Raising Spiritual Champions
2 John 1:1-6
Rev. Brian Bill
5/25/08
I received an invitation in the mail a few weeks ago with my name and address on it but it was obviously a mistake. They either had the wrong guy or there was a major mix-up. When I opened it up I was shocked to realize that there was no mistake made – it was an invitation to my 30th High School Class Reunion! After I calmed down a bit I started laughing when I read a list of things that have changed in the past thirty years.
1978: Passing the drivers’ test
2008: Passing the vision test
1978: Rolling Stones
2008: Kidney Stones
1978: Going to a new, hip joint
2008: Receiving a new hip joint
1978: Acid rock
2008: Acid reflux
1978: Long hair
2008: Longing for hair
Ah, those were the good old days. Have you heard people say that they want to go back to the “good old days”? Have you ever said it yourself? Some of you go back even further than 30 years. Sharon Peterson sent me an email this week entitled “What people were saying 50 years ago…”
* “I’ll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to be impossible to buy a week’s worth of groceries for $20.”
* “Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?”
* “If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.”
* “When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the garage.”
* “Kids today are impossible. Those ducktail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed.”
I’m not even sure what duck tail hair cuts are, but I’m sure they weren’t popular with parents. Sometimes we think that if we could just turn back the clock then parenting would be easier. If we could just go back to the “good old days,” then things would be better. Let’s do that, shall we? Let’s go all the way back to the Book of Genesis and focus on the families that are portrayed for us there.
* In the first marriage relationship, Adam blames his wife for his behavior and refers to her as “this woman you gave me” when held accountable by the Almighty.
* Their children don’t get along and Cain ends up killing his brother Abel.
* Noah gets drunk, his son dishonors him and then Noah curses that son.
* Abraham lies twice, referring to Sarah, not as his wife, but as his sister.
* A father named Isaac loves one son Esau; while the mother Rebekah favors Jacob.
* When Jacob is a father he favors Joseph and his brothers want to kill him.
And that’s just a few of the families in Genesis. Anyone here feel better about their own family now? This is not a place for “together” people because we’re all in process at PBC. Because of sin, there really has not been a time we could call “the good old days.” But God works through all of this and has provided principles and practices in His Word to equip parents for the task of raising spiritual champions. Last week we learned that parenting is not only hard work; it is heart work.
Before we jump into our text this morning I want to give a “shout-out” to those of you who are raising young children. Some of you are battling bedtimes and wondering when all the whining is going to stop. You’re juggling schedules and running on emotional “empty.” Would you take a deep breath right now and listen to these comforting words from the Lord in Isaiah 40:11? “He tends his flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” I love that picture – Jesus is gently leading those of you with little lambs in your home.
Truthful Love and Loving Truth
Not only do some of us want to go back to the “good old days” of our youth but sometimes we think that the first churches had it all together as well. Actually, many of them were filled with division, rampant sin and false teachers – that’s why many of the letters in the New Testament were written – to correct these problems.
Please turn to the shortest book in the Bible, the book of 2 John. This brief book is written by John and is the only letter written to a woman. In the second half of this little letter, John addresses doctrinal error but before he does that he shows how truth and love are to be blended together. This woman is a mother with children and John is joyful about the fact that some of her children are walking in truth.
Let’s look at the first six verses: “The elder, To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth--and not I only, but also all who know the truth--because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love. It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”
John is putting two words together that we often keep apart. Do you see them? The word “truth” is mentioned five times and the word “love” is listed five times. In verse three they’re linked side-by-side: “in truth and love.” In John 1:14 we read that Jesus is “full of grace and truth” and in Ephesians 4:15 we’re called to “speak the truth in love.” That ought to be characteristic of Christians and of Christian families. Our problem is that we generally emphasize the one at the expense of the other. We hammer away with truth and end up crushing our kids because we’re lacking in love. Or we lay on the love so much that we become loose with our expectations and stop telling the truth. Instead, we need to practice truthful love and loving truth. It’s really a both/and, not an either/or.
