Discipline and Repentance for You and Yours

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Okay, my subject is discipline, repentance, and you and your children. Jim’s discussion about our big society was an interesting one and somewhat sad, but that’s why we’re raising the next generation, right, to change this back and to correct the mistakes my generation made. So that’s all good information. Bottom line, my talk is only to those who are in the family of the Lord, believers. So our issue is, or my issue in this discussion, is how you should discipline and repent to your children and how they should be disciplined and repent to you. So that interchange is really important and I think it needs to be generated from the top down first.

So I have, my talk probably will not go the whole 45 minutes, which you probably will appreciate. You’ll have a little longer break. But the real issue is that you just need to do what the Bible says. Now, the problem with that is that gets a little tough when we have our lovely sin nature that keeps creeping up and telling us to do something different. So my first structure is what kind of family are we seeing and what do you and your wife have to give to your children as that example? So my first verse is Ephesians 5.25 And it says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Now, obviously Christ died for the church and you can push that as hard as you want, but you need to die for your wife and your kids know that you would do that.

Now, when you do that kind of thing, it’s amazing how they do notice and they ask questions you then have to answer those questions and live that out. So just on that one principle alone you would get a lot done. Then in Proverbs it says, my son give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways. So when you’re talking to your kids you’re telling them to observe you. That’s problematic when you’re a jerk like I am. So they can do some pretty dumb stuff and you know the little woman gets you aside and says but you just did what they’re doing. So during that time coming to Christ late in our lives we Morgan I think was five right when we came to the Lord. I don’t know where it is. Oh, she’s over there. And that a lot of bad things to correct, but I think in a way it was very helpful because I realized being 37 that, oh, that was me then and I’m trying to be this now through a whole new power base in me that can make that happen. So I was quick to say, what I did there was wrong, will you forgive me for that and let’s move on to this and

That was huge and that that is a big lesson that I’m trying to talk about here with these verses is that a Lot of times if you ask your kid for forgiveness when you know you were wrong Instead of trying to bluff your way through as the dad it’s huge because because then the kid sees, oh, he’s trying to do what he wants me to do, and I want to please him. Your kids do wanna please you, believe it or not. They want your approval. That’s just a natural thing. They like that. And we like it too, you know, to see that reciprocated. So in those two verses, give me your heart and let you observe my ways and loving your wife as Christ loves the church, you are teaching your children to love the standard, you demonstrate the standard.

So if you want your kid to do something, demonstrate that standard. Now, some of them can be pretty hard-headed and not get that. And so you say, did you observe when I did this? Yeah, but you’re the dad, I’m the kid, you know. Usually you should be teaching this way younger then you have those kind of discussions back at you. So as you do that, you’ll be amazed at how they show those things out and play them out. Matthew 22, 39 through 40 says, and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. This is an interesting comment that Wilson makes in his Future Men.

And the issue is, give your children the Torah, not the Talmud, okay? The difference there is the Torah is the first five books of the Bible, all right? The Talmud is the commentary on the first five books by many rabbis adding it layer after layer of commentary. So the issue is, give them what God says, not necessarily your opinion, which then requires you to be a theologian.

As Jim was saying, you know, all these scientists tell you about the good and the beautiful and all that kind of stuff. Remember that the queen of the sciences was theology until, you know, the Renaissance and everybody decided, oh, we’re so smart, we’ll just invent all these things. Now, God invented them, God put them in categories, read the book, follow the book. So you give your kids the Torah, not the Talmud. That’s a tough one in this day and age and all the little wrinkles in that. And that constantly makes you go back and check your truth. In Psalm 103, 13 through 14, it says, as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. He shows compassion to you as you do these things. For he knows our frame, this is the second, or 14. For he knows our frame and he remembers that we are dust. Big truth here, know your children’s frame. For those of you that have more than one kid, you realize, well that first kid was interesting and then the second one comes along and you go, That one’s totally different. And the two of us made these same two kids, and one is totally different than the other one. What do I do with that? Well, you adapt, and you know the frame of that kid. So you just can’t have this robot-like situation and just grind them through and hope you get a good thing out of it.

