Colossians: Grace and Parenting

So we've been going through the book of Colossians.

We're, I don't know how many weeks into this.

Maybe we're halfway through the book, a little over halfway through the book.

And so what we've talked about is how this letter of Colossians that Paul wrote to this little church in modern-day Turkey.

We see the first two chapters.

Let's see if you've been with us, let's see if you can remember this.

The first two chapters are all about the promises of God to us.

And there's a big word for this.

Does anybody remember this word?

The first two chapters are all about the what?

Indicatives, right?

Big word, kind of like an English language words.

It's what's been indicated to us.

And that's what we see in chapters one, chapter two.

So we just we saw this kind of week in and week out.

It's just what everything's been indicated to us.

And then we saw the shift at the end of chapter two, going in chapter three, and all of a sudden this letter shifted.

And we went from all these promises to like now some stuff we should be doing.

And there was another big word for this.

This was the imperatives, right?

What we should do because of all of this, what we should do.

Now the mistake we usually do because we achievers love this, is we just go to chapters three and four.

We read chapters one and two, and we go, oh, that's so great, that's lovely, that's how I became a Christian.

And then we go, well, I'm just going to focus on three and four.

I'm going to set my mind to what I should do.

And we sort of forget and kind of leave chapters one and two.

And with without knowing it, you kind of set yourself on a path of what would be called moralism, what would be called some people legalism.

You know, this idea of kind of a performance-based life.

And so that's why we've been saying over and over again, you don't leave chapters one and two and all of a sudden just live three and four.

You live out of chapters one and two in order to do what chapters three and four are talking about.

And we've been having some landmine issues and topics the last few weeks, right?

We we talked about racial and social economic demographics, how we relate, and how we should view people of different races and different social economic groupings, and then we talked about marriage and roles in marriage.

And then this week, oh this is a great one, uh parenting.

Right?

I mean, already you're so excited.

Oh, I'm so glad I came to church to feel bad about what a parent I have been or I am or what I will be.

Um and so let's read these verses before you shut me out.

Let's read the verses and let's talk about this.

Uh Colossians 3, 20 and 21.

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Now, if you're you're here and you're still living in your parents' house, um, next week's for you.

So we're going to skip this one so you get a bye week.

Um, this one you're gonna love this week because it's verse 21.

Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

And so if you you can quote this back to your father at times, perhaps.

Um, Paul he takes this verse in Colossians, and we see again, like he did with marriage, in the book of Ephesians, he expounds on it.

So let's we're gonna jump to Ephesians to see where he expounds on it.

Ephesians 6, 1 through 4.

And he says this children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may go well with you, and that you may enjoy long life on earth.

So again, next week, covering that.

This week, fathers, do not exasperate your children.

Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

So Josie is our first child.

We have three girls.

We have Josie, she's uh six, six and a half, if you want to be accurate, that's important.

Um, Izzy, who's four, and Greta May is uh is about to turn two.

So Josie took, is taking, not just took, is taking the brunt of our learning curve, right?

Like all the mistakes on the first one, and then you refine your process and you go, well, let's not do that with the next one, and then by the third one, or if you do four, you just almost don't care to some extent, maybe.

Um it just becomes, you become more and more gracious as you go.

Uh so Josie's taking the, I mean when she came out, I was I knew that's a tennis player.

I mean, I just I could tell the way she was holding her arms, and I mean I just knew, and so it was like as soon as possible, like age three, is like, let's get her a Dora tennis racket, and let's get her, we got we've we need to start.

You know, it's time to start.

She can walk, she can hold her arms up, um, she can barely hold up the racket, but it's time to start.

And so I put her in tennis lessons literally at I think like three and a half, and she can't even swing the racket, poor little thing.

And um, but you know, I could see it.

She was a tennis player, I could see she was, you know, we're gonna be playing tournaments in St.

Simon's and Charleston, she was gonna win all of them.

She was gonna get a scholarship to wake for us.

I mean, I could see the process, I could see the future.

