Learning to Take Responsibility (Pt 1)
Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.
Now that we've laid a proper foundation for biblical parenting, it's time to turn our attention to some of the brass tacks of training. So we're kind of turning the corner. I've been giving you a lot of foundational stuff. Now we're going to really hit some pretty meaty things regarding specifically the training of your children. I call them the brass tacks. In this session, we're going to cover four core traits your child must grow in if they are going to learn to take responsibility. So remember we were talking about the two big pillars, relationship and responsibility. We've been talking about relationship up until now.
Now we're gonna start talking about responsibility. And there's four core traits that I wanna talk to you about, what it means to take responsibility. And those four, let's see, oh, hey, I'm sorry, I got a little bit of hand myself, so back up, but there's gonna be four traits here in it. Taking responsibility is one of those pillars of being an image bearer of God.
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 22.15 foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child and you can see the humorous quote by Danny Kay there where I wasn't born a fool but it took work to get this way. We want to make sure that our children do not grow up to be fools but guess what you gave birth to a foolish person you gave birth to somebody whose foolishness is bound up in their heart and your job is going to be to train it out of them. So this verse Proverbs 22 15 tells us that children left themselves will tend towards making foolish choices. This principle is pretty self-evident, yet many parents allow their children tremendous freedom of choice at various, at very young ages and then get upset when the child makes a predictably bad choice. Typically the parent works going to respond with something like, what's the matter with you? What were you thinking? You should have known better. To which the child is going to give you a blank stare as if to say, how was I supposed to know any better? How many times you caught
yourself in that trap where all of a sudden you're rebuking them for something and you realize like nobody's ever told them that was not a good thing to do. Many times the child can't possibly know better because they've never been taught how to make wise choices. The next time you're tempted to respond in anger or frustration to a foolish choice your child has made, stop and ask yourself if you yourself in fact aren't the foolish one for assuming your child will make wise choices when you've not been training them. Untrained children will always tend to make foolish choices. It is their predisposition. Now the fact that they start out foolish is not the problem.
The problem arises when you, the parent, fail to train them or the child fails to respond to your training. When either of these happens, then the likely outcome is that the foolish child will become an adult who is a fool and that is a serious concern. I mean that ought to really concern all of us. Your child was born with foolishness in their heart and if you do not train it out of them they will grow up to be a fool. If a child is to avoid growing into an adult fool then you will have to they'll have to mature in four critical areas. Submission to authority, self-control, self-discipline and selflessness. And one reason I like these four, the way to think about it, these four, is it actually gives you sort of a way to evaluate where's my child at.
How are they doing in submission to authority? How are they doing in practicing self-control? How are they doing in self-discipline or selflessness? So it's gonna give you a really concrete way of value assessing where is my child that process of moving from foolishness into being not becoming a fool. So let's start off by first by talking about submission to authority.
Proverbs 12 15 tells us the way of a fool is right in his own eyes. One of the defining traits of a fool is that they are not teachable and will not submit themselves to authority. Contrast this with a description of a wise person in the same verse, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel. So if Ull is right in his own eyes, he won't listen to anybody. And a wise man is one who listens to counsel. All of us, whether young or old, have a tendency to want to be self legislating. That's just part of the human condition. We don't like people telling us what to do. That's because all men are born with a sin nature. Once we become a Christian, we are still influenced by the flesh which wages war against the spirit in us. The reality is that all of us are required to be in submission in many areas of our life.
Students submit to teachers, wives submit to husbands, we all submit to the government authorities, employers, church leaders, just to name a few. Submission to authority is a fact of life. American government is based on the premise that people will generally submit to authority. John Adams is one of our early presidents. He spoke these words in a speech to the military in 1798. Listen to this. We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
You can go right back to that one sentence and explain a lot of what's going on today in our society.
