Seasons of Christian Parenting – 6/25/23

Let’s continue praying. Father, many today, parents today, feel under attack, overwhelmed. The call to parenting is immense. So, we pray that you would meet us, all of us — pre-parents, parents, grandparents, singles — all of us. And that, Lord, you would take away our fear, regret, shame, defensiveness, presumption. Just meet us right where we are. I pray that you would help me. Speaking on parenting is terrifying. I’m not up to this task. But we’re talking about you, your calling. And so, we are eager to hear from you. We thank you in Jesus’s name. Amen.

I want to teach you a little Hebrew word. Can you say it with me? “Eth.” Eth. Yeah, it’s the most common word for “time” in the Hebrew Bible. It’s the word that was used in 2 Samuel 11:1 for the “usual time,” a usual time. In the spring of the year, the “time” when kings go to battle. Or a vulnerable time in Psalm 71:9,

“Do not cast me off in the time [the “eth”] of my of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent.”

Or judgment time. Deuteronomy 32:35,

“For the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is that hand.”

That’s the text for the most famous sermon in American history. Or a transformative time. Hosea 10:12,

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”

Or a proper time. Ecclesiastes 3:1-2,

“For everything there is a season [that’s a different Hebrew word], and a season [or time, ‘eth’] for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, a time to pluck up what is planted.”

And this is referring to the ordinary events of life happening in a natural rhythm, time, order. Ecclesiastes 3:11,

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

There’s something that might be beautiful at one time and really ugly at another time. Sexual intimacy is beautiful after marriage. It’s horrifically ugly before or outside of marriage.

This has huge, practical implications. Proverbs 15:23,

“To make an apt dancer is a joy to a man, and a word in [there it is] season, how good it is!”

When someone speaks that word to you, it’s just right on time. How good it is. Words that might be helpful in one context could be harmful in another context.

This same little word, “eth” is used in Psalm 1:3 to describe the timing of the fruit of the blessed.

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit [in its time,] in its season.”

So, for the blessed person, there is a fruit-bearing that is timely, suitable, apt, appropriate.

Let’s pull the camera back a little bit and see if we can see the setting of this seasonal fruitfulness in Psalm 1. Psalm 1 is all about deep-rooted well-being or happiness, contentment, prosperity. It’s when we are fortunate for all the right reasons. Think about that. When someone looks at that person and say, “Boy, they’re fortunate, but not because of the car they drive or the house they live in or other physical blessings, but fortunate for all the right reasons.” And this well-being is set against a regrettable state that’s described in Psalm 1, a state of instability that culminates in perishing.

So, let’s look at the three characteristics of the blessed. First of all, their blessing comes from a different fountain, a different fountain, a different source. This is a well-being that is not flowing from human opinions but from God’s Word. It is not environmentally or circumstantially sourced or dependent.

Some of you might have heard last weekend I was in the hospital. Last Friday, I passed out and was in the TRER. And I had my first ambulance ride to downtown, and they found out I had two bleeding ulcers and had lost a ton of blood. And as soon as I told the doctor what I had been doing for twenty-five years, he said, “I see it all the time.” So, your pastor was down because of drug abuse. It’s true. My name is Peter. Thank you. Seriously, be sure your sin will find you out. I experience nightly muscle cramps and intense muscle pain in my back and legs. I’ve suffered over twenty-five years. I rotate four over-the-counter — Advil, aspirin, Aleve, Tylenol. What I didn’t know is that three of the four are all NSAIDs, which are all bad for your stomach and tear away the lining. So, I lost a lot of blood. Praise the Lord it stopped, and I got to worship with you from the hospital last Sunday.

But what I didn’t know is how long it takes to get your blood back. This is why I’m sitting in a chair. I’m not trying to be coolly casual or anything like that. I’m trying to breathe. But as I was lying in that hospital bed and complaining to the Lord about his timing … You know, Karen has another surgery coming up Friday, and I was saying, “Lord, I need to be strong.” And he’s saying, “But you’re not.” And it’s in moments like that, you all know, the Lord just burns you down, like when it’s in the middle of the night, you can’t sleep, people are coming in, and they’re taking blood from you to see if you’ve lost it. But in those moments, the Lord brings you back to these promises. What does it mean to be blessed? Is it really well with my soul? That’s what Psalm 1 is all about.

And I could say, “Yes. Lord, there’s a deep-rooted well-being.” That doesn’t mean you enjoy everything that’s happening, but he meets you in that moment, and he gives you what you need for that season.

And you’re not looking, as he says here in verse 1 —

“You’re not walking, standing, sitting”

in line with ungodly opinions, including the ones in your head. I can generate a lot of lies without talking to anybody around me. But his delight, her delight is the instruction of the Lord. The fountain, the source of our pleasure, of our purpose, of our meaning, of our lives is deeply rooted in the promises and presence of the Lord, not in the circumstances around us. Verse 2,

“His delight is in law of the Lord, and on his law, he meditates day and night.”

