RAISING CHILDREN
DR. JIM DIXON
PROVERBS 23:15-24:2
1977
I feel convicted this week that I should speak with you regarding children. Why do we have children? I am sure that is a question that has occurred to a number of you. What is the purpose of parenthood? I am always hesitant to speak on a subject like parenthood because immediately I exclude some people in our congregation who are not parents. But I think that there should be a little bit of something here for everyone. Many of you have children in your home now. Others of you have had children in your home at one time, and I think pretty much all of you at one time were children. So, the Lord might be able to touch your heart today. As we look at parents in the world today, their attitudes, and compare what the scriptures have to say about parents, we can begin to see that all of us as parents are making many mistakes.
One mistake is that sometimes we tend to use our children for security. Psychologists tell us that we actually base our security sometimes in our children. We build our lives around our children. God has not given us the privilege of parenthood in order to satisfy our need for security; and since we base our lives sometimes around our children, it is hard for us to let our children go. When they reach an age when they are ready to build a life of their own, it is hard for us to let them leave. This is a problem that many parents experience, and some have shared this with me in counseling. Building our security around our children should not be.
We laugh at some of the ridiculous things that children place their security in. We make fun of Linus in the Peanut’s comic strip because he places his security in a little blanket. Our little daughter Heather has three blankets that she likes to sleep with, However, she places most of her security in her mom and even a little bit in her dad, and I suppose that is really how it should be. But there will come a time when, in accordance with God’s will, it will be Barb’s and my privilege to seek to transfer her base of security from us to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Barbara and I are not worthy of her security, nor are your children worthy of your security. As parents, we cannot build our security around our children, nor can our children ultimately build their security around us.
The scriptures tell us that our security must be built around one person. That person is our Father in heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ said that we should not be anxious about our life—what we should eat, what we should drink, what we should put on. He said that our Father in heaven knows that we need all these things. He said we should “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). He asked us to consider the lilies of the field and how God clothes them and the birds of the air and how God feeds them. Are we not of much more value than they? “Oh, you of little faith,” said the Lord Jesus. God has said, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). We should be able to say with the psalmist, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). Our security should be based in Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ alone. He has said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
The Lord has not given us the privilege of parenthood to satisfy our need for greatness either. Sometimes psychologists tell us we seek as parents to attain a sort of vicarious greatness through the accomplishments of our children. That seems sort of strange, but I think it is true. We want our children to accomplish great things and sometimes not solely for their sakes but also for our sake. All through history there have been examples of moms and dads who pushed their children to great accomplishments not for the sake of their children but for the sake of mom and dad. That is a mistake.
I suppose that when our children are very young, we begin to look for signs that they might be great. We look for some sort of blooming intelligence that might be abnormal. We look for great beauty, some features in our child that might be particularly pretty or handsome. We look for signs of great personality. Barb and I were very impressed because Heather smiled when she was only four days old. We told the doctor, and he said that it probably was just gas. But we do look for those things. We look for those things when our children are very young; and as they grow, we want them to accomplish great things, and we would like to see them. Why is it, you might ask yourself, that you want your child to be the prettiest one. You want your child to be the most intelligent one. The best dressed one. Is it really for your child’s sake? Or, when you really test your heart, are you constantly thinking that your child is reflecting on you?
Sometimes we put great pressure on our children. Many times we say, “My children are going to have everything that I never had. They are going to do things that I never did.” We want our children to do better in school than we did. I get a kick out of the story about a little boy who got his report card and knew that he was in trouble. Later that night, he came home. He went to his father and said, “Dad, here’s my report card and one of yours I found in the attic.” I suppose my parents were always satisfied with my report card, at least when they saw it. They had every confidence that at least I was not taking mind-expanding drugs. In all truth we do sometimes seek to push our children into accomplishments; that is undeniably so. Time magazine tells us that through the history of little league baseball across this nation of ours many times games had to be postponed because of a riot among parents who were so concerned with the performance of their children out on the field.
