The Vineyard Church of North Grand Rapids, MI

Why Is Parenting So Hard? Ephesians 6:1-4

1. Are You Ready for Children? Mess Test: Smear peanut butter on your best sofa and curtains. Now rub your hands in the wet flowerbed and rub on the walls. Cover the stains with crayons. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer. Toy Test: Obtain a 55-gallon drum of Lego's. (If Lego's are not available, you may substitute roofing nails.) Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not yell or scream. (This could wake up your other children.) Grocery Store Test: Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop at Meijers. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage. Feeding Test: Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a stout cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal (such as Fruit Loops or Cheerios) into the mouth of the jug, while pretending the spoon is an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor. Night Test: Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8 - 12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 8:00 PM begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 PM. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 PM. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00 AM. Set alarm for 5:00 AM. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful. Physical Test (Women): Obtain a large beanbag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10 of the beans. Financial Test (Men): Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Final Assignment: Find a couple who already has a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training, and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run riot. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

2. Last week Mike told some nice family stories that included me. He told me before hand that he was going to use some illustrations from his life with Dad. During the course of the morning I was-honestly-a bit apprehensive, relieved, surprised, and gratified. It's hard to raise children to become healthy, growing, followers of Jesus Christ . . . very hard. Of all the groups you can gather together, parents are some of the most insecure and unsure of themselves. Childraising regrets, sorrows, and grief stay with some parents their whole lives. Many of these men and women are successful in education, career, and community life. Why is raising kids such a daunting challenge? We'll draw our answer from Ephesians 6:1-4 (TNIV, p 802). READ.

PRAY: Father, you are a fountain of life that cleanses and refreshes, satisfies and renews. Many of us who are parents are hot, tired, and thirsty. Encourage parents this morning with truth and grace, wisdom and hope from your word.

TRANS: I want identify seven reasons that parenting is exceptionally hard work. Most of these reasons are the result of the growing gap between our Creator's instructions and our culture's preferences, between biblical wisdom and popular opinion. I've drawn several of these insights just by looking at what is NOT in these four verses.

1. God hasn't provided a detailed guidebook.

a. The Bible doesn't speak to every issue modern parents face-what to do exactly when teething and colic make life miserable for both parent and child, when a twelve year old sneaks out of the house on a ‘date', when a child is born with a disability, how to choose between public school, private school or home schooling.

b. The Jewish people of Jesus' day wanted more detailed information than God provided in the OT, so the Rabbi's filled in all the blanks for them-thousands of pages, hundreds of thousands of details in the Talmud. As Jesus described it, they tied heavy loads on parent's backs, but didn't offer any help in carrying the load.

c. The Christian life isn't like a set of railroad tracks that are designed to take every couple, every family, every generation through the same decisions, commitments, and practices. The Christian life is more like a car rally. Everyone has a car, starts together, and has the same destination, but there is freedom to take different routes.

1) So, the key to living the whole Christian life is being filled with the Holy Spirit-cf. 5:18. The key isn't attending certain marriage and family seminars, reading a certain book or set of books, listening to family life radio, or following one specific plan for disciplining children. Amish-like uniformity in dress, education, social life, and career is fine for those who like it, but it isn't part of God's plan for everyone.

2) The key to effective parenting is a close personal walk with God. Good morning, Holy Spirit! Speak to me, change me, fill me. Give me the gifts I need to raise my children in creative ways. Counsel me in how to be discipline my children in fruitful ways. Change my heart and deepen my character, so that my children see you in me, more and more clearly as the years go by. Help me to recognize and follow your promptings hour by hour in this day. Fill my conversations with my children with love and faith, Scriptural wisdom and fresh revelation of your heart.

3) One of the best things you can do for your children is to deepen your personal walk with God, and to invite God into your daily parenting practices. When parents become dull, overwhelmed, and apathetic, a good seminar or book may help, but I'd start by inviting the Holy Spirit to fill you afresh with God's peace, presence, wisdom and power.