But even our government recognized that the people do not have the self-control, the discipline, the morality from religion, then we can't do it. Our Constitution won't work. We can't and another president said we can't hire enough policemen. America today is quickly becoming a country where it can be said that everyone does that which is right in his own mind. This is because of the decreasing influence of religion and morality, as Adams put it. Okay, so the We're getting into these I call them the four S's these four basic traits that we regarded Regarding taking responsibility. I really believe if you Child if your child masters these four things that we're going to talk about now by the time they move out of your home they are going to be very well prepared to enter into the world and they'll be a Pleasing to God and pleasing to men, but the first one that we had to talk about then is this topic of submission to authority is the first trait of taking responsibility. You can't take responsibility if you haven't
learned to submit yourself to authority. In Romans 16 6 17 we find a reference to the kind of submission that we want our children to have. It says, but thanks be to God that though they were slaves, as though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. The phrase obedient from the heart is a very good definition of submission. And we're talking about the difference between submission and obedience. We want children that are obedient true, but more importantly submissive. A child can obey an order and at the same time have a lousy attitude. It's the classic, I'm sitting on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside.
Obedience is external. Did the child do what was asked for or not? In the case of a younger child, you can usually make them obey. You can physically cause them to have to do something. Submission is internal, it comes from the heart. You can't make a child submit. It's something they have to choose to do. You can use consequences to motivate the child to submit, but they must first become humble of heart in order to submit. Since biblical parenting is focused on the heart of the child then, parents must be sure to not simply accept external compliance as proof of submission. You must learn to watch for attitudes that reveal an unsubmissive heart and respond accordingly.
So here are some signs then that your child may not be as submissive as you think they are. Obvious one right off the bat, refusing to obey your command. It's not hard to figure out if a child has looked at you and says no. You're pretty sure that's an unsubmissive spirit there. That one's easy to deal with. Figure out. Requiring repeated commands or warnings before complying. If you find yourself having to repeat yourself over and over, if you're having to use the three counts, I'm warning you only one more time, etc., etc., you're basically having an un-submissive child. You should not have to require but that one command to get them to comply.
Another sign that they may be un-submissive is muttering or complaining as they obey. We've seen that where the child goes off and they're obeying on the outside, but you just hear the attitude. You hear the sigh and the muttering, the griping under their breath.
submissive, nonverbal signs of reluctance, the sign, the slouching, just being slow to respond, they eventually get around to doing it, they're not quick and immediate, you don't pick up a happy attitude as they're doing it, all warning signs. So what do you do if you find you've got this going on in your home, if they've got a problem and they haven't learned submission to authority, I'm going to suggest at least three things that you can try implementing. Most of these will apply to the younger children. A lot of what we'll be saying in the rest of the, especially in this session, will apply to teenagers as well, but some of these will, well even some of what I'm about to say will apply to teenagers, and I'll try to differentiate for you where it happens. I have a whole network course that's aimed specifically at teenagers. This one was primarily aimed at the younger years, but there is a lot of overlap. So first thing that you can do to try to help develop that submissive spirit is practice what we call controlled choice.
One of the most common mistakes that parents make is giving their child more freedom of choice than they are ready to handle. Now of course you want your children to be able and ready to make choices for themselves and once they step out on their own, that's a good thing, they better be able to make choices. But if you give it to them too soon, you've got a problem. The problem comes in when they allow them more choice than their maturity level allows for. When a child is given too much freedom of choice too soon, they will likely become wise in their own eyes. The result will be a child who is increasingly argumentative and unteachable as they grow older and who will resent any attempt to exercise authority over them.
The little picture I have up there for you is trying to illustrate this. It's a funnel, if you will, that gets broader as you get to the top. As it gets broader, the child has more choice, more freedom. But in the middle axis, they have to demonstrate more maturity and more responsibility in order to get more freedom, more choice. So for a little one, how this might work out, for example, is you are making breakfast for them and you pull out the red sippy cup and they start to have a little temper tantrum. No, no, no, I want the yellow sippy cup and you know, a little battle in burrows. Well, you have a problem with not submitting to authority.
If mommy decides it's red sippy cup day, it's red sippy cup. Now if they come to a place that they happily accept the red sippy cup from you, then you might, on another occasion, you might say, would you like the red cup or the yellow cup today? But you need to see that they will actually receive from you what you deem to be appropriate. And then if they can happily receive that, then great, we'll get started to broaden the freedom of choice with them. your older kids. The principle applies again. I always made sure my kids understood that their freedoms were directly tied to their willingness to take responsibility. So if they had standing chores, keep your room clean, do the dishes, whatever it might be, if they were being not faithful in those areas and then they were trying to come convince me that I had to give them the freedom to stay out a little later or maybe go off and do some things with some friends or if it came time to driving.