In 2 John 1:4, John has great joy when he finds out that some of her children are walking in the truth. I don’t know of anything more rewarding for a parent than when a child has taken the “belief baton” and is now running the race of faith. The Christian parents I know long for their kids to not only become Christians but to live out their faith on a daily basis. We see this yearning in the Apostle Paul when he writes in Galatians 4:19-20: “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you.”
Paul is perplexed because his spiritual progeny are being led astray. Like many of you parents he is in pain for them because he wants Christ to be formed in their lives. This past week I’ve talked to several parents who have expressed great concern about their children. They desperately want their kids to become devoted disciples but they’re perplexed because they’re not sure which way they’re going to go. If you’re a child or a teenager, I wish I could communicate to you the depth of your parent’s concern for you spiritually. I urge you to follow Christ.
George Barna has done some research and has discovered three different parenting models:
* Parenting by default. This is when we just do what we think we should do without even thinking about it.
* Experimental parenting. This is when we try different things depending on what we read or hear.
* Revolutionary parenting. The goal of this type of parenting is to raise children who make their faith in God and their relationship with Him their highest priority in life. Barna discovered that for revolutionary parents “Parenting is their full-time job; the job they get paid to do is simply an addendum to the most important work they will do in life” (“Revolutionary Parenting,” page xiv).
According to Dr. James Dobson, 80% of parents feel like they’re failures! This “crisis of confidence” is affecting families all around the country. While parenting is demanding, too many of us find the task burdensome. Parents today have saddled themselves with unnecessary guilt, fear, and self-doubt. Listen to what he writes in his book, Parenting Isn’t For Cowards: “Throughout the Scriptures, it is quite clear that the raising of children was viewed as a wonderful blessing from God – a welcome, joyful experience… We’ve had enough self-condemnation. What we need now is a doable dose of confidence in our ability to raise our children properly.” (Page 16)
My intention this morning is to communicate a biblical perspective on parenting so that we can do exactly that – have the confidence as parents to raise our children properly. As I’ve thought about the many perspectives in the prism of parenting, I’m convinced that teaching our children to obey rises to the top. Purposeful parenting must involve truthful love and loving truth. This is not always easy, is it? It’s like the little boy who was overheard praying, “Lord, if you can’t make me a better boy, don’t worry about it. I’m having a real good time like I am.”
While our children may think they’re having a good time disobeying, the fact of the matter is that they will be much happier and more joyful if they can learn the biblical discipline of obedience. George Barna states that “revolutionary parents believe they are in charge from day one, behave like people who are in charge, and never allow doubts to linger as to who are in charge.” Some of my points in this section come from John MacArthur’s excellent book entitled, “What the Bible Says about Parenting.”
Teaching our children to obey is more than a matter of good parenting advice, it is a bedrock moral principle that is given a place of prominence among the Ten Commandments, and emphasized repeatedly throughout the Bible. When you distill it down to the bottom line, here’s what you’re left with: It is the child’s duty to obey, and it is the parent’s mandate to teach obedience. Or, to say it another way, God gives to all parents the responsibility to build their children’s moral character by teaching them to obey God and their parents. And we’re to do that with truth and with love.
Not an Easy Task
This is no small task but revolutionary parents must be up for it. It’s difficult for at least three reasons.
1. The corruption from society on the outside. It’s not news to you that our whole society is hostile to biblical truth and often seems bent on teaching children to rebel against authority. The Bible predicted that such a time would come in 2 Timothy 3:1-2: “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents…”
2. The curse of sin on the inside. Not only is the world pressuring our kids to conform to ungodliness, their own depravity causes them to be naturally prone to rebellion. Both of these influences work in tandem against parents who want to teach their children to obey. Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That includes kids. Have you ever noticed that you’ve never had to explain to your child how to disobey? They’re experts in this from the very beginning, but obedience is something they must learn.
That reminds me of a mother was preparing pancakes for her two young sons, Kevin and Ryan. Since the boys started to argue over who would get the first pancake, the mother saw an opportunity for a “teachable moment.” The mother solemnly said, “Boys, if Jesus were here, He would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.’” Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, “Ryan, you be Jesus.”