Um, and you you know the story, right?

Like she's three and a half and it's burning up hot, and she can't she can't swing the tennis dragon, and she hates it, right?

And it's like the the f maybe one of the first lessons for me, and many of you are older parents, and you know this over and over and over again.

Oh, oh, this is not about me.

This is about me discovering who she is, how she is wired, and and then us entering the process with God to how to how to raise, not not how to raise a good kid, how to raise a good adult, right?

That's the goal.

A good kid momentary, the goal is a good adult, and really, not just good, like morally, the the the goal is a gracious, humble, at peace adult.

That's the goal.

And here's what we know.

Uh we know maybe you don't have kids yet.

Maybe you don't want kids, maybe you don't have kids, you're not sure if you want kids, maybe you had kids, and you don't you're not sure if you want kids.

Maybe you have kids.

You love them.

In this room, we have all different parenting styles, right?

We love to judge each other about our parenting styles and what you do and don't do.

And everybody, all parents love to do this, and then you get behind with your spouse and you talk about their parenting and their parenting.

I'm not sure about that.

And this is what we do, right?

And you're gonna some somewhat every point I say, in your mind, there's like a counterpoint.

Like, but what about, right?

And I've even prepared this server and I would sort of like make out a point and be like, oh, well, now I need to defend this.

I'm like, we're gonna be here for like three hours.

I mean, so I'm gonna kind of dance around up here as I work through because there's just there's different parenting styles.

Maybe you come from a strict family, maybe you come from a liberal family, maybe you're parenting uh like the way you're parented, or maybe you're parenting in reaction to the way that you're parenting.

Maybe you're in this alone.

And you have you have a tough job.

You're parenting the father role and the mother role.

Uh maybe you don't have any children, and today is all about understanding how you grew up.

But here's what we all want.

Said it last week about marriage.

We we don't want the manipulative life-sucking family.

Right?

Like we all want a good relationship with our children, and as children, we all want, whether we have it or not, good relationship with our parents.

So let's break down that verse four of Ephesians chapter six, and there's four things we see so clearly.

It's one verse, fathers, and it's not just fathers, he's pointing out application to fathers, probably because we don't do this well, but this extends to mothers.

Do not exasperate your children.

Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

So we're gonna break this into four parts.

We're gonna work our way from the back of the verse forward to the front of the verse.

Uh, point number one is this all parenting is of the Lord.

So it's not training and instruction of the world, meaning we're not taking them by the arm and dragging them into perfect behavior and perfect grades and top of the class and best dressed and perfect college and best possible job and career that could ever be created for them.

Because that might happen, and that's fine.

It might not happen.

Right?

So if this is the goal, we've already failed.

That's parenting of the world.

What this is about, parenting of the Lord, is about taking them by the hand and leading them to Jesus, leading them to the grace of God, that no matter how their life plays out, they can be at peace with who they are and how God feels about them.

Which is means to us, it means that we say to our children, cute little precious child, or you know, uh somewhat cute, not always precious teenager or grown-up, competent adult, you're not always magnificent, you're not always golden, you're not always top of the class, you may fail in your career.

Right?

But Jesus is enough for you.

The grace of God is enough for you, for your righteousness and your value, and you can be at peace in Him, right?

So it's us saying to our children, you are broken and self-absorbed and selfish, and you steal toys and you push and you steal jobs, and you're jealous of kids and girls and boys and men and women and wives and husbands and other people and other houses and cars, and I'm like you.

Right?

That's the two words that keep coming back to me in parenting is me too.

Right?

Like I see something in my six-year-old or my four-year-old or two-year-old, and it's playing out on the playground, just like life plays out in the adult world, and I'm watching this and I'm going, yeah, meet I do that.

And now we can have a conversation.

Now there's some some realness to the relationship.

See, we are fighting, we're not fighting against our six-year-old or sixteen-year-old or 26-year-old.

We're not fighting against them.

We're fighting sin and unbelief with them.

We're fighting with them against sin and unbelief.