It made a really easy conversation for me. I said, why am I going to trust you with my car? You're saying, trust me, dad, I'm old enough. You can't keep your room clean. Show me some responsibility and I will be happy to give you some freedom. I would love to give you all the freedom in the world, but only if I see responsibility and maturity that goes with it. As you're working with your children, just think about in terms of where are they at on that maturity and responsibility scale before you broaden out the freedom of choice. And if they fight you, then you have, you've got a clue that you have a problem with submission to authority.
Now there are some parents that don't have a funnel mentality. They have a straw mentality. All the kids life, they, they, they, they, they stay too tight and too restricted forever. And they're treating their 16 year old like he's 12. That's a problem. Now, if the child is in fact acting like a 12 year old, then it's probably appropriate to treat them like one. But you want to just have this concept in mind that you're trying to help them understand that you can't divorce the two concepts. Freedom and responsibility are inextricably linked to the choice. Freedom is linked to responsibility. That one principle alone will help you motivate them to start making better choices.
Because you don't have to be the bad guy anymore. You just say, son, I would love to give you the freedom you're asking for, But you've got to show me the responsibility that goes along with it. If you get the funnel upside down and you give them lots of freedom of choice too soon, too early, you're going to have a problem later on. Because if they become wiser than their own eyes, as a three-year-old, it's not that big of a deal. What sippy cup are you using? But when they become 12, 13, 14, and they want to start making some very unwise choices, and you say, well, I've been giving you too much freedom. I'm going to start clamping down now.
They're going to really resent that and really fight you. that's where teenage rebellion can come into play because whoa I'm not used to having these restrictions on my life so much better to give them restrictions early in life and then slowly let it out as they show you more maturity more responsibility okay first time obedience another concept we can talk about the second way to which parents can develop a submissive attitude their child is to expect first-time obedience. First-time obedience is exactly what the name implies. The child will obey the parent the first time, first request, each and every time. You know, they'll do it immediately, completely, and with a good attitude. There will be no repeating, warning them. We call that the threatening repeating parent. I told you, I warned you, I'm going to count to three.
You know, on and on we go and we play that game with them and all's we're doing is we're teaching them, they're learning, okay, when mom's pitch in her voice gets to that point or when that vein right there starts to bulge, that's when I know I better obey. And also what we've done is we've trained them, it's okay to disobey for a certain amount of time before they have to finally comply. But that's again something you have to really watch out. You want your child to be characterized by first time obedience. That is they should typically respond immediately, completely and without complaining on your first request, expecting a right response from them when the request is made, such as yes, mom will eliminate a lot of frustration.
I talked about that principle earlier. Make sure you get in that habit when you tell them to do something or you're asking them or whatever. They say, you know, Johnny, yes, mom. Johnny, I want you to do dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Okay, mom. You make sure there's a closed loop in the communication and there's no doubt. if it doesn't happen, you're able to move on to the correction and reproof. If your child is not characterized by first time obedience today, you can begin working on it by creating a transition period where you explain your expectations and then give them a short season to adjust. When we first were implementing this principle in our home, they were already moving on into the five, six, seven years of age.
We had not yet enforced it. And so we said, I'll explain to him, we said, this is something new in the home, this is what first time obedience looks like. We role played it, you know, so they knew what it looked like. You know, and then the yes mom, yes dad, the whole nine yards. And then we actually set up a little reward system. We put a little chart on the refrigerator and we said, okay. Every time we get a right response, you know, and we get first time obedience, we're gonna put a little check box on the thing. And when we get to whatever it was, you know, 30 or something, you know, we're gonna go out to, I forget what we did.
You know, lo and behold, we got first time obedience like that, you know, and they felt that they got their 30 check marks in a couple days. Well, that demonstrated to me that they actually understood the concept, they knew what they're doing. Now, we only did this as a way of transition. It was for a brief period of time until they learned the skill and we knew they understood what was expected. And then I told them, okay, now you know, you know what we expect. Now, if you do not do first time obedience, there will be consequences. And they knew what consequences meant. And so at that point then it became expected and we demanded it.
