Transcript

Well, take your Bibles and for Mother’s Day this morning, let’s look at Colossians chapter three. Would you turn there? You have practically the identical exhortation in Ephesians chapter six. And I’ll rob a phrase from there as we go through this together. As I simply entitled this, an exhortation to kids and to moms. Now it’s not gonna be an exhaustive exhortation, I’ll leave a lot of things out, probably very important, but I just wanna bring some things from the text as an exhortation to kids and really more than an exhortation concerning moms, it’s more a commendation of mom. An exhortation to kids and perhaps better, a commendation to mom. Colossians chapter three, verses 20 and 21.

Very straightforward, “children, Be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart”. Very simply, let’s outline it this way. Roman 1. Be obedient. “Children, be obedient”, he says, to your parents. Can I say to you, friends, this is not a good idea. It’s a divine construct. It’s a divine ordinance.

The creator of all things and his infinite wisdom for his own glory and for the good of children and the good of all mankind, basically, says, “children, obey your parents”. It’s interesting that this was written over 2,000 years ago, so they were having a problem over 2,000 years ago with children obeying their parents.

You know, there’s just nothing that shows the sure marks of mankind’s sinful depravity. Now, when I use that word that theologians use, sinful depravity, it means that the totality of our being is hopelessly corrupted by sin. There’s not a part of us that’s virtuous and good whereby we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and fix ourselves and fix our world. We’ve been trying that for a long time, haven’t we? this world leader and that world leader, World War I, World War II, and on and on we can go with these men who are gonna claim everything and rule everything and fix everything. And they end up being absolute monsters, monsters of iniquity. Man has no capacity whereby he can fix himself. But perhaps there’s no place where the sure marks of our depravity is shown in that all children disobey their parents. That should be the most natural, normal thing. But as we’ve said so many times before, you do not have to teach a child to disobey. They’ll just do that all on their own. It’s just in there.

Our former pastor used to say that, as he would teach, that all people are born with a sin nature, again, fallen depravity, and a mom and dad have this little baby, and that little baby’s a newborn, and they’ll say, well, pastor, look at this precious baby. You believe this baby has a sin nature? How precious, how innocent, how clean, how good, how wonderful, she even smells good. And then about six months later, he would say they come bringing that baby back and say, I think she’s demon possessed. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. She wants to rule the whole roost.

This phrase be obedient in verse 20 of Colossians three means to hear under. So it’s the idea of not just obeying, but to recognize young people, recognize that God placed you under the loving, guiding, protective oversight of another. It’s to your benefit to obey your parents. You are to hear under. And then he says, do “it in all things”. Be obedient in all things. That means not occasionally, not sometime, not most of the time, but continually.

Now let’s remind ourselves this morning that every single one of us functions under God-ordained authority. God’s ordained it to be that way. God is a God of order and structure. That is for our human flourishing and for his glory. And he has an order for society. He has an order of things for the home. He has an order of things for the church. And that order, of course, includes a chain of command, authority and submission. All of us have that. For example, pastors have to honor the authority of the elder body. Fathers are to honor the authority of their employer. and their church leaders. And then, of course, mothers, wives submit to the authority of their husbands. And then, of course, in our text, children are to come up under and submit to the authority, obey, that is, their own parents.

“In all things”, be obedient in all things. Now, that phrase “in all things”, I think, must include you’re to honor your parents even if you feel they don’t always deserve to be honored. You honor them and you obey them even if you feel like, well, they’re not all they ought to be. They’re not perfectly righteous. Well, that doesn’t exclude, that doesn’t remove the divine ordinance of God for your well-being. We have some clear biblical examples of that. Sarah is pointed out in the New Testament as a model, be the daughters of Sarah, the Bible would say. And what’s the key principle that Sarah followed in her life? Well, she was married to a man named Abraham. And I want to tell you something, Abraham at times was not much of a man, he was more of a mouse than a man. cowardly at times, basically gave his wife away to the Egyptians. Now I’m not promoting that and I’m not saying a woman has to obey everything her husband says at that level, but what I’m saying is Sarah still honored her husband and God changed Abraham to become a great and righteous and godly man, which was a huge blessing to her.

