Latest / Andy Stanley Sermons / Andy Stanley - Parenting in the 21st Century Part 1 The Secret to Great Parenting

Transcript

Andy Stanley - Parenting in the 21st Century Part 1 The Secret to Great Parenting · Andy Stanley Sermons

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, thank you so much for joining us. If
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: this is your first time, we certainly hope it's not
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: your last time. And this is a great time to
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: join us because we are at the front end of
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a brand new series.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: For the next several weeks, I want.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: To talk to parents, grandparents, future parents, aunts, uncles, anybody
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: who feels the weight and the responsibility of equipping an infant,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a child, a teenager, a middle schooler, or a high
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: schooler for life. Today and for the next few weeks,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about parenting now. When Sandra and
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I talk to parents about parenting, she always says something
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: that gets everybody's attention. And for those of you who
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: are in the season where you're raising middle school or
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: high school.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Students, you totally get this. Here's what she always says.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: She says, the days are long, the days are long,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: but the years, the years are short.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: And this is oh so true.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, on the front end, on the front end,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you feel like you have plenty of time, and then
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: you blink and they're ten, and then they're graduating from
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: middle school and then they're gone and you think, oh no,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: or you will think, oh no, are they really ready?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Did I tell them everything they needed to know that
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I prepare them for life. And the answer to that
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: question is always no, you didn't. You probably forgot a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: few essentials, some really important things, which is understandable because
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: you were busy.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: You were busy parenting.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Now, like most first time fathers and mothers, I will
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: never ever forget the terror. And that's the right word,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the terror I felt when the nurse at the hospital.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: You'll remember this. Some of you.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Closed our car door as she sent Sandra and me
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: home with a baby by ourselves. What we're thinking. I
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: knew what I was thinking. I was thinking, surely one
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of you is coming home with us. I mean, what
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: if we do this wrong? And that's I think that's
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the first time that it dawned on me that just
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: because I have a parent, just because I have a parent,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean I know anything about being one. And maybe
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: more to the point, just because I was a kid
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: once doesn't mean I know anything about raising one.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: And so you'll remember this, some of you.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So you're sitting in the car, the doors are closed,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: you don't know what you're doing.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: It's just terror. I think it's just terror.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's excitement but there's terror and the nurse
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: she just stood there and she waved goodbye with that
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: knowing look on her face. But we figured it out,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: but we didn't figure it out on our own. Sandra
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and I were sponges like many of you are. We
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: were sponges for good parenting advice, whether it came from
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: books or videos, or friends or even experts. And honestly,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: we had an advantage that most people don't have. At
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the time, I was serving as the student pastor at
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: our church, which meant I had the opportunity to oversee
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: our middle school and high school students, which met we
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: had lots of interactions with parents of middle schoolers and
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: high schoolers. That we had interactions with the parents, we
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: saw great examples and we saw well, we saw what
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: we considered some.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Really bad examples.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: But when we saw parents who had a healthy relationship
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: with their teenagers, we were not shy about inviting them
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to lunch. We wanted to know their game plan. We
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: wanted we would say, we want your map, we want
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to know how you did it, how did you get
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: them from the car seat to the driver's seat with
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the relationship intact, And the relationship was so important to
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: us because again, we'd seen so many parents undermine their
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: relationship with their kids, and nobody does that on purpose.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody has a plan to undermine their relationship with their
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: teenager or their adult kids. But we saw it over
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and over and over, and when we saw parents who
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: got it right or who did it right, we wanted
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to know how they did it. And every time we
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: would ask these parents for advice, they would just kind
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of look at each other and shrug, and they would
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: say things like, we don't know. We we just loved
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: our kids, but we knew better. They had a map,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: they they had an approach, they had some habits, but
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: it was so intuitive to them they oftentimes they couldn't
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: verbalize it. But Sandra and I were students, and we
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: were serious about figuring this out.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: And to some extent, we were afraid right.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Because we want to get it. We wanted to get
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: it right. And here's what we noticed. Here are a
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: few things that we noticed up front. The parents who
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: seemed to have been able to maintain a strong relationship
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: even through the middle school and high school years. One
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of the things that was true of almost all of
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: them is that they had fewer rules they had far
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: fewer rules than the parents whose kids were always in
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: trouble for breaking their rules. One of the things that
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: we noticed when we did middle school and high school