That relates to the kind of boot camp parenting. There are times where you’ve got to lay down the law, make them do the law, and just, no excuses, you will do this, you’ll march, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but that isn’t really demonstrating their frame. So getting them in line, it’s like, some of you have heard about growing kids God’s way. It was a thing created back in the 80s. It was good. Families that were out of control and had just had free will parenting or free reign parenting. They got a hold of these books and all of a sudden the book said, oh, I come home from work and I sit down with my wife and I have family time and the kids observe that, that I love my wife and I’m interested in what happened in her day, she’s interested in my day and the kids see what?

They see the two of you are compatible and doing well and that model gives them the security for you to instruct them under that umbrella. So there are times where you’ve got to get your family together at least in some form of semblance. Now, I’m hoping that in our congregation most of you are believers and that you have that semblance. So I’m looking for you to fine tune that beyond just having this structure or just following a rule set that, you know, we’re all going to do this and we’re all going to mark those out little, you know, mechanical people. Now, we are all individuals. God made us and made our frames differently, raise them up in that frame, make them to be the best in the frame that God gives them.

So in Genesis 2, 16 through seven, the Lord commanded the man saying, you may surely eat out of every tree of the garden, but the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. Your family should have security that your kids feel wonderful being in it. And it’s a great playground. But in your family and in your big fence that you’re raising them all in, they’ve got to know there is a tree of no in it. So they need to know right and wrong, wrong, but you should have a wonderful field for them to play in and experiment and stub their toe and flunk on some of their homework and learn how to be responsible and all the rest of that.

So you want to have a healthy environment for them to learn things, but you’re not making such an environment that they’re just hemmed in, that they actually know when they’ve stepped out of bounds that that’s wrong and you demonstrate that. But in the whole thing, let them experiment with all kinds of things. I want to do this, I want to do that. Well, okay, we’ve got time to give you a try at that. What do you think? You know, go do it. So that kind of thing is demonstrated in that. There is a big thing now that this purpose statement or this finalization of this I’m putting now in this front part and I’m also going to put it at the end part. To remember that discipline is not punishment. Punishment is retribution from God which is intended to do us harm. When God punishes somebody, he punishes them and wants to do them harm. When we discipline somebody or when and God disciplines us, discipline is purposeful hardship through which God intends to do us good.

So a spanking can be a good thing if administered properly or it could be retribution given to give harm to the kid. That’s an interesting judgment there. And that is part of the reason that I’m talking about You have to know your own heart before you do these things and know your kid’s heart too. There are times where the punishment be more severe if the kid intended and with intent is disobeying, where sometimes they’re just being dumb kids. Dumb kids are okay. We’re all dumb kids. We do stupid things. But you have to, the punishment needs to be within a wisdom kind of call. on that thing. The other thing that you’ve gotta be careful of is Ephesians 6, four.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Don’t ride Johnny and keep poking him until you get the desired result that now I can punish him. You didn’t do it just right. Mm, mm, mm. And then Johnny blows up, okay, Johnny, you know, now you get a spanking. that. That’s not what you’re doing here. Colossians 3 20 to 21, Children obey your parents and everything for this pleases the Lord, but fathers do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Discipline should be an encouragement. Remember, discipline is the purpose purposeful hardship through which God intends to do us good, not to punish you, but to do you good so that you correct your attitude or your behavior.

Proverbs 21 and 28 says, a false witness will perish, but the word of a man who hears will endure. Listen to your kids. They are people. It is not, I mean, you’re not going to have much of a discussion with a two-year-old, But once they get to be three or four, five, when they can speak in sentences, they become little people, and they are really observing a lot of stuff. So you need to be patient to sit down and actually understand how they’re viewing what you’re trying to do. It’s a big thing maybe that the kid is told to pick his toys up and keep his room as nice. But you can kind of overdo that sometimes. We instructed our son to keep his stuff picked up.

He was a bit of a character. He would run through our house, we had a big long house, and he would run down and he would run into this door at the end of this long hallway and crash into it and fall on the floor because he saw that on TV. He thought football players did that and he thought that was funny. And sometimes when he would get upset with us or didn’t like something, he would spread his legs and then do like this and bang his forehead on the floor. Now we had, like linoleum, it wasn’t a concrete floor and it had a little give in the wood, but we would just look at him and laugh that he’s teaching us a lesson by banging his forehead on the floor.