3. The condition of childishness. Even apart from the forces in our culture, and their own natural bent toward disobedience, children have another problem – they’re still children. Either through ignorance or because of immaturity, they are not going to always do the right thing but it is still necessary for them to obey the God-given higher authority of their parents and to learn from them.
Learning to Obey
Please turn to Ephesians 6:1-3: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ – which is the first commandment with a promise – that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’” The term “obey” in verse 1 means “to hear” or “to heed,” and involves the idea of listening intently and conforming to a command. It implies an inward attitude of respect and honor, as well as external acts of compliance. It means to line up under your parent’s authority by keeping their rules, by listening carefully to what they have to say, and then doing what they tell you to do.
Beth and I have been helped by a concept that is called “first-time” obedience. The idea is that as parents we are to train our children to obey right away. Instead of counting to three, we expect instant obedience.
God made parents to shape the moral will of their children by setting biblical standards for right and wrong, and then consistently enforcing those standards until their children learn how to conduct themselves on their own. A person who grows up with a sense of obedience, a sense of discipline, and a sense of respect toward his parents will be someone who can make any kind of human relationship work. In other words, God’s design is for all human relationships to be based on what is learned through obedience in childhood.
Several years ago, Cal Thomas, a syndicated columnist wrote an article entitled, “What Kids Want.” He described the findings of two California teachers who toured 50 cities in order to discover what kids really crave. Their findings are remarkable: “Teenagers…are not estranged from their parents. They actually want their parents to spend more time with them. They want their parents to listen and (surprise!) set guidelines and make them adhere to rules.” (10/15/99)
G.K. Chesterton paints a picture of the importance of boundaries: “We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall around the cliff’s edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the nosiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island.” (“Orthodoxy,” page 143).
Parents, as much as your children chafe under your rules, giving boundaries and walls and restrictions is the loving thing to do. That’s loving truth and truthful love. Parents, you are the “firewall” between your kids and the perils of this world. Barna adds, “Our research among young adults revealed that most of them believed that parents are often too lenient with their children.” One young adult adds, “When I was growing up, I never would have said this but now, as I look at the lives of my childhood friends, the ones I envied because they had so much freedom when were growing up, their lives are a mess…I thank God regularly that my parents put up with all the whining and complaining from me and my brothers and sisters but did not give in” (“Revolutionary Parenting,” page 52).
Several years ago Newsweek ran a cover story about teenagers. Many teens, if they’re not estranged, are isolated from their parents and are no longer influenced by them. Listen to what a 17-year-old girl named Vanesa said: “You are who you hang around with. Before, parents made you who you are. Now, teens are pretty much defined by their friends. I see my mom maybe an hour a day and not at all on weekends.” (Newsweek, 5/8/00, page 53)
Look again at Ephesians 6:1. Children are to obey their parents “in the Lord.” They are to obey for the Lord’s sake. This doesn’t mean that you are only to obey your parents if they are Christians. Rather, it means that you are to obey your parents “because of the Lord,” as if you were obeying the Lord directly, because your parents represent God to you. In a parallel passage, Colossians 3:20 says, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”
The last phrase in Ephesians 6:1 answers the question, “Why?” Why must I obey my parents? “For this is right.” God has written a universal moral standard on every human heart, which says that it is right, it is proper, it is essential for children to obey their parents. Since the parents brought the child into the world, and since they have more knowledge and wisdom than the child, it is right that the child should obey his parents.
Children, tweens and teens, if you practice the habit of joyful obedience, this verse teaches that things will turn out right. If you refuse to obey, things will go wrong. That’s the way God set it up.
Learning to Honor
Verse 2 begins: “Honor your father and mother.” The emphasis here is on the attitude, not merely the act, of obedience. This quotation from the 5th Commandment describes a heart disposition. A little boy was standing on the kitchen table, jumping up and down. The dad told him to get down. The boy kept jumping. The dad raised his voice and told him to get off the table and to sit down on the chair. The boy finally stopped, climbed off the table and sat on the chair, crossed his arms and boldly declared, “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside.”