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: ministry together was how many kids were.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Always on restriction.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: They were always on restriction, they were being restricted from things,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: they were grounded all the time. And in our experience,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: these kids never really got any better. They were always
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the trouble makers and they were always in trouble. But
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: when we talked to parents who had been able to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: maintain strong relationships with their kids even through the middle
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: school and high school years, we discovered that none of them,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: that virtually none of them ever even used restriction or.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Grounding as a tool to discipline.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: They're kids. We will come back to that later. The
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: other thing that we noticed about these extraordinary parents who
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: seem to have gotten it right is, and this may
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: sound strange, they were not afraid of their children.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: They were not afraid of their children.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Now, if you don't have children, this may seem strange
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: to you, but I'm telling you it is easy for
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: parents to become afraid of their children. And when you
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: fear your children, your children are just by nature of
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the fact that you're afraid of them, or you fear them,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: or you fear their response to you. They are in
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: charge of the relationship. They are in charge in some
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: cases of the marriage. But these unique parents, they did
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: not fear the rejection of their children, and that's oftentimes
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: what parents fear.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: They fear the rejection of their kids. They weren't afraid
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: to discipline their children. But again, they didn't discipline their
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: children in the traditional ways that parents often disciplined their children.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Again, we'll come back to that later. Here here's the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: other thing. Then, I don't know exactly how to say this,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: so give me a minute. These extraordinary parents discovered, I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: think is the best word. They actually spent time discovering,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: or they discovered, and then they facilitated their kid's interest
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: on their kids' strengths and their kids talents rather than
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and this is key, rather than forcing or insisting that
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: their children embrace what was most interesting too or what
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: came naturally to the parents. In other words, instead of
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the you know, the the athletic dad, you know, insisting
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: that his son be an athlete or his daughter be
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: an athlete. Instead, they stood back and they they just
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: they were students of their kids, and they figured out
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the directions the natural flow of their children, and then
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: they invested in the natural flow rather than trying to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: force them into something. And again, we've all seen parents
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: do the opposite of that, and again we've all seen
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: where that leads. In fact, maybe that's your story growing up.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Your mom had a special interest and she wanted you,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: as her daughter, to embrace what was interesting to her,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: but you weren't interested in it. And again, what happened
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: there was a relational friction. Somehow, these wise parents they
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: avoided all of that. Another thing that we noticed about
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: these parents is that they resisted the temptation to involve
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: their kids in everything. Not only were they not afraid
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of their children, they didn't fear their children missing out.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: In other words, here's how I say this. They prioritized.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: They prioritized relationship over experience. They prioritized their relationship with
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: their kids and their kids' relationships with each other over experience.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: They prioritized the experiences that they could experience together over
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the experiences that sent everybody in one hundred different directions.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: And then there was one other thing, and it's what
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I want us to spend the rest of our time
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: discussing today. As we got to know these families through
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: the year, through through multiple years, we noticed that all
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: of them had what we would consider healthy marriages, not perfect,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: because there is no perfect marriage, but healthy.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: In fact, we.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Walked away from those multiple conversations convinced that perhaps the
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: best parenting tool of all, perhaps the best gift we
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: could give our children, was a healthy marriage. And for
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: some of you, that's when you put down your pen,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: and that's when you stop taking notes. I understand that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: because if a healthy marriage is part of the parenting equation,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: if it's an important part of the parenting equation, that's
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: bad news for you, discouraging news for you, because it's
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: out of reach for you. In fact, it's so discourag
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and I've been doing this for so long, it's so
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: discouraging that honestly, I was tempted to skip this part
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of the series. As you can imagine, it would be
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: easier to just leave marriage out of a conversation about parenting.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: And you know this, for years, there's been a push
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: to do just that, to divorce parenting from marriage, And honestly,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the parenting conversation is certainly easier. It's more comfortable, it's
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: more politically correct if we just set aside the notion
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of the nuclear family, a phrase that we don't use
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that much anymore. The nuclear family is simply a father
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and a mother and children all living together.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Under one roof.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: It's easier to isolate parenting to a standalone topic. But
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: to do that, and here's what we're going to talk
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: about for the next few minutes. To isolate parenting from
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: marriage is actually to steal something valuable from the current
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and the next generation. To isolate parenting from marriage is
