In Relation To: Four Choices Every Parent Makes

Yeah, so if you're new, we're in a series right now called In Relation to, and we're going through the book of Ephesians, and we're at this point in Ephesians where the writer, Paul, uh, he starts talking about key relationships in our lives from God's perspective.

That's really what the Bible is.

That's what the books and the letters that represent the Bible that make up the Bible are.

It's God's perspective on our lives, on how to live life in relation to Him and in relation to one another.

And those things often conflict.

It would be a lot easier for me to live in relation to God if I could just be by myself all day, every day, hanging out, praying, and listening to whatever I wanted to listen to and reading whatever I wanted to read, but that's not my life because I have to live in relation to people.

I have a spouse, I have people that I work with, I have children.

And those relationships, they they often challenge how I relate to God.

They can distract, they can replace sometimes.

And so we have to learn how to live in relation to one another if we want to live in relation to God in the first place.

Those two things go hand in hand.

And Jesus always connected them.

Jesus always said, Hey, if you want to love God with everything you have, you better love people.

Because you can't say you love God and not love people.

And you can't say, Oh, I love people, but like I don't love God, really, because God created people.

Like He invented us.

And so these two are deeply connected.

And we've been exploring what it looks like to live in relation to each other.

Now, the three relationships that Paul talks about are husbands and wives.

We covered that for a few weeks.

So everyone's marriages are totally healthy and good, and everyone's ready to get married and have a healthy one.

Because it's easy.

Two weeks, you're good.

You're good.

Um we have children and parents, and then we're gonna move on soon to employers and employees.

Last week we kicked off talking about parenting.

And uh Fred joined us, Fred Goodwin, he did an incredible job.

I was so glad to have Fred with us last week.

Who's here last week, by the way?

They got to hear Fred talk.

Fred's awesome.

I love that dude.

He is like, he, yeah, you I'll tell him that seven people clapped.

Um, it's good.

He's humble, he'll be fine.

You know, Fred's a mentor in my life.

He's a pastor that I basically asked to pastor me because I really need that.

And so he and I meet, and he's just full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit, and I was so excited to have him speak, and that probably won't be the only time that happens, but I was so glad to hear him last week.

I was challenged.

And if you weren't here, listen to the podcast, download our mobile app, listen to it there, our website, however you want to do that.

But there was this one thing that he said that it's been on my mind like all week long, and it was, are you a thermostat or a thermometer?

Do you want to be a thermostat or a thermometer?

If you weren't here last week, you're like, what does that mean?

Listen to the podcast.

Uh, he'll explain it.

And I was thinking about that choice that he outlined last week, thermostat or thermometer, which do I want to be?

And it really, it really hit me all week long that so much of our lives boil down to simple choices that we make.

That the choices that we make, they they really do determine how our lives go most of the time.

The problem is we're not we're often not aware of the choices that we're making.

Now, in relation to parenting, I know that not all of us in the room are parents.

And just real quick, show of hands, because I do want to see who I'm talking to.

How many of us have children that we are currently raising?

Okay?

That's a lot of us in the room.

Okay?

How many of us have children that we think are too old to be raising, but we're still raising for some reason?

Don't raise your hand, don't let them know, they might be here, right?

You know, some of us, some of us have never had children.

And for some of us that haven't had kids, that might be a really, a really deep struggle.

But I want you to understand that the Lord, he has this thing called spiritual parenting.

You actually see Paul in the Bible who wrote Ephesians, he didn't have kids.

But he actually referred to some of the people in his life as his spiritual sons.

Because he had this mentorship relationship with them, and he actually got to fill in for maybe their their biological parents.

And so you might not have biological children, but God may want you to spiritually parent someone and mentor someone.

So everything that we talk about, it relates to that.

Some of us don't have kids yet, and we're going to one day.

And you might think if you don't have kids yet, but you you plan on it, that you'll be fine, that you'll have it all figured out because you're gonna do it different than your parents did it.

Look, it's hard, okay?

It's so much harder.

They don't come with a manual other than the Bible.

That's the only manual you need, but like it's hard.

Parenting is difficult.

We need help.

And so so many of us raised our hands.

Look, all of us, parents or no, God's our father.

And understanding parenting from his point of view, it helps us understand him.

So this is really, really good.

What I want to do today is I want to I want to talk about four choices that every parent makes, whether they realize it or not.

Like I said, Fred's message last week, this choice of thermostat thermometer.

It's been on my mind all week long.

And as I've prayed and said, okay, Lord, what do you want us to jump into this week?