External compliance that hides an insubordinate heart is not God-honoring obedience. Honor is to be the attitude behind the act. Obedience without honor is nothing more than hypocrisy, and we know that hypocrisy is a sin. While parents cannot always judge the heart, it’s usually pretty easy to tell when a child has an attitude problem. Parents, it’s wise to discipline children for their attitudes and their actions.
Proverbs 12:1 says, “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.” If we can catch defiance at the point of attitude, a lot of disobedient behavior can be avoided. Children whose attitudes are right – whose honor for their parents comes from the heart – will retain that deep respect and love for their parents throughout life.
Honor is the most important ingredient in any family relationship. As husbands and wives honor each other they can have a marriage that moves toward oneness and intimacy. When parents honor their children, their kids will know that they’re accepted, that they’re unique, that they’re secure, and that they have a purpose in life. And, when children honor their parents, the family will be healthy as kids learn and grow in an environment of love and truth.
The word “honor” literally means a “heavy weight.” [Hold up a barbell] It implies that we assign the greatest possible weight to a person in terms of respect by holding them in “high regard.” To honor someone is to measure his or her value on a scale and concluding that it is “heavy.” On the other hand, to “dishonor” means to treat someone as if they were “light or insignificant.” [Hold up cotton ball and blow it away] It would be used to describe a child that treats his parents lightly because he or she does not value them.
Profiting from the Promise
The giving of the Fifth Commandment comes with a promise in Exodus 20:12: “Honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” Paul underscores this in Ephesians 6:2 by saying that this is the first commandment with a promise. Actually, this is the only commandment of the 10 that spells out the benefits of keeping it. This one alone conveys a specific pledge of blessing and prosperity to those who obey it. Look at verse 3: “That it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” We see two aspects of this pledge:
1. Quality of Life. “That it may go well with you.”
2. Quantity of Life. “And that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
Friends, this is not an ironclad guarantee that the reward for honoring and obeying is always a long and rich life. Some who honor and obey their parents die at a young age. But all exceptions to the rule aside, it is certainly true that obedience results in a longer, more harmonious life, and a defiant attitude always causes misery, and often causes people to die before their time. When children obey their parents in the Lord, they will escape a good deal of sin and danger and avoid those things that could threaten or shorten their life.
In other words, honoring and obeying parents is in the child’s own best interest. It is not only right in God’s eyes; it is also best for the child and for our society. Obedience will keep a child from a world of harm, will save him from a lifetime of bitterness, anger and resentment. And, it will generally prolong life and make it fuller and richer. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
Closing Questions
* I want to ask a couple questions to those of you who are kids and teenagers. Are you honoring or dishonoring your parents? Do you consider their advice and their role in your life “weighty” or “worthless”? Proverbs 1:8 challenges us to heed what our parents tell us: “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.”
* Parents, are you showing honor to your kids, or do you more often treat them as something not very valuable? Are you calling your kids to an attitude of obedience that is reflected in their actions? Are you doing what Ephesians 6:4 commands us to do by bringing “…them up in the training and instruction of the Lord?”
* Are you practicing both truth and love in your parenting? Which side of this equation do you most need to beef up?
* Adults, are you honoring your parents today even though you are no longer living under their authority? If your parents are no longer alive, you can still honor their memory by refusing to say bad things about them. Are you looking for ways to demonstrate care and concern? Leviticus 19:32 says that we are to, “Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God.” While Beth and I have not had to do this yet, we want to be ready to care for our parents if they need us. 1 Timothy 5:3-4 says, “Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.”
I read recently about a Jewish Rabbi who was known for the way he highly esteemed his mother. When she wished to get into her bed, he would stoop down and bend over so that she could use his back as a “stool.” On another occasion, his mother’s sandal broke so she had to walk across the country barefoot. The son responded by putting his hands under her feet as she took each step so that she wouldn’t hurt her feet on the rough stones.
Friends, that’s what honoring someone is all about. We need the help of Jesus to do that. Actually, we need to be like Jesus in order to be the kind of child He wants us to be – and in order to be the kind of parent He wants us to be.
If you’re raising children now, these days are the “Good Old Days.”
