children to you, but you don't feel like that. You personalize it. You'll turn a moment of ministry into a moment of anger. Here's the second thing, I hinted at this. Because you've personalized what is not personal, you make it all about you. Parents, it's not about you. Justin, that weekend, didn't say to Josh, "I'm going to drive my dad crazy. Yes, that's all I'm going to do. It'll be so much fun. You plot this lie with me. He'll think that I'm at your house and then he'll discover that I'm not he'll go nuts. Yes." That's not what's going on. And you see, when you make it about you, it's very hard to get to the grace of Jesus in the conversation. Third thing, because you've turned a moment of ministry into a moment of anger, personalized what is not personal, you're adversarial in your response. You’re adversarial in your response. It's not me for you, it's me against you because as I look at you now, I don't see an object of my affection. I see an obstacle in the way of what I want and I want to move it. I want to get you out of the way, so I can have what I want. Finally, and so I settle for quick situational solutions that don't get at the heart of the matter. So I settle for quick situational solutions that don't get to the heart of the matter. I bark a judgment, I announce a punishment, and I walk out of the room. And there's no wisdom and there's no insight. My child isn't saying, "Wow, this is a wise person. I'm glad this person is in my house." They're just waiting for you to get out of the room. And there has been this God-given gorgeous moment where the heart of this child has been revealed and God's instrument is there present, and the moment of ministry has been lost. You see, if you're ever going to get at heart issues with your child, you have to start with your own heart. That confession will lead to repentance. As this child begins to confess his wrong, he'll want to live in a different way. That's what repentance is. And as he does that, he'll realize he needs help and he will reach out in faith for the help of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you getting at heart issues with your child or are you a very skilled apple-nailer? Is lasting change taking place? Lasting change always travels through the pathway of the heart. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for this amazing passage of scripture we looked at in Luke 6 that's just one of hundreds that point us to the fact that the thing that controls and shapes our words and behavior doesn't live outside of us, but lives inside of us. And that if we're ever going to see lasting change take place in the lives of the children that you've entrusted to us, we have to go after issues of the heart. Change must begin with the heart. Help us to be patient, perseverant, joyful instruments of heart change in Your redemptive hands in the lives of our children. In Jesus' name, amen. SESSION 5 Last night, we laid these two foundations. One, that you have to understand God's plan for the family. The family is meant by God to be His primary learning community. The family is meant to be a theological community, always pointing to the existence, the character, the plan of God, that ultimate fact that is meant to interpret every other fact. The family is a sociological community teaching God's call to self-sacrificing love of neighbor. And the family is a redemptive community recognizing that we will only ever be what we're supposed to be and do what we're supposed to do when we're seeking the help, the transforming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we talked about the heart, that the behavior of a child is more shaped, caused, formed by what's inside of him than what's outside of him. The heart is the causal core of that child's personhood. And if that's true, then the target of parenting is the heart. We want to see heart change because we understand it's only as heart change takes place that lasting changes will take place in the behavior of the child. Now what we're going to do today is we're going to apply those principles to three stages of parenting: 0-5, 6-12, 13 'til only God knows. And in each one of these stages, I'm going to give you a point of focus to think about, a theme to be working on during that particular stage.
Transcript: Session 5
GETTING TO THE HEART OF PARENTING
53
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs