Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Clifford Baptist Church, 635 Fletcher's Level Road in Amherst, welcomes you to the Aug. 6 revival message with Dr. David Wheeler, professor of evangelism for Liberty University and Liberty Theological Seminary. I really have a heart for families and want to be able to share tonight. So the title of the message is simply just Reclaiming the Family, God's Plan to Impact the World.
[00:00:23] I believe with all my heart that if we want to reach the world, God's given us the plan to do that. And it starts with the family.
[00:00:31] It starts with us in each family. I think God, you know, we. Again, obviously, the church is a part of that. But we need to realize the church is not just this building. The church is who you are when you're in your community. The church is who you are when you're in your school. The church is who you are everywhere you go.
[00:00:50] And our families, I believe, have the greatest opportunity to reach communities.
[00:00:55] I also believe that Satan's worked the hardest to destroy our families because he knows if you want to tear apart the fiber of a culture, you start where that fiber's tied together. And think about this. Before God ever created the church, he created the family, put the family together. And he meant for the family to be the main discipleship point for all of our kids, for our grandkids and all those kinds of things. And so what? I want to just ask you a few questions here.
[00:01:26] Just consider this. If you could cure cancer, would you do that?
[00:01:30] Of course you would. How about this? If you could cure heart disease, would you do that?
[00:01:35] Yes. If you could feed all the hungry people in the world, would you do that?
[00:01:41] If you could stop sex trafficking, would you do that? Yes.
[00:01:45] If you could help every person to become a believer, would you want that to happen? Yes.
[00:01:52] So what if you could change the course of history, would you?
[00:02:01] I believe the family.
[00:02:04] I believe it all starts when we come together in our families. The scripture tonight, Proverbs 22, verse 6, simply says, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Why don't y' all say that with me? Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
[00:02:27] Now, a lot of us have quoted that scripture over our kids as if it's a promise. It's really not a promise. It's more likely, if you'll do this with your kids, then your kids will stay faithful in the lineage of what they're supposed to be. And if they do stray. They have something to come back to because there's been a foundation. Come on. How many of you have known people who strayed for a while, then came back?
[00:02:53] It's because something was laid into their life earlier, Right?
[00:02:57] So that's what this is all about. And what I want to do is just read you a thing I noticed a little while back from Dr. Luis Rojas Marcos. He said, there's a silent tragedy that is unfolding today in our homes and. And concerns our most precious jewels, our children.
[00:03:15] Our children are in devastating emotional state.
[00:03:18] In the last 15 years, researchers have given us increasing alarming statistics on a sharp and steady increase in childhood mental illness that is now reaching epidemic proportions.
[00:03:31] Statistics don't lie. One in five children will have mental health problems.
[00:03:38] 37%.
[00:03:41] There's a 37% increase in adolescent depression.
[00:03:45] It has been noted there has been 200% increase in the suicide rate in children ages 10 to 14.
[00:03:53] Guys, that was escalated through Covid as well.
[00:03:57] What is happening and what are we doing wrong? Today's children are being overstimulated over, gifted with material objects, but they're deprived of the fundamentals of the healthy childhood, such as emotionally available parents, clearly defined limits. Well, that's a big one.
[00:04:18] Responsibilities, creative play and social interaction.
[00:04:26] Instead, in recent years, children have been filled with digitally distracted parents, indulgent and permissive parents who let children rule the world. And whoever set and let them set the rules.
[00:04:42] And all God's people said a sense of entitlement, of deserving everything without earning it or being responsible for obtaining it.
[00:04:53] How about this? Endless stimulation, technological nannies, instant gratification and the absence of boring moments.
[00:05:05] We don't want to ever be bored.
[00:05:07] We don't like silence, and we don't want our kids today. Come on. How often do you hear your kids go, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored.
[00:05:13] They should have grew up when I did, when it was fun to go outside and throw rocks at stuff. You know, bored, I'm bored. Then go figure that out.
[00:05:27] But guys, we created a culture that brings that about because we have stimulation in literally every moment.
[00:05:35] I was in Canada from last Wednesday to Monday night, and I realized when I got there that the first night I left, I slept nine and a half hours.
[00:05:47] I haven't slept nine and a half hours in five years.
[00:05:51] And then I slept, came back the next day and slept again and again and again. And then I called my wife on Sunday night and I said, man, I just don't know why I said, but I'm just so relaxed. This is not me. I'm sleeping. She says, you haven't watched TV since last Tuesday night.
[00:06:09] She's right.
[00:06:14] We don't want to be bored.
[00:06:16] So what I want to do tonight is I want to give us four simple points to think about when we think about the family.
[00:06:24] Going back to this passage. Number one is God's model for the home is the imperative of the home. The scripture says, train up, train up, train up.
[00:06:38] Now, that's an imperative in scripture. It's a command in scripture. Train up, number one. It means to build an altar, literally. This same terminology is used in reference, literally, to the tabernacle itself of building an altar before God.
[00:06:59] So what does that say? When God, in his sovereignty, who breathed and wrote the word of God, uses a phrase referencing the family and it means to build an altar, what do you think that means?
[00:07:15] It means our homes should be holy places. Right?
[00:07:19] Our homes should be places where the Holy Spirit is welcome, where God is glorified. Not hiding places where we can sin without people knowing it, but holy places.
[00:07:34] Holy places, guys. I've taught over 50,000 students that I've been to Liberty.
[00:07:39] And the number one agent of whether my students will make it and grow spiritually is what kind of home they came from.
[00:07:50] If mom and dad, Grandma and grandpa only brought them to church and dropped them off, or even if they went with them, but it was so completely disconnected when they got home.
[00:08:05] These kids are disconnected from God, too. Because why? Because we talk about what's important to us. We sacrifice for things that are important to us.
[00:08:16] If all they've ever heard is Sunday lunch is to have roasted preacher at lunch where you talk about, oh, I didn't like that point. That was just too long. Church. Wasn't it too cold? It's too hot. That seat was too hard. Those people were just. I don't like that singer's too loud.