Well, in that respect, I should have been able to sit down with him and have a talk on his level. What are you doing that for? Instead of laughing at him. Laughing at him probably wasn’t his thing. But anyway, he survived. And he’s not too dumb, so it’s okay. But those kind of things, you know, if you can sit down and find out what perspective they’re coming from, like we thought it was crazy that he was running and hitting the door, and then he showed us that one time we were watching a football game, and he said, that’s what I’m doing. Oh, okay. So anyway, so communicate with them. Know where they’re coming from.

What’s their interest? That kind of thing. Children need to be converted. This is a big one. And in a lot of churches that we have come from, we meaning as fundamentalist types, they won’t baptize kids as believers until they’re maybe 15, 16 years old. You notice we baptize children when they can make a profession of faith and their parents testify the kid is changed. He seems to really, you know, believe these things and he’s being convicted, we want to encourage their faith. If you’re training up a pagan and he’s a well-behaved pagan, that’s nice, that’s good for society, but we want to have well-behaved Christians.

And God does the saving, but we can do a lot of the churning the ground and doing that up with them. So we need to remember always in this Ephesians 2, You and you were dead in your trespasses and sin, and once you walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now in work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. We at one point were bad camp. God brings us over to the good camp. We want our kids to be in the good camp. We can’t force that. We can teach them about it, pray to God that he would convict them, but when they convict them or in there in that process, we want to be those encouragers. We want to encourage faith, not discourage it. That’s the big difference in what we’re doing. We do not believe that we are going to baptize the children and bring them into the covenant and all of that.

We do believe that you believe and be baptized. So that’s a difference. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t, by our Christian family, giving that kid a great advantage and a blessing to be born in that family. But that family then needs to treat the kid and build him up in the faith. And when he can make that profession, we want to encourage him in that. So children need to be converted, obviously, everybody would agree with that. Then Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 7 says, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down And when you rise, provide your children a Christian education. Give your children quality time. That verse is what convinced Gail and I after we had been saved for right at like a year and three months that we needed to homeschool our kids. And Gail had helped in Morgan’s classroom and one day she said, you need to go into the classroom and help to see what’s going on. And both of us were a product of public schools. And I went in to help this lady. She was an older lady getting ready to retire. And it was a second grade classroom. And there was this one little boy that got up and started walking around. And she said, you know, little Jimmy, whatever his name was, can you go back and sit in your seat? And the kid just looked at her and just kept walking around.

Well, I had volunteered to be the teacher’s helper, so I got up and went over and grabbed little Jimmy and put him in the seat. This lady just, you know, whoa, you can’t do that. And I said, what are you talking about? Little Jimmy needs to be in the seat. He told him to get in the seat. He wasn’t going to get in the seat. And she said, oh, you can’t do that. And I said, okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that was a rule. And little Jimmy didn’t sit in his seat though. He didn’t get up. So the class got over. She got me aside and explained that, you know, we could get, you know, if a person complained, you could go to jail for child abuse.

And I said, I’m sorry. You’re telling me as the second grade teacher that you can’t physically put little Jimmy in the seat if he doesn’t obey you. And she said yes. And I said, what are you going to do with that? That’s crazy. You can’t teach these kids that. And she just looked at me and said, that’s why I’m retiring. And Gail had asked her about homeschooling. And she said, oh, if I could do that, if I would go back and change, that’s what I would do. I wouldn’t put them in here. And this was 1985. So you can imagine what it is today. But stuff like that is just so crazy. It’s like the whole gender list that Jim put up there.

I mean, are you kidding me? Reading all these descriptions? What are you talking about? It’s just nuts. So you do want to give your kids a Christian education. That can be given to them by you. You can have your kids in the public school system, but you then have to do the double duty of un-teaching them certain things and instructing them in that way. You can do it at home so that you’re the filter and giving them everything, or you can put them in a school like ECS or whatever. And I think we’re doing a good job in that school, but you are the parents. You are the ones responsible. You’re the ones that with the kid on the road, in the road, all those things described in Deuteronomy 6.

