Respect Is Correct (Part 3)

There was a few things left that I wanted to give you and I and

rather than try to cram all of those in, I decided to give them

to you tonight instead. And so Ephesians chapter 6, just

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

to bring us back into what we've been talking about.

The Bible says this in verse number one.

Children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right.

Honor thy father and thy mother. Honor thy father and mother,

which is the first commandment with promise.

Now, obviously, that's two children, right?

And the obedience to your parents, I think that's

especially when you're younger. But the honor thy father and thy

mother, that is, they're always going to be your father and

mother. That's never going to go away,

right? And I think many times as

parents get older and they start doing things that don't make a

whole lot of sense sometimes. But I'm not saying that from my

own experience, but I've been around long enough to understand

that there are times when you get really frustrated with your

parents, right? That they don't do the things

that you think would be the best thing for them to do.

And maybe it's because they're getting old enough that they've

lost a little bit of what they used to have and they're not as

sharp as they used to be. And it is easy to get

frustrated. It's very easy to dishonor your

parents, but they're your parents and you still should

honor them. And I think that's one of those

things that you'll be thankful that you did.

But that's the first commandment that comes with a promise is

what the Bible is saying, that it may be well with thee and

that thou mayest live long on the earth.

That's another promise that comes along with it.

But verse #4 then says, And you fathers, provoke not your

children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the

admonition of the Lord. And we've talked a lot about

that over the last few years. Bring them up in the nurture and

the admonition of the Lord. That's the responsibility of the

Father. And that means then that the

wife, the mother is supposed to follow the husband's leadership,

follow her husband's leadership and do what he has set as the

standards in their home and, and follow that leadership that he

that that he's established in the home.

If you expect that the home is going to go the way that it

should, because everybody has a defined biblical role to follow.

Husband leads, wife follows the husband, children obey the

parents. Everything goes just the way

that God planned for it to go. But all children have moments or

seasons when they struggle with obedience just like their

parents. By the way, many times we're

very hard on our children when they disobey and then we turn

around and do the exact same thing to God.

I think if we were willing to give our children the same grace

that we give ourselves, we would not bring our children up in

wrath. We would not provoke our

children to wrath as the Bible says not to do.

But some children, I think, particularly in the teenage

years, become defiant. They become overtly

disrespectful and you wonder why, why, why is this happening

now #1 it starts way back when they're little kids, starts way

back when they're little kids. But there are some things that

you can do, especially as they get older and start to show some

of those signs of rebellion. There's a lot of contributing

reasons for why kids act that way, I think, including the free

will of every person of to follow the Lord or not follow

the Lord, right? Sometimes kids, you could do

everything right, and they're just going to do their thing.

They're just going to do it their way.

They're just not going to follow.

And especially you have kids that as they grow up and they,

they get out on their own and they marry somebody and they go

straight for a while. And then they start to deviate

because they get into a church that's not strong or they, they

start to get away from the Lord because the situation that they

found themselves in that they don't have some accountability

or something like that. And so they just start to stray.

And the next thing you know, they've made the decision to not

even be in church or whatever that happens to be, right?

It doesn't necessarily reflect that you raised them the wrong

way. It reflects that they had a free

will and they could choose what they wanted to do with their

life. But I want to give you 7 things

tonight that are common factors for why teenagers rebel, why any

young person rebels. Whatever amount of of discipline

and example you do give, if you're participating in any of

these seven things, then you're undermining your own influence.

You're undermining your own authority and you're you're

almost teaching your children to be disrespectful.

So here are seven ways tonight that parents undermine their own

influence. Let's pray and then we'll jump

into these things tonight. Father, again, we thank you so

much for your goodness to us. We thank you for the opportunity

to be here together. Pray that it would be a help to

us. And again, we thank you for all

that you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.

Number one is this when when they hear their parents

criticize authority, you're undermining your own influence.

When your children hear, you undermine and criticize

authority. If every night you come home

from work talking about how worthless your boss is and

saying all the things that you would not say to your boss's

face, you're undermining your own authority.

If every Sunday at lunch you talk about all the mistakes that

the pastor is making, you're undermining your own authority.

You're teaching them that it's OK to not respect the authority

that's in their life. And it sounds very subtle.

It may not be a, it may not seem like a big thing, but when you

are tearing down authority in front of them, you are also

tearing down your own authority because you are telling them

it's OK to tear down authority as long as there's a reason to

tear that authority down. And I'm not saying that you have

to agree with everything that your boss does.