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: to steal something valuable from your children and your grandchildren.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: To do so is to remove well, it's not only
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: to remove the bull's eye, it's like removing the entire target.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: And hopefully that will become clear in the next few minutes.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Now that brings us to this uncomfortable tension that you're
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: already beginning to feel, this uncomfortable tension between what's real
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and what's ideal, what's real and what's ideal. It's an
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable tension because for many of us, ideal when we
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: talk about family and marriage, ideal is seemingly out of reach.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And it would be more comfortable again to just put
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: it out of sight. But part of my responsibility from
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: time to time is to step into the emotional, uncomfortable,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: perhaps dangerous role of a profit, to plant my feet
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and my heart and honestly my compassion in the middle
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of what's real while pointing to an ideal, and to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: ignore reality. And again, it's easy to do this when
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: we talk about something like marriage. But to ignore reality
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: leaves us, sir, or leaves me speaking or teaching in
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: such a way that doesn't take into consideration the families
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and the family dynamics that actual people are actually navigating.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: It leaves the impression if we don't deal with what's real,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It leaves the impression that the message of Jesus, and
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: this is so important, to not delve into what's real
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: what's actual, is to leave the impression that the message.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Of Jesus has no real bearing on real life.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: To ignore current reality, your current reality, leaves us with
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a static kind of stained glass religion removed from reality,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Church and sermons become nothing more than reminders of somebody
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: else's reality, standards that we will never attain to a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: world that no longer exists, if it ever existed in
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the first place. So for a discussion on parenting to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: be relevant, we have to take into account what's real,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: which again should be really easy for Christians. And this
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: may come as a shock. In fact, this may be offensive.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: But of all the people in the world, when it
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: comes to embracing what's really going on with families and marriages,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: this should be second nature to us as Christians, because
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: there are virtually no as in none, there are virtually
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: no good examples of family in the entire Bible. When
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: it comes to illustrations of real world family dysfunction, the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Bible is actually your go to source. I mean, you
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: just think about it. Think about think about the first family.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: You remember them. They were pretty much a disaster. Think
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: about it, Sin entered the world. If you're a Christian,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: this is what we believe that sin all sin entered
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the world through the first married couple before they even
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: had kids, and then they immediately started blaming each other
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and their kids. Well, we don't know much about their kids,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: but what we do know is this that one of
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: their sons murdered his brother, and we're off to the races,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the human races. Just about every Old Testament story involving
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: family is bad. In fact, just about every Old Testament
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: story that deals with family is horrible by modern standards.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: So the point being this, the Church.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: We should be really good at taking into account the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: realities of family life, taking into consideration what's actually going on,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: taking into consideration what's actually going on in any conversation
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: about parenting, because our book, our text, the Bible, is full,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: it's full of bad examples. But at the same time,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: and this is what makes this conversation so fascinating and
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: actually so helpful at the same time, the authors of
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the New Testament, the authors of the New Testament, paint
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: a picture of what could be and what should be,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: what could be and should be as it relates to family.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: They actually point us toward the ideal. While they embrace,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: clearly embrace reality, they also point us to this ideal.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And we shouldn't be surprised because they knew, and God
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: knew what we intuitively know. And that's simply this that
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: if we remove ideal from the equation, if we remove
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: ideal from the family equation simply because it's out of
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: reach for some of us, out of reach for some
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: of us in this generation, that simply ensures that it
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: will remain out of reach for many in the next generation.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Part of our responsibility is parents and grandparents come on,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: is to give our kids and our grandkids something to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: aim for, something to live for, most importantly, something to
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: decide towards.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: When it came to living and teaching in the messy
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: middle between what's real and what's ideal, Jesus was the master.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: He navigated during his you know, during his entire ministry,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: that this tension between real and ideal, and he clung
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to this tension.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: He didn't abandon it. But then, of course he did.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Because the Gospel, I mean, the Gospel doesn't begin with,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: you know, once upon a time in a perfectly ordered
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: world where everyone all did the right thing. The Gospel
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Christianity begins like this, that Christ died for our sins.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: According to the.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Scripture, the Gospel assumes sin. The Gospel assumes that we're
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: going to get it wrong. The Gospel assumes real while
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: it points the ideal. That Christ showed up in a
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: perfectly disordered world where ideal seemed out of reach honestly
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: for everyone. The Gospel begins with this, for God so
