell that I wasn't real happy.
And he'd say, I really appreciate your attitude on
this. I really appreciate the way you
have such a good attitude. And I'm like, all right, how can
you have a bad attitude when you're saying that, You know?
But again, that's what I'm saying.
Praise is a powerful motivator when it comes to your children,
right? And, and it's a powerful
motivator for you. So imagine how much more it can
be for your kids who are just many times just trying to please
you. So you should be on constant
lookout for opportunities to praise that obedience, praise
that respect, especially in situations where it would have
been very easy for your children to not have that respect or to
disobey. Point out to your children that
you know it isn't easy to show respect, but that you're proud
of them for doing it. So praise your children for
respect. But I would say this also reward
your children for respect. Turn over to Psalm 84.
I think it's important to verbally praise them when they
show respect. And maybe occasionally you can
consider giving them something that's kind of a reward to show
them that you noticed their good attitude.
I think this is especially important for the younger kids,
but it's but, but, but for the older kids as well, because, you
know, they have attitudes when they're younger, but they have
attitudes when they're older too.
And especially when they get into those teenage years and
there's a, there's a fight that takes place, especially for
young men, but there's a fight that happens because from the
moment your kids are born, they needed you, right?
They can't change their own diaper when they're a month old.
They scream, they cry, they need you.
You go change the diaper, they scream, they cry, you go feed
them. They need you.
They scream, they cry and you give them a bath and you get
them clean and now you can snuggle with them and everything
else. They need you all right.
But when they start getting 12131415 years old, they don't
need you anymore, right? You're not changing their
clothes for them. I hope you're not doing their
laundry for them, making their beds and doing all of those
things. But what happens is parents,
especially mothers, still need to be needed.
Young men especially, but even young ladies are growing into
that independence where they're saying, I don't need you
anymore. I can do this on my own.
And so a fight happens. The parents are like, you're not
going, you're not going to be independent.
I'm going to still keep doing everything for you.
And the kid is saying, I don't need you.
I've got my independence. I need my independence.
I can do this on my own. And that's where the fight takes
place. And if the parents don't handle
that transition the right way, it can very easily turn into
rebellion, can very easily turn into disrespect.
And many times it's the parent that causes that to happen
because you didn't give them the independence that they were.
You know, a bird needs to leave the nest, right?
I mean, you don't have 15 grown bald eagles in a nest.
There's a reason why, right? They're made to fly.
They're made to go out and be on their own.
It's the job of the mother to make sure that the child is
prepared to go out on his own and to have that independence
and make sure that he's prepared to not get eaten the second he
flies from the nest and to be able to handle gathering his own
food and all of those things. That's the job of the mother, to
make sure that that young, that young eaglet can do that.
But at some point, it's time to kick him out and let him fly,
right? You cannot keep them in the nest
forever, and so you have to let them go.
Now, how you do that many times determines whether they rebel.
But that's a lot of times why young people do rebel, because
you're holding on so tight because you need to be needed.
And they're pushing away so hard because they need their
independence. And that's where the fight takes
place. And that's many times where the
attitude comes in and the rebellion comes in and
everything else. Just give me my independence.
I can handle it. No, you can't have your
independence. I need to be needed.
How you handle that transition many times determines whether
they're going to rebel or not. Now that's that's completely on
them. They shouldn't rebel even if you
don't give them the independence that they want.
But at the same time, many times that's what brings it about.
And so we should many times give our children that verbal praise,
but at the same time, we should also be looking for things that
we can do to give them as a way to say, I appreciate your good
attitude. Our heavenly Father rewards
obedience. We should do the same thing.
It's Psalm 84, verse 11. For the Lord God is a son and
shield. The Lord will give grace and
glory. Look at this.
No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
You take the opposite of that, then you can say that God does
uphold some withhold some things from people who don't walk
uprightly. So he gives us rewards, if you
will, for walking uprightly, for doing it his way, for doing what
he wants us to do. So if God does that, and there's
a lot of other things, I mean, look, the the crowns that we
earn in heaven, those are rewards for living for him,
right? There's going to be people who
don't get those crowns because they didn't live the way that he
wanted them to live. So the fact that God does it for
us, we ought to be doing that for our children.
When your child is respectful to an authority figure, commend
them for that. They need you to provide that
affirmation and that encouragement.
So reward respect. Here's #3 show respect.
Show respect. Turn over to Romans chapter 13.
Not only should you expect and reward respect from your
children, but you should model that respect for them.
As they see you respecting others and honoring others,
they'll see that respect isn't just something that's required
of them because they're a child. It's it's a lifelong virtue.