[00:08:37] Well, it was too loud.
[00:08:40] Let me just tell you something.
[00:08:43] Our kids formulate their attitudes based upon what they see from us.
[00:08:50] I've been in ministry over 40 years.
[00:08:54] I could tell you stories all night long.
[00:08:57] The greatest pain I carry in my life, without a doubt, has come from people wearing suits and ties and dresses on Sunday morning.
[00:09:12] My wife carries that.
[00:09:15] My kids carry that.
[00:09:21] Let that sink in for a moment.
[00:09:28] Well, Pastor, you just ought to have tougher skin. Dude, I've been doing this a long time. I got some thick skin.
[00:09:39] Our homes are to be holy places. Don't expect holy kids when we are playing those self righteous games all the time that they get an idea that church is just a place you complain about.
[00:09:56] Pastors are just people you talk about.
[00:10:00] There's no respect built into that.
[00:10:05] It's hard, it's difficult.
[00:10:11] A lot of times we don't think when we speak, do we?
[00:10:15] I know I'm meddling, but it's the truth.
[00:10:19] Well, Pastor, I just gotta tell you the truth.
[00:10:23] Have you prayed about that before we say it?
[00:10:25] Have you taken that before the Lord? I told my old church one time, I said, none of you are standing up at the business meetings and saying anything unless you can quote the word of God. Where you get that from first place?
[00:10:37] Well, we'd never have a business meeting. Well, praise God.
[00:10:44] I've had people try to tell me, well, that's just what I do.
[00:10:50] Not if you know Jesus. That's not what we do.
[00:10:55] Our homes are to be holy places, guys. We can't drive up in the parking lot screaming at each other and going, yeah.
[00:11:02] And then we get out of the car and we say, oh, hello brother Bob, so nice to see you. Oh, sister Sue. Oh yeah.
[00:11:09] Hallelujah. Yes.
[00:11:12] What does that say to our kids?
[00:11:15] What does that say to our grand. I'm not saying we don't have bad days and I'm not saying I've not done that myself. Well, you're a hypocrite. We're all hypocrites.
[00:11:24] I'm just saying to you that cannot be.
[00:11:27] That's got to be the exception. It can't be the rule number two.
[00:11:34] This means to put something sweet in the mouth of babes.
[00:11:39] It means when we train up our kids, the things of God should become sweet to them.
[00:11:46] And I grew up in a really legalistic church. And I could be honest with you, my mom and dad did a good job of making sure things were sweet.
[00:11:53] But I knew a lot of folks who didn't. It was just like, I'm laying down the law. This is what it is. And there was, you know, and I saw a lot of those kids just run as soon as they could get out.
[00:12:04] My mom and dad didn't do that. My mom and dad loved us through.
[00:12:07] They realized that when they were telling us that if my hair touched my collar, I really wasn't going to go to hell.
[00:12:14] And you know what? If I went mixed bathing, which I found. I was 18 before I found out that was swimming, I wasn't going straight to hell.
[00:12:25] I used to tell people I didn't have a bathtub. Big Enough to bathe with anybody else.
[00:12:31] I was confused by all this stuff, all these rules and stuff.
[00:12:37] Guys, we. I'm not saying we don't need rules and we don't need to be holy. We don't need to be righteous, but we don't need to be self righteous, and we certainly don't need to be legalistic.
[00:12:46] We need to put something sweet. We need to teach our kids. Guys, I didn't hear preaching on the Holy Spirit Till I was 18 years old.
[00:12:54] I just knew the rules.
[00:12:57] Pastor Jim Palmer was my pastor. We started going to Southern Baptist Church and Jim started preaching on the Holy Spirit. I started feeling things inside of me and experiencing worship. And all of a sudden I'm going, wow, this is amazing.
[00:13:14] You know what happens? You start following God out of a love relationship, not out of fear.
[00:13:20] All of us should have fear of God, but that fear of God should be a respect for God, not because we're afraid God's gonna zap us.
[00:13:31] It's true. Come on, guys.
[00:13:34] Putting something sweet in the mouth of babes. Well, my daughter Kara was probably two years old. We brought her home, back to Nashville to visit family.
[00:13:44] And I'll never forget this.
[00:13:47] She had these false teeth right here because she was premature.
[00:13:53] I told our story a couple years ago with you guys. And the enamel didn't develop on her teeth, and so she had caps on her teeth. And so the doctor said she can't have any sugar. Well, when we took her home and I told my sister that, my sister said, well, that's child abuse.
[00:14:09] So she went out and bought my daughter, you know, one of those sugar daddies. Not the little ones you put. I'm talking about the big ones you do like this.
[00:14:17] And I want to tell you what, man, she tasted that thing first time, her eyes lit up like this. She started going.
[00:14:23] She put it down her mouth. It was getting all over her face. And then my mom walks out. My mom got her up that morning early and dressed her up in a nice dress and everything. My mom was like, she's going to get that sticky stuff all over that dress. So she started to take that away from her so she could wash her face. And I'll never forget this car. I went like, grandma, you take that and I'm taking you out. I'm telling you.
[00:14:45] Let me tell you something.
[00:14:48] I think what he means by this is that we need to pour the things of God into our children to where it is a sweet aroma that comes out of our lives and it is so precious to us. That when we go off to college and that professor tries to say what you believe in. Christians, you Christians, you're just believing a lie. And they're trying to take your faith away.
[00:15:10] You want your kids and grandkids to go, you can't have it. I know it's true because I've seen God work.
[00:15:19] We'll never get there with legalism, but we'll get there by learning, teaching our kids how to love God.
[00:15:26] That's the motivation.
[00:15:28] Finally, it means to dedicate.
[00:15:31] The process of dedication took place when they go into the temple and they would clean the temple out and they would get it ready before, like, the Passover or when what they were doing, they were symbolically taking everything out of the temple, washing it, then cleaning the temple so they could prepare the temple. To do what? To receive the presence of God.
[00:15:54] How about us dedicating our homes, going into our homes and looking through our homes and seeing are there things there that don't glorify God?