We're fighting against this drive to look to ourselves, to save ourselves with what we do.

This is the fight.

This is the fight we fight with our two-year-olds to help them understand this, with our 26-year-olds, with our 30-year-olds to help them understand that you are not saved by what you do, but you're saved by what God has done for you.

So, parenting is of the Lord, number two.

We are called to instruct our children of the Lord, to instruct.

So, instruction is primarily about belief.

So in this verse, you see instruction, and then you see discipline.

Discipline is about behavior, instruction is about belief.

Now, Christy and I have received tons of advice over the years about instruction, right?

I'm a minister, so I've taken parenting seminars, and she's been in tons of like women and mothers, you know, groups, and and we're always asking for advice.

We we've just always anytime we're we're around parents that are ahead of us, we're just like, tell us the tips.

What how'd you mess up?

What worked, what didn't work.

Some of the tips that just kind of just popped in my mind this week is be intentional with your time in your talk.

Like put your phone down.

Right?

Mind blowing.

Mind-blowing change of culture in your home.

Walk in the house and put your phone down.

Not like down and pick it back up ten seconds later, check something.

Like just put it down.

Just put it down for like several hours at a time.

Mind-blowing, revolutionary to your children for them to have that kind of attention.

Eat meals together at the table.

We have dance parties.

We love that.

Go for walks, go on vacations.

Read a scripture verse at dinner.

Say prayers at bedtime.

Say prayers on the way to school.

The bottom line, whether your kids are little or grown, is create open conversations.

I remember one mother who was mentoring Christie years ago, and I think it was when Josie had just been born, and she said, Here, you know, what you've got to establish as early as possible is establish that you're the boss.

There's nothing greater for your children to understand authority.

And they learn at the home, and it will be a benefit to them their entire life.

And she said, You know what we do?

Because I can and I can remember this over and over and over again, we've just gotten out of this process, is you put that little child in the car seat, and this car seat is the best thing for them.

You've picked them, you just dressed them, you've bathed them, you changed their diaper, you fed them, you're putting them in the car seat, you've done everything for them, and you're putting them in the car seat, the safest place for them, and what are they doing?

They are bucking, right?

They are fighting you, and it makes you so mad.

And we would just grab their hips and do not heart, just put them at the back of the seat and look her in the eye and say, I'm the boss.

We still say it.

We'll we'll we'll we'll leave, you know, like go out for a date and the babysitter's there, and we'll say, Y'all know who the boss is here?

And we'll say the babysitter's name.

But there's nothing greater for that, for for them to understand that.

They're gonna have they're gonna have authority.

We have authority our entire lives.

And over and over again, it's establishing that.

And this is good for them.

This is good for us.

See, letting someone uh letting someone be the boss when they are not equipped or designed to be the boss is a disservice to them.

Because the family will be in dysfunction.

You've seen families like this, where the kids run the house, where where the parents don't lead in the home.

It's dysfunction.

It's dysfunction within the relationships, it's dysfunction as a whole.

You know why?

Because the the kids, they need, they need you to lead.

It relieves them so they can be a child.

Isn't that amazing?

See, see, in our culture, there's this there's this child-centeredness.

You put the child at the center of the family, and then the marriage and the the adults and the parents revolve around the child.

It's a pressure the child can't hold.

And so the child doesn't get to be a child.

They think they want it, but they can't handle it.

They can't handle the weight.

But when you when you say, no, no, you're not the boss, actually, the marriage is going to go at the center of the family, or the parents can be at the center of the family, and you're going to revolve around that.

What it does is it frees the child to be a child and to grow up.

This is gracious parenting for them to understand they're not the boss.

At the core, so at the core, instruction is about belief, helping your child to think rightly about the world, themselves, and God.

All week I just kept asking myself, why is this so continually difficult?

Like, why is it difficult for me?

Why is it easy to be silent at the dinner table?

Why is it easy to cut bedtime short?

Why is it easy to never enter the meaningful conversation?

Why is it easy to never expose a weakness?

And so your child never opens up to you either.

What's going on?

We talked about it last week with marriage.

It's fear.

We're afraid.

We're just afraid to enter that kind of relationship of depth, of being known, of being exposed.

So we have this fear of being really known, but but it's got to, we gotta get past that fear in order to start to enter into some real relationship.

And for many of us, dads, for many of us, and I think maybe that's why Paul has this application to us, for many of us, it's it's a fear that we're not enough.

You know what?

Like my wife is more spiritual than me, she knows more Bible than me.

I don't have my act together.

They're gonna ask something I don't know.

And we think we have to have our acts together, we think we have to be experts before we can enter like really great parenting, and you don't.

You don't have to know everything, you don't have to have your act together to enter into being a good dad.

You don't have to have an in-depth Greek and Hebrew Bible study at night.

I hope you don't, because your kids aren't going to enjoy that one.

Right?

I mean, this is about creating conversations with your children about things that matter.

How does all that's going on in their life, and how does faith intersect it?

So this means in the car or on a walk or read a verse at the dinner table, and how are you creating this?

And you are out there in the world, you are using anything possible for these kinds of conversations to develop.

You pause the TV show.

They're just not waiting for us to be perfectly strong.

They're waiting for us just to be real and to engage.

Some days I'm great at this in our house, some days I'm vacant from this at our house.

Sometimes we read the Jesus Storybook Bible at night, sometimes we pray on the way to school.

Even the things in which I'm suggesting to you, there are so many ways for you to go figure out.

You're smart people, for you to go figure out how what it means in your home with your children.

Last Sunday we were watching uh American Idol.

Our girls love to watch American Idol, and then as soon as it's off, you know, they put the music on and they are going to town, a different level of intensity of singing and dancing in our house.

And so we're watching it, and you know the storyline on the show, right?

Like they're at the tryout phase, and so these people come in and they are so in love with the idea, first off, that oh, I get to touch Keith and J Lo and uh Harry Koenig, oh, I can't imagine being in the room with them, you know, and all this, and then they get in there and oh, I can't believe I'm with y'all, and then they sing and they're no good, or they're average and they they don't make it, right?

They're destroyed.

It's you know, the end of their life.

Right?

We've seen this.

And so we're watching this, and some people make it and they get by and they can't be, oh, it's the best thing that's ever happened in their life, and then the next person, you know, it's the worst thing that's happened in their life.

And so we're watching this.

And the next morning we're on the way to school, I'm driving Josie to school on Monday morning, and there's this song on the radio, and here are the lyrics.

I don't need my name in lights, I'm famous in my father's eyes, make no mistake, he knows my name.

I'm not living for applause.

I'm already so adored.

And I said, I said, Josie, I said, Did you, babe, do you think some of those people who are trying out for American Idol need to know that?

She's like, What'd they say?

And I repeated the lyrics back, and she was like, Yes.

And and I said, Do you think that, like, do you think you need to know that?

Do you think I do you think I need to know that?

Can we have this little five-minute conversation on the way to school?

Like some huge, big just a conversation.

It's just asking to speak into our kids' lives over and over and over again.

You are loved and you don't have to earn it.

And you can find value.

You can find value in what Jesus has done for you.

You can be a part of great things in the world, and you can succeed and you can fail.

That's what we want to instruct in the good and instruct out the foolishness.

So, number three, you are called to train and discipline your children.

Well, here's all the judgment to each other, right?

Like, well, you know, they spank, or they don't spank, and they don't spank, and you can see that, or they do spank, and you can see that, or they must have never dealt with that boy, or they must have never dealt with that girl, right?

We've all had these thoughts, and we look at each other's families and stuff like that.

And I'm not sure how you discipline or you plan to discipline.

I'm not sure how much I even care.

Um, I just know you should discipline.

Right?

You should nip things in the bud.

You need to protect your child from unhealthy ways of thinking and behaving.

See, discipline is about helping your child to see.

It's not crushing the child, it's about helping them to see right and wrong, the clarity of it, and for them to see they are not perfect.