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: loved the world, which world not the garden of eden world.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Our world, your world, My world are broken and perfect
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: less than ideal world. The tension between real and ideal
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: was embedded within just about every single one of jesus parables.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: He would say things like this. He would say, the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Kingdom of God is like and his disciples would say, yeah,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: but this isn't the Kingdom of God, to which he
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: would then smile and say, come to me, all who
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: You will find rest for your souls. And then he
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: would pivot, and once again he would point to the ideal.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: He would say things like this, you have heard it said.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: You have heard it said that you shall not commit adultery,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: to which his audience would always say, yes, we have
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: heard that said. And Jesus would say, but I tell you,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: but I tell you, anyone who even looks at a
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: to which they would say, we had not heard that part.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: And Jesus, honestly, that makes us feel bad about ourselves,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: So don't say things like that anymore.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: That's just it's unrealistic. But he kept saying things like that.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: He consistently pointed beyond the lowest common denominator.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: To the ideal.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: He gave people. He gave people in his audience. He
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: gives us something to aspire to. And then, and then,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: when he would bump into people who fell short, unlike
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the religious leaders of his day, he did not condemned them.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: In fact, Jesus condemned the condemners, and then he would
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: die for the condemned. Instead of lowering the standard, he
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: turned up the grace. He redefined adultery and made every
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: man an adulterer, and then he paid for their adultery.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: When religious leaders attempted to trap him with his own
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: words during a discussion regarding divorce, Jesus, this is amazing.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Jesus raised the marriage standard so high, so high that
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: he slammed the door on a man's opportunity or freedom
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: to wiggle out of his responsibility to his family. In fact,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Jesus raised the bar so high. He pointed so intuitively
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and so pointedly to the ideal that when he finished
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: talking about marriage and divorce. When he finished the discussion
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and they walked away, his apostles, the twelve that followed
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: him everywhere, they looked at each other, and here's how
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: they responded. They said, wow, if this is the situation
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: between a husband and a wife, it's just better not
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: to marry. In other words, Jesus, you you made it
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: sound so permanent. But Jesus, that's so unrealistic. Coming things happen,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: people change, to which Jesus would have said, I know,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: it's why I'm here. So Jesus, let me get this straight.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: So you're against divorce, of course, I'm against divorce. Divorce
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: hurts people, Divorce breaks people, Divorce leads broken lives, divorce
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: leads wounds. Of course I'm against divorce. Well, then, Jesus,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: what are you gonna do about divorce people? I'm gonna
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: give my life for them. And this is the tension.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: This is the beauty of the gospel. This is why
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: if you've walked away from faith, perhaps you should reconsider Jesus.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Never Jesus never dumbed down the truth, but he never
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: turned down the grace. And here's the fascinating thing. John
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Matthew Martin Luke, John John, who knew Jesus well, who
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: spent three and a half years with Jesus, heard everything
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: he taught, saw all the miracles. John said, it was
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: so remarkable. It was so remarkable. And then John writes
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite things that anyone said about Jesus.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: He said, looking back over my time with Jesus, having
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: watched him deal with real people who were dealing with
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: real life situations, situations for which there were no easy answers,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: no quick fixes, John said, it was remarkable.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Day in and day out.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Jesus would point these people who were living with real
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: difficulties to the ideal. He consistently pointed them to the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: ideal while helping them navigate what they were facing, living
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: through living with Again. As an old man, looking back
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: on his time with Jesus, he summarizes his time with
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Jesus with these familiar and powerful words. Here's what he writes.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: He said the word speaking of God, He said, God
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: came to live with us. The Word became flesh, and
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: he camped out with us. He dwelt among us. He
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: didn't send us more rules and regulations from afar. He
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: became one of us. He navigated our reality with us.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: He showed up in human form. He moved in with us,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and he says, and we have seen, we have seen
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: his glory, to which the Old Testament scholars in the
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: first century Jewish scholars would say, no, no, no, you haven't
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: seen the glory. No one can see God's glory and live.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And John's like, look, I'm just the normal guy, and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I'm just telling you.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: What we saw.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: We saw the glory of the one and only Son
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: who came from the Father. And then this next phrase,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: this next phrase that I think summarises in so many ways,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: what kind of Christian, what kind of person I want
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: to be. In fact, if you lost your faith, if
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: you lost your faith, perhaps it's because nobody ever explained
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: this part about Jesus. He said, the glory of the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: one and only Son who came from the Father, full
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of full of grace and truth. Jesus was not the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: balance of grace and truth. He was a full dose
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of grace. He was a full dose of truth. Jesus
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: was all grace and he was all truth all the time. Again,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: he didn't dumb down the truth to make us feel