[00:16:07] Guys, what we've done over the years is we have literally sacrificed the integrity of our families on the altar of entertainment.
[00:16:17] And we've rationalized it's okay if it has just a little bit of this and a little bit of that, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And Satan's like, you know, God's like, a little bit's a lot. And Satan's going, just keep piling it up.
[00:16:29] You see, it's one thing for you leave a crack in a window and Satan is sneaking through the crack of the back door or the back window. It's another thing to open your door up wide in the front and invite him to come on in and sit down and do what he wants to do.
[00:16:45] We gotta be careful, parents. If you handed your child a phone and you never look at what they're actually doing, I don't care if they're 17 years old, if they're on my. If I'm buying that phone, doggone, I'm gonna see what's on it.
[00:17:03] When we had our computer, we got our first computer for our home. We set it right in the middle. And when we let our daughters get on social networks at that time. But if they ever walked by and they did this and covered it up, it was. We read what it was, we shut it down. And my wife went through everything they went through every week she went through to make sure you're saying, well, you're violating their privacy. No, I'd rather violate their privacy than have them pulled away by a predator.
[00:17:32] We're being foolish if we think we can hand literally a device to our kids that gives them the world and then give them nothing outside of that to say this is what it should be.
[00:17:47] That's why the average age of a young boy sees pornography for the first time in eight years old. Now, I wonder how many of them learn to do that from their friends on their own phone.
[00:18:00] If we're handing the world to our kids and we're not regulating it, don't get mad when the world steals their heart and their mind.
[00:18:12] Guys, every time I preach on this, I have parents come up to me and get mad at me after the service. So go ahead, I'm fine. I'll be good with it.
[00:18:20] We just don't do that. We just wanna trust our kids. I trust my kids, but I don't trust Satan.
[00:18:28] And if my kids love me and know I trust them, they're gonna willingly let me be a part of their life and that and protect them.
[00:18:35] Come on, guys, how many of your dads you have daughters? Come on, how many of y' all have daughters? When my daughter started dating. Come on, when your daughter started dating, did you like just say, just go out with anybody you want to?
[00:18:49] No. There was a rule at our house.
[00:18:51] If the guy first off needed to talk to me, then he needed to pick her up and come inside. If he tooted his horn outside, I was the one gonna sit in the seat and goin out on a date with him.
[00:19:07] I told my daughters, if you go out there and stand next to the door and he don't get out to open it up, you wait there about 45 seconds and then you tell him to roll the window down and says, when you grow up, you can come back and see me.
[00:19:20] Cause if he'll jilt you when you're dating, he'll treat you worse when you get married.
[00:19:26] So I'll never forget my daughter.
[00:19:29] She dated for a while when she went to college and she dated a bunch of these baseball players and stuff like that. There's nothing wrong with baseball players. I love baseball. But she dated a bunch of these guys because she was an athlete in college herself. And she dated a bunch of these guys. And it just was horrible.
[00:19:42] You know, I'll never forget I told her one time, I said, dana, that young man's just not right. You don't like anybody I date. I said, well, that's true, but I'm telling you right now, there's just something wacky about that kid.
[00:19:56] Well, dad, you just don't know him like I do.
[00:20:00] So she broke up with him. A while back, she started dating him again.
[00:20:03] I told her the same thing because I spent some time with him. I said, sonny, honey, there's just something not right. She found out a couple months later he had two different Facebook accounts.
[00:20:12] One that all of his other friends saw when he partied and ran around. The other one, he only let her see.
[00:20:19] She said, how'd you know?
[00:20:21] Because I'm a guy.
[00:20:23] I know what guys do. I don't trust a one of them.
[00:20:27] Not with my daughter, buddy, no.
[00:20:30] Do you know what we did? Finally, one night, she broke down. She started crying. She was home. She said, dad, I need help.
[00:20:39] I said, sweetheart, we'll help you.
[00:20:41] Dana had had an eating disorder for a while and gone through a lot of stuff and things like that. So my wife and I said, we'll help you and, sweetheart, but we're going to ask you to follow what we ask you to do. And she said, what's that? I said, number one, you're not dating anybody for six months. You need to fall in love with Jesus again because you can't recognize the man you need until you see him through the filter of Christ.
[00:21:04] You need to get back in the Word.
[00:21:06] We'll get you the other help.
[00:21:08] Finally, when she started dating again, she said, well, dad, about six or eight months. She said, there's somebody I think I might like to go out with. I said, well, here's the rule.
[00:21:18] She said, what's that? I said, the third date's with me.
[00:21:22] She said, what do you mean? I said, well, if you go out with him twice, and he's an okay guy, you like him, then the third date, I'm gonna invite him to breakfast. I'm not gonna take a gun or a knife, and I'm not gonna beat him up in the parking lot.
[00:21:33] I'm gonna sit across the table from him, buy him breakfast, and just tell him how we raised you and what we expect from him. And if he can't do that, then go find somebody else.
[00:21:45] And, boy, some of them ran, man.
[00:21:48] Dana said, you're running them all off. I said, honey, if they don't have enough gumption to stand through that, they don't have to stand through a marriage.
[00:21:55] Finally, Chris shows up. Chris wasn't even a Christian at this time.
[00:22:00] He shows up.
[00:22:02] I'm sitting with him across the table, and Chris. I look at him and I say, chris, I just want you to know. I said, if you'd be willing to become a.
[00:22:10] If you want to Become that man of God. I'll help you do that.
[00:22:13] I want to.
[00:22:15] I baptized him six months later at Thomas Road.
[00:22:19] She hit the jackpot, man. He's a good dude.
[00:22:22] Love my son in law.
[00:22:24] I wouldn't say that about too many men, but I love my son in law. He's a good dad, he's a good husband. He loves my daughter, he loves my grandkids.
[00:22:33] You know what, what's so funny? After that started, all my daughter's friends started asking me to meet with their boyfriends.
[00:22:43] It's truth.