And they need grace.

Some great advice on this topic over the years has been you discipline for disobedience, dishonesty, and disrespect.

Immediate obedience, don't always have a conversation.

Obey first, we can talk about it later.

We have a song around our house, fast, happy, and all the way, fast, happy, and all the way, fast, happy.

Girls hate it at this point.

I just go around singing it.

And we deal with things when they're small so they don't become large.

Right?

And some of you have have older kids, and you're trying to discipline at age 14 or 15, or even attempting something at age 28, and you're going, man, I wonder if if we had disciplined a little bit more at age four, what would have happened?

And you don't know, but you just wonder.

And as the kids age, discipline has become, I think, probably a little more creative.

Putting their nose in the corner doesn't take the same uh uh effect on them.

And what we see is we see this process in parenting, right?

Like ages one through five tend to be sort of like heavy instruction, and then you move like out of age five and like six through um, well, age one through five tends to be more discipline oriented, and then ages like five through ten or so tend to be more instruction, and then they get in those teen years, and you're sort of coaching, you're still disciplining, you're still instructing, but there tends to be a little more freedom given to them, you're coaching, and and then they leave the house, and really you're emancipating them.

And really, friendship should occur is the goal.

You're still coaching.

You're still there.

I was asking a friend of ours who she she raised two boys and they weren't perfect boys, but they made it out of the house and they're functional at-peace adults.

And I just said, hey, what did you do?

What worked?

What didn't work?

And she said, you know, we instruct, we disciplined, we instructed.

Where I made a mistake is when they got into high school, I just kept talking.

I just kept lecturing.

I didn't kind of just pull back a little and start to just listen.

And so what they did was they shut me out.

See, she kept instructing.

She didn't pull back, give them, right?

The old, you know, like our grandmother said, give them enough rope to go and hang themselves, and when they hang themselves, you reel them back in, and then you give them enough rope to go hang themselves, and then you reel them back in.

And it's the process of freeing your child.

That's the goal, to emancipate your child into the world.

But we have to do this, point number four.

We are called to raise our kids, to instruct them and discipline without exasperating them.

Right?

So the Colossians verse uses the word embitter.

So you have to do all of this, right?

I mean, this is so difficult.

You have to do all of this without them getting to the end of the process and being bitter toward you, without creating anger toward you.

The two things that jumped out to me, think the ways that I think that I exasperate my children in the first way, is just demanding too much.

Demanding my six-year-old to behave like a 12-year-old?

Demanding a 12-year-old to act like an 18-year-old?

Demanding them to be faster and stronger and more successful, and it's just a pace of which they can't take it.

They already know that call.

That's the call of the world.

They already know that.

What they need from you is unconditional love.

The second way I think that I, I don't know about you, but I can exasperate my children, is by protective love versus freeing love.

And so protective love is always wanting to swoop in and save the day.

Right?

You're like all over them.

They can never kind of open up their wings and be a four-year-old or a 14-year-old or a 24-year-old because you're just, you're protecting, you're suffocating, you're never giving them enough room for God to form them.

I'm really good at this.

I'm dad.

You know, I have three little girls, so I am dad.

I want you to be safe.

I don't want you to get hurt.

But it's suffocation for them, and eventually they will result and they will go and they will turn towards rebellion or they will turn towards performance because their souls are suffocating.

So I was just trying to think of an image of this all week.

I was trying to think of an image of what is this?

Protective love and freeing love, and what does this look like in this winter time?

So I was starting to think about if you take a trip out west to go skiing, maybe you ski or you don't ski, but you'll pick up on the imagery, um, and you go to Vale, Colorado, and you get on the gondola to go to the top, and what you know is you're gonna get on that gondola, and you're gonna get up, and then you're gonna ski over to the sourdough express, up to the top, and then on the back southern mountains this beautiful bowl, China bowl.

And it is white and it is beautiful, and you start above treeline, and you go down into the trees, and you wake up that first morning that you're in veil, and you look outside, and it is blue skies, it is perfect.