We need to test our hearts. We should not seek greatness for our children, nor should we seek greatness for ourselves through our children—at least not greatness in the world’s eyes. There is an honor and a recognition that the world has to give, but “the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (I John 2:17). Our desire for our children should be that they seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33), that they seek the very character of our Lord Jesus Christ—whether they be ditch diggers or corporate executives, whether they be rich or poor it does not matter. Is that what you want for your children more than anything else?
We cannot make ourselves great, nor can we make our children great. There is only one individual in this universe who is great, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ—for He founded the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the works of His hands (Psalm 102:25). “He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:2-3). “When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3b).
He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. He is the very source of greatness, and our greatness can only have its source in Him. Yet our Lord Jesus Christ was not held great by this world when He lived here. He came into this world and the world was made by him, and the world received Him not (John 1:10,11), but his Father “has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11). Our Father in heaven does not seek our glory in the world’s terms. He seeks a heart like unto His own. That is what we should seek for our children.
Psychologists also tell us that sometimes we seek a sort of vicarious permanence through our children that we might somehow live on through our offspring. I suppose that since the creation of humanity, people have always longed for permanence. Juan Ponce de León sought the fountain of youth. Individuals looked to science and genetics for breakthroughs in hopes that science might be able to increase our longevity. But it is ridiculous to seek longevity through our children. All through history people have sought some sort of longevity through their children that they might live on through their children. I suppose psychologists say that is why we sometimes try to make our children in our own image—that we try to make our children like us so that we might live on through them.
Apparently, on my mother’s side, I am part Native American. That is kind of exciting to me, and I am happy to be part Native American. It explains my interest in eating corn and camping and living in tents. In any event, if I am supposedly related to Pocahontas, does Pocahontas live on through me? I would say hardly. It is ridiculous. Pocahontas was body, soul, and spirit. If I am in any way connected to Pocahontas, no matter how distant it is, body is it. It is in my body genetically, but her body has gone dust to dust and so will my body one day. Her soul and spirit have left this earth and gone to another place. My soul and spirit will one day as well. Her soul and spirit are entirely separate from mine. You cannot mingle your soul and spirit with that of your children. You cannot live on through your children.
If any generation should lose their hope to live on through the children, this is the generation for we are the generation that has been called the “nuclear man.” We have seen a splitting of the atom. We have seen the unleashing of all of its power. We have seen human beings grow in knowledge. We have seen growth in power, but we have not seen a corresponding growth in wisdom. We might very well question whether our children have a future. There is no hope of permanence through our children.
There is only one hope of permanence and that is in Jesus Christ. For the scriptures say of Him that He was the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He founded the earth in the beginning. The heavens are the works of His hands; they will perish, but He remains. They will grow old like a garment, like a mantle. He will roll them up, and they will be changed. But He is the same, and His years never end (Hebrews 1:10-12). He is without mother or father or genealogy and has neither beginning of days nor end of life. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last (Revelations 22:13). He is the very source of permanence, and He wants to share His permanence with you. That is why the scriptures say that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Even now, the Lord Jesus Christ stands at the door of every unbeliever’s heart, and He knocks. And if anyone will open the door, He will come in and share His life with that person (Revelation 3:20). His eternal life. His never ending life. What a beautiful promise.
Psychologists also tell us that sometimes we seek to use our children to satisfy our need for power. I suppose we all have some sort of a desire for power in our life. Nietzsche said that the will to power was the driving force of humankind. God has given us, as parents, a certain authority in the lives of our children, but we can abuse that authority. So we must ask ourselves why it is we give commands to our children. Is it for the sake of commanding, or is it for their sake?
God has given us authority to discipline our children, and I believe biblically that that discipline can include the form of spanking. But even spanking, you see, must be administered in love and with a desire to help the child, not with a desire to express power. Child abuse cases are increasing. There does seem to be a problem in this area, but we have no power in and of ourselves.
Individuals seek to make themselves powerful. We see that in all areas of life. Yet we have no power in ourselves for Jesus Christ has said of Himself that all power in heaven and earth has been given to Him (Matthew 28:18). Even now, the scriptures say that He upholds the universe with His word of power (Hebrews 1:3). The Greek word for power is dunamis. It is the same word from which we get the word dynamite. Jesus Christ is the very source of dynamite. He is our source of power.
