Compiled by: Herman Abrahams (Senior Pastor), Cornerstone Faith Ministries, P.O. Box 740, Westridge 7802, Rep. of South Africa.
E-Mail: Mentorship2003@yahoo.co.uk
Note to the reader:
If you have been blessed with this sermon compilation, I would be honoured to receive an e-mail from you merely telling me where in the world you are based- I do not need any other information. This is merely so that I can have the pleasure, and give thanks to Almighty God, that all over the globe the ministry which he has entrusted to me, is blessing the body of Christ and helping to extend the Kingdom of God.
Thank you. Herman Abrahams, Cape Town, South Africa.
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SERIES: Successful Family
TRAINING CHILDREN IN THE LORD
1. BORN WITH A SINFUL NATURE
What do biblical counsellors have to say about rearing children?
¨ First of all, they expect the child to act sinfully. The Scripture indicates that “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child” (Proverbs 22:15).
¨ According to the Psalms, as soon as a child is born “he goes forth speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3) because his mother conceived him in sin (Psalm 51:5).
¨ In Ephesians 2:3 Paul plainly stated that “by nature” that is by birth, every infant is a child of “wrath”. He is born a sinner.
Since children are born sinners, they will manifest their sinful nature by sinful behaviour from their earliest opportunities. Discipline takes the form of a battle against non-Christian response patterns. However, there is one great advantage to child discipline. If one is aware of the kind of patterns that his child may develop in later life, then as parent he will do all within his ability to instil and structure into his child those patterns which are in line with biblical living. Wherever he sees the weeds of irresponsibility beginning to sprout forth in his child’s life he will seek to root them out and in their place will plant the seeds of responsibility.
2. EACH CHILD IS DIFFERENT
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6)
Part of the calling of a parent is to help the child discover what it is that God means him to be and do. Parents are to train up the child in the way that any and every child should go, but also in the (specific and unique) way in which he (or she) should go.
This means that parents must deal with each one of their children under the leading of the Holy Spirit. All parents have to adjust to the sometimes difficult realisation that each one of their children is different - and tend to become more so as they grow older. This does not mean that a family becomes the arena for a rampant individualism, but it does mean that the differences in the character and make-up of the children indicate differences in the destiny which God has appointed for each one of them.
Parents must be on guard lest they force upon a child something of their own desire and ambition. It is not uncommon that a parent will try to live out some aspect of his own life through the life of his child.
The parents must repeatedly ask not only, “Am I doing right?” - but, “Am I doing right for this child?” “Is my teaching helping to train up this child in the way he should go?
3. PRESENTING GOD TO YOUR CHILDREN - THROUGH EXAMPLE
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deut 6:4,5)
This familiar passage of Scripture is actually the beginning of an instruction to parents. Note that it begins by describing the attitude which the parents themselves have toward God.
The Lord knew that without a fundamental love toward God on the part of parents, their teaching of the children would be hollow and base. The starting point, and the foundation, for the priesthood of parents is the parents’ own love and devotion to God.
If parents do not have a living relationship with Jesus, they cannot hope to convey such a relationship to their children.
Children are far more perceptive in spiritual matters than adults sometimes realise. They do not respond merely to the words and formal beliefs of their parents. They sense the inner spirit of the faith, and that is what they react to.
Parents who want their children to know God must cultivate their own relationship with God. The Apostle Paul could say, “Imitate me, as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). The moral behaviour of parents must be such that they can invite their children to imitate them.
4. PRESENTING GOD TO YOUR CHILDREN - THROUGH THE WORD
“…..bring them up in the ……….instruction of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4)
“And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk to them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on you gates.” (Deut. 6:6-9)
The godly training which God here commands us to give to our children is no lick-and-a-promise. It is a diligent teaching.
It is not a harsh, oppressive schoolmaster spirit. Rather, it is a quiet threading of God’s Word through the warp and woof of family life - “when you sit in the house, when you’re out for a walk, when you go to bed, when you get up.” God’s Word becomes a natural point-of-reference for anything that may come up in the family. And through the Word, Jesus takes up His dwelling in the family - as naturally as the sunlight streams through the window when the shade
is pulled aside. (Larry Christenson in ‘The Christian Family”, 1970/Bethany Fellowship, Inc.)
5. PARENTAL DISCIPLINE WITH APPROPRIATE BIBLICAL RESPONSES
“And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Eph 6:4 New American Standard).
Parents should respond to the behaviour of children in an honest and appropriate manner. Only by such responses can they provide a standard by which the child may discover the social consequences of his behaviour. Such a response will not harm the child as some think. On the contrary, neutral (i.e., distorted) and erratic responses will confuse the child. While a parent should not purposely wrong his child such wronging will not be as injurious as some might think. Throughout life, people will treat him wrongly. It is well that the first wrongdoing he experiences may come from those who love him most, for if in love they admit the wrong, apologise and make right what they have done wrong, they teach him much by their example. But also, if they teach him how to respond to wrongdoing, they teach him the most important lesson of all.
5.1 Christian parents are accountable to God for the discipline of their children
If we discipline and bring up our children according to God’s Word, we will have His approval and blessing. Failure to do so will incur his wrath.
God punished the house of Eli, the priest, for the very reason that he failed to discipline his sons. “I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.” (1Samuel 3:13 Revised Standard Version).
5.2 The Word of God holds the father primarily responsible for the discipline of the children.
“Hear, O sons, a father’s instructions …… when I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me ….” (Proverbs 4:1,3,4).
The father is to instruct and discipline the child, enforcing both his own and his wife’s commands. The wife, in this as in other things, is the helpmate of her husband, and disciplines the children under his delegated authority, e.g., in his absence. (See also Ephesians 6:4 above - the instructions to fathers).
5.3 The rod of discipline.
Prov. 13:24 “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.(NIV)
Prov. 22:15 “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child
but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” (NIV)
Prov. 23:13-14 “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.” (NIV)
Prov. 29:15 “The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.” (NIV)
Prov. 29:17 “Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.” (NIV)
5.4 The need for early discipline
Prov 19:18 “Discipline your son while there is hope. Do not set your heart on his destruction.” (RSV)
Ecclesiastes 8:11 “When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.”
Delayed punishment tends to induce more wrongdoing.*
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
· Larry Christenson - ‘The Christian Family”, 1970/Bethany Fellowship, Inc
· The Counselling Books of Jay E. Adams
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