[00:22:45] I'm honest to God. It's truth. I'm not joking with you. They would because, you know, they're at school and their dads are someplace else and they would just. And their moms and dads wouldn't. You have Dr. Wheeler just sit with them?
[00:22:55] Sure.
[00:22:59] Why? Why would I do that?
[00:23:02] For the same reason that I park my Bronco someplace where nobody can open their doors on it. Because I value it.
[00:23:10] But I value my daughter, I value my faith, I value my family a whole lot more than the Bronco guys.
[00:23:20] We need to rededicate our homes back to God.
[00:23:26] We need to pray over our homes.
[00:23:30] Number two.
[00:23:31] Number one was the imperative of the home and family. Number two is the initiation of the home and family. It says train up a child.
[00:23:39] That word there for child literally means a youth. It means like a middle schooler is what it means.
[00:23:44] But here's the point of that is, is that your parenting starts when a child is a child. When they're fifth, sixth, seventh grade, whatever that may be.
[00:23:56] It starts when they're young. Here's what I found out is more and more parents are spending more and more time at work.
[00:24:03] And then here's what I've noticed is that they bought into the Oprah idea that it's not about, you know, it's not about the amount of time you give. It's the quality. It's not quantity.
[00:24:16] I don't know about you, but you don't get quality without quantity, do you?
[00:24:24] You don't.
[00:24:26] I realize we have to work, guys, and I realize we need to do that.
[00:24:30] But I realized early in my ministry that if my wife and kids didn't respect me, it didn't matter if anybody else did.
[00:24:40] So I. My five core values are faith, family, friends, freedom, and fun.
[00:24:46] I have turned down many great opportunities because they wanted me to compromise my family.
[00:24:53] I was talking to a church in Texas years ago. Man, I was young guy, and man, they were offering to. I mean, they would have probably Doubled or tripled my salary. Well, that'd have been nice.
[00:25:05] I was thinking, man, this might be a neat place to be. And as I prayed to it. And then, then I looked at their schedule and their schedule had the pastor at the church four days a week at night and then three weekends a month.
[00:25:18] I had a young family. I said, so when we talked to them, I said, guys, I'll consider coming if you'll move everything to Wednesday and Sunday and I'll give you one Saturday a month.
[00:25:27] That was fair to me.
[00:25:29] We can't do that.
[00:25:32] I said, why?
[00:25:34] He said, well, we can't change. We've always done it this way. I said, I won't come. He said, you're kidding. You won't even consider it.
[00:25:41] I said, guys, let me tell you what's gonna happen the first time. You have a deacons meeting on Tuesday night at seven o'. Clock. I'll be there for the first 15 minutes, I'll pray.
[00:25:52] But if my daughter has a softball game at 7:30, I'm gonna leave that deacons meet and go to my softball, my daughter's softball game. Why would you do that? Because five years from now you're not going to remember what that's your deacons meeting. But she's going to know what that is. Her softball game.
[00:26:08] It's true, guys, we have to be around our kids. We gotta do this, we gotta spend time with them. We've gotta set this aside and trust me, if you'll do this long enough, one day you have grandkids and it gets really fun, okay?
[00:26:25] I got a granddaughter who'd be 2 years old in September.
[00:26:30] Goodness gracious alive.
[00:26:32] I'm gonna buy her a Corvette next week.
[00:26:36] I was looking the other day on the, I said, debbie, she likes blue Corvettes. Debbie said, you're crazy. I know, she really does.
[00:26:44] You know what I'm talking about, don't you guys?
[00:26:47] The initiation of this, it starts when a child is a child because you'll never get that back.
[00:26:58] It's truth.
[00:27:02] It's truth.
[00:27:04] Come on, guys, here's what's going to happen.
[00:27:07] You spend so much time at work and doing everything else, you know, when your daughter or son about 15, 16 years old, you're going to feel like, oh man, I got enough money in my 401k and I've done this, I've toilet paying off bills, this kind of stuff, I can kind of take it a little easy.
[00:27:25] So you're kind of ready to spend some time and they're ready to get a Car.
[00:27:31] And one day, what's gonna happen is your daughter or son's gonna be walking by you and you're gonna go, hey, sweetheart. Son, come here. Sit down for a. Let's talk a while. And they'll go, dad, I was looking for you.
[00:27:44] Why? Good, I'm glad you were looking for you. Yeah. Yeah, dad, you got 50 bucks?
[00:27:50] That's all you want? Yeah.
[00:27:53] Because that's all we've done for 15, 16 years with a bank depository is what we've been.
[00:28:01] Because we've not invested anything into their lives. Guys, I'm not saying it's going to be perfect. It's not.
[00:28:09] But I can promise you, if we don't invest, we'll get nothing back.
[00:28:15] So first and foremost, there's the imperative. Number two. There's initiation. Number three.
[00:28:19] God's model for the family is instruction. That is, train up a child in the way they should go, not would go. There's a lot of psychobabble out there that tells us that if you discipline a child too much that they'll rebel and go off some. No, guys. Discipline should be an act of love, not retribution.
[00:28:44] Hebrews chapter 12 tells us that God chastens those whom he loves.
[00:28:50] Discipline should be an act of love.
[00:28:53] It should be that.
[00:28:55] It's what it is. It should be. But a lot of people say, well, but, you know, we, you know, and I literally read articles where people. Some psychologists will tell you, don't ever discipline your kids.
[00:29:09] Just let them do whatever they want to do.
[00:29:12] We call them convicts.
[00:29:19] It's truth.
[00:29:22] Think about this, guys.
[00:29:24] What do you do about the things that I read earlier? If we want our children to be happy and healthy individuals, we have to wake up. This is from the same man, the same study.
[00:29:33] We have to wake up and get back to basics as it relates to discipline.
[00:29:38] Is it still possible? Many families see immediate improvements after weeks of implementing some following recommendations.
[00:29:44] Set limits and remember that you are the captain of your ship. Your children will feel more confident knowing that you have control of the helm.
[00:29:53] Offer children a balanced lifestyle, full of what children need, not just what they want.