Why do we have children? What is God’s purpose in giving us the privilege of parenthood? To understand it, we must understand that our children are not ours. We call them our children. We call them my children, but they are not really ours. God says, “Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine” (Ezekiel 18:4). We do not own our children. God does. But God has given them to us for a period of time, and we have been given stewardship over them—not ownership over them—but stewardship over them for a period of time.
Why has God chosen to give you and me that privilege of stewardship over children? I am thoroughly convinced that He has given us that privilege in order to prepare them for God. Our children are not our own. They have been given to us for a while in order that we might prepare them for God. If you as parents do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, then you cannot possibly prepare your children for God because you must first know God; and you can only know God through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).
All of us who know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior have that responsibility to prepare our children for God. How do we do that, you might ask? Should I have family altar times, family worship times? Should I make sure my children go to Sunday school? Yes. Those are important, but those are not the primary ways in which God has you prepare your children for God. His primary method is that of modeling or what we might call being an example. God wants you as parents to be His example of Himself to your children. God says, “Hear, O Israel, for the Lord your God is one God. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And the words which I tell you this day shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children as you wake in the morning, as you walk along the way, and as you go to bed at night” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7). It is a process that runs through the whole day. It is not just some time where you set them aside. You do it through the whole day as you share your life.
It is so beautiful when Paul says to Timothy, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5). Faith is meant to be contagious, and it is contagious by example as we model a life of faith before the lives of our children.
When our Lord Jesus Christ came into this world, that is the primary method He used for teaching. It is easy to set our children aside and give them a talk about Jesus. It is easy to set our children aside and give them a talk about the scriptures or tell them how they ought to be reading their scriptures or send them to Sunday school. It is much more difficult to live an exemplary life. Jesus knew how to teach. He came here. He is the King of kings, the Lord of Lords, who has existed from all eternity. He came to this earth for 33 years, but He only spent three of those years in ministry, at least in public ministry. And in those three years, He spent probably 90% of His time with twelve men.
Why? Because He knew that the only way He could truly teach them was through modeling, and so He shared His life with them. He shared His spirit until they caught His vision, and the world has never been the same. We have been given that privilege to model our life to our children. I am so thankful for my parents. My parents are here today and that scares me, but I am excited about that, too. I am so thankful for them because I saw Jesus Christ through them. Isn’t that neat? They are not only my physical parents, but they are in a real sense my spiritual parents, too.
I thank God for every time my father disciplined me. I thank God for every time my father spanked my brothers and me when we really needed it. It is not an easy thing to take the time to discipline your children. It is hard sometimes to leave what you are doing to take care of a problem. I used to think my dad was just waiting around looking for a problem to occur, and one always did. But you know, I am thankful for that. I’m thankful for my mother, too. I remember when I was five years old and knelt with my mother on that living room sofa. I asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart. I was glad that my mother was there with me—not simply because she said or told me about Jesus but because she showed me about Jesus. I could not have denied that Jesus was real because I saw Jesus in her. I thank God for every time I saw my mother praying around the house, modeling though she was not maybe doing it consciously. I thank God for every time I saw her praying as she was doing the wash, for all the times I saw her reading her Bible. My father, too, for the Bible, was a very real part of our family life.; and not when they would just call me in to read the Bible with them, but I would see them reading the Bible. I thank God for the fact that my parents loved the church, loved the fellowship of their brothers and sisters in Christ. I saw that as an example. I do not mean to say that to embarrass my parents by implying that they were perfect, but they seemed very much so to me.
I know that each and every one of you want to provide a good model of Jesus Christ to your children. You are influencing your children all the time, whether you know it or not. They are copying you whether you know it or not. Sometimes that is good, and sometimes that is bad because they copy the bad things you do as well as the good things you do. Sometimes when they copy the bad things you do, it can get them in trouble. Sometimes it can get you in trouble too.