And basically God’s saying this, You try to change your authority and I’ll just let you have it. Or you can honor your authority and let me change them and we’ll see how that works out better. Let God do it. Let God do it. Say, God, I’m gonna honor this person you put in authority over me. Now again, folks, I’m talking about balance here. We’re not talking about a person that asks you to do something viciously evil or wrong. But generally speaking, you do not dishonor the authority that’s over you just because they’re having a bad day. and children must learn, even if my parents may have failed me and hurt me or disappointed me, and they may really have done wrong, yet you should honor them. You can appeal to them respectfully, but you’re to honor the God-ordained position.

You know, we live in a culture where it seems like every 10 years or so, maybe a lot shorter than that, people come up with new types of offenses. And they just keep inventing things that are grievous and offensive and difficult, and so that gives them a justification for doing their own thing, instead of honoring God’s divine construct.

And again, another example, 1 Peter chapter two. Again, this is an ancient culture where about half of the population were slaves. And in the Christian realm, he says, we can’t just do an upheaval of all the cultural constructs, that wouldn’t work. It’s not time for that. Now, but within the church, they begin to dismantle slavery. But until it was, he tells slaves, even if your master’s not treating you just right, as a Christian, you honor your master. I think that would parallel the employer and employee relationship today.

Paul corrected the Apostle Peter. He says, I corrected him to his face. In all these cases, we have people in the position of authority and God’s divine construct, God’s divine ordinance, and they were not perfect, and they did fail, and they needed correction, but they did not lose their authority.

God seems to come in strong, fast, and hard when you honor who he’s put over you for his namesake. Did you hear me? You honor them for his namesake. You’re saying, God, it’s your wisdom that put all this together, so I’m gonna honor your wisdom over a man’s wisdom.  And ladies, this is time so when we don’t look to sentimentality and human emotions, we look to divine principles and follow those.

So, all children will from time to time invariably see a failure in their parents. They’ll see some inconsistency in mom or dad, but that doesn’t remove them from being your parents. So, “children, obey your parents”, obey them in all things, Roman two, and do “it in the Lord”. Now, here’s where I go over to the Ephesians parallel text where Paul writes to the church at Colossae, of course, in this case, but he’s writing to the church at Ephesians. In principle, he’s teaching the exact same thing, but he adds a little phrase here that’s understood in Colossians, though it’s not stated, and that little phrase is, “in the Lord”. obey your parents “in the Lord”. It means as an act of faith. It’s not always going to seem reasonable. It’s not always going to seem fair. It’s not always going to seem right, but you do it “in the Lord”. Faith in his wisdom, in what he has told us to do. You see, a child expresses his obedience to a heavenly Christ by being obedient to earthly parents. You cannot rebel against your parents and claim that you’re too godly to honor them. That’s impossible. You honor God by honoring your parents, even those who are not godly.

You know, we get a great example, I don’t wanna chase this too far, of Daniel in Babylon. Here Daniel is in Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzar wants him to eat certain foods that violate his Jewish dietary laws, and Daniel didn’t put his fist in Nebuchadnezzar’s face and said, you heathen, you godless, Baal-worshipping heathen, I’m not gonna obey your laws, and I’m not gonna eat that vile meat you Baal-worshippers eat. Didn’t do that at all. He honored the authority of his king. And the Bible tells us to do that, by the way, to honor civil authorities. Romans chapter 13 teaches that. And so, he goes to Nebuchadnezzar and appeals to him respectfully and says, let us eat our Jewish dietary law and see if we’re not better for you than even all these other boys who are going to eat the rich meats that you Baal worshippers eat. And sure enough, the king let him do that. And Daniel and his comrades from Israel who were enslaved there in Babylon proved that they were better servants for the king following God’s law than violating God’s law.