And you get on the gondola, and when you get on the gondola, you're nice and comfy, and it's just you and your buddy, and you got lots of room, and then in come like six uh smelly 13-year-olds, sorry, 13-year-olds, and they pack themselves in, and they're smelly, they didn't they hadn't showered, and and so they're in there, and you're crammed, you all your ski clothes on starting to get hot as the gondola gets higher and higher, you're getting hotter and hotter and hotter, and you're getting the top, you can see the you can see where you get off.

You're like, please just let me get off.

Oh, and they're talking and yelling, and and and you're crammed in the corner, it's hotter, and it's hotter, and you just want off.

Like, all you want is to get to that bowl where you are free and you are open, and it is beautiful, and right when you get to the top and you can see where you get off, the the gondola stops.

And you're trapped.

But you're safe.

You're actually safer there.

You're not gonna tear your ACL, you're not gonna hit a tree.

You're you're actually safe.

That's protective love.

And all you want is owl.

All you want is is to be free.

And protective love smothers and suffocates.

And the role of the parent is to emancipate and free over time through discipline and instruction and training and coaching and conversations and letting that rope in and pulling that rope back in, and the child needs to go out and fail and tear their ACL and you pull them back in.

We tend to think parenting is all about us showing our kids the way forward, right?

Like we're the mighty parents, we're gonna show our kids the way forward, but I think all of us have learned that if you let your children, they will show you the way forward.

And what I mean is this is your children will reveal to you your selfishness and your love of comfort or your love of affirmation because you're trying to use your kids to feel more affirmed.

They will reveal your anxiety, they will reveal your fears.

And this is where the revolution occurs within parenting.

Do you remember my uh remember my beach umbrella anchor from last week?

If you were here, it says this is what we use.

We go to Hilton Head in the summer for beach week with the family, and we get out there, and sometimes that sand's so hard, it's like concrete, and I'm out there and I'm twisting this thing in, and and you know, sometimes I get it about right here, but man, it just needs to go a little bit deeper.

And Christy, come over here, and she pushes on this side.

Oh, we're gonna muscle that thing in.

And when we when we both work together embracing the the right role, we talked last week about marriage, it it works, it goes deeper into where we want to go.

But if if one of us sort of like doesn't embrace uh the right role, all of a sudden we stall out or it reverses back out to a place we don't want to be.

The revolution within parenting, where it exists, is when we embrace our role of parenting, instructing, disciplining, coaching, releasing them, emancipating them into the world, but at the same time letting them show us our own issues, our own sin.

And when we do that, we see that we go deeper and deeper and deeper into freedom, into the freedom of the grace of God for us.

And when we do that, we start to hear things, right?

It's the same, it's the same things we're saying to our children.

See, our children will reveal our inner issues.

And then the same things we're saying to our children are the things that we hear from a perfect, perfect Heavenly Father.

Things like you're not perfect.

You're not a per you're not a perfect dad, you're not a perfect mom, you weren't a perfect dad, you weren't a perfect mom.

But Jesus is enough for that shortcoming.

He He has been and He will be.

You're not always gonna be top of the class, you're gonna be the top parent, but Jesus is enough.

You don't have to look to your children to justify yourself.

You don't have to look to your work and you don't have to save yourself.

Listen, here's what this means: it means that God is enough for us in Jesus.

It means you don't have to use your children.

You just get to raise them.

Which is really freeing.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you that you're enough for us, and though we're a whole bunch of imperfect parents in here, or we come from imperfect parents.

And maybe even this morning has been about understanding that the shortcomings of our parents and be a good place for us to forgive this morning.

For those of us that are in parenting, many of us this morning need to forgive ourselves of our own shortcomings.

Many of us need to be a little more open to see our own sin that our children are revealing to us, that we might see your grace and we might go deeper and deeper and deeper into the grace of God and into the freedom we have.

God, would you help us to know the freedom of not using our children but raising them for your glory.

Amen.