2. There are no guarantees.

a. Parenting isn't like a pop-machine. Put in your five quarters and out comes a cool, refreshing family. There are no formulas. No one can promise you . . . just read this book, go to this seminar, watch these videos, do this at meal times and that at bed time, send your kids to VBS and Christian schools AND YOUR FAMILY LIFE WILL BE COMPLETELY SMOOTH AND PREDICTABLE. YOU'LL PRACTICALLY BE ABLE TO SCHEDULE LITTLE JOHNNY'S CONVERSION WITH HIS FIRST TRIP TO SUMMER CAMP, AND LITTLE SUSIE'S SPIRITUAL GROWTH BY THE YEARS SHE IS IN AWANA.

b. If you believe this, you either don't have children yet, or your baby is less than three months old. Look around at the parents of teens. They're slow to give advice. They'll listen and offer to pray for you. They'll tell you some meaningful stories, and even offer some valuable tips. But they won't give you any formulas.

c. Parents with a biblical worldview understand that all of Ephesians relates to family life: 1) the horrible depth of our sinfulness, 2) the freedom God gives us and our children to refuse instruction and rebel, 3) salvation is a miracle of God's grace, 4) spiritual warfare is a painful, present reality in every family, 5) the essential place of earnest, persevering prayer. DON'T BE LULLED INTO LAZINESS OR OVERCONFIDENCE: A SOLID, STABLE, STRONG CHRISTIAN FAMILY IS A GRACE, NOT A GIVEN.

3. Parental Authority is under wide-spread attack.

a. Paul is calling children to obey (=listen under) their parents. Listen to enough television talk shows and obedience almost sounds archaic . . . even abusive! Our cultures heaps contempt on the subject of obedience.

ILLUS: In the 1970's a little known attorney wrote a series of law journal articles. Hillary Roddam Clinton: "Children need the authority to be able to make independent decisions concerning motherhood and abortion, schooling and cosmetic surgery, treatment of venereal disease and employment".

b. Both children and parents need to recognize and accept the fact that God has given parents authority to give clear direction. A parent is like a coach focused on developing and guiding a winning player, team, season. It's only RIGHT that the child respect and respond to the person who gave it life, who sacrificed his or her independence to provide a home, and who invests sacrificially in it's growth.

Parents, get used to being counter cultural. Your children will tell you that their friends parents don't pray before meals, don't restrict immodest clothing, don't set curfews for them, don't restrict their dating practices, don't make them go to church, don't require them to participate in youth ministry.

c. God commands parents to exercise authority-teaching and forbidding, requiring and exacting penalties-to eat well, to go to school (for intellectual growth), to go to the doctor to maintain physical health, to participate in church to develop spiritual health. IT'S A GOOD THING! Parents who exercise proper authority enrich their children's lives, protect them from harm, help them to develop strong character and life skills. The God who created us, marriage, and family gives us the freedom to develop our own opinions, but he counsels: if you fail to exercise effective authority, you're harming your child, making his or her life more difficult, and even shortening his or her life.

d. Kids, how do you know when you are honoring your parents? When you speak well of them to your friends.

4. All parents are broken and sinful.

a. So, Dads, don't drive your kids crazy . . . by constantly picking on them, comparing them with others (with your childhood), complaining, criticizing . . . and failing to balance the negative with affirmation, compliments, and gratitude.

b. You don't have to be perfect, parents. You do have to be consistent. So, when you fail and sin, apologize and ask for forgiveness. Don't just say you're sorry and brush off the hurt you've caused your child. Ask them to exercise their right to forgive or not.

c. Here's a guarantee. Your children notice your weaknesses, your sinfulness, your tendency toward perfectionism, your double standards, your attitudes, the difference between the way you act in public and the way you act in private.. They can't help but notice. Here's another guarantee: your children are telling others about you and what you are like at home. Your job is to take intentional steps to help your children notice your humility, your transparency, your godly sorrow, your repentance, and your need for help . . . so that they can tell others that Dad and Mom are both human and humble, growing Christ-followers.

d. Our brokenness and sinfulness are a big part in why parenting is so hard. ILLUS: Jason Anderson, former youth pastor-"I think I know more about your family life at home than I am comfortable knowing".