Respect is something that does not end when you turn 18.
Respect is something that, that that should go with you for the
rest of your life. Every one of us who are in
authority are also under authority.
Romans chapter 13 and verse #1 Let every soul be subject unto
the higher powers, for there is no power but of God.
The powers that be are ordained of God.
Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the
ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to
themselves damnation. Now, these verses are referring
to civil authority, but they point out that even as adults we
have somebody that's in authority over us.
And as parents model the respect to authorities that are in their
life or to anybody in general for that matter, they're
teaching their children the value of respect and how they
should give it to others. Show your kids what it looks
like to give respect. There's five areas I think that
that we can show respect. And so first of all, it's to the
authority of Scripture. Turn over to 1st Corinthians
Chapter 11. We should be giving respect to
the authority of Scripture. Our ultimate authority is God.
You might be the president of the United States, and that's
kind of considered the top of the power world, right?
The most powerful nation in the world, the most powerful man in
that nation. Nobody is greater than the
president of the United States on earth.
Well, whether that's true or not, you still have God as your
ultimate authority. So you're under authority no
matter what. Even if you have all the
authority, you are still under authority.
You come down to our level. We have a lot of authority over
us, right? But our ultimate authority is
God. When we seek out what His Word
has to say in any area of our lives and then obey His
instructions, we're demonstrating to our children
that we are putting ourselves under the authority of
Scripture. By the way, here's the dangerous
thing. When you bring your children to
church and they hear me preach the messages from God's Word.
And that's one of the reasons I use so many verses in the Bible.
It's not my authority, it's the Bible's authority.
And they hear the same messages that you hear, and then you go
home and you do things that go directly against God's Word.
You're tearing down your own authority at the same time.
And don't think that your kids don't notice that we just heard
that on Sunday and pastor preached against that and we're
doing it. Is this right?
They know it's not. They know it's not, it's a great
position to put yourself in because what you're doing is, is
essentially holding yourself accountable, but it's holding
you accountable. And So what you hear in messages
and what you listen to in church and all of those other things,
when you, when you see that it's from the Word of God, it's
important that you do it because your kids are watching.
And we have a responsibility to respect the authority of the
Scriptures. And if we read it in the Bible,
then we ought to be doing it. In fact, any authority that we
have in the home comes from God. And so the apostle Paul stressed
to the people that he led that they were to follow him as he
followed the Lord. First Corinthians Chapter 11 and
verse #1 be you followers of me even as I also am of Christ.
Now turn over to Deuteronomy 17. I want you to see this as well.
God instructed the Old Testament kings of Israel to show honor to
His Word, and He told them that doing that would have a direct
bearing on their children's continuing in God's Word
themself. What the king does is many times
what the followers of that king are going to do, right?
I think it's true in a church what the pastor does and what
the pastor allows many of the people in the church are going
to do and allow. But taking it down another step,
what the Father does in the home, you are essentially saying
this is OK and you're allowing the children to do that.
So whether you are showing respect to the authority of
God's word or not is going to determine whether your children
show the respect to the authority of God's word or not.
And that's why I say it's so important this, the whole
purpose of this point is to say that you need to show respect
because you are a model to your children and how you handle the
Scriptures and how you handle the respect of the authority of
Scriptures is many times going to determine how your kids
handle the authority of the scriptures.
And I'll tell you what happens. Many times his parents are like,
well, I know that's what the Bible says and I know that's
what the pastor said, but we, and guess what your kids are
going to do for the rest of their life?
The exact same thing. Well, I know that's what the
Bible says, but I right, you make an excuse, your kids are
going to make an excuse for why they can't follow it either.
Deuteronomy 17, and verse #18 And it shall be when he sitteth
upon the throne of his Kingdom, that he shall write him a copy
of this law in a book, out of that which is before the Priest,
the Levites, And it shall be with him, and he shall read
therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear.
The Lord is God to keep all the words of this law and these
statutes to do them, that his heart be not lifted up above his
brethren, and that he turned not aside from the commandments to
the right hand or to the left, to the end that he may prolong
his days in this Kingdom, he and his children in the midst of
Israel. The king was actually to make a
painstaking copy of God's word for himself.
Show your children what it looks like to give honor and reverence
to the written word of God. Teach them to respect every word
of God, but even the physical copy of God's Word.
Your Bible ought to be something that you protect at all costs.
I've told you this before this I got this Bible in 1998.
I use it for everything. I take care of it.
That's why it still looks like it's in this shape.
It's not unread. I take care of it because it's
God's Word and it's a, it's a physical copy of God's Word,
yes. And we can go buy a bunch of
copies of God's Word. We can get it.