I wanted to take at least one week and expand on parenting a little bit because Ephesians gives us like one verse on it.

And it's a powerful verse.

Fred read it last week, Ephesians 6.4.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them.

Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.

That's just one verse, then it moves on.

But all through scripture, all through the story of the Bible, we see these examples of how God parents.

If we can really see him as a father, we see these examples of how he actually parents us.

And so I've been praying all week long.

Lord, show us the choices that we can make as parents that will make us like you and help our children grow into the people that you want them to be.

Now, like I said a minute ago, the problem with choices is sometimes we don't realize we're making them.

I have four young kids.

Nine years old is my oldest.

That's my most mature person.

Nine.

Okay?

And so a lot of the times what I'm doing at home is I'm just reacting.

I'm just reacting to every little mini crisis that happens.

And sometimes it's like, yeah, this, okay, yeah, put that down.

What are you doing?

Stop it.

Quit crying.

Why are you crying?

Why am I crying?

Megan, why are you crying?

Why is everybody crying?

Like, what's going on?

You know?

And I'm just reacting to what's happening, but the reality is, every moment that I'm reacting, I'm actually making a choice.

It just doesn't feel like it.

When you live in reaction mode, and parenting kind of makes us live in reaction mode, you don't realize sometimes that your reactions are actually decisions, and those decisions might be bigger than you realize.

And I believe that if we could pull back a little bit, get out of reaction mode, even for 30 minutes, just get out of reaction mode and see the choices before us as they are, recognize the choices that we're making on a daily basis as parents, we might choose differently.

And I'd like to ask you to be open to that today.

I want you to know personally that preparing a message like this is very convicting, because I am not a perfect father at all.

It's not like I'm sitting here, how can I tell them my wisdom, Lord, and all the great things that I'm doing, like while my children are running around screaming and I'm like, I don't know what to do.

I have no idea what to do right now.

You know?

It's a convicting thing for me to prepare this because I need to grow as a father.

And so it's like I get to write a message to myself, and this has been an interesting week in that light.

But I think these choices matter.

And we see these all through scripture.

And so I just want to unpack them one by one.

Okay?

Choice one.

Let's just jump in.

Health or happiness.

As you raise your children, are you more committed to their health, their long-term health as human beings, or their their temporary happiness?

And look, I've got four kids.

I've got my nine-year-old, then I've got a five-year-old, I've got a three-year-old, I've got a one-year-old.

And I can say from experience that there are few things more annoying than living in a house with an unhappy child.

Like an unhappy little kid is annoying.

Right?

They just like they make noises that are annoying.

I love my kids, but when they're unhappy and they cry in the back of the car, when like all four of them are in the back of the car and they're all arguing because someone touched them, looked at them, sang a song that they didn't want that person to sing, and they're screaming at the top of their lungs, they're able to hit like a pitch, like a note, that it's like something burrowing into your brain.

It's awful.

You know, unhappy children throw fits and they cry and they they have temper tantrums and they're very difficult to live with.

It is hard to live with an unhappy child.

Amen.

You know what's harder than living with an unhappy child?

Living with an unhealthy adult.

And the reality is, all of our children, those of us that are raising kids, we're gonna pass them on to someone else.

And you don't want to do that and say, I'm so sorry.

You know?

They they drove me nuts, and I was just trying to shut them up.

And so the way they are, it's your mess now.

Like that's not the way we want that to go.

But the reality is, unhappy children are difficult.

Unhealthy adults, way more difficult.

I'm grateful for the fact that I spent years in children's ministry because it really prepared me for working with adults, because most unhealthy adults are just adults who act like children.

You know, oh, you didn't get what you want, you're throwing a fit.

Okay, you're just a child.

I'll just treat you like a child.

It's great.

Um so it prepared me for that.

But like the way we raise our children, it matters.

And what happens so often for me personally is when they're unhappy, when my kids are unhappy, what I naturally want to do is pacify.

Right?

I want to pacify them.

Like my one-year-old, when he cries, whoever invented pacifiers, pray for them and thank God for this person.

Because I just like plug their mouth, you know?

They make a noise.

I don't like that noise.

Ah.

Instantaneous relief.

But sometimes we do that with four-year-olds, five-year-olds, eight-year-olds, thirteen-year-olds.

The pacifiers just become way more expensive and different.

And so they're complaining they're unhappy, and okay, what can I do right now just to make you happy, make you stop?

We just give them whatever they want.

Because we don't want to deal with the unhappiness.

There's a scripture in Judges, Old Testament, and says that in those days Israel had no king, and all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.