And we want to come alongside you at ECS and homeschooling people can come and take advantage, possibly for certain classes or whatever. It’s a tough road to hoe though, if you wanna put your kid in public education and then filter all that stuff out. That’s a tough one these days and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. So the next one is that we want to have a home that is inviting and pleasant. Your kids should love to be at home, and you guys should have a lot of fun at home. Ephesians 5, 18 through 21 says, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Colossians 3 16 says, let the word of Christ dwell on you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Have a home full of scripture, full of joy, full of music, full of good discussion, full of fun things. Baking cookies. We had friends that when they bake cookies, their kids love baking cookies so much, the cookies never made it to the oven. They ate all the cookies raw before they cooked them. And it was interesting. I had never seen that, and I tried some of it, and it was pretty good raw. But anyway, you should have fun.

They should enjoy all these fun kind of things, whether it be helping you do the yard work or taking three times longer in the project because your kid is helping you then you could have done it with yourself. Those times can be really good times of interchange and getting together and understanding each other, having interchange, all of that.

Then we have the problem of what happens when something goes wrong. Galatians 6-1, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him to his in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. Discipline is a gift, not a retaliation. Okay, the kid is gonna help mommy serve the dinner.

Comes with a little tray and off goes the milk or the glass of water or the food slides down breaks. The kid is like, yes, the kid was being stupid and didn’t, you know, tilt the tray right, all the rest of it, but what you do is that’s a good try, but let’s see if we can’t do that a little better. How about if we took one plate at a time or just a glass at a time? At our house, Morgan and Sean have the kids clear the table, and Kela, who is very excitable and just Johnny on the spot, you know, I’m gonna go 100 miles an hour with the volume cranked up to 10, goes around and collects like eight plates, you know, whoop, whoop, whoop, and Shawn Caesar goes, put that down and just put a couple plates to the side and now just take two at a time or whatever.

Oh, okay, and she’s just that way. So instead of going, buddy, that stupid kid, you know, you can say just take two at a time. Now my method with Keyla is you’re just being stupid, don’t do that, you know. But, you know, all of that is just to, when you’re involved and the people know you and they know your way, you can get away with a lot and have a lot of fun in the process of learning those things. And that’s another thing too, is if you’re a little lighthearted, it helps everything. You won’t get so mad, you won’t be frustrated, that kind of thing. It’s, I don’t know, you just live it out that way. Proverbs 1817 says, the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examine him.

Discipline should be judicious and not occasion for you to jump to conclusions. That’s the whole thing of maybe the kid is just trying to help when they crashed and dropped all the stuff. And maybe they just tripped and did the stuff. They weren’t quite old enough or had a good enough system and they screwed it up. Now, should that kid get spanked because they broke dishes because they tripped up? I don’t think so. Now, should they be instructed a better way to do it? Yeah. But also, you know, you’ve probably broken a few dishes and done some stupid things in your life too. So you have to kind of balance all that out and let them know that also.

Honor your, this is Exodus 2012, honor your father and your mother that your days may be long and the land your Lord, your God has given you. Divided discipline is dangerous. Honor your father and your mother. How many times, and this is really not a good thing in your family and you need to cut it off in a New York minute, when the kid plays both of you off against each other. Dad’s not here and they know if they ask mom 30 times, especially when she’s trying to do the laundry or she’s cleaning, that she’ll probably go, oh, all right. When they know if they ask dad, it would be a no. You two parents need to be together so that the kid sees a united front.

And they are genius at playing this game. They can tell with just a look or a ugh, that, oh, I’ve almost got them to where they’re gonna say yes. So don’t let that happen. Now, don’t be a jerk about it, but be aware of all those things and let them know you’re aware of it. And then the next time they try it, maybe you can cure it just with a laugh like you’re trying it again, we’re not gonna do that. And they might go, oh, okay, you caught me, whatever. All right, now at this point, I want to show you some books. This is really a good one. This book is good. This is the one. Now, if you want little short books, though, that get right to the issue of these things, these two books that I’m going to show you first are what I always give to people that I am doing marriage counseling with.

This is for the woman, the fruit of her hands. This is for the man, future men. After the man reads this and talks about it with me, and the woman reads this and talks about it with me, then the man reads this one, and the woman reads this one. And that’s so both of you understand what both of you should be. So once you have these two roles straightened out, then this one, it was his newer one, and it’s Jim Wilson, it’s Doug’s father wrote this. And like Shawn has mentioned, and the women are doing this when now in Titus 2, right? This book cover says everything you need to know about this book. If anybody know anybody that’s bitter, they’ll scratch the faces of the people out of old family pictures.

