Sermon Central
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A Child's Bill Of Rights
Contributed by Oris Hubbard on Jun 16, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: Good for Father’s Day or Children’s Day. Children have God-ordained spiritual rights. Adults have a responsibility before God to fulfill them.
A Child’s Bill of Rights
Introduction:
A father is God’s physical representative in the home. It is the responsibility of the father (and the mother to a lesser degree) to be an example of God before his children. If a father gives a misrepresentation of God, his children will be confused about what God is really like.
I. A Child Has the Right to A Father
A. God’s highest will for the family is one mother and one father for the children with which God will bless that union
B. Men, if you know a child that does not have a father in the home, you should do what you can, within propriety, to show that child masculine love & example
1. In this day of single-parent families, the church has a responsibility to be a “father to the fatherless.”
2. James 1:27 - Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
C. What a blessing to know that we all can enjoy a relationship with a Father who is a father to the fatherless; our heavenly Father.
II. A Child Has the Right to Hear Its Father Pray
A. Children learn by example - if they do not hear or see their parents praying, they will not be prayers. Luke 18:1 KJV And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
B. Now the choice is up to you, if you don’t want to teach your children to pray, that’s your prerogative, but don’t call your home a Christian home.
III. A Child Has the Right to Loving Discipline.
A. Discipline is more than just grounding or spanking or a time-out chair; discipline is erecting fences of loving protection for your child.
B. Discipline says, “This is as far as you are allowed to go, because I know the negative consequences of going farther.”
C. Of course, discipline does include the negative results from crossing the barrier set up by a parent. When a child willfully disobeys, he is asking for someone to stand up and say, “Hold it, You have crossed the line and you must bear the consequences.”
D. Proverbs 3:11 – “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: 12: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.”
E. Proverbs 13:24 – “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”
IV. A Child Has the Right to See Unconditional Love Lived Out between its Father and Mother.
A. It has been said that the greatest gift a father can give his children is to love their mother.
1. The husband-wife relationship is one which should reflect the relationship of Christ & His church.
2. Eph 5:25 – “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”
B. Husbands, don’t be afraid to show affection to your wife in front of your children. It makes them feel secure to know that their father loves their mother.
V. A Child Has the Right to Be Taught Forgiveness
Luke 17:4 “And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.”
VI. A Child Has the Right to Be Brought to God’s House
A. Hebrews 10:25 – “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
B. God have mercy on you if you ever use your child as an excuse for not being in God’s house at the appointed time.
VII. A Child Has the Right to Hear the Name of Jesus Proclaimed in Its Home
2 Thessalonians 1:11 KJV 11 - Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:
VIII. A Child Has the Right to Be Taught Generosity
Mark 4:25 MSG “Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes.”
IX. A Child Has the Right to Be Taught Obedience by Example
X. A Child Has the Right to Be Led to Jesus.
A. No one is ever saved just by being around Christians, even if those Christians are their parents.
B. Never take for granted that your children have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.