I'm not saying that you have to agree with everything that the

pastor does. Talk about it in private.

Have a conversation with your wife in private.

You're talking you, you do this criticizing in front of your

children. You are tearing down your own

authority. Same thing when it comes to your

children's teachers or coaches or whatever it happens to be

when you disrespect them in front of your children, you are

also disrespecting your own authority.

You're tearing your own authority down and it's going to

hurt you in the long run. And it may be that it happens

when, when your kids are in first, second, third, 4th grade,

but they see that and they know exactly what's going on.

And by the time they get into 7th, 8th, 9th grade, when they

start feeling a little bit of their Wheaties and they're not a

little kid anymore, they're going to disrespect your

authority because you've taught them to do that by criticizing

the authority in your life. Here's number 2.

When they see their parents violating scripture, you are

tearing down your own authority. You are undermining your own

influence when you violate scripture.

Now, none of us are perfect. We're always going to fall short

in some way or another. But when your children see you

flagrantly disobeying God's Word, you are undermining your

own influence. Especially if you're in a church

like this. You hear it preached over and

over and over, especially about the things that you watch on

television and the things that you spend your time doing and

the things that you know are wrong.

And then you go and participate in those things, and your

children are sitting there watching those things with you.

They know that you should not be watching that.

They know that they shouldn't be watching it listening to music

that is displeasing to the Lord, and you're sitting there

listening to that music together.

They know that they shouldn't be listening to that.

They know that you shouldn't be listening to that, and yet

you're doing it anyway. When you violate scripture, they

know that that that is not right and you are tearing down your

own authority, but you're also tearing down your influence

because how can you then turn around and tell your kid don't

do that. You know better than that when

you were literally doing the exact same thing.

Well, I'll tell you what happens.

Most of the time the parents don't do that because they know

they're doing things that they shouldn't be doing.

So they just don't correct their children at all.

And now the kids can go on and do whatever they want to do and

live the life that they want to live because the parents want to

do the exact same thing. And you're undermining your

influence when you're doing those things.

And, and they know that you don't really believe that the

things that you're teaching them, that they know that you

don't really believe the things that you're teaching them.

And you're going to lose that respect.

You can sit down and have devotions every single night.

You can come to church every single time the doors are open.

And you can listen to all the different things that you should

be doing and here and, and, and knowing all the, all the

different things that you should be doing in your life.

And your kids know all those things.

And then you get up there and do the exact opposite of that.

It doesn't matter what you're doing.

They're, they're watching your life and they're watching your

example and you are undermining that example #3 and we've

already kind of touched on this. And I'll be honest, a lot of

these things are just kind of a summary of a lot of things that

we've talked about already. But #3 when they feel that their

parents don't love one another, you're undermining your

influence. When they feel that the parents

don't love one another, it could be that you do and you get along

fine, but you're constantly bickering and arguing and

fighting and then you, you know, you, you, you go back into the

room by yourself and everything's perfectly fine.

You have a great time, but then you come out and you're

bickering and arguing and fighting.

Then you go back into the bedroom and everything's

perfectly fine, and then you're arguing and fighting.

When your kids, when your kids perceive that the parents don't

love each other, then you're undermining your own influence.

The seeds of that insecurity that's shown in a young person's

heart when they feel that their parents don't love each other

run very deep. If you have difficulties in your

marriage, you need to determine together that you're going to

work through them. Now, I would think that

everybody that's in here is in a position where divorce is not an

option for you. You're going to stick together

no matter what. You're going to fight through

those things no matter what. But many times marriages like

that are miserable because you don't want to be together.

But you have to be together because you can't get divorced.

And so instead of getting it fixed and figuring out what you

can do to make the marriage better, you just both live in

misery. That's no way to live.

That's no way to be an example to your children, right?

Ask for pastoral counseling, get individual counseling if you

have to, right? There's there are things that

you can do to help get your marriage on more of a solid

footing, but you've got to get your marriage right if you're

going to have a family. That's right.

The marriage is the foundation of everything I mentioned this

last week. You know, how can you live for

30 years together, married and then get a divorce after you've

been married for 30 years? It's because you're not spending

that time pursuing each other. You need to pursue each other.

Hey, didn't you do you do that before you got married?