But this is something that we ought to show the ultimate
respect to. You would never let your kids
throw a flag around. You'd never let them just throw
it under a pile of clothes or throw it on the floor or any of
those other things, right? And yet we show many times more
respect for the American flag than we do for the Bible.
Yes, I did. I've had this as a, as a rule
in, in my life for a very long time.
I don't set my Bible on the floor.
I don't put it under my seat. It goes on the top of the stack.
If I'm carrying a pile of books and I got a little tiny book
underneath of it, it's going to be underneath of it because the
Bible sits on the top. I respect God's word and I want
my kids to respect God's word. And I want you to respect God's
Word. I know it's just a written copy
of it. And we are blessed in America
that we can go get a ton of copies of God's Word anytime we
want. In fact, I think I have probably
35 or 40 Bibles myself, all different study Bibles and
everything else. This is God's Word and I want to
respect it and I want to show my children that I respect it.
And I want them to see me reading the Bible.
And I want them to understand that it's important for them to
read the Bible and not just read it, but follow it and live it
and obey it and treat it as something that is sacred because
the IT is sacred. It's God's word to us.
And it's very, very important that we do that.
You do that with your words, yes, but you do it more
significantly with your actions. How you make God's word a
priority in your own life. Reading it, teaching it to your
family during family devotions, bringing your Bible with you as
you faithfully attend the church.
Those are those are things that are showing your children the
importance of respecting the authority of God's Word.
Your children are going to learn to esteem the Word of God highly
as well as you esteem the Word of God highly.
So we ought to be showing authority, Respect, sorry to the
authority of Scriptures, but also respect to your spouse.
Turn over to Ephesians chapter 5.
I think the greatest gift that a father can give to his children
is to love their mother and vice versa, the greatest gift the
mother can give to her children is to love their father.
When you honor your spouse, you are modeling your children the
respect that they need for a healthy marriage.
You know, one of the, one of the one of the biggest things that
determines whether somebody is is happy or miserable in their
life is who they marry. Especially if you are a
Christian and divorce is out of the option for you.
You're going to stay with the person you married.
But if it's miserable, everything's going to be
miserable. And I know many times we, well,
you don't understand what I have to deal with my husband.
You don't understand what I have to deal with my wife.
Never fill in the blank. You can come up with all the
excuses that you want to, but you have to determine that
you're going to make it work and you have to work out what you
need to work out. Listen, if your wife needs to be
treated like a queen in order for her to start treating you
like a king, then start treating her like a queen.
Many times what happens in a relationship is a husband
doesn't want to start treating his wife the right way until she
starts treating him the right way, and she doesn't want to
treat him the right way until he starts treating her the right
way. So then they both treat each
other like dirt and they're miserable.
You know, one of these days your kids are going to be gone and
the only thing you're going to be left with is your spouse.
And if you don't develop that relationship with them while
your kids are at home, by the way, your kids are not the most
important thing in your home. Your kids are not the most
important thing in your home. Your spouse is the most
important thing in your home. And if you have a choice between
spending time with your kids or spending time with your spouse,
you better spend time with your spouse.
I think you ought to spend time with your kids too.
But you get 18/20/25 years depending on how many kids you
have of your children being in the home.
And then they're gone. And I always used to wonder, how
in the world can you be married for 25 or 30 years and then go
get a divorce? Can't you figure it out by now?
You've been there 30 years. You can't.
I mean, you can't just work out the differences, right?
But I'll tell you what happens. For 25 of those 30 years, maybe
more, there was kids there and the kids were everything.
It was the priority. Kids, kids, kids, kids, kids,
kids, kids. Then the kids are gone.
It's an empty nest. And the only thing that you have
left is this person that you have no idea who they are
because you never spent any time together.
And now you're trying to relearn each other again.
And you're like, who is this person?
I don't know how I ended up with him 25 years, but you don't, you
don't even know him. And you know, obviously people
in the world who don't have that commitment because of the word
of God to the marriage or they're saying, I don't even
know this person anymore. I'm, I'm, I'm out, they go get
divorced and they've been married 2530 years because they
put the kids first. The kids were the priority, not
the not the marriage, not that, not that relationship.
The thing is, when you have a loving marriage, you're going to
love your kids. It's better than you would if
you didn't have a loving marriage.
Because what happens is husband gets all frustrated because his
wife is not what she wants him to be.
And wife is all frustrated because he's not what she wants
him to be. And I say that backwards.
I don't know either way. You understand what I'm saying
that the, the husband and wife are both frustrated and many
times they take it out on the children, right?
