Raising teenagers

Now, in the brief time we have, it is probably wisdom for me just to give you a few basic principles and truths upon which perhaps you can organize your thoughts and then be able to apply these principles in your own lives. We all know the story of Moses so well, the child who was born at a difficult time, a time of danger, a time when it was seemingly folly to bring a child into the world, but nevertheless, two people moved with faith in God, brought a child into the world, and there were the three months where that child was hid, and then, of course, you know so well, the ark made, the child put into the river's brink, and that tremendous story of God's sovereignty, how about the tear of a baby overruled the decree of the emperor, the decree of the Pharaoh, wonderful, thrilling story. But I want to suggest to you that in it are principles that are not exceptional, principles that are not somehow just related to the raising up of the world's greatest leader, but principles which can be applied to the raising of our children and seeking to see them preserved for God.

I want you just to think then with me, if you will, of actually what occurs, and we'll try to make it simple for you because it's much easier to grasp in that way. I want you to think, first of all, how there was a period of hiding, a period of hiding. Then there was a period of hedging, a period of hedging.

Then there was a time of hovering, when Miriam hovered over the scene to see what God would do. Then there was a time of hoping, when she had to send her son out to the palace and had to wait to see what decision he would make. And if you will allow me to wed this to Luke chapter 15 for the sake of completeness, in Luke chapter 15, there was a time of hurting and finally a time of healing.

So now let me just, with that skeleton, try to bring this back to our own situation and in the raising of our own children for God. I want to talk then about years of hiding, years of hedging, years of hovering, years of hoping, and at times years of hurting and years of healing. Years of hiding.

Egypt said, every child belongs to our God. Cast them into the Nile. There were a couple who said, this child is for God, not for the Nile.

This child is not for Egypt's God. This child is for our God. We will hide it as long as we possibly can.

We want this child to be for God. Now, I don't think it takes a lot of imagination to apply that, does it, to your family, to mine? There are only, only a few years that you are given with a child to hide that child from the world. Only a few years.

Not long until, regardless of what you and I might do, the period of hiding is over. So, we have to recognize how valuable those few years are to hide that child, to preserve it from all of the influences in its early formative years, and to seek to pour into its mind from the very beginning truths that will help it to be what God would have it be. The necessity is obvious, but the nature of that hiding, I have to emphasize, is very individual, individualistic.

Different families, different personalities. There's no one formula that somehow every child is given the same rules and regulations and strong hand. There needs to be wisdom on the part of parents as to how that hiding is carried out.

But the first thing to impress us with, then, as we look at how Moses was brought into the world of parents, that had an exercise to hide that child as long as they could from an ungodly world that wanted it and demanded it. I hope you realize that what you read in Exodus chapter 1 was not simply a matter of mothers and fathers of Israel voluntarily coming and yielding their children to Egyptian soldiers to do it as they pleased. Pharaoh's edict was for the people, the Egyptians, vigilante committees scouring the land looking for Hebrew sons, tearing them from the hands of their mothers, casting them into the Nile, ruthless and heartless and cold, demanding children.

Listen, the world is demanding your children. The world wants to mold them into its thinking and shape them into its values. And at the very outset is when you have those precious years to to hide that child from the world.

But, of course, a day came when the child could no longer be hid. What do they do now? Well, now is a time of hedging, hedging that child about. And so carefully, wisely, skillfully, thoughtfully, they make an ark.

You know the story. But also they did not just cast the ark into the mainstream of the river. They put it by the edge amongst the reeds that just keep it from being caught up in the stream.

Yes, we've got to put it in the river. Yes, we have to let it go. Yes, we can't hide it forever, but we don't have to cast it out into the swift current of the river.

We'll keep it as close as we can. And yet still let it go. Hedging our children for God.

What's that all about? How do we hedge? What really is involved in hedging? Well, I think if you think about it for just a few moments, we need to have correct vision with what we want to do with our children. Yes, we have to think about their education. We have to think about their goals in life and their adjustment and their ability to function.

But to have right goals, to wish to have a person of moral worth, a person who has values, a person who can make decisions and not be dependent upon me and have to call me at age 25 about what they're supposed to do. A person that can make their own decisions. An independent individual.

Someone that can function on their own for God. Likewise, an individual who knows right from wrong. A person who is able to discern what is pleasing to God and what is not pleasing to God.

So that we need to have a correct vision ourselves. We need to communicate values. How do you communicate values to your children? There's at least two ways.

At least two. One is the didactic. Teaching.

Speaking. Illustrating. Through the Word of God.

Through other means. Just communicating values that are significant before God. But the other is by my life.