And we might read that and go, what a utopia.

Everybody just did what they felt like doing.

Things must have been great.

No.

No, no, no.

Read the story right before this.

Like, seriously, read it today.

It's a story about men in Israel who said, hey, we don't have wives.

Let's go kidnap those women from that village and make them our wives.

That's what they did.

And this was like 3,000 years ago, barbaric, barbaric times.

But then it says they just did what was right in their own eyes.

So to them, that was right.

And it made them happy in the moment.

Now look, there's a lot of times where what's healthy and what's happy are the same thing.

There's times where my kids want something that would make them happy, and it also happens to be something that I think would be good for them and fine, and that's great.

But oftentimes what a child wants that will make them happy right now is not what's healthy for them.

And as a parent, we have a responsibility to choose health, long-term health over temporary happiness.

That's challenging sometimes because as a dad, I want to give my kids gifts.

I want to bless them, I want to spoil them sometimes.

By the way, so does God.

Like his heart is to be a gift giver.

In John chapter 4, verse 10, Jesus is talking to this woman at a well, and he says, if you would only know the gift that God has for you and who you're talking to, you would ask me and I would give you the Holy Spirit.

John 4:10

Living water is what he's talking about.

Like this spirit inside of you that will change who you are, will be with you always.

God's a gift giver.

But he doesn't just give us gifts, he gives us good gifts, gifts that are for our benefit.

And Jesus actually says that.

He says, hey, parents, if you ask your child for something good, do you give them that or something bad?

Well, of course, you give them something good.

Well, how much more does God give good gifts to his children?

God does not just give us gifts, he gives us good gifts.

And we've got to model that.

And sometimes that means denying our children something that might make them temporarily happy for the sake of their long-term health.

Now that's something you've got to decide as a parent.

My kids are getting old enough that they're starting to ask for things like cell phones.

I haven't had to have that battle yet.

But you know what's interesting?

We've we've had we've had smartphones and social media long enough for us to actually study the effects on developing brains, and it is not good.

I got really encourage you to do some research.

There's a guy named Jonathan Haidt who's written some stuff about social media's effect on adolescents, and it's it's scary stuff.

And I know that if you all go home and take your phones away from your kids and say that your social media account's over, they're gonna like re-b but maybe that's extreme, maybe pray about that.

But if you read some of the research, you might be tempted to.

And so I'm at this point now where my kids are starting to ask for these things.

And my son actually asked for a phone.

A phone! He's nine.

He wants a phone.

Like, who are you gonna call?

You know?

Ghostbusters.

There you go, Jimmy.

He set it up, you spiked it.

That was awesome.

See, it's already in my head now.

Okay.

Um, I didn't see that coming.

So uh, you know, so so he wants a phone because his his friends have a phone.

And I'm like, son, I don't I don't think it's good for you to have a phone.

I just think that there's temptations and there's there's stuff that you're gonna want to deal with, and I don't think you're ready for that.

I don't know if I'm ready for that, to be honest with you.

Like, and he's like, but dad, I'm the only one who doesn't.

You know, but here's the reality I I loved when he said that because I said, well, son, you're a Jesus follower.

And there's gonna be a lot of times in life that because you follow Jesus, you'll be the only one who doesn't.

And so if this if this can teach you to be okay with being the only one who doesn't, I'm alright with that.

Because I want you to be a man who's strong enough to be the only one who doesn't when everyone else is.

Sometimes we have to choose health over happiness.

And God makes that choice for us.

That's choice one.

Am I more committed to my child's temporary happiness?

And like we live in a world that says whatever makes them happy.

Whatever makes them happy.

As long as they're happy, no, as long as they're healthy, because guess who tends to be more happy?

People who are healthy.

All right, be committed to your child's health.

Choice two is strength or safety.

Strength or safety.

Now, all of these choices are kind of interconnected.

There's there's nuance, so there's some overlap.

And if you look at the last choice and you say, yes, health, I'm gonna be committed to their health, you take that to an extreme, and you'll just try to insulate your children from every bad thing that could possibly happen to them, every negative stimulus.

That's this one extreme.

Extremes usually aren't good.

Sometimes they are, but but a lot of times not.

And so, one extreme of parenting is to have no rules, no boundaries, right?

Just let them do whatever they want.

And if you're that parent, your kid's gonna think you're awesome when you're thirteen when they're 13.

And all their friends will.

Their friends are like, your dad's the best, he doesn't make you do anything you don't want to do, and he lets you stay up late, and he lets you do this, and there's no rules.