Gail’s sister took scissors and cut faces out of people in pictures and then put them back in the inner photo album. So when you’re carrying around that much baggage, you probably are not making good judgments. So you want to be free from bitterness, and you also want to understand your position and have your husband understand your position and have free flowing talks between the two of you so you both understand those positions and then try to work them out the best you can. Now does that mean just because you read these stupid books that you’re going to be perfect? No. But it does mean, OK, I got a basis here.

And yeah, you’re right. I should try to not do that. And on it goes. One of the things Gail uses with me that is quite effective, and Morgan knows this too because she was old enough to know my dad. And they called him Fata instead of Grandpa. And when I get to be a jerk, they look at me and say, you’re acting just like Fata. That’s probably the worst thing you can say to me. You could give a stream of expletives to me, but that wouldn’t hurt as much as you’re acting just like your dad, because he had a lot of bitterness and a lot of stupid things. And hopefully, I’ve buried a lot of that. My sister and I, we should be the biggest bigots and jerks in the world, but I think both of us have come out of that in a pretty whole position.

But the reason we have is because we’re Christians and we try to live that way. So that part is good. But you do need to guard against that, especially some of us that came out of bad situations. Your bad situation’s bad. You’re right. But that’s back here. Now look to tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn’t need to be that bad situation. Move on from there. So now we’re to probably the verse everybody’s heard about discipline, but it’s a great one. And in this section it’s Hebrews 12 5 through 13 and Hebrews 12 11 is the killer verse. So it says, and have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the ones he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.” Notice the discipline is bringing you to a knowledge of God. And he chastises. Those things are not punishment meant to do your harm. Those are things that he chastises whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom the father does not discipline? You’re a pretty bad father if you’re not disciplining and controlling your sons to be better people than you were. Well, that’s another side comment that too. There are people, my father was one of these, was very angry that I was turning out better than he was.

He did not like that. And my dad was quite successful in a lot of things, but when I got saved and we had a whole different value system, it really made him angry. And it was sad, it was really sad. But that’s something that, when that happens and that people that are mad at you because of that, you just have to realize it’s sad for them and they’re the ones you need to pray for. Pray for your enemies. So let’s see, God is treating you to sons. Four, what son is there whom the father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which you all have participated, then you are illegitimate childrens and not sons.

Besides this, we have an earthly follower who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they discipline us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness.” The old conundrum of the Christian life. You get saved, you get to this plateau, and you go, man, I’ve conquered that, I’m really living good. then you realize this, and you get up on this plateau, and then you get that one and you think, oh man, now I’ve arrived, I’ve conquered that. You never conquer it. The more holy you become, the more evil you know you are, because you realize the base sin that you are fighting against is always there until we get to our state of grace after we die and get to be with the Lord.

But that is just the conundrum of the Christian life. you get better and better, the dial gets dialed up and you just realize, oh my goodness, I still have all that rottenness in me, but I can overcome that. So that’s just part of the Christian life. Live with it, like it, and that’s just the way it is. Beside this, we have an earthly, let’s see, for the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight the paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.”

So verse 11, for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. And there again is the pain of discipline should be acute but not chronic. When you swat a kid, you’re not trying to hurt him. You want him to feel it, but you’re not there to chronically hurt your kid. Never discipline a kid out of anger. If you’re angry, take a deep breath, get some time, have Junior go into his room or little Sally go into her room and you stay over away from there and everybody calm down before you discipline. Never discipline in anger. Okay, that’s just a rule. Don’t do that. The point of discipline is to restore fellowship not retribution. The whole purpose is to correct the behavior so that the people or in line and doing what God wants them to do.

Until you get the forgiveness and you accept that forgiveness, and it’s not, I’m sorry, daddy, I’m sorry for doing this, will you forgive me for doing that? Particular, you know, I need to be forgiven for this, will you forgive me for that? The other party, yes, I will forgive you for that. So everybody’s in clear understanding what’s happened. I’m sorry, doesn’t really cut it, okay? That’s just a blanket kind of throwaway kind of thing. But once those conversations go on, well, why didn’t you like me doing it that way? Well, you remind me of your father. That would be me reminding Gail, my dad.