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: better about ourselves, but he never turned down the grace.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: And again, that's the kind of Christian. That's the kind
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: of Christian, that's the kind of person that I want
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: to be. And maybe part of that is because I
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: grew up on the truth version grace a not so much.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: But here's the problem, truth without grace. And I know
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: from personal experience that truth without grace creates pretenders and hypocrites.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: But grace without truth creates kind of a permissive version
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: of faith that ultimately hurts everybody in the end. But
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: grace and truth, grace and truth is personified.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: And illustrated by Jesus. It's powerful.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: John wraps up the passage with this, again, so much
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: that could be unpacked here. He says, this the law,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: talking about the Jewish law, for the law was given
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: This is so powerful.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: It was Jesus who first introduced this tension between grace
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and truth and then lived in it rather than leaning
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: one way or the other.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Is dynamic as this is, and is inviting as this is,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: this is a difficult thing to live out. And yet
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: it's what we have been called to live out as Christians,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and it's what we've been called to model corporately.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, come on, the church.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: The Church is the body of Christ, and as his body,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: this is our responsibility, this is our role in culture.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: This is how we serve as conscience and comfort in
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: our communities and in our nation. I mean, you know
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: what the conscience does. A conscience, from time to time
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: makes us feel bad about ourselves. But a properly informed
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: conscience is also what keeps us from losing our way,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: keeps us from losing our bearings. Our conscience tells us
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: when we veered into dangerous territory. It reminds us that
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: we're about to undermine our own future and the future
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of those who depend on us. So back to parenting
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and marriage. Let's get maybe uncomfortably specific. Here's the ideal.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Ideal is parents raising children together under one roof. Communities
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: don't raise children. Parents raise children. Communities are simply the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: context for raising children. And in communities, whether they're rural, urban,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: or suburban, you know, communities where the nuclear family is
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the exception rather than the rule, you know what happens.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: The government is forced to step in and help raise children.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Local schools are forced to feed children. Agencies are created
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to protect children. We all know that, and we all
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: want better than that. We want better than that for
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: each other, and we want better than that for the
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: next generation. Communities don't raise kids, but they certainly set
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: expectations for kids, for good or for bad. It's why
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: some of you have gone to great links and honestly
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: great expense to ensure that your children are being raised
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: in a community that affirms your values. And this is
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: so important and you are to be.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Celebrated for this.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: You've gone to great links to make sure that your
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: kids are being raised in communities that affirm your values,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: even when your particular situation falls short of what you value,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and you are to be so commended for that. In fact,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: we have designed our churches to partner with you in
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: that process. We want better for your kids because you
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: want better for your kids. You don't want to be
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: told that everything is fine so that you'll feel better
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: about yourself, because you're smart and you love your kids
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and you know better. So every once in a while,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: every once in a while, we all need to be
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: reminded of what should be and what could be, maybe
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: not what can be for us, but what could and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: should be for our children.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: That's good parenting.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Every once in a while we all need to be
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: coaxed back into the tension between what's real and what's ideal.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to parenting, marriage matters, and any attempt,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: any attempt to downplay the importance of marriage, to downplay
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: its role, it's just misguided, not because of the dynamic
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: it creates within a particular family, but because it robs
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: children of an opportunity to aspire for and to decide
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: toward the eye deal. Now, I think again, one of
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the reasons that I have so much energy around this
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: is something that happened to me about ten years ago.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Ten years ago, I had a conversation that brought this
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: entire dynamic into very very sharp focus, this dynamic between
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: real and ideal and marriage and parenting. Sandra and I
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: met a gentleman named Rick.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Actually I met him first. Rick is about my age.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: His family situation growing up was extremely unhealthy, chaotic, and
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: at times, he would say dangerous. By the age of thirteen,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Rick had had enough and he was planning to run
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: away from home. He told his uncle, who was disabled.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: He told his uncle what he was planning to do,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and his uncle urged him, you know, said wait, wait, wait,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: let's talk about this. And his uncle explained to him
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that the state, the state of Georgia, would help him,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: providing with a place to live, predictable meals, a consistent
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: roof over his head.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: So his uncle, he said.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Cashed his welfare check to pay for a cab, and
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: he and Rick, who was thirteen years old, taxied over
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: to the defact's office. His uncle dropped him off. Rick