That’s the way we’re to appeal to authority from time to time. Make sure they know that you’re in it to honor them. Even if they’re asking you to do something that’s not right, you may not can do that, but you can appeal respectfully to honor their wishes. You know, just like so many other Old Testament precepts, that never change, but yet when you get to the New Testament era, they’re perfected and expanded upon. I love to talk about marriage in this construct because in the Old Testament, wives submitted to their husbands. They had to. It’s the law. But it was just a cold, austere, external, legal law. I got to submit to this man.

And you go to the New Testament, and God does something incredible. He still says wives submit to their husbands, but now he says, but love your husbands. That’s radically different. That’s a perfection of the old code, of the old law. And then husbands in the Old Testament had authority over their wives, but then you come to the New Testament, the husband is still the head, he still has authority, but he’s to love his wife the way Christ loves the church. His headship is perfected now. It’s completed in the beauty of Christian truth. And of course, in the enablement of the indwelling Christ.

And so when you come to children submitting to their parents, they do “it in the Lord” now. In the Lord, they can do it with a new attitude, with a new heart, with a new joy, with a new trust that God will guide me, God will protect me, and God will bring human flourishing to me if I’ll honor my parents, even if they fail a lot. You can trust the Lord in these things.

Well, a child who may feel that he’s found good reason to dishonor his parents, finds that if I’m walking with the Lord, he finds that if I’m spirit-filled, I can still honor them and obey them. I’m not honoring them and obeying them because they have earned it. I’m honoring them and obeying them because God placed them over me.

We do it in the Lord. You know that phrase, in Christ, in the Lord, or the equivalent thereof, that phrase is used over 100 times in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul loved it. In Christ, in the Lord. We are redeemed in the Lord, we are chosen in Him, we are forgiven in Him, we are justified in Him, we are sealed in Him, we are heirs in Him, and now children obey their parents in Him. In and through the presence of His Spirit in us and the empowerment that Spirit gives us.

Well, children, “obey your parents”. And you do this because of your reverence and awe of the wisdom of God who designed all of this. You do it “in the Lord”. And thirdly, in our phrase, we find that “it’s well-pleasing to the Lord”. It’s well-pleasing to the Lord. Look at verse 20 of our text again. “For this is well-pleasing to the Lord”.

Now again, in the parallel writing to the church at Ephesus, in Ephesus 6:1, he says, “it is right in the Lord”, it is proper, it’s the way God designed it to work. First of all, of course, for his own glory, because it projects his wisdom.

You know, if you as a young person, let’s say junior high kid, have a sweet spirit of honoring your parents, you are not going to be typical in your school. Most young people tend to trend along, I will do what I can get by with, versus I want to honor my mother and father. And when they see you have that spirit, and when they see you have that disposition, you know what it does? It projects that you believe God is wiser than man, and it glorifies God. It shows them, and I’ve heard this numerous times through the years, actually. We have kids that do what they ought not do in this church. We understand that. We have kids that don’t honor the Lord like they ought to. We understand that, but you know what? We’ve had a strong core for many years, and I’ve heard this from the school many times. Grace Life kids are different. I’ve heard that a number of times, and I praise the Lord for that. What they mean by that is I think there’s a respect and an honor for those who God has placed over them. So it glorifies God. It’s well pleasing to God because it glorifies Him.

You know, while disobedience pleases God, We need to remind ourselves that it pleases God to bless children through this obedience. The blessings that will flood back on the children are numerous. Because let me remind you again, I spoke of this just a week or two ago. Everything that pleases the Lord that we do, blesses us the most. I think I said it this way. If you focus on glorifying God, it will result in blessing you more than any other approach you can have to life. We think about, well, what about me? I don’t want to just let God have all the credit, let God have all the fun, let God get all the attention. Well, first of all, he’s God. He ought to get all of that. That’s who he is. But the point is, God is pleased to bless you. Now listen, he can’t bless you if you violate his wisdom and his precepts and his ordinances. You know why? Because they’re a reflection of his very being. When God gives you an instruction or a guidance, it came out of the perfections of his very being. And for him to go against it would be to go against himself, which would be sin and he can’t sin.