5. Kids are people too!

a. In NT times, in Roman and Greek cultures, father's had a right to do whatever they chose to their children, from aborting them before birth, to beating them or even killing them, to disowning them and denying them an education, and even putting them out on the streets.

b. Paul let's his readers know that in God's eyes, children are real people with high value. Their feelings should be respected, their questions should be answered. They have gifts and abilities and dreams of their own. They are real people who need to be encouraged and affirmed. They need help and hope.

Want a young adult child who is full of resentment and cynicism toward your faith? Lay on unreasonable and nrelenting performance demands. Make evaluation and criticism be your major investment in his or her life. Neglect to invest your time, interest, and money in their dreams. Talk and act one way in public (at church) and another way at home.

c. Parents, you may not know it, but your kids have a life of their own that you know nothing about. Carol and I were very involved and attentive parents. We shared breakfast as a family and had devotions together each morning. I drove my kids to school and prayed with them in the car. I put hand written love notes and prayers in their lunches. We debriefed over dinner in the evening, and I talked and prayed with my children at bed time-consistently, year in and year out.

But now that they are all adults and the statute of limitations has expired, they are telling stories of childhood experiences, conversations, experiments, brushes with crime and even death, that would have kept me sleepless at night if I had half an inkling what kids can get away with in a back yard, a school bus, or a youth group ministry trip! KIDS ARE REAL PEOPLE WITH A LIFE ALL THEIR OWN.

6. Parenting requires focused, long-range goals.

a. Many Christian parents don't have clear goals. "I just want my children to be happy. To have some of the things I didn't have growing up. I just want my children to like me . . . and to stay out of trouble. I just want my kids to have nice marriages, homes, and careers. That's why I bring them to church . . . so that God will make everything turn out nice. THESE PARENTS MAY BE CHRISTIANS, BUT THEIR PARENTING IS NO DIFFERENT THAN THE WORLD.

b. Paul's goal was to see parents raise passionate, whole-hearted followers of Jesus, deeply invested in the life of the church . . . loving God with their whole heart, mind, and strength. Loving others as they love themselves. Filled with the Spirit, overcoming the Evil One. Welcoming the least, the last, and the lost into God's kingdom.

c. Ever had a coach who didn't really know the game That's pretty tough on a player. A lot of Christian kids are stuck in families with parents who don't really know the game. They bring their kids to places like this on Sundays, but they're not teaching their children to apply the Bible to daily life, not training them to pray, to hear God's voice, and to tithe, not coaching them in evangelism and servanthood, not showing them how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Effective parenting is a lot harder than bringing the kids to church.

7. Parenting is a large team sport (more like football than couples figure skating)

a. Paul assumes that these parents are going to partner together in the hard work of parenting. It would never occur to Paul that Christian parents would leave a service like this and, for the next six days, work in isolation to raise their children. Paul assumes that parenting, as the whole Christian life, is lived within a community in which many hands make the tough job of parenting a little easier all the way around. He assumes that they parents reading this letter know that Christians carry each other's burdens, love and serve one another, counsel and exhort one another, forbear each other's weaknesses, and help one another. He assumes that these parents are ready to lay down their lives for one another, to prefer each other ahead of themselves.

b. Recently, Mark Fee was a guest speaker here and, he commented that many Christians come to church to have a private experience in a public setting. They sit in a room like this, surrounded by people, but it doesn't really matter who they are or what their needs may be. Many Christians simply file, get their God hit for the week, and leave. Mark called us to come together to make our gathering's love feasts-each one of us loving and giving and serving like Jesus. If anyone needs a love feast from week to week, it's parents!

c. As many of you know, we're working very hard to establish parent-centered ministries to teens this year. Ministries in which the parents of teens meet together regularly in home groups to support one another, counsel one another from the Bible, and pray for one another . . . parents accompany their children and their children's friends on ministry trips and social events, stretching and serving side-by-side with their teens, supporting each other as parents in the hard work of raising passionate, wholehearted, Christ-followers. We think that this counter cultural ministry model reflects Scripture and will bring life to our children. If you're a parent of a teen, I want to invite you to join in, sooner rather than later. Effective parents take their position on the larger team and together, go for the bigger win.

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