Because they're mad. They're, they're not getting
what they want. They're not getting what they
need. And they're not, you know, they,
they don't love me the way that I need to be loved and he
doesn't love me and blah, blah, blah.
And, and then they then the kids are out there fighting and they
blow up. And then the kids are the ones
that suffer for it because you have a horrible marriage.
One of the best things that you can do for your kids is to love
your spouse. That's a that's a tremendous
gift to give them because not only are you modeling what it is
to have a healthy marriage, to have a godly marriage, but
there's peace in the home. And when there's peace in the
home, the kids grow up in a great environment.
And the only way that happens is by you showing respect to your
spouse. That's how it happens.
Ephesians chapter 5, because the Scripture actually commands us
respect from both wives to husbands and husbands to wives.
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse #33 nevertheless, that everyone
of you in particular particular so love his wife even as himself
and the wife see that she reference her husband.
That's respect from the husband to the wife, and that's respect
from the wife to the husband. All right?
It's exactly the way that it should be.
Turn over to first Peter chapter 3.
First Peter, chapter 3. Likewise he husbands dwell with
them according to knowledge, talking about the wives giving
honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, as being heirs
together of the grace of life. That your prayers be not
hindered. 1 Psychologist and a marriage counselor even
suggested that if he sees one or both of the spouses in a
marriage showing contempt to one or the other, he considers that
to be the greatest indicator that the marriage is in trouble.
And you might think that everything's fine, everything's
fine on the outside, but you show contempt to your husband or
to your wife, that's a great indication that your marriage is
in trouble. That's a complete lack of
respect. And not only are you not
modeling respect to your children, if contempt is the
greatest predictor of divorce, then respect should be the
greatest strengthener of a healthy marriage.
Not only are are you undermining your own authority by not
showing respect and, and being a bad example to your children
about what respect should be. Why would you want to live a
miserable life? Why would you want to let you
know that you're going to be together for the rest of your
life? Why would you want to live the
next 25 years miserable? Would you just get to the bottom
of it and, and, and humble yourself and start showing
respect to your spouse and just learn how to get along?
I, I heard a story. There was a wife who was trying
so hard to please her husband, but anything she did, he was
never happy. And you know, that included how
she made his breakfast. He, she, she made him eggs
basically every morning because that's what he liked.
And one day she would scramble the eggs and he would come in
and get mad. I don't want these scrambled.
I wanted these fried. So the next day she would fry
the eggs and he would come in and he said, I don't want these
fried, I want them scrambled. So she said, all right, I'm
going to get him the next day. She made one scrambled and one
fried, and he sat down at the table and he said, you scrambled
the wrong egg. It's very easy.
You know, sometimes we're ridiculous in our in our
disagreements with our spouses. And the danger is that our
children pick that up. Not not just the ridiculous of
that, but the disrespect of it. If a dad is constantly
belittling his wife, should he be surprised that when his son
gets to be a teenager, he's disrespectful to his mother?
It's not a surprise at all if you're belittling the same woman
that he is disrespecting. You disrespected her long before
he started doing it, so why would he show respect to his
mother if his father is not even showing respect to his mother?
You are that model and that's why I say it's so important.
Vice versa, right? If a if a wife is not showing
respect to her husband, then why would you expect that the
daughter is going to show respect to her father later on
or the son respect to his father later on?
My mom doesn't even respect my dad, why should I show him
respect? Parents have to model respect to
one another if they want to teach their children to respect
their parents. Turn over to Acts chapter 5.
We should model respect. Show respect to the authority of
Scripture to your spouse. Let's say this number three, we
should show respect in society. We're commanded to honor
government authorities. Sometimes it's difficult, but
Romans chapter 13 we already we already read a couple of those
verses, but it teaches us that the authorities are placed in
our lives by God and we ought to teach our children to respect
and obey law enforcement officers to obey elected
officials, right? That's, that's one of the
reasons why so many of these people are bringing all these
things on themselves when it comes to their problems, right?
They have 0 respect for law enforcement, man, I'll tell you
this, number one, I'm not doing things to break the law to have
an interaction with a law enforcement officer anyway.
But I can promise you, if a law enforcement officer told me to
do something, I'm going to do it, right?
All these things that are happening, that that blow up,
that 'cause these people to go, you know, blow cities up and
burn them to the ground is because they don't know how to
respect authority. A police officer told them, hey,
stop jumping on my car. And they got all mad about it
because they don't know how to obey and they don't know how to
show any respect, right? And then it turns into all of
this. I mean, it's just, you're seeing
it. It's what you, what you're
seeing in a lot of these cities, especially these big mobs of
these people that are just going through.