So we ask you to do certain things because it reflects the holy righteous perfections of his very being. Children, obey your parents. It’s well-pleasing to God, and it results in abundant blessings for you. Now, let me give you just two or three things here that are clearly the blessings that come to the obedient child. The blessings that come to the obedient child. Now, we’re in some application here, all right? First of all, you will gain wisdom and character. The Bible just promises that over and over and over. You will gain wisdom and character. Proverbs 6:20 through 21. “My son, observe the commandment of your father, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother. Bind them continually on your heart, and tie them around your neck”. Notice the Proverbs is all about an older father counseling, guiding, instructing his son. And he’s saying, son, you just don’t know how important it is to honor your mother and your father in their counsel and instruction.

Then in Proverbs 19:20, all in the flow of honoring your parents, “listen to counsel and accept discipline”, that’s from them primarily, “that you may be wise the rest of your days”. that you may be wise the rest of your day. You’re talking about a culture that’s in dire want, that’s in dire need. We are in dire want and we are in dire need of some young people with wisdom, with wisdom. Now gain knowledge, gain intellect, but wisdom is the righteous use of intellect.

Well, how shall I say this? We don’t need as many more brilliant men as we need more good men. Hitler was brilliant. He certainly wasn’t good. So, wisdom is gained and character is gained as we honor the Lord. The Bible promises that. “The fear of the Lord”, Proverbs says, “is the beginning of wisdom”, and wisdom is knowing the blessing of honoring our parents.

You know, Jesus himself in Luke chapter two, you remember? He goes to the temple with his parents for the Passover. He’s 12 years old. They all leave and he stays behind. He didn’t tell them he was staying behind. His mom and dad return after three days and find him there in the temple scared to death. What happened to him? Kind of scolded him and he said, didn’t you know I had to be about my father’s business? He was starting to prepare his mom particularly already that I don’t belong to you ultimately. I belong to my father in heaven. And then the Bible says, but “he returned to them and he remained in subjection to them”. Powerful stuff. This is the Son of God. This is the holy one of heaven. He comes and puts on human clothing, but he observed the divine ordinance of his father that a child should honor his parents. He stayed in subjection. And then what does the text say? Then “he grew in wisdom”. There’s connection between honoring mom and dad and having godly wisdom.

Well, so clear in the text. Well, secondly, not only will you gain wisdom and character if you’re an obedient child, you’ll gain protection from destructive temptations. You will gain protections, I guess I should say in the plural, from destructive temptation. Proverbs 6:20 again, “My son, observe the commandment of your father. I do not forsake the teaching of your mother”, and in the flow of that context, if you do that, Proverbs 6:24, “to keep you from the evil woman”. That doesn’t mean just that protection, but one of the most important protections of young man is to not let Satan have a foothold in his life through sexual immoralities. Honor my teaching, son. Follow my precepts, son, because I want to protect you from the destruction that is out there ahead of you.

And remember the Lord’s Prayer that I keep saying is more the model prayer, but now I’m deciding it’s the realignment prayer. We pray that prayer to realign our heart and thoughts with heaven. You see, you don’t go to heaven to get your will in heaven. You don’t go to God in prayer to get your will in heaven. You go to God in prayer to get heaven’s will in you. To get us in line with what matters, because God can’t change. Our problem is we change all the time. We need to keep getting realigned. Every Sunday is realignment day for the child of God. Getting ourselves realigned. And part of that realignment prayer is “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. What is he saying? “God, I’m gonna be prone to step into areas of temptation that I can’t handle, I’ll commit the sin, and I’ll dishonor you, and I live to honor you, I live to glorify you, so don’t let me fall into the kind of temptations that would lead to the kind of sins that would lead me to do things that would disrespect you, dishonor you, hurt your reputation and your glory in the earth”. And God says a key way to stay out of destruction temptations that will rob God of his witness and testimony through you and will prevent you from destructive elements in your own life is to obey your parents. We’ll elaborate on that a little bit more in just a moment. Matter of fact, looking over to Ephesians chapter six again, the parallel text. “Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with the promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth”. There’s something to honoring mom and dad that’s connected to you living long. in the earth. There’s definitely something to you being a dishonorable child and disobeying your parents and not living long on the earth.