Your dad is awesome.

I wish my dad was like your dad.

But studies show that if you raise your kids like that, they actually grow to resent you.

Because one day they're they're old enough to realize, oh, you didn't do your job.

And that was just laziness, and you didn't want to take the time to actually challenge me to help me grow, and I'm not prepared for life because you gave me no boundaries and structure.

So that extreme breeds resentment.

But if you go the other way and you have unnecessary boundaries, like if you're more strict than God, okay, like and you do that, then your children actually oftentimes experience rebellion because they recognize that the boundaries you set, they have no basis in God's word.

They have no basis in even logic.

It's just, it's arbitrary and it's intense, and they want to rebel against that.

So we have to avoid extremes.

The extreme of being committed to your child's health, like you have an unhealthy commitment to their health, might be a way to say that, is that you will try to make sure, control, hyper-control their lives, so that they never experience failure, never experience uh struggle, never experience heartache, right?

And if you do that, what you're basically guaranteeing is that they won't be strong enough for life.

Do I want to value strength or safety?

If you read scripture, you'll find, like, pretty consistently, just read the whole Bible for reference.

Um, God is not overly concerned with our safety.

There are so many times where He takes someone he loves and he calls them to do something incredibly dangerous.

Like insanely dangerous.

You can read the story of Joshua, for example.

Joshua led the people of Israel into the promised land, he's who succeeded Moses.

And right before he goes, God says, be strong and courageous over and over again.

Be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous.

Why?

Because what Joshua was gonna have to do was hard, and he needed to be strong if he was gonna succeed.

God's saying, you better be ready, be strong, be courageous.

Because what I'm asking you to do is hard.

I love the story of the Garden of Eden.

It's a great example of this.

And we always say that we're a tree of life church, and we talk about that.

And if you're here for a while and you're like, what is that all about?

What's with all the trees?

You'll you'll get it eventually, don't worry, it's like our symbol.

And if you're unfamiliar, that that basic story, God makes people and he puts them in paradise.

Puts them in paradise.

They're in this garden called Eden, and it's great, and all their needs are met, and they have everything that they could possibly need, and it's just perfection in paradise, and there's no sin yet, so the world isn't broken, it's just perfect, it's paradise.

And you get to chapter three of Genesis, and it says, it's so interesting, the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made.

One day he asked the woman, Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?

And you might know how the story ends.

He's tempting them to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

This one thing God said not to do.

And you might ask the question, well, why did God put that tree in the garden in the first place?

If it was so dangerous, why even put it there?

And maybe a better question is, why are there serpents in the garden?

Are there not fences?

Is there no pest control in paradise?

I mean, how many of us would say, hey, come with me to paradise?

And one of the great features is all these serpents, you know?

It's awesome.

It's a beautiful place.

It's so interesting that we have the Garden of Eden, which is God's perfect paradise for people, and for some reason it's not serpent-proof.

Because shouldn't perfection be perfectly safe?

And I heard an author say it in a really interesting way that I'm gonna butcher, uh basically, because I don't have it in front of me, but he said maybe God's idea of perfection is more about strength than safety.

Because even in the garden, they were susceptible to attack.

See, the reality is you cannot control what your children are exposed to.

Now, now, it's not like we want to make our children purposefully unsafe.

You know?

You don't know how to swim, throw you in.

That's the best way to learn.

You know, it's not what we're talking about.

Here's the reality as parents, and this is a challenge, your home needs to be a safe landing spot for your children.

Your home should be the safest place that your child can be as they develop and grow.

And do whatever it takes, whatever it takes to make sure that your home is safe, that your children never have to have their guard up when they're at home.

But when they go out to the world, you can't control that.

But many parents try to.

And so you try to win all your all your child's battles.

You fight all their fights.

You know, if a teacher gives them a bad grade, then you you give it to that teacher.

Because that teacher was being unfair.

What's gonna happen one day when that teacher is a boss?

You're gonna go call your kid's boss and be like, you did, you, you don't realize how special this no, like it's just gonna get them fired.

Like, seriously, if a mom of one of my employees called me and did that, I'd probably just fire him because I don't want to have that ever happen again.

You know?

I am being serious.

So, like somewhat.

But how often do we fight our children's battles for them?

How often do we try to arbitrarily ensure their success?

That I'll make sure you are in a fail-proof situation.

And if you're not happy in your class, I'll move your class, or I'll make sure you're on the sports team that's that's like guaranteed to win, so you don't have to deal with loss.

But if you raise your kids that way, they will not be strong.