And you saw a lot of it during COVID, especially.
But you know, Antifa and all of these, these groups that are
just going through and just decimating a city.
It's, it is the product of the disrespect culture that has been
allowed to develop for a long time.
And when we don't show respect to authority, then that
authority, we're tearing down our own authority too.
So as the leadership in our nation becomes increasingly
defiant against God and hostile toward the truth, it's sometimes
a challenge for us to honor them.
But we have to honor them. We should never waver in our
biblical positions. If they are trying to, you know,
forced abortion or homosexuality or transgender or anything, any
number of these other issues on us, then we have a duty to stand
up against those things, right? We obey man as they obey God,
right? I would rather obey God than to
obey man. That's what that's what Peter
said, right? And I think that's true.
We, but we should pray for those who are in authority and honor
and respect their office. Acts chapter 5 and verse #29
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said we
ought to obey God rather than men.
So that's the first thing that we have to establish.
Truth comes over government. Truth comes over government.
Bible principles come over government.
But let's turn over to first Timothy chapter 2.
First Timothy chapter 2, verse #1 I exhort, therefore, that
first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and
giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that
are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life
in all godliness and honesty. For years now we've been praying
in our devotions every night for whoever the president of the
United States is. And actually, many times the
kids still pray for Joe Biden to be saved.
He's still, he's a former president who needs Christ, and
I know he doesn't have any authority and he probably
doesn't even have any mental ability anymore, but he still
needs to be saved. And I don't have to like what he
does, but I'm commanded to pray for him.
I'm commanded to go before God and offer supplications,
prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks for all men, the Bible
says. And then he very specifically
says for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may
lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
Hey, political activism is, is nothing wrong with that.
Being involved in politics is is a good thing in a lot of ways.
But the way that we're really going to see this nation come
back to Christ is not our political activism.
It's not Turning Point USA, It's not all these conservative
groups that are getting started. It's seeing them come to Christ.
You want to live a quiet and peaceable life?
Yeah. Do what you can to influence
policy. Do what you can to influence the
politicians who have the the votes that are going to
influence policy, but pray for them.
That's what God says, pray, pray for kings, pray for all that own
authority so that we can live a quiet and peaceful life.
Do what we can, but a lot of it rests on prayer and we need to
make sure that we're doing that. And by the way, turn over to
Proverbs chapter 16. Another group of people in
society that we should honor is the elderly.
I'll let you decide where elderly is because it's getting
elderly is getting older and older, and I'll tell you that
much. It used to be 60.
Now it's more like 85 or 90, but here's what the Bible says.
The Hori head, the white hair, Proverbs 1631.
The Hori head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way
of righteousness. I tell you what, especially in
church, you ought to teach your kids to respect their elders.
Now, you can always tell the kids who are taught respect at
home and taught to respect their parents because they usually
treat the rest of the people that are older than them the
same way. But I think it's important.
Help them write a note to an older godly person in the
church. Thank them for their
faithfulness, right? Notice and thank veterans for
their sacrifice. We do that often.
You know, you see a veteran, he's wearing a cap and you say
thank you for your service, you know, pay for their meals.
When I see police officers sitting in a, in a restaurant is
if I, if there's any way that I can do it, I pay for their
meals. They don't even know who did it.
They don't need to know who did it.
They're just showing respect to the people in our society, the
people who are doing things for us.
But be honoring of your parents in front of your children,
right? It's it's very easy to criticize
your parents a lot of times for things that they did that were
not right. That's their grandparents.
It's their grandparents, right? There were things that my
grandparents did growing up that I had no idea about because my
parents didn't talk about it. I didn't find out till years
later. There were things that I'm like
when I didn't even know that they were, we loved our
grandparents and we we thought they were the greatest things
that ever walked on earth because that's the way my
parents treated them. And they gave them that respect,
at least in front of us. I don't know what happened
behind closed doors, but at least in front of us, they gave
them that respect. And, and that's the way we ought
to do it if we're if we, if you want to be respected yourself,
then you have to give respect because when you tear somebody
else's authority down, you are tearing your own authority down
at the same time. Turn over to Philippians
Shepherd too. I'm not going to make it all the
way through this. We'll save some of this for next
time, but we're coming to a close here because you ought to
show respect not only to the authority of Scripture, not only
to your spouse, not only in society, but also in the church.
We're commanded to give honor and deference to others in the
church. Philippians chapter 2 and verse
#3 Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in
lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than
themselves. Let's look at Romans chapter 12.
Romans chapter 12 verse #10 Be kindly affectioned 1 to another
with brotherly love in honor, preferring one another.
Now there would be no disputes in the church if we would follow
just these two verses about brotherly love.
If you in honor prefer somebody else, you'll never have a
dispute with them because, Oh well, I mean, that's what they
decided to do. Let them do it right.
Let each esteem other better themselves.
Look for ways to show appreciation and care for others
in the church. Don't allow offenses to build in
these relationships. Your children should see that
you value your church family. I'll be honest with you, I know
a lot of people. I know a lot of people, but
there's nobody that I'd rather be around than the people that
are sitting in front of me right now.
And my friends, my, my true friends, 90, probably 98%,
probably 99% of my friends are people that I've gone to church
with either here or in in Chesterfield or in Indiana. 99%
of my friends are in church or I made in church, I should say.
Many of them are in church. But you know, our church family
is, is very, very necessary. This is a whole group of people
and, and it's a family of families, but it's a whole group
of people that are going in the same direction that you should
be going in. You need that encouragement, you
need that fellowship. You need to have a group of
Christians that you are going forward with.
It's a whole lot easier. Could you imagine if you were
trying to do the Christian life on your own, if you didn't know
any other Christians and you were just trying to struggle
through this by yourself, Could you imagine what that would be
like? That would be difficult.
But we take for granted so often that we can come to church every
Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night,
that we can be together, that we can gather around God's Word and
be encouraged to go out and do more for the Lord.
And when you know that there's a bunch of other people walking
out that heard the same thing you heard and are going in the
same direction that you're going in and are trying to live for
the Lord, that's an encouragement because there's
not a lot of churches out there that are doing it.
There's not a lot of Christians out there that are doing it
anymore. We need each other.
We need the church. And it's important that we show
that respect. The Bible instructs Christians
to respect those that are in the church.
And also the Bible instructs us to respect the office of the
pastor. Turn over to Hebrews chapter 13,
the word remember that we read here in Hebrews chapter 13 means
to acknowledge. In this case, it's to
acknowledge the spiritual authority of the pastor.
And listen, I didn't ask for this position.
God called me to be a pastor. I would much rather sit in a
corner somewhere and let somebody else do all the work.
It's a lot of work. It's a lot of it's a lot of a
lot more heartache than what people realize.
There's a lot of things that a pastor deals with in a church
that most people have no idea about, not the least of which is
a tremendous, tremendous burden and a responsibility to make
sure that this church goes in the right direction.
And when you start getting off of that direction, it's my job
and it's my responsibility to bring you back.
And that's not my personality. I don't, I don't like doing
that, but I have to. I'm commanded to do that.
And I know that that, you know, messages that I preach that I
don't, I don't hold back when I preach many times because I'm
not afraid of you as much as I'm afraid of of God.
But that's never been my personality.
And it's a very difficult thing for me to do to preach a hard
message because I know that there's going to be people that
don't like it. And I know there's going to
people that are going to get mad.
And I know there's going to be people that are, you know, going
home and talking about me and my message and everything else.
And, and I don't really care really doesn't bother me that
much. Talk about me all you want.
I don't care really. I mean, I'm not there to hear
it. So who cares, right?
But at the same time, at the same time, I know that that some
of that happens. And there's times when I have
things written down in my notes to say.
And I'm like, I know if I say this, I know that person is
going to get upset. I know they are not going to
like that. And there's times when I wrestle
back and forth in a message while I'm preaching should I say
that or not? And all the way until I get to
that point, I'm wrestling with it.
And 99% of the time I say it because God gave it to me and I
believe it needs to be said. But at the same time, the Bible
says this in Hebrews 713 and verse #7 remember them which
have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God,
whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
See, one of the most profound ways that you can help your
children is by having a good relationship with your pastor.
I want to have a good relationship with you.
I do. I want you to come talk to me.
I want to help you spiritually. That's what my job is.
That's that's that's part of my position is to help you.
I can't help you if you don't want help because I can come to
you and I can say you need to change this and you need to stop
doing that. But many times if I come to you
and do it, nothing's going to happen.
You're just going to get mad and leave, right?
If you come to me and say, pastor, what, what do you think
I can change? What do you think I need to do
differently? I told you this morning, my job
is to study my people. I know most of you better than
you think. I know you and I and I'm, I
don't say that in a prideful way at all.
It's not, it's not that. It's just that I care about you
and I want to see you do what's right.
And sadly, I think I want to see you do what's right many times
more than you want to see yourself do what's right.
And I want you to have God's blessing many times more than
you want God's blessing. I want to see this church be
successful for the Lord. I don't care what size it is.
We're not trying to build a big church.