I am reminded of the story of a man who lived in a communist country but did not like the Communist Party. He could not, of course, make that known and kept it to himself. The Communist Party insisted that his child attend a communist run school. A Communist Party leader was teaching the class the man’s child was in and addressed his child. He asked the child, “Comrade, how big is the Communist Party?” The child thought for a second and said, “five foot two.” The communist leader was taken a back and said, “Idiot. Idiot. I said, how many people are in the Communist Party? Where did you get ‘five foot two’? The child replied, “Well, my dad’s six foot tall, and every night he puts his hand to his chin and says, ‘I’ve had the Communist Party up to here.'”
Our children copy what we say and what we do, and our task is to live an exemplary life that they might see Jesus through us. We cannot do that by our own power, only by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. The most important thing we can do as parents to help our children is for us to grow in Christ. If we are not growing in Christ, we will never help our children grow in Christ.
One final thought I want to share before we quit. You have not only been given the privilege of parenthood in order to prepare your children for God, but also you have been given the privilege of parenthood to prepare yourself for God. I take that to be a great mystery. God has dominion over all things. Yet He created us in His image, and He gave us some measure of dominion in the beginning as a reflection of His image. Our measure of dominion was to have dominion over the earth, and we have abused that dominion. To some measure that dominion also was that we as parents might have dominion in our home. The scriptures tell us that we who believe are being prepared to reign and rule with Jesus Christ. He has made us a kingdom of priests to His God, and we shall reign and rule forever and ever. The Lord Jesus Christ says in the book of Revelation that He will write His name on our forehead and night will be no more. There will be need for sun or light for the Lord God shall be our light, and we shall reign and rule forever and ever (Revelation 22:5).
I do not think the most important question is over whom we should reign or rule. The most important question is how shall we reign and rule. We shall reign and rule in loving servitude. We learn to do that as parents for you have been given a reign in your stewardship over your children. You have been given a rule, and you are learning. You are being prepared for reigning and ruling as you learn to give yourself in loving servitude to your children. Barb and I learned to give ourselves in loving servitude to our children. What a neat privilege God has given to us. We also, of course, learn through our mistakes. And maybe some of you are very much convicted even now that you have made mistakes in your parenthood. Maybe you are grieving right now because you do not have that confidence that your sons or daughters know and love Jesus Christ. You might feel that you have been a bad parent and have not provided a good model. To that the Lord would have me say to you that He would not have you carry that heavy burden with you.
You may indeed have provided an ample model. Jesus Christ may have indeed shown through your life, but your children are free. They may have rejected the model you gave, or you may indeed have made mistakes. We all make mistakes in our childrearing. You may feel that your mistakes were many; but even in that event, the Lord Jesus would have you leave the past behind. That is the beautiful part of the gospel of Christ that we can always leave the past behind. He is more willing to forgive us than we are to forgive ourselves. We can say, “Lord Jesus, give me a new start,” and He will today. You can go out of here today not carrying that burden with you any longer. Leave your children to the Lord, and pray for them. My parents were praying for me before I was ever born. Barb and I have prayed for our children before the time of their birth.
Billy Graham has said that it takes a miracle to raise a children in this day, and it does. We live by faith, and we live by trust. We give our lives in relinquishment that we might be a model of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit lives in us. We trust God for the fruit of our lives
Shall we look to the Lord in prayer? Father, how we thank You for the privilege that You have given to each and every one of us that we might be parents. Lord, we confess that we have abused that privilege from time to time because we have not lived as we ought to live. Yet, Lord, we thank You so much for Your grace and mercy and love for us, that You are always willing to pick us up when we fall. Father, we pray that You might help each and every parent here to be a mirror through whom Jesus is seen. Father, we pray for every child in this congregation that they might see the life and love of Jesus Christ in their parents day by day. We pray for parents that they might be more faithful to be in Your word and prayer, that the attitudes that they express at home might be more in line with the love that was shown by our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, thank You for this day, and we pray that You will be with each and every one of us as we go our separate ways. We thank You for all things. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, the name that is above every name. Amen.