[00:29:59] Don't be afraid to say no to your children or your grandchildren. Even I know that breaks our hearts as grandparents. And if you want, you know, if what they want is not what they need, spend at least an hour a day outdoors doing activities such as cycling, walking, fishing, bird insect watching or just getting dirty.
[00:30:22] It blows me away that we want our kids to sit in the house and we don't want them to go out and Run in mud puddles, man. Take your backyard, make it a big mud puddle. Go have some fun. Do it with them. That's why you got a washer.
[00:30:38] It's truth. Which just drives me nuts.
[00:30:42] Guys, we're raising a generation that cannot put a worm on a hook.
[00:30:50] They're afraid to get their tennis shoes dirty.
[00:30:54] They don't want to use a weed eater because it gets grass on their pants.
[00:31:01] So what do we do? We take the weed away and do it ourselves.
[00:31:06] My grandsons get as nasty as they possibly can. It's their spiritual gift.
[00:31:13] They can break anything. I can promise you. How about this?
[00:31:17] Enjoy a family dinner without smartphones or distracting technology.
[00:31:23] Let everyone feel valued. Involve your children in some homework or household chores according to their age, like folding clothes, hanging clothes, unpacking food, setting the table, feeding the dog.
[00:31:37] I had a yard mowing business when I was 8 years old.
[00:31:42] You know, I'm serious. I look. And a lot of parents don't make their kids do any kind of chores anymore.
[00:31:49] And I'm like, what are we teaching them?
[00:31:54] You know, are they going to have a butler? Is that what it is? They better have a good job.
[00:32:00] I'm just telling you.
[00:32:03] Excuse me. Implement a consistent sleep routine to ensure your child gets enough sleep.
[00:32:09] The schedules will be even more important to school age children. Teach responsibility and independence. Do not overprotect them against all frustration or mistakes.
[00:32:21] Misunderstanding will help them build resilience and learn to overcome life's challenges. Let me tell you, as a college professor, don't call your college professors and complain because your 19 year old child can't go to class.
[00:32:38] I get that.
[00:32:39] I had a parent a while back tell me my son shouldn't fail because he missed class.
[00:32:45] Really?
[00:32:48] Out of 24 classes, he missed 16.
[00:32:52] She said, well, he still shouldn't fail. I said, ma', am, he didn't fail because they failed. Because he had 400 points. He needed 600 to get a D.
[00:33:01] She hung up.
[00:33:04] Guys, we don't have lawnmower parents. I mean helicopter parents. We got lawnmower parents that just want to control. And my child never does anything wrong.
[00:33:15] My grandkids are nuts.
[00:33:18] They're a reflection of me. That's who I was. I lived out in the hall the first three years of my life. In elementary school, my mom and dad told me, if you get in trouble at school, you get more in trouble at home. And amen.
[00:33:33] My mom and dad never called the teacher and said, you know, you're just mistreating David.
[00:33:39] They're like how can we help you?
[00:33:42] You're teaming up against me, mom. Yeah, we are. Now look, I understand that misunderstandings happen. I'm understanding things can take place. We have a disabled child. We had to go through the school system to make them do the right things for the children. I get we need to fight for our kids, but we need to understand and discern between the fighting for our kids and just enabling our kids to not take taking on their own battles.
[00:34:07] Does that make sense?
[00:34:08] My 5 year old daughter in kindergarten couldn't take on a battle with a school system that allowed their teachers to not allow the adaptive material in classes, which was breaking the civil rights of our kids.
[00:34:20] So I went to the superintendent and had a lawyer because that's what I needed to do for the parents and for them. That's different for a 5 year old than it is for a 20 year old or 15 year old.
[00:34:34] Now if the child is disabled, something like that's a different story. I get that, but you understand what I'm saying, guys, we need to teach our children to take responsibility to figure it out.
[00:34:47] We can't fight all their battles for them. We can't do that.
[00:34:51] How about this? Teach them to wait for delayed gratification.
[00:34:56] Teach your children to fish rather than just giving them a fish, but or taking them to Red Lobster.
[00:35:01] Personal commitment to the task of builds character.
[00:35:05] Provide opportunities for boredom, since boredom is the moment when creativity awakens.
[00:35:11] In other words, come on, how many of us, when we were kids, our parents couldn't afford certain things, so we adapted and used something else, right? Come on, how many of y' all played stickball at some point? Or at least you had a rock you hit with a stick because you couldn't afford a bat or a ball.
[00:35:27] Come on, you figured it out, right?
[00:35:32] We don't want to do that.
[00:35:35] Use those moments, you know, these moments as opportunities to socialize by training the brains to know how to work when they're in a mode of boredom. Be emotionally available to connect with your children and teach them self regulation and social skills. Guys, I walk through my class all the time and I shake hands with my kids. And I mean literally about a third of my class looks at me like, what do you want me to do with your hand?
[00:36:00] You're supposed to look at me, grab my hand and squeeze it. And when I say, hello, my name is David. You say, hello, my name is fill in the blank.
[00:36:11] I used to make my kids bring their exams up front when we had paper exams and drop in the box just to Force them to actually have a conversation, to shake my hand.
[00:36:22] Let me tell you something.
[00:36:25] We allow our kids to just walk through everywhere with their ears plugged up because it's easier to let them do that.
[00:36:32] We're literally putting ourself in a crowd and disconnecting ourself from everybody else. What we're saying is, guess what? What I'm listening to is more important than anything you can tell me. So we're not teaching to socialize. We're teaching them to literally disconnect themselves.
[00:36:47] Look, if you're at home, that's fine, but don't walk in the middle of a church crowd or some other crowd someplace else and walk right through it and just have ears all plugged up all the time.
[00:36:57] Particularly if we expect to reach people with the gospel. How are we gonna know if people are hurting if we never have conversations?
[00:37:04] How are we gonna be able to connect with them unless we're willing to listen?
[00:37:10] I'm not saying you're going to hell if you got earbuds, but, guys, if you don't control your technology, your technology will control you.
[00:37:19] We just need to understand there's etiquette that should go along with that.
[00:37:23] In my day, to ignore people, it was considered rude.
[00:37:29] Now a lot of times when I see parents, their kids have got all this kind of stuff, and I start to say hello to their kids, their kids never say a word.
[00:37:36] And parents just say, well, they're just on their games.
[00:37:39] They should turn around and go, hello, David. It's nice to meet you.
[00:37:43] They should acknowledge that we have to teach them that, right? Come on, guys. Am I wrong here?
[00:37:50] Yes or no?
[00:37:56] We got to teach to socialize. By the way, we were never meant to live outside of community.
[00:38:04] So we're raising kids up who don't know how to live in community.
[00:38:08] And here's what happens. Satan always works in isolation.
[00:38:13] Come on. When I was addicted to porn when I was a teenager, I never walked in the middle of our house and went, hey, mom and dad, look at what I'm watching.
[00:38:21] I would hide someplace, go to another friend's house, someplace else to look at these things.
[00:38:27] Because Satan will have a heyday when you're by yourself.
[00:38:31] We need accountability. We need to learn to live in community with each other.
[00:38:37] Turn off phones at night when children have to go to bed and avoid digital distractions. Teach them to greet, to take turns to share without running out of anything to say. Thank you, please. Yes, ma'. Am. No, ma'. Am. To acknowledge errors and apologize when needed. Do not force them though.
[00:38:56] Be a model of these values. Ourselves. Instill it in our kids, our grandkids. Connect emotionally. Smile, hug, kiss, tickle, read, dance, jump, play or crawl with them. Be vulnerable.
[00:39:10] Connect and care.
[00:39:13] Remember, you are the main spiritual influence for your children.
[00:39:18] If you want them to love God's word, they must see you in God's word. If you want them to understand the gospel, let them hear you sharing the gospel with an unsaved neighbor or friend. If you want them to care for others, let them see you care and serve others. If you want them to pray, let them see you praying.
[00:39:40] Discipline our kids.
[00:39:44] Walk through that with them. Teach them the disciplines of life. I'll never forget when my oldest daughter was probably just right at 2 years old. And one morning we were getting ready, I was staying in the parsonage next to our church in North Texas and, and Debbie came in and she said, I need to get ready, I'm exhausted. Can you take Dana over to church and would you mind just taking her so I can get ready? And I go, sure. So I took her over to church and she's just running around, she's pounding on the piano and all this kind of stuff. So I get down there, I just start praying over the church. I get down to the altar and I start praying at the altar for that Sunday morning.
[00:40:18] And then after a few minutes of me getting caught up in the prayer, there's no more pounding on the piano.
[00:40:26] So when you got a two year old loose in the church that's quiet, you know something's going to get broken, right?
[00:40:31] So I jump up and I go, Dana.
[00:40:34] And I look right next to me and she's on her face next to me and she's praying.
[00:40:42] We have to teach our children, we got to model this for them.
[00:40:46] We as parents need to discipline our kids in a loving, gracious way.
[00:40:51] Sometimes we have to say no.
[00:40:56] I'll never forget when my oldest daughter was, goodness gracious, she was probably in the fourth or fifth grade. She went to public school and they were having some kind of, you know, big end of the year bash and they were all going to dress up in nice dresses and all this kind of stuff. We were living in Indiana at the time and she and her friends had all planned on the mamas and, and the daughters going out that Saturday.
[00:41:20] It was coming up this Saturday, right after this and they were gonna go out and they were gonna all buy new dresses so they could wear them and get pictures made in them and all this kind of stuff. And they Just. They were so excited about doing this. And Dana came home on Wednesday, and David had a really rough day, and she wasn't feeling good. And I said, dana, Mom's had a rough day. Can you go in there and please clean up your room? And she just started, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. I said, dana, can you please, please, no more talk back, Sweetie, Go in there and clean up your room. Mom's had a really rough day. And she just, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. I didn't even do this. And I looked at her. I said, dana, I said, if you say another word, you're not gonna go with your friends this weekend to get that dress with all of them, please, sweetheart, go clean up your room. And she looked at me and she went, word.
[00:42:12] So that Saturday, she cleaned up the house with her mama, never got a new dress, and she wore an old dress to the dance.
[00:42:19] I've had parents say, well, you just took away a memory from her. She never did it again.
[00:42:27] Guys, if we give out threats and we never follow through with discipline, our children will play the game.
[00:42:38] It's true.
[00:42:40] We have to be the adults. And sometimes that's just hard.
[00:42:43] It's difficult.
[00:42:45] We do it lovingly. Why? Because, you know, I didn't want to be visiting my daughter one day and our conversations be on a phone through a Plexiglas.
[00:43:01] She knew what she was doing.
[00:43:03] She knew why she was doing it, and she was testing us.
[00:43:09] If we're going to love our kids and grandkids, we have to.
[00:43:14] We have to do this now. One more thing. Let me speak to grandparents here.
[00:43:18] Let me tell you what.
[00:43:19] Just listen to me here. I'm a grandparent, three grandkids. Let me tell you this.
[00:43:24] Grandma, Grandpa, if you. If you're not gonna discipline your grandkids the way you discipline your kids, you know, you need to think about this.
[00:43:34] Cause let me tell you something. We used to send our kids home with Grandma and Grandpa. They would be acting perfect when they left.
[00:43:42] When they came back, you know, one of them would be going 20, 40, 60, 80, counting their money, and the other ones would just be going nuts, crazy.
[00:43:51] And we had. Our daughter had cerebral palsy. She knew how to play the game to get whatever she wanted.
[00:43:58] So finally one day, we brought all the grandparents together.
[00:44:02] It's a true story. And we told them, he says, if you don't start disciplining our children the way you discipline us, you're gonna get supervised visitation. That's it. Okay?
[00:44:12] Because those little monsters are coming home. And Breaking everything we got.
[00:44:17] And they weren't monsters when we gave them off to you.
[00:44:21] Now, that doesn't mean as grandparents, we can't buy our kids grandkids stuff and things like that. That's okay.
[00:44:28] But we're all on the same team, right?