All right, all the love notes and all these different things

that I'm going to do for you because I'm trying to win your

heart. And then you get married and

it's like, all right, the old lady is, you know, doing this

tonight. You know, whatever it happens to

be, you stop pursuing each other.

And that's when the marriage starts to degrade from day one.

And then you have kids and and they get frustrating sometimes

and there's a lot of responsibility with children.

You can't just pick up and go to Waffle House at one O clock in

the morning because that's what you feel like doing, right?

Everything changes when you have children and it changes the

dynamic of your relationship because now you got something

that you got to take care of or it's going to die, right?

Remember those little pocket animals that people had?

Remember that? I think it was probably in like

the mid 2000s, you know, 2006, seven, 8:00 somewhere in there,

everybody's walking around with these little animals in their

pocket that you had to keep alive.

And if you didn't push the button and feed them, they died,

right? But then what happens?

Well, you just go buy another one, right?

Well, I figured this out. You can't do that with kids.

They die. You're done, right?

And and I'm not, I'm not trying to be morbid, but that's exactly

what it is. You got to keep them alive,

right? You have, they have, you have to

take care of their needs and everything else.

And what happens is if you are not purposely pursuing each

other in your marriage, then you're going to let those things

take over, right? And, and your kids are going to

be gone someday. Your spouse and is, is not

right, 18 years, 20 years, 25 years depends on how many kids

you have and how long they're in the house.

They're right. Eventually you're going to be

back on your own. It's just going to be the two of

you. And if you live a normal life,

you're going to have 20 or 30 years with just the two of you

again, right? You started off that way.

You're going to end that way. It's what you do in that in

between time, especially when you have those the, the

children. It's it's what you do with those

in between times that are going to determine how your marriage

is going to go, right? And you've got to make sure

you've got to prioritize those things.

Well, I can't because my kids are too young.

We can't go out to eat. We can't do this.

Listen, there's a whole church full of people that will watch

your kids for you if you want to go out, right?

There's a lot of people who are retired that would love to watch

your kids and spank them for you while you're gone.

I'm just kidding. Please let me watch your

children. No, I'm just kidding.

But listen, there's a lot of people that would do that.

You've got to prioritize spending time together.

All right? It's it's we're at a great stage

in our marriage because my kids are old enough that I can just

leave them home and we can go out and, you know, go to dinner

or do whatever, right? When the kids are at school,

it's a great opportunity. They're at school and we can go

out for lunch or different things.

We do it at least once a week, sometimes more when we have the

opportunity to do that because I'm not I, I, I don't want to be

one of those ones that I don't know my wife when my kids are

gone. I'm, I want to continue to

pursue that relationship now the same way that I pursue now.

The, the structure is a little bit different, right?

I already got her. She can't leave now.

I'm not trying to, to win her over, but I want to keep her.

I want to have my wife's heart, right?

And I want her to have mine. And, and that that does not come

by accident. If you are struggling in your

marriage, you've got to get help with that.

You've got to get that marriage on the right foundation.

No matter how many times you tell your kids that it's not

their fault that we're struggling in our marriage,

they're never going to believe you.

And they're always going to think it's because of me.

It's my fault. Something's wrong with me.

And that's why my parents are are having problems in their

relationship. And you can tell them it's not

and many and sometimes it is. It is not the kids, it is the

parents that just can't get along.

But the kids aren't going to see it that way.

And it's going to undermine your influence #4 you undermine your

own influence when your children are not disciplined for

disobedience. This all comes down to one word,

and that word is consistency. You have to be consistent in

your discipline, right? It's the same way that that the

law works. And one of the reasons why the

law doesn't work very well is because the justice system is

very inconsistent, right? Somebody can, somebody can

murder somebody and they get 10 years in prison.

Another person can murder somebody and they get 4 life

sentences, right? There's just, there's no,

there's no consistency to it. So I got 10 years.

Now I'm going to go kill somebody else.

I'm probably only going to get 10 years again, right?

And it happens. I mean, it happens more often

than you think, but when you're you're kids, you know,

especially as they get a little bit older and they have a little

bit more freedom, maybe they break the curfew that you

established. You learn that they've been

hanging out with kids that you told them not to hang out with.

This is as they get older, obviously, you know, and there's

no consequences. They're going to learn not to

respect what you say because it doesn't matter if you say this

is what's going to happen. If you do this and you don't do

it, then why would they ever? And by the way, I said this at

the beginning, it all starts from there.