Certainly bring more people in. It's great.
The more people you have, the more people that are serving the
Lord, the greater impact we can have in this community.
The important thing is not how big the church is.
The important thing is how spiritual is this church and how
spiritual are the people that make this church up.
And it's my job to get you from this level to this level.
And that's a hard thing to do. It's like pulling teeth
sometimes the easiest thing that you can do is just follow, just
obey the word of God. Just just do what's being
preached. And you're teaching that to your
children. You know, you go home and the
whole time you're on your way home, you're complaining about
the message. And oh, well, he said this.
But I know that, blah, blah. Listen, I know more than more
than anybody else in this auditorium that I'm not perfect.
And when I'm talking about the family, I know more than anybody
else that my kids are not perfect.
My wife is, but the kids are not right.
I'm not. I'm not.
I'm not up here because I'm perfect and I've got everything
figured out. I'm up here because God made me
do this. I didn't ask for this position,
but I'm trying to take us as a church forward.
And if you would follow and and I'm not, I'm not saying this
because you're not, I think the majority of you are, but as you
follow, not only are you an example to your children of how
to follow their pastor later on, whether it's me or somebody
else, it probably will be somebody else.
But how to follow the Lord and how to follow his leadership and
how to follow his will for your life and how to find what he
wants you to do. Those are those are the things
that I'm trying to, to, to help us as a church to do teach your
children to pray for their pastor.
I need prayer. You know, the devil attacks and
attacks and attacks. There's, there's somebody else
that'll come along and lead this church in a, in a, in a good
direction. If something ever were to happen
to me, God forbid that I fall into sin or something like that,
somebody would come in behind me and this church would go forward
because I think you, you're, you're a godly enough people
that you would, you would find the right pastor and get
somebody in this place. But this is where God called me
to be. And I plan to be here as long as
God keeps me here. And if that's 50 years, then I'm
going to do it. I don't have any plans to go
anywhere else. I'm not looking for a higher
position. I'm not looking for a church.
I'm not waiting for a call from a church with 200 people to give
me a promotion. I don't need a promotion.
I don't want to, I don't, I don't have any desire to be
anywhere else. So I'm going to be here forever
if this is what God wants me to do.
But that only happens by your prayers.
And you need to teach your children to pray for your pastor
because I need it. And, and, and this church needs
it. We, we are examples to our
children. And what you do, your kids are
going to do what you say your kids are going to say what you
allow, your kids are going to allow what you promote, your
kids are going to promote. What do you want your kids to
be? Because what you, whatever you
want your kids to be, you better be that.
If you wanted to be nominal halfway half hearted Christians,
then go be 1/2 hearted Christian if that's what you want your
kids to be. No, I'll tell you this.
If you're 1/2 hearted Christian, your kids are going to be 1/4
hearted Christian because they're not even going to get
that, that they're not even going to make it halfway if
you're just a halfway Christian. But if you're sold out for the
Lord and you're living your life to do everything you can to
please Him, then you're probably going to have kids that are not
only sold out for the Lord, but exceed us.
And that's what I want. I want our kids to grow up and
love the Lord just as much or more than we do.
I want them to accomplish just as much or more than we do.
Planting a church is not an easy thing at all.
Most of you are not here in the beginning, but what we're doing
is establishing something that hopefully will go on for many,
many, many years and many, many, many generations if the Lord
tarries. The sad thing is most churches
make it one generation and then they die.
This is not about, this is not about creating a legacy or
anything like that. I don't listen.
I said. I tell my wife this all the
time. Why?
Why do we even care about a legacy?
When I'm gone, I'm not going to know anything that you're doing,
right? You put a big statue of me out
in the foyer after I'm gone. I don't know it's there.
Who cares if it's there or not, right?
You have a big plaque with my name on it and all founding
pastor and all this stuff. You put it out in the foyer to
honor me after I'm gone. Who cares?
I'm I don't know that it's there, right?
Wherever I'm at, hopefully heaven trying to get there.
No, I know that I'm going to be in heaven.
But if I'm in heaven, listen, if I'm in heaven, I'm not going to
be worried about what's going on down here.
And the same thing for the, for the people who are in hell.
They're not going to care what's going on in the earth.
All the honor and the, and everything that they left behind
him and all people, you know, talking about all the good
things that they did and you're not going to know it.
It's not, it's not for those things.
It's not about those things. It's about what impact can we
make for Christ and how can we influence the next generation to
continue what we've started. That's the important thing.
That's what's going to last. Not my legacy or your legacy or
whatever you're leaving behind. Certainly I want to, I want to
leave an impact. Certainly I know I don't want to
live a whole life that that accounted for nothing.