By my life. We expressed, I think it was, was it on Saturday night when we first met? That when God gave command to Manoah and his wife that they were to have a Nazarite son, God began by saying to Manoah's wife, you have to have Nazarite character. If you are going to have a Nazarite son, you will have to have Nazarite character yourself.

So just bringing that down to where we are today. If you want your child to learn virtues and values that are pleasing to God. Now, I'm not speaking of educating our children to be Christians.

I'm speaking of hedging their minds with what is of value and what is right. If we want our children to have those, then we have to model them. We have to live them before our children.

So there is then the communicating of values and there is the creating of virtue. How do we create virtue? How do we hedge this child's mind? And I guess that gets into the huge subject of discipline. So let me touch on that and try to do it quickly and then to move on to a few other things.

I don't know laws in this country. And so I will speak carefully and I hope I will speak in ways that are general enough for you to apply according to the laws of the country. But let me talk about what we discipline first of all.

What we discipline. We do not discipline frailty or weakness or just creature issues, but we discipline rebellion. We discipline sin.

In other words, if a child is sitting at the table, as always happens virtually at every meal time, and accidentally a glass is knocked over, you don't, you know, that's not an occasion. Yeah, I mean, you talk and you explain need for care and so on, but you know, you don't lose it with the child. But if you say, now don't knock over your milk and he knocks it over and you say, look, and he does it again and, you know, looks you in the face, that's rebellion.

That's a different thing altogether. That's where discipline comes in. So we do not discipline weaknesses and accidents and failure.

You know, we don't discipline because the child gets, I don't know, you have A, B's and C's in grades here, a B instead of an A. You know, we're disciplining self-will and rebellion. That's where we discipline. When do we discipline? Discipline as soon as possible.

Tie it to the issue you're trying to teach them about and do it privately. Hardly needs to be said, does it? I mean, you don't publicly, for a lot of reasons, discipline. Whatever discipline you carry out, you don't do it publicly, if for no other reason that God does not discipline you and me publicly.

You have sat in a meeting, haven't you? Ministry meeting. And a room is filled with people. And as the word of God is being ministered, there is not another soul in the room who knows the word of God is coming to you like an arrow to your conscience.

And you are smitten, convicted before God of something in your life. And you may leave the room with a smile so that no one knows, but in your soul, you know God has spoken to me. God does his things privately with us.

We don't need to humiliate children. We don't need to break their spirits and break their wills. Children are not animals that need to be broken.

They need to be taught to submit their wills. Need to be taught to submit their wills because of the fact that you care for them and you're doing what is right for them. So we do not discipline publicly.

We, I would even encourage not even disciplining in front of other children, but to be a private matter between a parent and a child quickly confirmed by love and by affection. Never discipline out of frustration. Now, that's easy to say.

Who of us have not ever been frustrated with our children? But you see, there's a big, big, big difference between child abuse and discipline. But if we allow ourselves to discipline out of frustration and anger and pent-up rage, then we are bordering on abuse. It should be someone who is totally in control, someone who is not losing it on the child, but someone who is simply carrying out what needs to be done.

And it is not punishment. You are trying to correct behavior, trying to make it clear that this particular behavior is not acceptable with you or with God and needs to be changed. And you are just reinforcing that in whatever way of discipline you choose to use with that child.

First-time obedience. How often have you stood in a, you call it a queue, how often have you stood in a queue and there's some wonderful little bratty child in front of you, and he keeps doing something, and the mother says, now look, stop that. And the child keeps doing it.

And the mother says, look, I mean it this time, stop it. And the child keeps doing it. And the mother, look, if you don't stop, I am really going to tell you to stop it now.

And the child keeps doing it. And, you know, after about the sixth or seventh threat, finally, in a rage, the mother does something, grabs the kid and leaves or hauls off. But what kind of message is the child getting? The child's getting the message the first six times really didn't mean it.

You know, it was only the seventh time that they really meant what they said. So, you know, you see, it was a long time ago that I was a child, but I do remember this. Children love to gamble.

I'll take the chance. I'll go for it. You know, why not? It's a boring day.

Let's have some fun. You know, so let's just take the chance and see if they really mean it. And, you know, if you get away with it the first time, hey, you know, let's just push the odds even further.

Maybe we can push it just a little bit further. And, you know, there's a natural instinct in children to gamble for it and see if it pays off. Now, first time obedience means that your word means exactly what it says.

That's difficult. I mentioned last night that parenting is the hardest job going. It's full-time work.

It's inconvenient. You know, if you're in the store and the queue is long and you're, you know, you're halfway down finally after 15 minutes and suddenly the misbehavior occurs, you know, to get out of line, to go somewhere, and then get back at the end of the line is an inconvenient thing. But you've got to make the choice.