Very little. If you tell your kid don't touch

that or you're going to get a spanking and they touch it and

you say, I said don't touch that or you're going to get a

spanking and they touch it again.

And you say, I'm telling you, you're going to get a spanking

if you touch that again, right? Why wouldn't they touch it?

Because the next time you tell them something, they're going to

say, well, this is probably another one of those times where

I'm going to get another warning before I get in trouble and then

I'm probably going to get another warning before I get in

trouble. If you say it, you better back

it up. Don't touch that or you're going

to get spanked. They touch it.

All right, let's go. All right.

And there's battles sometimes back and forth and they last a

while. You're not trying to break your

children's spirit, but you are trying to break their will the

same way that that it happens with God, right?

I don't want to, I don't want to beat my children to the point

where they're just, you know, a BLOB of me that, that I can just

fling around and do whatever with, right?

But at the same time, they've got to understand that your will

has to become subservient to the will of the parents the same way

that our will has to become subservient to God's will,

right? You want your children to do

what God wants them to do with their lives.

Don't expect that that's going to happen if you've never

brought their will under your will, right?

God gave you them so that you could teach them and raise them

to into something that God can use.

And if you don't do that, God's not going to be able to use them

either. If you raise a rebellious young

person, if you raise a young person that doesn't have any

desire to follow what you what, what do you think the Bible says

in in Proverbs, my son, give me thine heart.

What do you think that means? That means bring your will under

my will, right? This is what I want.

I've been around a while. I don't know everything, but

I've been around a lot longer than my kids have, right?

I was there once. I know the dumb things that kids

do. I know the mistakes that kids

make, and I don't want them to make the same mistakes.

By the way, kids, when the Bible says children obey your parents,

that's exactly what it's talking about.

You bring your will under their will so that one day they can

transfer that over to God and you can bring your will under

God's will. But this, the whole idea there

is that when you know, it's if you're not consistent in your

discipline, you're teaching your kids to just do whatever they

want to do whenever they want to do it and hope that this is the

time that the hope that this is not the time when you finally

decided to follow through with it.

And by the way, that's what leads, that's what leads to a

parent losing their temper and just going off on their children

and actually moving into child abuse.

Spanking a kid is not child abuse, but losing your temper on

your kids is child abuse, right? How do you keep that from

happening? Hey, I said, no, let's go.

It's just as simple as that. That's the that's the rule,

that's the law, right? That's what we've laid down in

here. You disobeyed, you're in

trouble. What happens is I said don't do

that. I said don't do that.

How many times do I tell you not to do that?

Get in here, right? And that's when you whip the

belt off and you start whipping them everywhere, right?

That's what happens when you, when you're not consistent, you

lose your temper and you lose, you lose control of the entire

situation. You're not in control, your kids

are. And you undermine your influence

when that happens #5 you undermine your influence as a

parent when they're rewarded materially in spite of bad

behavior. A parent that thinks, well, I'll

just, I'll just keep giving stuff to my kid.

He's really going to love me if I just keep giving him things or

if I refuse to buy him what he's asking for, then we're going to

lose our relationship. That's being lazy.

The truth is your, your, your kid, your teenager especially,

he's not going to love you more for what you buy him.

He's going to enjoy what you buy him, right?

If he's begging you nonstop for some kind of whatever these game

stations are and you buy it for him and he wants this game and

you buy it for him and that game and you buy it for him and a

phone and you buy it for him and this and you buy it for him,

he's going to enjoy it. But he's not going to, he's not,

it's not going to build your relationship.

He's going to lose that respect for you when he knows that you

won't ever tell him no. And I think maybe this is one of

those things that comes later on when they're 19202122 years old

and they realized my parents didn't give me everything that I

wanted. I'm glad for that, but I'm very

thankful for that. Now there was things that I

asked my parents if I could do it.

My dad said no. And I was like, why not?

Why? Well, give me a good reason.

And then I never would have said that to him, right?

I thought it. I thought it.

But looking back, I'm saying, you know what?

I'm glad he said no. I'm glad he said no.

That proves that my dad was willing because he knew that I

did. I wasn't going to like it,

right? But he was willing to do the

hard thing, to do what was the best thing for me.

And when all you do is buy your kids everything they want and

all you do is just cater to whatever your kid wants and you

make their life just a bed of flowers so that they don't have

to struggle a day in their lives.