Well, thirdly, not only do we talk about how we gain wisdom and character if we obey our parents as a child, how we gain protection from destructive temptation, but thirdly, how we gain direction for major life decisions. Direction. I’m so glad this was taught to me when I was first converted 45 years ago. That God wants to protect you and he protects you through the means of your parents. Even if your parents aren’t everything you think they ought to be. Even if your parents may not even be Christians. You should honor them.

There was a boy who was finishing up high school, and he loved the Lord. He was truly converted. And he thought he might be going into the ministry. And so he tells his dad he wants to go to Bible college. And that father, who may not have even been a Christian, certainly wasn’t a very dedicated one, that father says, no, you’re not going to Bible college. And the father went on to say, you’re not disciplined. You’re not mature. I want you to go get a job. prove that you can be punctual, prove you can get up in the morning, prove you can work for your employer all day long like you ought to, and then we’ll talk about it.

And that’s exactly what that boy did. He got a job, he worked for his employer, he gained discipline, he gained responsibility, he grew in character, and then two years later his father said, now here, let me help you go to Bible college. You see, God knows what you need and he’s gonna funnel that through mom and dad. Amen, mom and dad? Mom and some dads, that means you need to be making sure you’re walking with God and hearing God. But some things are so very, very simple.

We have a lot of young men that come through here who are going into the ministry and a lot connected to us through our Pastoral Training Institute. They’re going into the ministry and occasionally Brother Steve or I’ll have to say, you know what, you’re not ready. You might need to go work at Walmart a couple of years first and just grow up some. Just knowing theology and sound doctrine in your head isn’t everything. It’s a good thing, but it’s not everything. But parents are there to help make those key life decisions. Now, this is especially true when you’re talking about making the major life decision of a life partner. Who will I marry? You see, God has so made it, He has so designed moms that moms can see ill motives, immaturities, lack of virtue and character in girls that sometimes her son cannot see. So he needs to bring that girl in pretty early in the process and say, “mom, look, I’m trusting God to work through you, now check her out. Tell me if you think this is the kind of lady I need to be pursuing a genuine Christian courtship with and eventually Christian engagement in marriage”. And then, of course, a father can see character flaws in a boy that his daughter may not concede. We need their protection. We need their direction for major life decisions. Matter of fact, a little bit personal here, did you know that when I first spoke with my mom about getting her blessing to marry Miss Pam, that she didn’t give me that blessing? She said, this beauty queen girl, who’s this? Walking around on TV and all this stuff. She’d never met really, but she’d never talked. And then they got together and they talked and within about an hour, from that point onward, she always agreed with Pam over me and everything that ever happened. Once she saw her heart, once she saw her convictions, once she saw what was important to her, she said, “yep, that’s good right there”. I’m so glad she did that, because it’d been hard to disobey my mother on that one right there. It’d been a tough deal.

Now, some conclusions for practical applications, some CPAs. I don’t do these all the time, but in our purposes today, I want to do these right quick. Some conclusions for practical application. You know, the first one would be spiritual root issues. When a child is disobedient, when a young person becomes a rebel, there’s always some spiritual root issues. Just three to think about.

First of all, I call it power and control idolatry. Now, idolatry is when you treasure our prize or respect anything over God and His wisdom, or God and His word. And when that little two-year-old child, you tell him to don’t touch that, and he touches that, what he’s saying is, I’m in control here, Mom, you’re not. It’s a power and control idolatry. Now they can’t articulate it, but they can flat live it. And all the way through their childhood, it’s just power and control. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden looked at God, basically speaking, and said, you don’t make the rules about what tree we eat of. We want the power and control and we’ll do it. And they ate us out of house and home. Power and control idolatry is almost always one of the root issues.