Periodically they may become forgetful and you might have to say something one day and you won't hear the yes mom, yes dad. You say, oh, did I hear that right response? And they go, oh yes mom, yes dad, good. So you have to reinforce it. But train them for first time obedience. It'll save you a lot of grief. And again, all these other ways that we warn them, that we threaten them, that we let them refuse to obey for a while, we're just teaching them to sin when we do that. It is unacceptable. There is no reason for a child not to be able to obey you happily first time. I know some of you out there have an acronym THIC, T-H-I-Q, I forget what that stands for.
Who knows what THIC, what was the Q? Totally. Totally, happily, immediately, and quickly, right? So another just to kind of all right that and believe it or not your children can do that and we'll do that and be happy to do it and then of course you make sure you you praise them when you're seeing that kind of behavior. Now related to that first time obedience I want to throw in something called the appeal process. There may be times that you'll give your child some instructions and for some reason there's more information that if you had it you might change what you asked them to do and the child needs a way a proper way to be able to say hey more information.
And so we call it the appeal process. You can call it whatever you want. But it was some way that the child can say, mom, dad, can I give you some more information? We formalized it a little bit in our home where we actually had them use the words, you know, mom, may I please appeal? Or as Jeremy said when he was a little boy, mom, may I please be appeal? But they would communicate to us that there's something else I, more information necessary here.
It could be as simple as you've told them you're at a show somewhere and you said sit there and You don't realize that there's something blocking their view and they and they want to give you more information. So mom, may I please appeal? I Can't see you know because there's a pillar in front of me. Okay. Yeah, you can move over here That's better than the child going into a little hissy fit and whining and complaining because they don't like what you told them to do And then after when you find out you realize they didn't need to throw an attitude They just needed to give you the more information So if you can teach them this idea that you know, I expect you to do what I told you to do But if there's something I don't know that you think I need to know you can appeal and so give them whatever it is If may I please appeal sounds too formal to you just come up with some way they can communicate that to you Now you got to make sure you teach them that the appeal process is not to be used to go into lawyer mode and try to
Negotiate a better deal. You know, they're not they don't say man, please be appeal I really would like to stay up two more hours than you said is that okay with you?
No, that's not the proper use of the appeal process the appeal process is only to say there's some information That I think you don't know that might cause you to change your mind, and they do again with proper respect Okay, so that'll help avoid some conflicts there Let's talk about respect for authority This final means of developing a submissive heart in your child has to do with showing respect for authority Back in the 60s, most of you weren't around then, some of you were, Dave was probably actually throwing the slogan out back then in his hippie days, but you know back then there was a saying among the anti-establishment movement which was question authority. Actually I think Dave still says it. The attitude has blossomed today into a full-frooted tree of rebellion in our culture. Today authority figures are under attack unlike anything seen in many generations. Sitcoms portrayed children as all-wise and all-knowing while making parents usually single look like buffoons. In many popular movies, the hero is portrayed as
an arrogant and independent individual who bucks the system. Law enforcement personnel often take abuse from the public they are sworn to serve. Many examples exist of authority undermined in our culture today. As Christian parents, we must first set the example of respecting authority and then instill that same respect in our children. We may not always agree with the one in authority but we must always show the proper respect. In the lives of our children one such authority is other adults. A simple way of teaching them to show respect is to have them use proper names when addressing other adults. We recommend, I recommend, my wife recommends, that we teach our kids to use proper names when addressing adults. Hi Mr. and Mrs. Massey. It's not hi Craig, hi Lila.
The kids need to understand there's a difference other than just size and height. There's a difference in our relationship. I am a child, you're an adult. I should defer to you. I should give you respect because of your position. And using proper names is one way of doing that. It's not God says, but it's a suggestion for you of one thing that's not so common. What's funny is when I teach that principle, it's the parents who object. I don't like that formality. I just want them to call me, you know, by my given name. But when we teach to the kids, the kids are like, sure, no problem, Mr. Smith, whatever, Mr. Massey, they don't have a problem, it's only we, the big people have a problem with it.