And they want to go hang out with these friends And you don't

want to tell them no because then they're not going to like

me. So go hang out with those

friends. And look, I've heard it from

teenagers, teenagers that that had parents who let them do

anything they wanted to do. They didn't like it, they didn't

like it. I've heard them say, I wish my

parents would tell me no sometimes because I know it's

not good for me. But I asked them and they say

yes. And what happens is, you know,

eventually when a parent never says no, they, they just stop

asking and they just start doing whatever they want to anyway.

They're the ones that are sneaking out of the house in the

middle of the night and going and hanging out with friends and

doing whatever they want to do, right?

Because the parents are not going to tell them no anyway.

So why not? I just don't want them to know

that I'm doing it. And that's what happens, number

six, when they're compensated materially by parents who pity

them. You're undermining your own

influence. Give your children gifts.

Yes, there's nothing wrong with that.

Buy them something for their birthday.

Buy them things for Christmas. I'm not saying don't ever buy

anything for your children. But if if your teenager

particularly is always asking for money, but it's not willing

to work, not willing to budget, you keep giving them money,

they're going to lose respect for you.

Give give your kids things freely because you're their

parents, that's one thing. But financially bailing them out

of every situation and every time they need money, you just

you just throw it at them. That's not helping them at all.

Make them work. Go go get a job, even even if

it's just going next door and raking leaves for somebody and

earning some money. All right, Learn what it means

to, to, to not only, not only are you undermining your

influence, but you're teaching them very, very bad habits of,

of financial stability. There's nobody there that's

going to bail you out when you don't have money to buy

groceries, right? Nobody's there.

Well, the government is, but do you want them to be dependent on

the government their entire lives, right?

Do you want them to, to, to be constantly sticking their hands

out and, and asking for everything, right?

Make them work, make them go, make them go make their own

money, right? Make them learn the value of a

dollar, right? If your kids want to go buy the

latest basketball shoes and they're 150 bucks and you just

like, well, whatever, here's $150.00, they're not going to

take care of them. My dad when I got into 7th

grade, he said, I'm going to, I'm going to give you a place to

live. I'm going to put food on the

table and I'm going to give you, you know, a place to sleep.

You want anything else, you're paying for it.

And you know what I did? I had, we had basketball season

come up and I went to Kmart and I bought AI didn't even know

they made these. I've never seen them since.

I went to Kmart and I bought a pair of Warner Brothers

basketball shoes for $15 in the clearance rack.

And those shoes lasted me for three years because I paid for

them. If my dad gave me $150.00 pair

of shoes, guess what? Whatever.

He'll give me $150.00 next year after I tear these things up.

I didn't wear them anywhere except on the basketball court.

I wore tennis shoes to practice. I put tennis shoes back on after

I left practice. I I bought tennis shoes at

Payless Shoes. I don't even know if Payless is

still around anymore. Is it?

But they were the ones that had those plastic bottoms on them.

When you go running across the gym and you try to stop, you

skid another 5 feet before you can turn around and take off

running the other direction, you know, and, and middle of winter

when the, when the shoes get cold, the bottoms cracked on

them and I had a line across the bottom of my shoes.

Some of you know what I'm talking about.

But guess what? I took care of them.

I didn't leave my clothes laying all over the place because I was

going to, I was going to have to buy something to replace it if I

didn't, right? I shopped at Goodwill.

I learned what it was like to be frugal with my money because I

had to pay for it. And I'm not saying that you have

to do that with everything that your kids have, right?

But at the same time, if all you do is just give, give, give,

give, give, they're never going to learn the value of a dollar.

And it's not going to mean anything to them when they need

something for 150 bucks and they just come with a handout.

Dad, I need money. Dad, I need money.

Dad, give me, give me, give me. You're undermining your own

influence when you do that. They're going to learn to see

you as a financial source to manipulate rather than a loving

provider and a teacher. And can I add to that, that when

you baby your children because you pity them, you're not only

not helping them, you're hurting them, right?

Well, he gets bullied at school, so I'm going to give him

anything he wants because I feel so bad for him, right?

Listen, there's the time to stand up for your kids.

There's a time to go get some things taken care of and get

some things right if that's the case.

But being bullied actually makes you tougher, makes you stronger.

And if all you do is baby your children, then they're just

going to come running home to Mama every time something bad

happens in their life, right? A difficult situation that they

deal with. And so mama's going to make his

life a better roses just because I feel bad for him, right?