[00:44:31] We all want the same thing for our grandkids, right?
[00:44:34] Amen.
[00:44:35] Amen. Number four.
[00:44:37] God's model for the future. The impressions of the home and the family.
[00:44:41] I'll close here in just a moment.
[00:44:43] It says, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
[00:44:48] What kind of impressions do we leave with our kids?
[00:44:54] What are the memories that come out?
[00:44:57] What are those impressions when we think about our growing up? What are those impressions that come out?
[00:45:04] Because I don't. You know, I remember getting a Tiger Seat bike when I was like five years old. I don't know where that thing is.
[00:45:13] I remember mom and dad helped me get a motorcycle, a dirt bike when I was like 11th grade. I don't have a clue where that is.
[00:45:20] I have pictures of me in a suede three piece lime green leisure suit when I was in the eighth grade. Y' all remember those?
[00:45:30] Yeah.
[00:45:31] Had it unbuttoned about down to here. We thought we were something. Buddy had stacked shoes about that big.
[00:45:37] I was six two, man, I'm telling you.
[00:45:40] Come on. Some of y' all know what I'm talking about, don't you?
[00:45:43] I got rid of every picture that I possibly could.
[00:45:48] None of that made a big difference in my life.
[00:45:52] What did make a big difference?
[00:45:55] My mom and dad prayed for me.
[00:45:57] I had a father who wasn't scared to tell me he loved me.
[00:46:02] He did that every day. Not just through his actions, but through his words. He didn't think it was making him less of a man to tell me he loved me.
[00:46:11] Because he was never less of a man.
[00:46:14] A lot of us have said, well, I don't do that because I wasn't raised that way. I can't help it if you were raised the wrong way.
[00:46:21] Well, what do you mean you're saying that for?
[00:46:23] Because Jesus would never withhold from his children what they rightfully need.
[00:46:30] We do that because we don't feel comfortable sometimes.
[00:46:34] Let me tell you something. When we started having daughters and I thought I'd always have sons, my wife bought me every book you could buy on raising daughters. I didn't have a clue.
[00:46:44] You know what even secular psychologists will tell you?
[00:46:47] The most important relationship a young woman will ever have is whether she receives the blessing from her father.
[00:46:55] It's truth. You can chart the statistics of teen pregnancy and almost put that side by side, and it's there.
[00:47:03] I'm just telling you, because if she doesn't get the love in her father like that, she'll look for it in somebody else and she'll look for it early. And it's not just the daughters, it's the sons, too.
[00:47:16] They need to hear that we love them. That's why some of you need to go home tonight and call your kids and just tell them all that you love them.
[00:47:24] My dad was from a place called no Man's Land in East Tennessee.
[00:47:28] Place called Buffalo Holler. That's where he was born. Raised in Jackson County, Tennessee. Dad grew up fighting like crazy. He was a man's man.
[00:47:39] Boy, he knew how to love you.
[00:47:41] I miss his hugs.
[00:47:43] I miss the smell of his cologne.
[00:47:48] The last conversation I had with my dad, I called him one Sunday morning while I was headed to church.
[00:47:54] I said, dad, I'll see you in a couple weeks. My dad said, look forward to it, son. I love you and I'm proud of you.
[00:48:01] He died of a heart attack that night.
[00:48:05] Four days later, I preached his funeral. The last words my father ever said to me was, son, I'm proud of you and I love you.
[00:48:14] Wow.
[00:48:17] Some people live a whole lifetime and never have that happen.
[00:48:20] Debbie's father, he didn't get saved till five years before he died.
[00:48:26] When he got saved, he started reading the Bible. And one day he called Debbie. She was about 33 years old. Debbie called me at work. She said, my daddy just called me. And she was real upset. I said, what did he tell you? She said, he said he was reading the Bible and he said he just wanted to call me and tell me that he loved me. And he was so proud of me. And she said, I can't stop crying. Why did he do that? I go, because he was giving you his blessing.
[00:48:48] Five years later, when she stood over his casket, she never doubted a moment.
[00:48:53] You could say, well, I showed him all my life. Really.
[00:48:56] Come on, guys.
[00:48:59] Come on. I have a friend of mine who used to be chaplain for the Cincinnati Bengals. He did the wedding for a tight end for the Cincinnati Bengals. He said, after about a year of marriage, the wife came up and told him, we need to meet. There's something wrong here. And they met and found out. She said, he never tells me he loves me.
[00:49:20] They've been married a year.
[00:49:22] He looked at him. He said, is that true? He said, well, I told her the day that I married her, I loved her. I told her if that ever changed, I would tell her then.
[00:49:32] Only a man would think that way. Right?
[00:49:37] Ladies, let me ask you a question. Do you want to hear from your husband verbally that he loves you, yes or no?
[00:49:44] Do you want to hear from your parents that they love you, yes or no?
[00:49:50] We need to do that. The impressions we make, the impressions we leave when we stop. And we just love and care and laugh.
[00:50:01] We put that sweet taste, faith in the mouth of our kids.
[00:50:07] So when I was 10 years old and my grandma and my mom asked me one night, what do you want to do when you grow up?
[00:50:13] I said, I want to be a preacher.
[00:50:16] They didn't laugh.
[00:50:18] But when I ran away from God as a teenager, they prayed me back.
[00:50:23] And they were there at my ordination.
[00:50:29] I wouldn't be here today without them.
[00:50:34] Let me give you a story about impressions. Now we'll go to the invitation.
[00:50:39] I had a couple that was in my church years ago named Carl and Jenny.
[00:50:43] And Jenny told me this story about Carl.
[00:50:47] She said, please tell everybody you can when you get a chance. She said, maybe this will help them.
[00:50:52] And what happened was Carl was a. Was a pretty wealthy guy. He was a good businessman.
[00:50:57] He bought big houses and bought his kids everything they wanted. He didn't get saved. His kids were further up in their teens, so he never really went to church with them. He was never a part of their life spiritually, all this kind of stuff.