Secondly, pleasure idolatry. Pleasure idolatry. The Christian church has pretty much accepted this notion that from age 15 or 16 through 27, you act like a rebel and an idiot, and then maybe you’ll grow up and be responsible later. Who said you get to live for the world and live like the devil for those years and claim you know Christ? Look at some of these pages on the internet, and too many of our young girls look like they’re dressed like harlots. And the next page, they’re talking about Bible verses. We ought to be consistent. What’s the point? We want to have fun. We want to have pleasure. Well, there’s a lot of wonderful pleasures God gives us, but we’re to honor the Lord. But you see what young people do is they make an idol out of pleasure, and they put that above serving God. Paul told Timothy, young Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3, 4, that you can’t love pleasure and love God. But you can have pleasures, and God’s given us many pleasures, but loving pleasure is different from just enjoying pleasure.

I often say about some of the common graces God gives us, whether it’s a nice steak you eat one night, or getting a new suit of clothes, or whatever that common grace may be that God allows you to have, that I can enjoy this, but it’s not my joy. Amen? My joy is someone, and he don’t wear out like a set of clothes. He doesn’t move away like a person I might be putting my joy in. I may enjoy this, but it’s not my joy, but pleasure idolatry is one of those things that is a root spiritual issue in disobedience.

Then, of course, peer idolatry, peer approval, which the Bible calls the fear of man. You see, young people often feel so insecure and they feel so inferior that they don’t want to make matters worse by not getting the approval of their peers in school or in the community. So they wanna dress like their peers, and they wanna talk like their peers, and they wanna think, have the values like their peers, and all it is is make it an idol out of these other kids.

And by the way, the scripture says that “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child”. Then it says “the rod of discipline will help drive it from them”. So when you make a young person your idol, the person you’re gonna follow, you’re following a fool. You should be looking at older people who’ve built businesses, who’ve raised children and keep their homes well and have achieved and taken initiative and managed things well and honored the Lord. That should be the people you’re looking to to emulate, not people that are just giving in to the lust of the flesh.

But all of these idolatries, power and control idolatry, or pleasure idolatry, or peer idolatry, it all comes under one simple heading, self-idolatry. Now, every single child, every young person who lives in rebellion always has a justification. And so do us adults, by the way. There’s always some sort of justification. And that’s why I mentioned, secondly, a wounded heart. A wounded heart.

I told you earlier that you must not succumb to Satan’s temptation of justifying disobedience to your parents because you found some failure in their life. You found some inconsistency in their life because then you just robbed yourself of the protection and the blessing God meant to bring you through that parent. That’s why in Colossians 3:21, in that verse, he says, “fathers, don’t exasperate your children”. Don’t stimulate or provoke them because he says further in that text, “so that they will not lose heart”. The idea you can wound their spirit, you can wound their heart.

I remember hearing this story about a young man whose dad was a leader in a large Christian ministry organization. And this dad sat his son down one day and said,” son, I’m planning us a big fishing trip. It’ll be all weekend long, three days. We’re gonna go here, we’re gonna fish, we’re gonna camp out, we’re gonna get it all together”. And the boy was so excited. About a junior high age boy, maybe a little younger. And for the next two weeks, that boy couldn’t hardly sleep at night thinking about that fishing trip. I could do that as a young guy. You could put me on a pond that was 20 feet square and I’d fish there all day and catch nothing and love it. And this boy dreamed about that fishing trip. And he started organizing his gear and getting his hiking boots and his fishing stuff together and buying new baits that he knew would work for that fishing trip. And the morning came, they were to leave, and the phone rang. And it was the Christian ministry that his dad worked for. And the person sounded urgent over the phone. Some things had happened. There’s some big events and ministry events going on. They needed his leadership. Would you come? And he forgot all about his son. And he said, I’ll be right there. And he took off. And that boy had a wounded heart.

Now this is a simplistic outline of the road to rebellion, but here’s kind of the way this works out. First of all, because he’s wounded, he puts on the silent treatment. There begins to be an alienation of affection. This kind of a distance. Parents basically at this point think, well, they’ll get over it. And sometimes these things happen and they do get over it. But then if he goes further, he’ll start the rejection of authority. I will have my own say. There’s something of a stubbornness and a disobedience. And the mom and dad think, why do we have to stay after him so much to do what we tell him? Never thinking about the original foundational issue of his wounded heart. Then there’s self-authority that creeps in. Again, an equal voice with mom and dad. You’re imperfect. You’re able to hurt me. I can do my own thing now.