And here's a question to ask, and I would love some participation.

Parents of children that you're currently raising, how many of you believe your child is meant for something great?

Raise your hand if you believe your child's meant.

Some of us are like, eh, I don't know.

Um, like seriously, how many of you, again, show of hands, how many of you say, I think my child is meant for something great and important?

Are you raising them to be strong enough to actually do that important thing?

Because important things require strength.

And if you really believe they're meant for something great, then you'll raise them in such a way where you actually allow them to experience the consequences of their failures so that they can learn and grow stronger.

So if you've got a fourth grader and they don't study for a test, just let them fail.

And then ground them.

And go, you should have studied.

That's basic.

No TV until you get a good grade on the next test.

And they'll be unhappy, but you're more committed to their health than their happiness.

So it's all good, right?

Raise them to be strong.

Okay, the third, and this is really convicting for me personally.

Choice number three are we teaching our children to live by conviction or convenience?

Conviction or convenience.

I said this was convicting for me because it's about conviction.

And so I had a moment this last week that was really convicting.

Um we are in the process of moving or trying to move, and everything's kind of up in the air, and that's how these things go.

And it's great, it's awesome, it's an adventure, it's awesome.

Um and because we're we're in that process, we've got a house for sale, we're under contract on another, but our house has to sell, and that house has some things that so we'll see what happens.

God's good, I trust him.

And we're kind of on the run a lot.

And so we've been going through drive-throughs like crazy.

And uh and my son asked for something the other day, and I said, uh, son, we can't afford that.

And then I pull into a drive-thru.

And I'm like, uh, I'll have a this, this, this, and this.

And then it hit me, man, how many times have I pulled through a drive-thru in the last week and he's been in the car with me?

And here I am saying, we can't afford that, but then I'm spending money on food like crazy.

And he's gonna see that.

You know, how many times do we tell our kids, you can't watch that on television, you can't watch that show, you can't watch that program, it's inappropriate.

And then we're watching something that that we would never want them to watch.

They see that.

I always think about myself like I'm not a better dad than God is, and so if I wouldn't want my son exposed to something that I think would be unhealthy for him, what makes me think my heavenly father would want me to expose myself to something that's not healthy?

Healthy for me.

He's a better dad than me.

And whether it's our finances, whether it's our our like it's our finances, it's our what we what I mean, what we watch, how we organize our lives, even things as simple as getting up early in the morning, going to bed, eating dinner together as a family.

Are we teaching our children to live by conviction?

I mentioned Joshua earlier.

There's this awesome moment in his story.

He's led the people of Israel into the promised land.

They've conquered most of it, but now they're starting to intermingle with the other people who live there.

And it's becoming fashionable to abandon faith in God and just follow other things.

That's like the day they live in.

And so this is happening.

And Joshua speaks to the people.

He says, Fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly.

Put away forever the idols that your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt.

Serve the Lord alone.

But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today who you'll serve.

Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates?

By the way, he's talking about a time when their gods could do nothing to help them because their gods were not real.

He says, Or would you rather have the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live?

But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.

You see the conviction that's there.

It's not convenient for Joshua to serve the Lord in that moment.

But he's living not out of convenience, but out of conviction.

He's saying, look, me and my family, we serve the Lord.

So we do certain things because of that.

I love what Fred shared last week about his children asking why they couldn't go to Disney World.

And him saying, Well, son, we're we're Jesus followers.

And because of that, we've made a commitment to be generous with our income.

And we give 10% plus of our income to our church and to other charities every single month.

If we didn't give that, we could go to Disney World.

But we've decided that's more important.

And so we're gonna go on vacations or we're gonna have fun.

It may not be Disney World, though, because we give.

Praise God for that.

Because that's teaching your children to live by conviction.

Now here's the reality: you cannot control the convictions your children will have when they grow up.

Just because you live by conviction does not mean that they'll have your convictions.

But at least they'll learn to live by conviction.

At least they'll learn to live by principle.

So as you raise your children, do you model conviction, having principles that are so important to you that they predetermine what you will do in certain situations?

See, I'm a Jesus follower, so because I've said yes to Jesus, I should already be saying yes to a lot of other things.

Because that yes to Jesus includes a lot of other yeses and some no's.

It's a principle.

Do we live out of that principled conviction living, or are we just doing whatever's most convenient, easiest in the moment, and modeling that for our children?

It's conviction over convenience.

Fourth and final choice is agape or anything less.

Agape or anything less.

Now, some of you are probably familiar with the word agape.

It's a Greek word that translates in the New Testament love.

And so, for example, in 1 John 4.8, the Bible says, whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Now, when we see the word love there, talking about God's love, it's this Greek word agape.

Anytime in the New Testament, which was written in Greek originally, you see the word love talking about God anything, it's agape.

And in the Greek language, they had several words that get translated love.

Some of you are familiar with this, right?

There's the word philia, which is brotherly love, friendship.

That's why Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love.

It's from that same root word.

There's the word eros.

We get the word erotic from eros.

That's romance, that's attraction.

Agape is a whole different kind of love.

1 Corinthians 13 is a scripture that's read at a lot of weddings.

I read it at a lot of weddings.

Everyone asks, can you read that?

I'm like, yes, you do know what this is actually saying, though, right?

This isn't saying, like, I have warm fuzzies for you.

This is saying, I will love you as God loves me.

And it says that love is patient, love is kind, it doesn't boast, it doesn't delight in evil, it rejoices with the truth, it doesn't envy.

It says love keeps no record of wrongs, it's quick to forgive.

Love always hopes, it always trusts, it never gives up, it never, it never stops believing.

That love never fails.

And you could read 1 Corinthians 13, and every time you see that word love, just replace it in your mind with agape, because it's talking about the specific kind of love, agape.

Now, what's really interesting is there is another Greek word for love that we actually don't see in the New Testament.

It's a Greek word that existed at that time, but we don't see it in the Bible.

And so even if you grow up in church that's talked about agape and these other things, you may have never heard this word.

It's storgi, which is an interesting word.

Storgy.

I'm glad we say love.

I just feel like saying I storge you would be like, feels like, I don't know, it feels wrong.

Um storgy, it means the natural love that a parent has for a child.

So it's it's familial love.

And here's the reality, guys.

We all love our kids.

Like if you have kids, of course you love your kids.

You have a natural love for your children.

But the challenge is that as Jesus followers, those of us who would say I'm a Jesus follower, we're not called to love our kids naturally, we're called to love our kids supernaturally.

So saying, Oh yeah, I love my kids, great.

How do you love them?

Do you love them just the natural way that all parents love their children, which is mostly good, but also comes with strings, like I love them.

I also expect these things, and and I'm expecting reciprocation of that love in some way.

Because that's that's different than agape.

The kind of love we're called to have.

See, agape love is always going to be characterized by a few key things: freedom and forgiveness.

One of the best stories of agape love we have in all of Scripture is a story that Jesus told, the story of the prodigal son.

You might be familiar with it.

It's very famous.

We find it in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

It says, A man had two sons, and the younger son told his father, I want a share of your estate now before you die.

This is basically him saying, I would rather you just be dead.

I don't love you.

I just want your money, and will you hurry up and die so I can have it?

And so his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

And a few days later, this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living.

You might know the rest of the story.

He gets to the point of desperation, and he says, Maybe I can go back home.

His father had probably made sure that was a safe landing spot.

Maybe I can go back home and just be one of my father's servants, because my father's servants, at least they're not starving to death like I am.

And so he goes back, and he's expecting a talking to, he's expecting maybe even to be rejected.

He's so ashamed of what he's done.

But we get to verse 20, and Jesus says, So he returned home to his father, and while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming.

Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.

And his son said to him, Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you.

I am no longer worthy of being called your son.

But his father said to the servants, Quick, bring the finest robe in the house, put it on him, get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet, and kill the calf that we've been fattening.

We must celebrate with a feast.

For this son of mine was dead and is now returned to life.

So this father just welcomes him back, forgives him completely.

And this is an amazing example of agape love.

Quick forgiveness, like rapid fire forgiveness.

But the reality is the father showed agape love to his child even before he welcomed him back.

Because at the very beginning of the story, this father gives his son the freedom to leave.

And agape love is a love of freedom.

God gives us tremendous freedom.

He lets us choose.

There's so many times in scripture where we're called to choose.

Deuteronomy chapter 30, Moses pleads with the people of Israel on behalf of God and says, Choose life so that you may live.

Deuteronomy 30 · chapter mention

You have a choice before you.

And I pray that you choose life, is what he's saying.

God's saying, Look, I love you, I've given you a choice.

The book of Proverbs says over and over again that if you choose wisdom, if you choose it, you'll have this, you'll have these blessings.

Agape love gives freedom.

And if we love our children in such a way that they don't have freedom, that's not agape.

It's got to have freedom and forgiveness.

Now, I'm gonna quote one of our staff members.

Her name's Sandra Tanner.

She blew up all the balloons that are hanging up in the lobby.