[00:51:10] And so again, you know, he didn't get saved till later. So he was just always, always gone, always working. And finally, the last couple years after he got saved, he tried to make up for that. But when his daughter got married at 19 years old, the week before she got married, they were moving into the apartment. They were moving stuff out of the house.
[00:51:32] This is in Texas. And they said, you know. So they were moving it all out, and the truck and everything had it all ready to go. They'd been hauling stuff all day long.
[00:51:41] And Jenny said that when it came to the final load, she said that she turned around and Carl was nowhere to be found.
[00:51:52] And her daughter looked at her and said, mom, where's dad? Well, I don't know.
[00:51:56] And they waited a few minutes, and sure enough, it was getting too dark. And she said, sweetie, why don't you go ahead and drive on? You can unload this yourself easily.
[00:52:04] I'll go find dad.
[00:52:07] She went back in this big old house, walked in the living room, walked through the kitchen, walked through every room.
[00:52:14] And there was one light on. It was the back of that daughter's room that they had just cleaned out.
[00:52:19] She said when she walked across that floor, there were the impressions in the carpet and the memories going back for years of raising their daughter in that same room.
[00:52:27] And she said she heard a whimpering sound back in the back. And there was a big walk in closet. There was a light on there. She said the closer she got, the louder the whimpering got. She peeked around the corner and her husband was back in the corner of the closet, holding onto a stuffed animal, bent down like this. And he was crying like she had never seen him cry.
[00:52:47] She said she just walked in, sat next to him, started crying too.
[00:52:51] She said after about 10 minutes, he calmed down a little bit and she said, sweetie, Carl, please tell me what's going on. What's wrong? Tell me. Tell me.
[00:52:59] And he said something that's haunted me for years.
[00:53:03] This is what Jenny wanted you to hear. This is what he said. He said, my baby's gone and I don't even know her.
[00:53:12] My baby's gone. I don't even know her.
[00:53:17] What kind of impressions are we leaving for generations to come?
[00:53:27] Guys, there's nothing sweeter than our families.
[00:53:32] Nothing.
[00:53:34] So tonight, first and foremost, if you've never received Christ as your personal savior, I would invite you to come. Maybe there's a mom or dad here tonight that you came because your husband or wife just to kind of drug you to church. But tonight you know that you need Christ.
[00:53:51] I had about a 65 year old man years ago that I worked with. I kept sharing the gospel with him. Went off after a summer I was working at a. At a warehouse. Came back the next summer. He came to me and said, David, I gotta tell you something. He said, I got saved this year.
[00:54:05] I got baptized several months ago. I've been going to church every week. I'm in Bible study. And then he said something I've never forgotten. He said, I never knew I could love my wife so much until we love Jesus together.
[00:54:17] Wow.
[00:54:21] So maybe you've never received Christ.
[00:54:24] Or maybe as parents, tonight you've got kids here with you.
[00:54:30] You'd like to take this opportunity to pray over your kids, pray over your family.
[00:54:35] Or maybe you're struggling with your marriage and you just, you need someone to pray with you.
[00:54:41] I'm going to invite you here in a moment when we stand up for you to come down to this altar and find a place in this building.
[00:54:50] If you're a single mom or dad and you're here by yourself, you come, we'll pray with you.
[00:55:00] What I want to ask you to do tonight is lay your home and your family on this altar. Well, I've been married for 55 years. I don't need to do it. Yeah, you do. You know why? Because when some of these young families come, some of you older folks that have been here and been praying, been married for a while, you need to come put your hands on those young families and pray over them. Because you know the struggles they're going through, right? Come on.
[00:55:26] If we want to change our culture, it starts when we change the home.
[00:55:33] We need to rededicate our homes back to Christ so that God's welcome there.
[00:55:41] So would you stand with me right now? And I'm going.
[00:55:44] I'm going to pray for us. I'm going to ask someone just to play the piano or whatever.
[00:55:49] That's all. We don't have to worry about singing tonight. I'm not going to do that. In fact, if you want to go with your family, if you want to find your family, whatever you will go find. Hey, let me take care of this. You go with your family, man. Go with your family.
[00:56:07] Seriously.
[00:56:09] You got a family downstairs? Well, go get them. Bring them up here. Yeah, I'm serious. Go get them. Go get them. Bring them up here. Let's pray over them.
[00:56:17] Go find your family.
[00:56:19] Because why?
[00:56:21] Because we in ministry need this. We need that part with our family, Right? Come on.
[00:56:26] So I'm gonna lead us in a word of prayer, then I'm gonna ask you to come.
[00:56:31] If you need someone to pray with you, come with me.
[00:56:34] There's some deacons out there that maybe you can come pray with me for these folks, too, as well, okay? If it's a young family that wants to pray, you come and you pray with me with them, okay?
[00:56:44] But tonight, guys, let's lay our families on the altar before God, everything, and ask him to have his way in what he wants to do. Some of you have kids that aren't walking with God, and you need to come lay them at the altar and say, lord, take them, break them and remake them.
[00:57:06] Some of you just need to turn to your spouse and let them know how much you love them and bring them to this altar or find a place here and pray over them.
[00:57:15] You need to go find your kids or your grandkids and let them know that.
[00:57:22] Because there will be one day when you won't have them and they won't have you take advantage of this moment.
[00:57:32] Father, in Jesus name, I thank you so much for what you've given us and God, One of the greatest gifts you ever gave me was Debbie, Dana and Kara, my grandkids, my son in law, her family, my mom and dad, my brother and sister.
[00:57:54] God, thank you so much.
[00:57:58] Lord. I just pray right now that you would touch the homes that are here.
[00:58:03] And that we would lay those homes before you, that you would be welcome.
[00:58:10] Thank you, Jesus, for what you're going to do in homes tonight in our lives. For someone here that doesn't know you, I pray they will come to know you.
[00:58:18] And we love you, Father.
[00:58:20] In Jesus name. Come on.
[00:58:22] Come right now. Come on, guys. Clifford Baptist Church invites you to join us for worship every Sunday morning at 11am for more information about our church, please call our church office at 434-946-0555.