Parents at that point tend to get stricter. Then there comes companionship with rebels. Rebels always want somebody to run with them. And the main reason is this, they’re convicted by the conscience God’s put in every man that they’re wrong. They need somebody else to run with them. So if you’re kind of saying, “if I go down, they go down too. If I get in trouble for this, they get in trouble too”.

Or secondly, that just helps them sear their conscience more that they can keep doing the things they’re doing. silent treatment, a rejection of authority, self-authority, companion with rebels, and then the next downwards point on the slope is a defense of sin and sensuality. “I’ll make my own decisions about what’s right and wrong. I’ll make my own decision about what’s good and bad. I will defend these behaviors”. And my brothers and sisters, that’s what we’re seeing in our culture to the most bizarre, perverse justifications. of the most bizarre and perverse behaviors.

I’m not 80% sure, I’m not 90% sure, I’m not 95% sure, I’m not 99% sure, I’m 100% sure that we have this radical leftist rebellion among young people. And percentage-wise, it’s more young women than men. We have this radical, perverse rebellion because most of those young people have a wounded heart. Because far, far too many moms, full bore, live a life in front of their children that says, you’re number six on the list. You’re number eight. Matter of fact, if you get in the way of what I’m about, if you get in the way of my career, if you get in the way of what I wanna accomplish, if you get in the way of my self-actualization, I may just take you out in the womb if I have to. How does a child grow up knowing that they probably have a brother and sister that mom terminated because they might get in the way? And they strike back. typically against parental authority, but all authority, because they’re hurt.

Read the life story of Karl Marx. Read the life story of Joseph Stalin. Read the life story of Charles Darwin. Read the life story of George Soros. One consistent thing, they were all deeply hurt and wounded by someone in authority when they were young. And they’re very clear and honest about it. And they spend the rest of their life going against the established authorities around them. And they begin to defend their sin and their waywardness. And in a teenager’s life, it’s usually sensuality. and come up with this defense like, “well, God made me this way”.

Then there’s finally that increasing sense of guilt. There’s an aimlessness in their lives, a frivolity in life. Nothing matters anymore but dissatisfying my fun, satisfying my carnal appetites. The parents at this point are shocked and frustrated. How could this happen? Then on the heels of that is depression and on the heels of that is suicide. mental suicide with drugs and alcohol, moral suicide with sexual impurity, spiritual suicide with dabbling with the occult, and then unfortunately sometimes even physical suicide.

That’s why Paul warns fathers, and includes mothers, “don’t exasperate your children”. Don’t provoke them or irritate them. A.T. Robertson, the great scholar, says it’s a present imperative tense, which means a continual nagging. I’ve told you many times, moms and dads, we need to strive to have 10, if not 20, pats on the back of affirmation for every one pat on the behind for correction.

So don’t dishearten, don’t discourage. A broken down spirit, a wounded heart is fatal to young people. But you know what I found in my failures as a parent? If I’ll humble myself, Say to my girls, “please forgive Daddy. Daddy needs a Savior too”. I don’t abrogate my position as your authority. That didn’t change, but I blew it right here. At this point, you and I are just level centers. I’m a center, you’re a center. I found that covers a multitude of inadequacies.

And by the way, that’s not big, that’s not strong, that’s not being committed, that’s just being a Christian, amen? We’re all sinners saved by grace. We just have this awesome task of being a parent. And quite honestly, sometimes our parents didn’t teach us too much about that. We’re just doing the best we can on the fly.

That’s why I say Hillary Clinton’s wrong. It doesn’t take a village to raise a child, it takes a church to raise a child. We can look at some moms and dads who are now grandmothers and granddads, sometimes great-grandmothers and great-granddads who learned some things and are now doing it right and can teach us younger folks. Well, not us, I’m not one of those younger folks anymore. Teach the younger folks some wisdom in these very important areas.