Uh so that was a task this week.

If you haven't seen those balloons, go look.

Some of those balloons.

I've never seen balloons that big.

And it was really funny.

She's in the office and she's like, my arm hurts.

And we're like, why?

She's like, I've got this pump and I'm blowing up these balloons.

And we were like, Would you like an air compressor?

She's like, Oh, that'd be great.

And so we went, she was gonna blow them all up like by hand or mouth, and we got her an air compressor, so it's good.

Sandra's a hard worker.

She's a great, she is.

Clap for Sandra.

Balloon champion.

I know where she's sitting right now, but I don't want to give it away.

So um, Sandra's also a really great mom.

And Megan and I, we actually get a lot out of listening to Sandra talk about parenting, and we found several things that she's said that have really helped us because she's got kids further along.

And so one of the things she's talked about is that at every age there's an appropriate level of freedom.

At every age, there's an appropriate level of freedom.

And if you deny your children the freedom appropriate to them at that age, they'll try to find it somewhere else.

And so, like my my oldest right now, guys, he needs to get his hair cut so bad.

It looks bad.

It just does this is bad.

He looks, he looks like he's given up on life.

Um, and he's only nine.

He's only nine.

And like I'm really tired of talking to him, and he just does this the whole time.

It's like, I'm like, dude, you're gonna have neck problems.

You know, his hair is just, and it's not even styled, like he just showers and then he gets out of the shower and it's just like wet, and he's just like, it'll dry.

You know?

He's basically like a he's ahead of the curve for teenagers.

He just doesn't care.

Um, but but like he he needs to cut his hair.

It doesn't look good.

And he's a cute kid, he's really cute, he's a handsome young man, and so we want him to get his hair cut, but you know what?

We've decided that at age nine, letting his hair be a little longer is an appropriate level of freedom.

And if we push that, we're like, you will cut your hair because your mom likes it this way.

You know, I like it this way.

If we push on that, he's gonna find that freedom somewhere else.

At every age, there is an appropriate level of freedom.

And to agape love your children means quick forgiveness and appropriate freedom.

And ultimately, one day that means the freedom to to leave.

Just like that father had here.

Now, the hope is that if we raise them healthy and strong and with conviction, then when we give them that freedom to leave, they'll leave and they'll make great choices and they'll never disappoint us and they'll always do what we thought they should do, right?

They'll go the way we think.

But the Bible doesn't say raise them in the way you think they should go.

It says raise them in the way that they should.

And only the Lord knows that.

And if you're faithful, he might help you see little glimpses of it along the way, but but agape love has freedom.

Freedom to leave.

It's trust.

And so are you loving your children with agape love?

Are you settling for any lesser version of love?

Of course you love your kids, but agape love your kids, love them like God, and and worship team make your way out, because there's only one way to do that, and it's to know God.

Look, being a parent is hard.

It's so hard.

And we have four kids.

And anytime someone meets you and you're a pastor and you have four kids, they just assume a lot of things.

Like, oh, or do you guys only eat organic food?

And do you homeschool your children?

And do they all have to wear dresses and you know, you know, dress pants?

I'm like, no, no, no, no.

We're not, we're not part of a cult.

We're just pastors who happen to have multiple kids.

We wanted three over shot.

That's all that happened.

Um, but like, no, I say that, like Eli, my newest, he's awesome.

I couldn't imagine life without him.

We weren't planning to have him.

And if he asked us one day, was I planned?

Absolutely not.

Why would we have planned for another?

That makes no sense.

But you're a gift.

And he really is, man.

He's a he's a gift, he's a joy.

But but parenting is tough.

Each of our kids is like a little puzzle, and you think you have the one figured out, and then the other one, you're like, what?

That doesn't, what works with that one doesn't work.

It's hard.

And it requires faith.

And if you're here this morning and you have kids and you don't know Jesus, I don't even know how you you do it.

I don't even know.

I hope it goes well for you.

But like, the only way that I can really truly be the father that I'm meant to be is if I have a relationship with my heavenly father.

Because he is a good father and he is full of love.

You know, he's my safety, he is my safety net, he is my refuge, he's my fortress, he's my shield, he's my strength.

He teaches me what is right and what is good and what is healthy.

He teaches me to live by conviction.

Because he loves me by conviction.

And he's filled with agape love and he gives it out, and he doesn't give it out sparingly, he just lavishes his love on his children.

I want to learn to love like my heavenly father loves, but how can I do that if I don't know him?