But at the same time, it's not about that.
It's about the the legacy is who's coming behind us.
That's still continuing on who's who's coming behind us.
That's going to keep living for the Lord because we live for the
Lord and it and it all starts with us being the example in the
model and showing our respect to these different things.
And I'll just finish by saying this.
When it comes to being showing respect to the position of the
pastor, you know, I don't, I don't need to, I don't need to
help you figure out which car you're going to buy.
You don't need to come ask me. I don't, you don't need my
opinion on What Car to buy or what house to live in or any of
those kind of things. I'm not my, my job is not here
to, to micromanage your life and tell you what you need to do.
But I, but I will say this. When you have major decisions
that need to be made, it'd be wise to come talk to your
pastor. I'm not, I don't claim to have
all the wisdom or anything like that, but I do believe that God
gives wisdom to a pastor who who loves his people and cares about
his people. And you're about to make a
decision that's going to ruin your life.
I think you at least you ought to give me the option to say,
hey, you're going to ruin your life.
Don't do that. The church is what Christ gave
his life for. It's important.
The church ought to be important to you and it ought to be
important to your children. And I've said this many times
when I was growing up, I could count on one hand the number of
times I miss church. And I mean it.
We didn't miss and that's one of the greatest things that my
parents could do for me. My parents loved each other.
It's one of the greatest things that they could have done for
us. They gave us that godly
heritage. Were they perfect?
Not by any stretch. And there's things that my
parents did growing up that I said I will never do that in my
house. I'm never going to do that.
Take all the good things and make them stronger.
Take the bad things and throw them out and do do something
different with them, right? It's just the way it goes.
I'm not perfect and my kids are going to grow up and say I'm
never going to do that. Probably my my goal is to make
it so they can say, well, there was a couple things that I
didn't really like. But other than that, everything
they taught me is exactly what I want to do in my home.
I want my kids. I want my kids to want their
home to be exactly the way that our home is now.
I want I want my kids to grow up and say if we can have in our
home what we had growing up, then we'll be we'll be happy.
But that that that does not come an accident.
It's something that you have to try so hard at.
You have to you have to do everything you can to keep the
ungodly influences out. Put the godly influences in.
Make church your life. The church is not going to raise
your kids. You are.
But the more you have them around this and the more that
you have them around other Christians who are doing the
same thing, the better off you're going to be.
And you ought to give respect to your children.
I'll end with that. Your children deserve your
respect as well. Don't, don't demean them, don't
humiliate them. Don't be contemptuous toward
them. The Bible is very plain in
Ephesians that tells the fathers not to do those types of things
to your children, right? If you're always looking for
ways to laugh at your kids in front of everybody else, you're
going to teach them contempt, right?
Oh, you should have seen what my kid did today.
He was so stupid. I can't believe he did this.
I've made a point to never do that to my kids.
Now, sometimes I use them as an example, but you know, 10 years
later, not last week. And most of the time, they don't
even remember the things that I'm talking about.
But you, you ought to show your kids respect.
They deserve respect. They're humans too, all right?
Just because they're little humans doesn't mean that they
don't deserve respect. Go to treat them with respect.
First Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse #7 But we were gentle
among you. Even as a nurse cherisheth her
children, insisting on obedience and respect is very important.
And this is kind of the the the opposite of what we talked about
last week. Right, talking about being hard
and discipline, and you need that.
That's absolutely part of it. But the balance side of that is
the respect. And the respect only happens
when you show that respect. So demonstrating respect gives
your children a visible example to follow.
Both are equally important, discipline, obedience, demanding
that obedience and respect, but also modeling and showing that
obedience and that respect yourself.
Both of those are very, very important and they'll go a long
way in helping your kids to be what they need to be for Christ.
We're going to stop there. I've got another lesson that
I'll give you next week that will finish this out.
I don't it's, it's already late, but I hope it's a help to you
and I hope there's some things that you can take.
Let's pray and then we'll have a a short invitation and then
we'll finish out and be dismissed.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.
So thank you for the time we can spend together tonight.
So thank you for the opportunity we have to have so many families
in this church that have a desire to please you and live
for you. God, may our desire be strong
enough that it moves us into action for you.
God, may you help us to be people of respect, model those
things that we want our children to be and understand that what
we do, our children are going to do, what we allow our children
are going to allow. What we what we are strong on,
hopefully our children will be strong on as well.
God, may you make us strong in every aspect of our lives so we
can raise this next generation to continue on for you.
But thank you again for all you do for us.
In Jesus name, Amen, Let's stand.