Well, number three, and I’m through, Mom is a divine design. This thing of mom is special. God created motherhood, and it’s good, and it’s always good, and it’s wonderful, and it’s always wonderful, and it’s right, and it’s always right. God forbid we ever listen to the wicked voices of this culture that would make you think that motherhood is down here somewhere. You’re not much, you’re diminished, you’re degradated, you’re even shameful if you think about putting your children first and putting your home first and being the mother God called you to be. I mean, by the way, go out there and conquer the world, do your own thing, and maybe you can tag on motherhood on the fly on the side of all the other important things in your life. Lie, lie, lie.

God may indeed allow you to accomplish a lot of things, even in the world, but motherhood and the home should be the center. And your children and your husband should know it’s the center. Because motherhood is of God. Moms are super special. Moms are indispensable. Moms are irreplaceable. A dad can help with the children, he should help with the children, but a dad cannot be mom. What a pitiful thing. I see some of these guys saying “I’m a, is it Mr. Mom” or whatever it is? No, you’re pitiful. You see, he’s not made of the right stuff. He’s not cut out of the right cloth to get the job of mom done.

Mom is a divine design of God. The role of a good mom is so valuable and essential that moms are the first place and the most frequent place that Satan tends to attack. And hadn’t he been doing that in our culture for many generations now, diminishing the nobility, the wonder, the supremacy, the honor, the dignity of motherhood, You see, if Satan can undermine motherhood, he knows he can dismantle the world. A good mom has strength, has tenacity, has perseverance, and yet at the same time, has these things men never have, tenderness, nurturing, caring, in a way that no man can match. I don’t know about you, but I was never sick when I said, go get dad. Hello? He just ain’t got it, I’m sorry. Yeah, I feel a little hot, give me aspirin, I’m gone. I like that, oh, divine design. The model mother in Proverbs 31 feeds her children, clothes her children, instructs her children in wisdom. She makes the home a place of security and comfort and love, even if this means staying up late, rising up very early. You see, To be a mom means you can’t always mix and mingle with style and charm in high society. To be a mom means you can’t always be dolled up with curls and external beauty. But if you’re that kind of mom, you will always be honored and praised. God will see to it. You will always be honored and praised. God will see to it. You see, a good mom is so foundational to her children’s overall prosperity and well-being that as Proverbs 31:28 says, “her children rise up and bless her”. The rest of the world may decry you, but your children will go to their graves honoring you. How do you want to end? How do you want to end? Don’t you love God’s word? Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceitful”, so don’t just run after that. “Beauty is vain”. Now, ladies, be charming as you can. Be as beautiful as you can be for your husband, but that’s not the center of everything. But “a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the product of her hands. Let her works praise her in the gate”.

The old adage is true. She who rocks the cradle rules the world. I think there’s two sides to this Proverbs 31:30-31, where it says, she shall be praised. Her letter works, praise her in the gates. I believe it’s a statement of fact, like you will not be able to hush the people up who wanna sing her praises. But it’s also a statement of exhortation. You’ve got a mom, imperfect, but striving to do it right, then you make sure you honor her and you praise her. all the time, but especially on Mother’s Day. Mom is a divine design.

I’m so glad that we’ve had something of an awakening in our church, especially among our young married moms, of saying, “we’re not judging anybody else. Different moms do it different ways, but we’re gonna start with what God called us to do in the scriptures, and then see what else God might want us to do”.

How do you want to end up, mom? Never stood at a casket. Never one time. And I’ve stood at a bunch of them and heard the children say, you know, she helped that company make $2 million one time. Never heard that. But I have heard things like, she was there when I was suffering. She was there when I was sick. I could come home and you just felt loved and welcomed. Nothing like a mom, just nothing like a mom.

Now, I want all people of the female gender. If you need help with that, I can help you real quick. Young children, high school, college, single, whatever, all folks of the female gender, would you stand? I wanna just have a prayer for you and we’ll be done, all right? Thank you, ladies, for what you are. Thank you for what you have been. Thank you, ladies, for what you’re gonna be. And we love you and we appreciate you.