So it's just one way you can help institute that idea of respect for authority. If you're really close family friends, we had friends like that where they would refer to us maybe as uncle and aunt, you know, Uncle Jim, you know, the Nielsen kids have pretty much always called us Uncle Jim and Aunt Gail, you know, for all their life. you can have those kinds of relationships. But again, it was showing a sign of respect. So again, a suggestion. Some other ways that they can help them learn to show respect for adults. Common courtesy things, again, these are not like, wow, profound things, but give up your seat to someone older. When they have them, teach them to pay attention.
Did an older person come into the room? Are there enough seats? Am I sitting in the best cushy chair? Should I go sit over in the corner in a little dinky chair? You know, thoughtful, give up your seat. Have them wait in lines, maybe at a potluck or something, but let them wait until the adults have been served and then they go through the line.
Don't just rush ahead like a horde of locusts and take everything and leave the adults to the leftovers. Show that patience. These are not hard and fast rules, but I'm just giving you some thoughts and some suggestions, ideas of things you can think about that teach your kids to say, I need to respect the authority in my life. Having them wait and hold doors open for an adult instead of rushing to get ahead. Typically a kid, he's eager, he's excited, he wants to get into the store, whatever it may be, and he actually runs around and brushes the old lady, you know, moving too slow on her walker. Instead of doing that, how about just nicely make your way around her and go then hold the door open and wait for her to, you know, taut her into the store. Much better sign of respect than just, hey, lady got on my way, I'm on my way into the store. You're teaching them a really important principle there and that's the preciousness of other people.
It's what you want them to learn and begin to see that. When I look around, there's all kinds of people that I can show preference to and give honor to. Then teach them how to make conversation, especially with adults. Again, I made a comment on that earlier, so I don't have to belabor it, but it's just tragic again when you have a 14, 15-year-old who's like, I have no idea what to do with adults. We tried a, years ago we tried a life to life, like a life to life group. And it was a more age integrated group. We actually invited all the ages and very much like we're doing today with our life to life groups where we had the teenagers well participate.
And it died a horrible death after a few months because the kids, the teenagers were like, I'm just so bored, I don't know what to say to adults. Now what do I have in common with them? And so because they were disinterested then the parents lost interest and then the thing flopped. but to teach our kids that, you know what, you've got things you can say, there's things you can learn, and teach them to grow up and learn how to communicate.
All right, well that just blew through submission to authority quickly. You guys just got about an hour and about five minutes. Okay, so. Let's talk about the next trait. This is the second trait about learning to take responsibility, self-control. Self-control is the ability to control one's impulses and passions in a God-honoring manner. The dictionary defines it as control of oneself, restrained, exercised over oneself, self-command. People who lack self-control often are people who express themselves with unbridled passion. I've never seen a time in my life where we live in a culture that lacks self-control covers the gamut.
You guys watch the news and you see this, look at what's going on in the entertainment industry and anywhere you go you see tremendous evidence of lack of self-control. The Bible identifies unbridled passion that we see out there today as a mark of the wicked, For example, Proverbs 29 11 says, a fool always loses his temper, but a wise man holds it back. And Proverbs 14 30 declares a tranquil heart is life to the body, but passion is rottenness to the bones. Now is the Bible against being passionate? No, passion is a good thing, but bridle passion. We're talking here about this on bridal, let it all hang out. I don't care what anybody else thinks.
I'm going to tell you what I think. I'm going to wear as few clothes as I want to wear. I'm going to be as loud and noisy and obnoxious as I want to be. And I don't care if you don't like it too bad. You can stuff it. This is the kind of unbridled passion that we see going on today. Converse to all that, being in control of one's passions and emotions is required by the Bible. Titus 2, 2 instructs older men to be temperate. Galatians 5, 23 identify self-control as one aspect of the fruit of the spirit. It's important to note that passion in of itself As I said earlier, it's not the issue. It's when that passion is unchecked or unbridled that it leads to ungodly behavior.