I say Mama because most of the times dad don't dads don't do

that. They don't care.

Go go deal with it. But Mamas do that often, right?

It's a it's a it's a natural desire.

You want to you want to make your kids life better than your

life was. You want to make your kids life

easier than your life was. But, but in a lot of ways, it

made you what you are. Having to deal with the

difficulties that you dealt with in your life made you who you

are. Could you imagine what your life

would be like without those difficulties that you had to

face? Could you imagine what your life

would be like if your parents made all of your problems just

go away, never had to deal with anything?

No, you need that. You need those difficulties.

You need those things because they make you who you are.

And if all you do is bail your kids out and make their life so

easy because you pity them for whatever reason, you're

undermining your influence in your children's life #7 The last

one is this. When they're allowed to

participate in activities which they were told they would not

enjoy unless they obeyed. Teenagers need you to hold firm

boundaries. They need you to do what you

said you were going to do. There may be occasions for

mercy. You told your kids that this was

going to happen if they did this or this was going to happen if

they did not do this and the day comes and they didn't do it, or

the day comes and they did do it.

There are times when you can use that as a lesson and you can

allow them to do something that you said they were not going to

be able to do because you give them mercy.

But if you regularly go back and all the conditions that you

established for your children to participate in events that they

enjoy, your child's not going to respect you.

And don't expect that the next time you say if you do this,

you're not going to do that. Or if you don't do this, then

you can't go here. And every time they don't do it

and you let them go there anyway, they are never going to

listen to what you said they should not do or they should do.

There's no reason for them to do that because there's there's no

consequences for not doing that. I can promise you this.

If you say, well, you can go on this activity or you can go do

this thing or whatever else it is that you want to do.

If you get this done and they don't get it done and you tell

them they can't go, guess what they're going to do the next

time. OK, they're serious about this.

I better get that done if I want to do that right?

Again, it all comes back to that one word, consistency.

If you're not consistent, they're going to learn how to

manipulate you and you're going to wonder why you're being

manipulated and why you can't just tell your kid no.

And they accept it because you taught them how to do that.

You taught them to manipulate you because you weren't

consistent and you didn't follow through with the things that you

said you were going to do. Even the times that you do hold

the line become a wedge in the relationship if you don't always

hold the line. You see, I say don't do this or

let's just use this example. Do this and then you can do that

and they don't do it. Well, fine.

Do you just just make sure you get it done.

You can go, right, do this or you're not going to go.

They didn't do it. I told you that you couldn't

fine, just go, just go, right? And now the day comes when you

say do this or you can't do that and they didn't do it and you

say you're not going and they think that you're going to ha

ha, OK, I'm going to go. My parents are going to let me

go. And then they, they hold you

hold the line and you say no, you're not going to do that.

Then guess what, it's not going to be like, wow, my parents are,

you know, they're serious about discipline.

I didn't do it. So that no, they're going to get

mad. And that's what turns into the

rebellion and everything else because you're not consistent,

right? So how do you start being

consistent? Just start being consistent,

right? Start today.

If you haven't been doing it, it's it's, I mean, you're behind

the 8 ball, but start doing it, right?

Start doing it today. Sit down with your kids and say,

listen, I've made mistakes, right?

Sometimes that's what really is necessary, a little bit

humility. I've made mistakes.

I've done things wrong. But this is what we're going to

change. This is what we're going to fix.

And then start doing it and let them understand that you turned

the corner, that you made some decisions, that you changed.

They're not going to lose that respect for you.

They're going to gain respect for you because they understand

that you're willing to admit when you're wrong.

They understand that you're willing to admit that you need

to do things better. They understand that you're

willing to say we need to do things better as a family.

They're not going to lose respect because, oh, I thought

my dad was perfect. They know you're not perfect.

They know you're not perfect. But then you make those changes.

You don't undermine your own authority.

You build it. Years of a, of a child's life

that we most commonly associate with disrespect.

The teenage years are often not the beginning of the disrespect.

It usually starts way before that.

But you dismissed it when they're six or seven years old

and they, you know, they usually feel a lot more dependent on

their parents. And so they're less likely to

show that overt rebellion, even though the seeds of that

disrespect have probably already been sowed.

And they're growing in there and they're getting deep.

And then they're 89101112 years old and those things are just

getting deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper.

And then at 131415 that little fruit starts to grow up.

