The Good News About Raising Kids (2001 Mar 4)

Introduction

I can still remember with perfect clarity Sunday night, January 25th, 1990. Actually, it was almost Monday morning because it was about at 1128 that night that Todd was born. And Heidi and I were ushered into that wonderful and awesome and joy-inspiring and sometimes confusing, frustrating, frightening world of parenting. I remember vividly being struck, I guess, like every parent is, with two strong emotions as I stood there in the maternity ward and looked at that brand new life under the warmer. There’s joy at a moment like that that I don’t know if you can put into words. But at the same time, I remember as well being struck with this awesome sense of responsibility that had been laid on our shoulders to bring up this child that we brought into the world.

Well, over the last 11 years, and then adding one to the mix, we’ve had quite an experience with parenting. Parenting can be fascinating at moments. I think there are few joys in life that compare with the joy of watching that little nine or ten-month-old try to pull himself up and stand erect and then begin to take those first steps. Do you remember that? No joy like going to that first school play and hearing a group of five-year-olds sing horribly off-key and make the most beautiful music you ever heard. No greater joy than watching the light come on in the brain of a fifth grader who finally figured out how to reduce fractions. I don’t know if anything compares to listening to your child confess Jesus Christ and watch as he is immersed in water for the remission of his sins.

And I haven’t been there yet, but I’ve heard tell of the joy parents feel as they watch their one child out of eight or nine hundred walk across that stage and get their diploma. And then there’s that day when they walk down that aisle and start a family of their own. What joy we experience when we raise our children? And yet, anyone who’s been at this very long understands that those wonderful little bundles of blessing can also be at times the source of absolute frustration and exasperation, too. Why is it that a young toddler will turn his nose up at a meal his mother is carefully prepared? And yet, if you don’t watch him, he’ll turn right around right around later in the day and drink water out of the dog’s bowl.

I don’t understand that.

But always in the carpeted floor in their bedroom or on the hallway just outside the bathroom door, I don’t get that. And how is it that a little boy can graciously volunteer to help his mother put away folded clothes and then shove his sister into the wall as he goes about to do that? I don’t get that one either. And why is it that you can tell a kid a thousand times and you can put charts up on the wall and you can promise rewards and you can threaten punishments, and yet he still can’t figure out that he needs to make his bed before he goes to school? I don’t understand that. Bill Cosby says it’s brain damage, and he may be right about that. And what is it that happens to a child between the eighth and ninth grade?

Now, I’ve not had that happen yet, but I’ve watched some of these people go through it, and I don’t get it. You take this energetic little angel in junior high, and somewhere between the eighth and ninth grade, he becomes this rebellious zombie. Something happens to them that leads us to believe that maybe the idea of aliens invading the minds of our youth is plausible, at least for a moment. If you’re a parrot, you’ve been there. In the middle of those battles, at those utterly frustrating moments when you’re just convinced the message isn’t getting through. I failed as a parent, and this child is headed for a meltdown. You’ve been there. When I listen to parents talk today, the emotion that I hear them talk about most frequently is fear.

And I understand that. Because sometimes I’m really scared about the kind of world my kids are growing up in.

Increasingly becoming to help them navigate the pitfalls. There are some really scary things going on out there. I’m concerned about the world my kids are growing up in when our elected leaders can openly engage in the worst and immorality. And most people in this country don’t care. I’m concerned when homosexuality is defended as a normal, acceptable lifestyle, and anyone who would speak against it is shouted down and labeled as hateful. I’m concerned when unbelievable filth and depravity is but a click of the mouse away. And most parents have little sense of danger, have turned their children loose on the computers, and most of the time the kids know more about running it and hiding what they’ve done than their parents do. I’m concerned about the kids, the world my kids are growing up when, when unborn children, the murder of unborn children is championed as a sacred right.

I’m concerned when every day a thousand unmarried teenagers become pregnant, more than a thousand get an abortion, and more than four thousand contract sexually transmitted diseases. I’m concerned when I consider that divorce is ravaging homes in this country and scarring our children with wounds that they carry for life. I’m concerned when young teenagers who are barely beginning life can be so devoid of morality and so utterly pessimistic about the future that they can take guns and bomb to schools and kill their fellow students and take their own lives. What is happening to our kids? And I’m concerned when I look among God’s people and see that even some of us have lost our moral compass and have become so consumed with this world and its things that even gathering with God’s people a few times a week, a blessed privilege has become to us an inconvenience about which we about which we whine.

It is a frightening world in which we live, in which we’re raising kids. In fact, it seems that a lot of parents are becoming a bit overwhelmed and have lost their sense of optimism. Dr. James Dobson ask a thousand parents to share some of their frustrations about raising children. And he said, time and time again, the focus of their remarks was on their own sense of inadequacy. They said things like, I’ve lost my confidence and my ability to parent. I failed my children. I’m not the example that I should be. I’m seeing my own bad habits and character traits come out with them, come out in them. I’m overwhelmed with the responsibility of it all. It is because of the difficult world in which we live.

And the sense of self-doubt that so many parents seem to have, and the great awesomeness of the task of raising kids that we begin this morning, this series of lessons that we’ve entitled. Raising kids that turn out right. That’s what we’re after, isn’t it? Ultimately, in the end, that is the thing that we would like to be able to say that we’ve done, that we’ve succeeded in the great mission of bringing these kids up. There’s a lot of bad news out there. That is challenging our optimism. What I’d like for you to do with me for just a little while this morning is to take all that bad news, and I’d like for us just to set it aside. And for this more for a little while this morning, I’d like for you to think with me about the good news that is out there that we need to consider when it comes to raising kids.

1. We Can Do It

And yes, folks, there is good news. News that can lift our spirits and change our perspective and give us confidence in this great task we’ve undertaken to raise children. In spite of what is happening in our world, I believe godly parents have every reason to be optimistic about the work that they are doing and to believe that we can succeed. There’s a lot of bad news out there, but just for a little while this morning, I want you to think with me about the good news. Someone says, What good news? What are you talking about, David? What is the good news? Three pieces I want you to notice with me this morning. First of all, the first piece of good news we can need to consider is that we can do it.

2. What We Mean by Turning Out Right

We can raise kids that turn out right, and we can do that in spite of the depravity and corruption of our culture. In spite of the fact that our culture seems to be going the other way, we can bring our children up right and we can teach them the right things. We can succeed at the mission we’ve undertaken. Now, maybe it’s important right here at the very outset of this series to define what we mean when we talk about our kids turning out right. What exactly does that involve? Well, let me say to you, first of all, that I imagine for every everyone in this audience, turning out right means more than just raising our children to be good citizens.