Christians of all people should be the most passionate around passion for God and the lost are just to name two things. It's the lust of the flesh that we are to learn to control. This kind of lust is particularly true of young people. That's why Paul specifically addresses them in second Timothy two 22, where he rights flee from youthful lust and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Children are born without any self-control and left themselves. They'll exhibit in a lot of different ways. So here's some signs that your child is having self-control issues. Temper tantrums, not too hard to identify that one. Your little ones are going to probably practice the temper tantrums, but that's a lack of self-control that they need to be taught. It's not acceptable. And we'll getting into maybe some more ways to how do I deal with that? What do I do with my 18 month old is throwing a temper tantrum. Not being considerate of other people.
Again, just thinking about themselves in total disregard of how it might affect the other people. This can again be examples I gave earlier. Just going around the house, tuned out, listening to your music, going in your bedroom and just laying in there to listen to your music and not being considered the fact that there's actually other family members that might want to engage you. uncontrolled emotional responses, just letting it out, the yelling and the screaming. It can also be for the older kids who are into the music scene. There's a lot of music out there that really drives that passion. It just wants them to really soak into this culture of nobody understands me and woe is me and the whole world stinks.
You know, the emo movement a few years ago, that was part of it. of it. It's just, but it's just, it, it, they're spirited and accountants are drugged down with, with inappropriate emotional responses. It can go the other extreme too, where they get wild and crazy. I have a story here in a moment, that conversation I had with a young man that illustrates this point. Recklessness in play or other actions. Seems like any more, if you watch any kind of sports, everything has to have an extreme on front of it. It's extreme this, extreme that. I was watching one show where it was extreme ice waterfall, ice climbing, where the guy is climbing the waterfall with just hand picks.
No ropes, no nothing else. I mean a frozen waterfall and just, and they're interviewing you, why do you do that, it's kinda crazy. He says, well I like to get as close to death as I can get without getting there. But again, this idea of recklessness and carelessness And how they play, how they interact. Provoking extreme emotions through music. I mentioned that a moment ago. Again, our kids, if you're not watching, they'll start to use the music to stir up these passions that are not appropriate and just be out of control. Then some of them will go into a case of despair because they're just listening around music.
Or others will just go wild and crazy. Yeah, well enough said on that for right now. Excessive time on entertainment, TV, video games, computers, music, all of that stuff. If they're spending hours and hours and hours and you're letting them camp on those things, you're doing them a disservice. Because again, they're not learning proper self-control. They're learning how to waste their time when there could be other things they could be doing are more profitable. I'm not saying all of this activity is all wrong all the time, but I'm saying that in moderation, the key word is moderation. And yet today, we're just happy.
The kid's not out in jail, so he's playing Xbox for 18 hours a day, and at least I know where he's at. Wrong, wrong thinking. Again, a practice we had in our home, you can't say it's not God's way, but we never allowed the video games back then, whatever it was, Nintendo or something, Nintendo. We did not own one, and the purpose in our thinking was that we knew the temptation for the kids to spend oodles of hours, it would become a real challenge for us to parent that and keep limiting it. It would give me a tug of war. So we just said, no, Nintendo. I would go rent one for birthday parties and things like that.
Then they could play at those times, and I'd let them play all night, play till their brains fell out. But the thinking was that I wanted them to use that time to develop other gifts and talents. I wanted them to learn to use their own brain to be creative and think so they were required to go. If they were bored, I said, hey, I got a whole backyard out there. Go out and make fun. That's what they learned to do. That's why they made the armatrons and those kinds of things. They came up with their own fun and they went down and they built their little tree forts and all that stuff. Otherwise, they would have been sitting at home.
I can't tell you how many time kids came over to our house to play. The first thing it was, where's the Nintendo? When they found out we didn't have one, it was like, now what are we going to do? There's nothing to do. My kids are sure there is. Let's go on as we head down the hill. Let's go play whatever. I appreciate the kids grandmother. She had an act of imagination, so she'd take them off in the woods and they'd play Prince Caspian. So, you know, a 70-year-old lady running through the woods with the grandkids playing Prince Caspian. Let them use their imaginations, but we just, we turn them into brain mush, you know, with this stuff.
Okay? I know I'm on a soapbox there, all right? Preoccupation with the opposite sex, obviously for the older kids, this can become an issue where they are just spending too much time fixated and focused on that. Again, a lack of self-control. Your job as the parent is to train your child towards a life of self-control. The predominant youth culture in America today is all about letting it hang out. The media drives these feelings with slogans like, just do it, or go for the gusto, or you only live once. The Bible describes this mindset as eat, drink, and be merry. Don't worry about tomorrow. If it feels good, do it.
Whatever you call it, it is sin, because it's based in hedonism, which supplants God, the only source of pleasure with the pleasures of this world. Now again, I did not say go home and burn your Xboxes. All right. But I'm saying, consider, are these things, are you allowing your children to be out of, be on discipline? Are you letting them practice a lack of self-control with the use of these things? The example I was thinking of earlier is I had this conversation with the one, a young man once. He was probably 16, 17 years of age. He was a part of, at the time, a heavy metal. That was one of the genres, right? Heavy metal is one of the, yeah.
Heavy metal, I think, defined as all frequencies at the same time, at the same volume. No variation. That's what heavy metal music is. Anyhow, he was into that, and part of that culture was just kind of the, you get up there, the band is just really head-baning and jumping around and being really excessively crazy, and the crowd is whipped up in a frenzy, and they're doing the mosh and it's just, it's like really let it all out. And I was really having a problem with this and he's a Christian young man and actually he was trying to get one of my kids to be a part of this band. And so I was kind of pushing back on him and challenging him on this whole thing.
You know, why are you doing this? This is, he was wrong. And for him, I knew in the conversation, it was, he was looking at me like, okay, you're just an old guy that just doesn't get it. You just don't like that genre. You know, you're the very manolo set. You just don't understand heavy metal. I knew there was something to my spirit that was bugging me more than that. I didn't think it was just simply cultural differences in old versus young. We were going back and forth with some e-mails, and then he shot me an e-mail that I said, aha, because what he said in there is he said, one reason I really like this is because it's like I can be two years old again, and just run around and yell and scream.
I went, bingo. I said, you are not two years old. You're 17 years old. It's time to practice some moderation in your life. Now again, is heavy metal of the devil? I'm not going to say that. But it's the issue of control and self-control. And what do these different things do? So again, don't go home and say, Jim said heavy metal is evil. I'm just saying, why did that young man want to do heavy metal? So that he could practice lack of control. He could let it all go. He could be a two-year-old again. That's not a good reason to enjoy your music. So you've got to watch out for those kinds of things. With the decline of religious influence in society, more and more people are giving in to base passions and asking the question, why not?
Again, our culture is over the top with this attitude. Parents must work aggressively to counteract the effects of this attitude upon our children. We need to take heed of the warning found in 1 Peter 5, 8. Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. So here are some suggestions about things you can do to try to help them develop self-control. Let's see. There we go. Number one, avoid bad company. First Corinthians 1533, do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. Now, I really got myself into trouble once trying to apply this with my kids.
Back in the day when instant messaging was still fairly new, and all the kids were all I-amming each other, and there was, I told my kids, I said, you cannot friend anybody. I forgot what the term was for I-amming, but at that time, you cannot friend them unless I say so. So you can't get them on your little I-am list unless I approve their names. And there's this one particular person that they wanted to have on their list. And I said, no, right now, where they're at in their life, I don't think they're a good influence. I don't want you doing that. Well, about a day later, I get a phone call from the other young man's mother.
I understand you don't want my child to be your child's friend. Why is that? Oh, boy, here we go. And then I had to be honest. I said, well, to be honest, you know, where are your child's at right now, I have some concerns about what's going on. I don't think it'd be good influence.