Which is more important, your child's development or 15 minutes of time? Hard to do. We've all been there. We've all had those difficulties.

But first time obedience, we should be teaching our children that what we say is what we mean, not empty threats, not words that just mean nothing, but first time obedience. Because what you are really doing, the why of discipline, is you are trying to develop in your child this hedging issue, beginning to hedge their own mind and their thinking. In other words, when you have a child that's a year of age, you are their conscience.

You are their boundary. They have no ability to understand certain things. And so you are their conscience.

You tell them what is right and wrong. But hopefully you don't keep doing that when they're 16 and 17. Hopefully you are gradually beginning to internalize, put into their minds what is right and what is wrong.

And initially it's just because I said so. You can't explain to a child who's a year and a half why running out in front of a car is dangerous and they're going to get hit by a car and maybe get killed. The child has no ability to conceive of what it means to be hit by a car and be killed.

That has no meaning to them. But what does have meaning, they know if they do it, they're going to get it. Okay, that's got a lot of meaning, a lot of substance there, that if I do that, that's wrong and they're going to let me know it's wrong.

But then gradually as their ability to understand increases, then you begin giving reasons, explanations, begin building into them a sense of virtue of what is right and why it is right. Because just rules, if all we do is give our children rules, black and white, yes and no, because I said so, we will raise children who can never judge the gray areas of life. All they know is, you know, black and white and now what do we do with this unusual situation? You know, let me look and see if it's in the rule book that mom and dad gave me and it's not there.

What do I do? But to give our children values as we internalize conscience and as we begin to teach them right from wrong and why something is right, why something is wrong, is the internalizing of conscience and the ability then to hedge their minds. So how do we then do all of this? Well, we've talked about limiting exposure to the world. We've talked about internalizing conscience.

Let me just mention one other thing and that is positive Christian living. Never, maybe no one here does this, but I've heard it elsewhere, never apologize to your children that you're Christians. Do you ever hear someone say, look, I'm sorry, you know, we don't go to movies.

We're Christians. Sorry? Really? Listen, do you know your kids, you know, my kids could travel virtually any place on this earth and if they had a problem, I could pick up a phone, call some Christian in that area and sight unseen, that home would be open to my children and any need they had would be met without a moment's hesitation. Sorry? Sorry for having two parents who are married and have been married and live together in the same house and sorry for that? Man, never apologize to your kids that they're in a Christian home.

Never feel like somehow they're missing out because they can't go here and do that and forget that kind of thinking. They've got the best of it. They've got the best possible life going.

Stable family, stable parents. Our children grow up in an atmosphere of love. I mean, you think of an assembly of 40 people and children going up in that assembly and there are 40 people who are aunt and uncle to them and would just give them anything they want and need and are there for them, whatever they need.

And we're apologizing to our children for this deprived lifestyle. God forbid. You make clear to your children how fortunate they are to have love surrounding them everywhere and interest in their welfare everywhere.

When my children were saved, I had people write to me from all over the world telling me they had been praying for them. Man, you ask your neighbor if there's somebody in Africa praying for them or somebody in Asia praying for them or they'll look at your cross eye. Never heard of it.

And we have people throughout the world praying for our children, praying for our families. We have the best of it. Never, never make your children think somehow they're deprived.

Positive Christian living. Communicate to them the wonder and the privilege of being linked with the people of God because it really is the greatest thing going. So we begin then to internalize conscience and begin to give them values and imbue their minds with what is right and what is wrong as they are being disciplined and growing in our family circles.

But there came a time when the hedging was done. They had done all they could to preserve that child from the influence of the river coming in and the current of the river bearing it away. And now they were left just with hovering.

Just with hovering. Just putting it by the river's edge and hovering over it to see what would happen. There will come a time when the years of hiding and hedging are done and you have to let go of your children to some extent.

Now we've already mentioned there's no need to cast them out into the swift current to the middle of the river. No need to cast them into the river without an ark to preserve them. But all Miriam could do was hover over that scene to wait to see what God would do.

Wonderful, isn't it? The confidence that these parents and must have communicated to Miriam as well. Hovering to me suggests availability. Availability.

I'm available if there's need. Teenage years are perhaps among the most difficult. They are years where your influence is really relatively minimal, you know.

What can you do when they're 16, 17, 18? Discipline has to be age appropriate and certainly at 16, 17, and 18 it's not not a time for the discipline you applied at three and four. So what do you do? How do you handle things like that? If maybe they're going the wrong way, beginning to experiment with the wrong things. Well, hovering, first of all, being available.