And then at 161718 it's a full blown tree and you can't do

anything about it because you miss the opportunity.

At least you can't do anything about it without some serious

digging and some serious plowing and all of those things.

That's why it's so vital to cultivate that respect in your

children's heart when they're young.

That's what I've been talking about all along these last

couple weeks. And it is true that the concept

of respect is unraveling in our society today.

The, the, the, the lack of respect is so prevalent in

schools with law enforcement. I mean, in, in the, in the

workplace, the guy that tells his boss off is the big man, you

know, never used to be that way. We're losing that respect in our

society. But may there be a new

generation of Christian young people that grow up learning how

to respect their parents, grow up learning how to respect

authority, grow up learning how to respect God's authority in

their life. That's ultimately what we're

trying to do, is teach them how to follow the Lord with all of

their heart, right? But it starts by teaching your

children to give you their heart.

My son Solomon said in Proverbs, give me thine heart, right?

And he tells fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but

bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.

We have a responsibility to teach that to our kids, and it's

a very serious responsibility, not just the idea of respect.

It starts there, but not just that idea of respect, but the

idea that I've got to follow God with all of my heart.

I've got to follow His will for my life with everything that I

have. And that's what I'm trying to

teach my children. But it starts with respect.

And I don't want to undermine my own influence in my children's

life. I want to have all of the

influence that I can have. Because here's what's happening

right now. If your kids are young right

now, you have authority, all right?

You can tell your kids go do this and they better go do it.

You have authority right now, but one of these days, all that

you're going to be left with is influence.

You're not going to have authority in your children's

life forever. You are building that influence

right now so that someday when your kids are 2120220530 years

old and you come to them and you can say, hey, I think this is

something that you need to really seriously consider.

Guess what they'll do. You've got that influence and

they're really seriously considerate.

You can't tell them don't do that because you're not the

authority in their life anymore. You have authority now, but

you're building influence for later.

And when you tear down your respect for authority, when you

tear down respect for authority, you, you ruin your own

authority. When you do all of these

different things that I talked about tonight, you lose the

influence that you can have later on.

You can have influence while your kids are young, but you

have authority right now. Your kids better do it or else.

But there's going to come a day when you don't have that

authority. All you have is influence and

you're building that influence right now.

So what kind of influence are you building for later?

What kind of what kind of respect for authority and for

your authority are you teaching in your home right now?

Because it's on you to bring them up in the nurture and the

admonition of the Lord. Are you doing it, or are there

things that you need to change, things that you need to fix,

some things that you need to stop doing so that you're not

undermining the very influence that you're trying to build in

your children's life so you can direct them to where God wants

them to be? There's no point in going one

step forward and two steps back. You might be taking a step

forward by doing the things that you should be doing, but then

then you go and undermine your own influence and your own

authority and you're taking 2 steps back and that's not

helping anything. So what are you doing in your

family that you need to change so that you can have the

influence that you need to direct your children to follow

the Lord with all their heart as they get older?

That's that's the question, and that's what I want you to think

about tonight. Let's pray.

Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us and

for an opportunity that we've had to spend some time here

together. I pray that it would be a help

to us, God, and I pray that you'd help all of us to have

families that grow up and live for you.

I pray that we would not lose one single young person to the

world. God, I pray that every single

one of these young people that's in this room tonight would grow

up and live for you with their hearts and with their souls and

with their their minds and with everything that they have.

I pray that you'd help us as parents to follow through with

these things that'll help us to get our children to the point

where they need to be. Help us to have the influence

that we need to have, to direct them to what you want them to do

and where we need to make changes.

God, I pray that you'd help us to do that.

Thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.

If you would stand at your seats with your heads bowed and your

eyes closed and we'd give you opportunity to respond to the

message tonight. I know it's mostly for parents,

but it's not unuseful for the kids either.

You are commanded to obey your parents and to honor and respect

your parents. And maybe you're just not giving

it to them. Maybe they don't make, maybe

they don't do everything right. Maybe they do make mistakes here

and there that does not give you a right to disobey or dishonor

your parents. Maybe you need to get some

things right with the Lord tonight too, so that you can get

some things right with your parents.

I don't know. But I think especially for

parents, we need to make sure that we are doing things right

in our own home so that we can direct our children to honor and

respect and obey the way that they should so that God can use

them. However, God's worked on your

heart tonight. You respond as the piano plays

the invitations open. You can come.