But tell you what, to be fair, if I was you, I'd be concerned about letting my child I'll be your friend, kids friend right now because my child's not making so you know so many good decisions these days So you ought to be just as concerned so don't feel like it's just me picking on your kid But you know so I turned it around there and said basically we're in the same boat We should be concerned about our kids you know in their current foolish state Encouraging each other to be bigger fools So anyhow you've got to you've got to watch the friendships you've got to monitor that and you may have to instruct them that they Cannot hang with certain people We had another young man who came from a really rough home and He would come over to our home and we allowed him in there And there was a couple times where his roughness showed up some language some other attitudes that you could tell were reflections of his home And I told him I said, you know, you are welcome in my home But here are some rules in our home, you know
And speech was one of them and so I said as long as you can live by these rules You are welcome in my house and he respected that and he cleaned up his mouth He would then want to invite my kids over to his home, but because of that situation I just said, you know, we just politely, you know, decline and not do that, but there's just times you're gonna have to make those hard choices where yeah, your kid can come to my house but my kid can't go to your house and don't be afraid to do that if that's what you deem to be in the best interest of protecting your children from bad company. Limit exposure to TV movies and music, again we've talked about that, you just have to really be careful.
Again, a practice that Gail and I had in our home was we did not allow personal TVs or even until they were quite more like mid-teen years, we did not even allow the radios and memes to go upstairs and just sit there for hours listening to music.
One of the practices I did, they didn't particularly like it, but when they wanted to get new music, CDs. I said, okay, you get the CD. I listened to it first. If there's songs I object to, I'm going to rip the CD down to another CD and I'll give you the tracks that I approve of and you can't have the other tracks. And they didn't care for that. But I was listening for attitude, rebellious tone, rebellious attitude, rebellious messages. I said, sorry, I'm just not going to let you listen to those tracks. Now, what they may have done in their friends' cars and stuff, I don't know, the youth leaders in here probably know better what they were doing than I did. But at least in my home I said I'm going to control it. I still got a drawer full of CDs that they bought at home right now because they all they got was copies for me. But I said, son, and I would sit down with them and we would listen to the tracks. And they usually had to tell me what the words were because I just couldn't even make out what the words were. But then we would talk about
it. What's the world view? What's the attitude? What's going on? And forcing them to think about it. Set time limits on their entertainment. Same related principles. Don't let them express themselves in ways that would be considered rude or inappropriate if they were adults.
They are not free to say whatever they are thinking, nor are they free to express their thoughts with unchecked emotions. It isn't easy to gain or maintain self-control, but it is possible. In fact, it's a defining characteristic of a mature Christian. Galatians 5 24 says, Now, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. So they need to learn how to control those things and you have to help them and it will be it'll be tough at times. They'll challenge you. We had a as they got into the age where they could go watch movies with their friends, they'd come and say, Dad, can I go see this movie?" Back then we were using the technology, I think it was called Screen It, where you could go check and see what language and those kinds of things were going to be. They'd say something like this, you know, Dad, can I go see the movie? All our friends are going to go see the movie. I already checked it on Screen It and there's only four bad words.
Now I'd say, Whoa, praise the Lord, there's only four bad words. I thought there was five. If there was five we'd have a problem, but there's only four bad words. Yay! And they'd say, What? And I'd say, Guys, think about it. You just said there's only four bad words. Now, movies have bad words in it today. I'm not saying don't go watch a movie because there's a bad word in it, but I wanted them to learn to think, okay, where's your line? Is it five? Is it six? Is it seven? Is it 20? How many bad words are okay for you? It's back to that principle of they're looking for the edge of freedom. How much freedom can I take without crossing the line? Is four bad words in the line?
Is five bad words in the line? Whatever the line is today, I can guarantee it's going to be more words tomorrow. And I wanted them to again think about what's in your best interest of pursuing holiness. If you can go watch that movie and maintain holiness, fine, peace. There were times I had to put my foot down and say, no, you're not going to make any case for this. There are times I said, you know what, I'm questioning if that's in your best interest, but you're old enough now, I'll let you make that call, but here's what you need to be thinking about. And that was of course, you know, with an older kid, you know, if there or five or six or 10, I'm going to probably tell them what they can or can't do.
But 15, 16 year old, I'm going to maybe give them some freedom to see what they'll do with that freedom. But the point is, is to be making them think through what they're doing, why they're doing it, what their motivation is, and are they pursuing Christ's likeness. There are no hard and fast rules. We couldn't say only G movies and never a PG movie. Those kinds of rules, I think are sort of pointless. It's the principles you want them to understand and wrestle with. And it's far better to have them wrestle with it in their own hearts than you just always being the external enforcer, imposing upon them. Thank you.