Some of us in the room, we're talking about parenting, and that can be hard because maybe we weren't raised the way we think we should have been raised.

So this stirs up a lot of stuff.

And you might try really hard to be a good parent because you're gonna try to do it the other way, the opposite way of your parents, and that that's okay, but I want you to know that it's far better to have a model to aim for than a target that you're just trying to miss.

If you have a relationship with God the Father, he will teach you how to be a father, he will teach you how to be a mother, he knows how to parent.

Some of us in here, maybe we're we're dealing with some some guilt this morning.

Number one, I'm I'm pretty good at guilt.

You know, that's what I'm known for.

No, I'm just joking.

Um, I hope not.

But but anytime you talk about parenting, maybe you're here and all your kids have gone and you feel like I didn't do a good job.

Maybe you look at these choices and you said, Man, I wish I would have heard this when I was in my 20s.

Because I just I was doing my best with what I had, and I look back and I don't feel like I did it well.

I read a quote this week in a book called Grace-Based Parenting.

It's a really great book.

I would encourage you to read it.

It said, You might need to ask your child's forgiveness.

You need to let them know that you recognize you've failed them, that you've hurt them, and at times you've stolen their joy.

Be specific.

Even if you have to go back years, let them know that you know you were wrong.

It doesn't make you smaller in their eyes.

In fact, it makes you just the opposite.

In your humble contrition, you will demonstrate something they desperately need if they want to have a love that is secure.

Grace.

It's never too late to be a good parent.

It's never too late to be a good parent.

Because of grace.

But if you're here this morning and you want to see your children thrive, whether they're two, ten, thirty, you need to know the Lord.

Many of us here do.

And for those of you who do, lean into him, spend time with him, spend time in his word, study how he does it.

You know, Ephesians, there's a the message version at one point in chapter five says, mostly what we need to do is just imitate God and learn to love like God.

Watch the way he does it and do that.

Spend time with your father, and then out of that time, out of that closeness, parent that way.

And when you have a moment, a decision to make, when you feel led to react, right?

Because reactions are choices, we just don't feel like it in the moment.

Stop and say, Lord, what choice am I making?

Lord, what choice would you make?

And then do that.

Do what he would do.

And if you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus, meaning you've never crossed that line in your heart where you've said, I need help, I believe that you are who you say you are, you are the Son of God, you are my hope.

I believe you died on the cross to save me from my own mistakes and my own issues.

And Lord, when it comes to parenting, I have sins aplenty.

As a dad, I've made so many mistakes that if I didn't believe I needed a savior before I was a father, I definitely believe I need one now.

Because it's hard, and I have not lived up to the standard I even thought I would live up to.

It's hard.

You need his help, so give your life to him.

Because he loves you and he's good at life, he's good at it.

He defeated death.

That's how good Jesus is at life.

He defeated death.

So all you have to do is say in your heart right now, I believe in you, I need you.

And the very next thing you do when you make that decision is you get baptized.

That's the first step of obedience in following Jesus.

You get baptized, and then every single day you just take whatever the next step is.

And as a church, we want to come alongside you and help you do that.

But right now, we have someone who's made that decision.

We have someone who's decided to get baptized, and we're gonna celebrate with them for a moment.

That's how we're gonna finish.

So I'm gonna pray.

We're gonna watch this person go all in with Jesus.

We're gonna celebrate with them.

We're gonna walk out of here asking God our Father to help us be the fathers and mothers that we want to be, whether that's biological, spiritual, whatever it is.

But it all starts with knowing Him.

Okay, so pray with me, please.

Jesus, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you so much for what you're doing.

And Lord, we pray right now that you would help us to be the kind of father that you are for the fathers, to be the kind of mother that you are, because Lord, you actually say in your word that you you mother us.

You don't, you're a complete parent.

You you raise us right.

And Lord, we want to be like that.

And we know, Lord, that whether it's parenting or marriage or any relationship we have in life, that we need your help.

We need you to help us.

And so, Lord, I pray that right now that those of us who have already said yes to you would just say yes over and over again.

Every day, yes to you, Jesus.

And for those of us in the room that have never said yes to you, that we would say yes for the first time and begin this journey, that Lord, you would speak to their hearts and they would actually feel something stirring inside of them that they can't explain, that they would know that that is your presence, that is drawing them to you, saying, I want to know you, I love you, I want to have a relationship with you, and they would just surrender and say yes to that.

And right now we have someone, Lord, who's done that, and we want to celebrate that with them, God.

So be with this amazing part of our family and help them feel the love you have for them and the pride you have for them in this moment.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.