Not just hands-off and hovering, being available to them. Being there when they need it. Those are those strange years when one day they want to be the most independent person in the world, don't need anyone.

They're on their own, you know. And the next day they say, hey, what's the matter? You're not kissing me anymore. It's almost the exact opposite.

They want that nurturing and that link re-established. Just to be available, as Miriam was, to see what God had done. So first of all, keep your eyes open.

Keep your eyes open with your teenage children. Try to keep a step ahead of them. As far as their friends, what they're doing, where they're going, what they're into.

Keep your ears open. Keep your eyes open. Keep a step ahead.

Maintain your relationship. The last thing you want to do, and it may have to happen. It may happen because of some difficulty, but the last thing you want to do is have your relationship severed.

Maintain your relationship at all possible. Because it is amazing how they will come back and how they will look to you eventually. Maintain your relationship.

Give trust and support carefully. And beware of ultimatums. Carefully consider what hill you're going to die for.

Yeah, there are some hills worth dying for. But make sure they're worth dying for. Be careful with ultimatums.

I would suggest when things are not going well, I don't have a verse for this, so you'll forgive me. Once in the best possible way, express to them your serious concern. And then leave it.

They do not need you to remind them every day that you're not happy with what they're doing. That just is going to drive them away and create barriers. Say it once.

Say it clearly. Make nothing mistaken about it. And tell them, I'm not going to bring it up again.

I just want you to know how seriously concerned I am about this. I feel it's wrong. But you have to make your choice.

But this is how I feel. Say it as clearly as you can, as emphatically as you can, in the right way, at the right time, and then leave it. And maintain your standards.

But don't preach every moment and every opportunity. They know what you think once you've said it, and they'll never forget it. And they'll never think that because you are showing love that somehow you're lowering your standards.

They know exactly how you feel. Years of hovering. But a day came when, despite the fact that Moses had been given back, a day came when she had to bring him to the palace.

And he became the son of Pharaoh's daughter. I don't know what age that was. I would gather it was probably as a young man, maybe a teenager, maybe even before that.

But now years of hovering gave way to years of hoping. A mother must have watched a son walk up to the palace. The palace doors closed behind him.

And for all we know, that may have been the last sight that Amram and Jochebed had of Moses for many years. Hebrews tells us that Moses, when he was come to years. Now we know from elsewhere he was 40 years of age.

So would you just allow me to remind you that two godly parents had to wait 40 years to see if the investment they had made in a child would ever bear fruit. Would he choose Egypt? Or would he choose God? Had to wait 40 years. I wonder if some nights the two of them went to bed with tears, with grief, with heartache, wondering if what they had done to hedge his mind and fill his mind with what pleased God and what was of value to God.

Wondering it. I wonder what's happening in a palace. I wonder if all the learning of Egypt is squeezing out all that God put into this young man's heart.

I wonder what choice he'll make. Willing to wait 40 years for a Moses. Willing to wait 40 years to see God move and to see God work.

They had to wait 40 years. Long time. Long time in earth's calendar to just wait.

There are many, many believers that know what it is to wait, to hope, to sit back and to wonder if all we did, if all our prayer is worth it. If all our groaning, if all our investments will ever bear fruit. I doubt that there's a single parent here that didn't have the same experience that I had.

Just bringing home a two or three day old infant from the hospital, seeing them sleeping soundly in a bassinet, just raising your heart to God. Far better take them home now than just be fuel for the fire. I had to wait 40 long years.

Yet God answered prayer. God is able, maybe not to give us Moseses, although it would be lovely to have a few around, running around, but he's able to give us answers to prayer maybe after 40 long years. Let me just hurry because linking it with let me just mention one other thing, just keeping with that as well.

Something else that is a great encouragement. In case you begin to chastise yourself, maybe we failed, maybe we just weren't what we ought to be in front of our kids. Yeah, none of us have been.

Let's face it, we have all failed. But I want to tell you about somebody who didn't fail. Neither did his brethren believe in him.

It was not until after his resurrection that anyone of his half-brothers or sisters came to trust in Christ. Imagine him growing up in a home, brothers and sisters viewing that life every day, observing the Lord Jesus growing from, he was obviously the oldest, but nevertheless, those as they came along would watch him grow, would see his deeds, would see his actions. Likely he took care of the family as the carpenter when Joseph perhaps died early, and yet not one believed in him.

The Lord Jesus had to wait perhaps 30 years to see a convert in his own family so that every case of unbelief is not your failure or mine. It is the human heart that resists and rejects divine truth. But let me come to years of hurting because rebellion does occur as we read of in Luke chapter 15.