That’s not good. I don’t wanna do that. So those kind of discussions always need to be had. The other thing is when you discipline a child, That discipline is between the parent and the child. It’s not for everybody in the room. It’s not for the whole thing. I mean, like if a kid’s misbehaving here in the auditorium and you want to go out and have a little meeting with him somewhere, you go out and have a meeting with him, but you don’t discipline him in front of everybody. So everybody’s going, oh, look at that. Little Jimmy got whacked. How about that? Little Jimmy’s looking around, you know. Look at this. I’m head of the entertainment.

Don’t be doing that. Off privately between you and the kid, and then when it’s over, you make sure that there is a bond between you before you leave that situation. So that’s the thing. Now, the other thing in this, and this is where lordship salvation or whatever you wanna call it, this is where we want to see the child understand Jesus is Lord, God is God, you’re not God, you’re his representative. And the issue is their repentance, and your repentance if you’ve done wrong. Again, I’ve told you that one of the best things you can do is ask for forgiveness from your kid if you did something wrong. And when you do that, especially once they get to three or four where they can really understand you, You know, I’m sorry little Sally that I yelled at you in the car.

I was frustrated. I was wrong. Will you forgive me for yelling at you? Now, your three-year-old or four-year-old is going to look at you and go, wow, yeah, it’s okay dad. It’s okay. And I said, well, it’s not okay. And will you forgive me for that? Yes, I will. That kind of interchange is huge. because now that child knows if they’re wrong, I mean, if you’re wrong, that you will not punish them for that. So they’re not looking out if they’re gonna get caught, they’re looking out what they’re doing. So then when they get punished, the end of that is they need to have the spirit in them to ask forgiveness for what they did with you.

Even though they’ve gotten a spanking, and they still need that forgiveness for what they did. So there’s that interchange all the time. It’s just like God’s, just like why we get on our knees every Sunday and to get ourselves right so we can get on with it. So these verses are discussions of how you get saved and notice that in the middle of them, always repentance. It’s always a thing that has to happen. 2 Timothy 2, 22 through 26. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord from the pure art. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.

You know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. They may, perhaps, God may perhaps grant them repentance. God granting them repentance, right? Second Corinthians seven, eight through 10, “‘For even if I made you grieve with my letter,” remember that Paul does the second Corinthians, he wrote them first Corinthians just chastising them for them being a bunch of idiots.

And he says, for even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it, for I see that the letter grieved you, though only for a while. So he’s, you know, I’m not sure you really got it. As it is, I rejoice not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. Those that repented, they’re good. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret. Whereas, worldly grief produces death. For godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret. So just being sorry or grieved over a bad thing, unless you’re making it right and understanding it from that God point of view, you haven’t really solved that problem in your life.

A lot of people are hanging onto that and it can be a root of bitterness too for people. Hebrews 12, 15 through 17, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble. By it you may become be defiled, that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.”

That really speaks to the issue that we’re talking about in Romans nine also. Then the last one is Acts 2, 37 through 39, Peter’s sermon. “‘Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promises for you and your children, for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. Repent, okay?

The last thing you wanna do with your kids is prepare them for independence, Genesis 2.24. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Prepare your children for the time they leave your home. They may have the gift of singleness given to them and they may not get married, but you still want to prepare that child to go out into the world and reproduce and maybe do it better than you did. Our prayer was always that our daughter and our son would do better than we have done. And it’s a pleasure to see our grandchildren now living that out and even seeing a great grandchild.

That’s an amazing thing that I thought I’d never see. So anyway, so prepare your children for independence. And then I think the interesting sentences to remember are, punishment is retribution from God, which is intended to do us harm. Discipline is purposeful hardship through which God intends us to do good, and should be the same for you as parents. And again, future men, the fruit of her hands, and how to be free from bitterness are good short things on this, but it always gets back to the whole counsel of God and how you handle that. So let’s pray and we got done exactly what I thought. So we’ll have about 12 minutes to have a party or whatever.

So Father, thank you for this time together. I thank you for your word and for those faithful servants through the ages that have broken it down and maybe you can write books that can help us and for preaching and just all the ministries that we have access to. Help us to be wise, though, to filter those, to have the good information and not the bad information. But help us to be good students of your word and to be good theologians, also, in our own theology. For we all are theologians as we try to understand what you are telling us. So we thank you for all of those things, and of course we thank you most of all for your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.