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: did not wait to be taken out of his home.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: He opted out himself and he was placed in a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: temporary foster home. Later he moved to a children's home,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and he was eventually placed with a family in Gwinnett County,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: which is a county just north of the city of Atlanta,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: where he says his life was changed forever now. Rick
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and I had a long lunch and he told me
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: his entire story in detail. But toward the end of
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the story he said something that, honestly, it altered the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: trajectory of our family's life. He said this, he said, Andy,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: until I went to live with the Price family, the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: family in Gwenett County, he said, until I went to
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: live with that family, I had never seen a family
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: sit around a table for dinner without arguing and screaming.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: He said.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I'd never seen a man come home from work with
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: a paycheck. He said, I'd never seen a father provide
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: for his family, and he said, seeing that, just seeing
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: that was life changing for me. And then he said this,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: and I wrote it down because it had such an
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: impact on me, and I quote he said this. He said,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I just needed to see it to aim for it.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I just needed to see it to aim for it.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Once I saw it and experienced it, I knew what
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I wanted. At thirteen years old, I knew what I wanted.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Until then, I didn't even.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Know such a thing even existed. When I called Rick.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: To get permission to share this part of his story,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: he got emotional all over again, just working through some
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of these details, explaining some of these details, and he
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: said this, he said, Andy, he said, the thing is this,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: once you see it, you can't unsee it. Once you
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: see it, you can't forget it. So after that initial
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: lunch ten years ago, I went home and I told
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Sandra Rick's entire story, and we agreed we could do that.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: We could give some kids a different picture of family.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Not a perfect family, not a perfect picture, but a
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: picture that they may otherwise never see.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Never experience. In a few weeks or a few.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Months with us in our household, perhaps we could provide
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: a child with a picture a potential that they didn't
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: even know existed. And if we can do for even
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: one child what the price family did for Rick.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Now, as you know, from time to time I encourage
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: you to ask and answer this terrifying question, what breaks
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: your heart? And as it turns out, kids growing up
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: without a picture of what could and should be as
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: it relates to marriage and family, well, that broke our hearts.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: So we became foster parents.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: As you know, there are tens of thousands of children
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: who will not aim for ideal because they don't even
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: know it exists. They've never seen it, they've never experienced it,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: they don't even know it's out there. So and here's
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: really the point of this opening session of this series
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: to do or to support anything, to do or to
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: support anything that removes ideal from the equation, the conversation,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the culture, to downplay the importance of parents raising kids
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: together simply because it seems too e to American, to Western,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: to traditional, to remove that from.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: The equation, because it's too ideal.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: It's stealing, it's stealing the future of our future generations.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: It's a mistake that we will pay for for generations,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and make no mistake, women and children. Women and children will.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Pay the highest price.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: They always do. So, yeah, it was tempting. It was
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: tempting to just jump right into some parenting tips that
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: would have been easier, safer, certainly less potential to be misunderstood.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: But that would have been irresponsible because parenting is first
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and foremost. Parenting is first and foremost about preparing our
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: children for their future, which requires us to cast a
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: compelling vision for their future, what could and should be
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: for them, regardless of where our lives have taken us
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: a vision for them academically, financially, but maybe most importantly, relationally.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Our shortcomings as parents, and we all have them, right,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: our shortcomings, if we leverage them wisely, can serve as
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: a catalyst, a catalyst for our children to climb to
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: heights that perhaps are out of reach for us. And
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: if they do, that's a win. It's a win for them,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and it's a win for us. It's a win for
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: our community. So while we navigate what's real, let's not
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: give up on ideal, and let's instill a dream in
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the hearts and minds of this next generation that positions
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: them to live better lives and perhaps make the world
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: a better place.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: And let's resist.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Let's resist the voices and culture that have the potential
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: to steal the dream of family from our kids. There
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: will always be a tension between what's real and what's ideal,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: and we dare not resolve it. To resolve it is
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: to lose something. So when it comes to family, let's
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: resolve not to resolve that tension. Let's live in it,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: let's parent in it. Let's follow Jesus through it. After all,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: he came and he made his dwelling among us, and
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: he was full of grace and truth. Think about it,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: talk about it, argue about it, and we will pick
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: up the discussion right there next time. In Part two
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: of Parenting in the twenty first Century.