We could have read of Eli's sons, of Cain, of Esau. The word of God is filled with sons who rebelled and sons who rejected. And of course Isaiah 1 reminds us of the perfect father and of rebellious sons.

I have nourished and brought up children yet they have rebelled. The perfect father had rebellious sons. So rebellion is natural, native to the human heart.

Our reaction to it is critical. Guilt, if appropriate, needs to be confessed and done with. It's not my subject tonight, but let me just mention this because there are believers who live with guilt.

Whether saint or sinner, guilt has only one purpose. It is to drive us to God for forgiveness. And when the forgiveness is enjoyed, the guilt should go.

I'm not speaking of arrogance or cockiness or a sense of superiority. I just mean those... You know what guilt is that we carry with us sometimes? It's our attempt to pay penance. Okay? It really is, if you think about it.

When we walk around feeling guilty after we've confessed something to God and we keep our guilt with us, it is our attempt to work for forgiveness, to do penance, to think now I really have to feel badly about this so that somehow the forgiveness really sticks. No, it's got nothing to do with it. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just.

Guilt has only one purpose. Drive us to God for forgiveness and then the guilt has done its work. It can be forgotten, left and the forgiveness of God enjoyed.

Guilt, shame, we feel embarrassed, you know, these children are a reflection of me and look at my failure and... No. Look at what God has lost. Not what I have lost.

Look at what God has lost because these children are not living for Him. Anger, frustration, but we should never despair. In the Old Testament there was one individual who was not permitted to rend his garments.

Prophets rent their garments. Kings rent their garments. Men rent their garments.

But the high priest was not permitted to rend his garments. You know why? Rending of garments suggests something that is absolutely so desperate that it's beyond hope. Yeah, things are just beyond hope.

Now here's the problem. The only man who went into the presence of the God of all hope could never express that there was no hope. Can you see what I'm saying? To have rent his garments would have said there is no hope.

And yet he is the one that moves in the presence of the God of all hope. I know things can get pretty bleak. And things can seem like they hang by a mere thread at times.

But we are linked with a God of all hope. We should never despair. We should never feel like it's all lost.

God is able. Because I don't know if you've noticed, let me come to years of healing for just a moment. When that son returns, the father says, bring forth the fatted calf.

Would you just allow me just to read, just maybe give you a little more of a literal rendering. Bring forth the calf that I've been fattening. You see, I've been expecting him home.

I've been expecting him. I've been fattening that calf out there for this very moment. Go get it.

It's been waiting just for this moment. What a wonderful thing. He was waiting for that son to come back.

Confidence in God that God would somehow work. Away in the distant far country, God would touch a heart, humble it, bring it back. And the fatted calf would be ready.

Let me then just quickly mention to you, you can notice for yourself, the Word of God has four prodigals, doesn't it? It's got our prodigal spouse, Gomer, the wife of Hosea. You can read of that. We've got a prodigal slave in Onesimus who runs from Philemon.

You've got a prodigal servant, don't you, in Jonah and he's brought back. And now you've got a prodigal son. God is in the business of restoring prodigals, whether they're servants, spouses, slaves, or sons.

We've got a God who can bring prodigals back. What a wonderful God. So you will notice then, first of all, an attitude that this father conveyed.

This father conveyed an attitude. He conveyed that forgiveness is always available here in this home. Your children feel that way? Forgiveness is always available.

I don't mean at any price. The father did not change things at home. Standards stayed the same.

The home stayed the same. But there is here a welcome and a readiness to forgive. Sometimes people hinder forgiveness.

They don't want it. They don't need it. It's your problem, not mine.

But I should always convey an attitude that is ready to forgive. That's the attitude this father conveyed. There was a wrong that was confessed.

Of course, that is the basis for that. But then there was a place that was conferred. No trial sonship.

This is my son. He's my son. I'm going to own him as my son.

Belongs to me. Right back where he left. But then there was a door that was closed.

This my son was dead. I am closing the door on the past. He's alive.

He was lost. But he's found. With one Herculean effort, this father slammed, shut the door on the past to begin a new life.

Years of healing. Wonderful prospect. Wonderful possibility where there is need for it to occur.

To think that this God is our God. A God of restoration. A God of recovery.

Yes, there may be hurting. There may be broken hearts. There may be tears through the night and prayers that seem to go up and yet no answer.

They had to wait 40 years. God answered. A father had to wait a long time, yet a son returned.

God is able. May the Lord help us, encourage us, and give us fresh confidence in his abilities and his desire to bless our family. Shall we speak to God in prayer?