Now by “meditate day and night,” I don’t think he means that you can’t enjoy the burger you’re eating. You can’t delight in the tennis match you’re winning or the how-to book you’re enjoying. It doesn’t mean you can’t do any of those things. You just have to read your Bible constantly. But it does mean that everything you’re doing, from burgers to tennis to reading to working, you’re interpreting through the lens of God’s promises. You’re seeing the world, the blessed is seeing the world, delighting in the one who tells us who we are, who he is, why we’re here. And so, when our plans implode, or our energy erodes, what do we delight in? This is a well-being that comes from a different fountain.

And secondly, it produces a different fruit. Look at verses 3-4, The blessed experience a well-being that is like a deeply-rooted tree that yields its fruit in its season. So, this tree is planted by streams of water, that is, sustainable sources, a fountain that enables the tree to not only weather drought and difficulty, but to yield its fruit in its season.

What does that mean? There are 4 ideas there, I think. At least one is the fruit is gradual. “It yields its fruit in its season.” There’s a certain progression to its fruitfulness. Its fruit doesn’t appear fully formed.

Secondly, it’s unusual. It yields its fruit in its season. There’s a certain uniqueness about the fruit. Think of the fruit of the Spirit. Help me out here — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That’s unusual. It’s unconventional. High pressure situation, you’re generally not going to see that kind of fruit. And he’s saying, “This is what I want to bear out in you, parents. This is what I long to produce in you, kids.” It’s unusual.

It’s also seasonal. “It yields its fruit in its season.” There’s a timing to its fruitfulness. It’s not random, but it is fitting, even rhythmic.

Then the fourth — it’s durable.

“Its leaf does not wither.”

Its capacity for faithfulness is not fleeting. It is weathering, not withering. Look at the end of verse 3,

“In all that he does he prospers.”

This is the Old Testament version of

“We are more than conquerors through him who loved us,”

Romans 8:37. So, there is an enduring fruitfulness.

This different fruitfulness is contrasted too. Verse 4,

“The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the wind drives away.”

What is chaff? These are the fragments of corn husks that have been threshed, light and free, disconnected, lacking rootedness; therefore, in good times they’re dancing about. I think we have an image of chaff, dancing about freely with every feeling and fashion. But then they get blown away by trends, trials, no sustainable source of joy.

Different fountain, different fruit. Different future, number 3. The blessed have a different future. This is a well-being that is rooted in a covenant relationship with God. Covenant is more personal and more permanent than a contract. Verse 5,

“Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”

The Lord knows.

That word “know” is a strong covenantal relational word. He’s saying the same thing Jesus said in Matthew 7:23. When some people tried to enter his kingdom based on their ability to prophesy or cast out demons or do mighty works, he said,

“Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Now, he’s not saying, “I didn’t know you existed. I didn’t know a person named Peter existed.” He’s saying, “I didn’t have a covenantal relationship with you, know you in relationship.” And so, therefore, they will perish.

Well, how do you get that relationship? That seems to be a fundamental question. Well, Psalm 1 begins with the word “blessed,” and Psalm 2:12 ends … Scholars believe these two are connected…. Psalm 2:12 ends,

“Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” And in the context, the “in him” is the Son, the Son of God, Jesus the Messiah. So, deep-rooted well-being that comes from a different fountain, bears different fruit, has a different future, is experienced in relationship with Jesus.

Now, some of you may be thinking, “What does this have to do with Christian parenting?” This is the question we’re going to be wrestling with over the next five weeks is how do Christians live and then give this kind of blessedness. And we’re going to specifically narrow that question down to Christian parents. All of us are going to find application in that, but specifically focusing on how does this work for parents to bear fruit like what he describes in Psalm 1 both in the way we live and the way we pass that blessedness on to the next generation.

And to prepare us for the next four weeks, I want to do an overview of the seasons of Christian parenting. And partly because I’m sitting and can’t get animated, not lose my breath, feeling very old … Partly because I’m going to do an overview, it will feel a little bit more like a talk, maybe like a lecture. I hope not, but I hope he had a good night’s sleep last night. I’m so sorry. But I think it will help us to do an overview, not that we are going to catch everything. I don’t expect us all, when I look at this, I get overwhelmed. So, don’t take it all in. But let’s see the lay of the land. What are we talking about when we say, “The Seasons of Christian Parenting”? And to introduce this today, let me make a few preliminary observations.

Number 1, this series on seasons is not a formula. Parenting can feel so overwhelming. As Diane mentioned, we crave this formula. If I could just have this manual that would tell me everything, I could check the boxes and then that comes with a warranty, a guarantee that my kid’s going to turn out a particular way. And I think you guys know the Bible doesn’t give us that. There are plenty of examples in the Bible of really good parents whose kids made really bad choices and then really bad parents whose kids made really good choices to communicate there’s no formula. You can’t mechanize, systematize what we’re talking about. And we’ll all experience this kind of tension, where, as Christian parents, we want to raise kids who are responsible adults and contribute to the common good, and in many ways, what we do can influence whether that happens or not.

But as Christian parents, we want something much more. We want them to experience what Psalm 1 describes, and we soon learn that’s going to take a miracle that we are incapable of producing. And so, it puts us on our knees crying out for God to do a work. So, this isn’t a formula.

It’s not a guilt trip. When I look at this. I can be filled with regret. Oh, when I look at some parents here who are amazing, and I just think I didn’t do any of that stuff. I’m so sorry, kids. We can be filled with regret. For some of us, we can be filled with regret for the way we were parented. We will long to go back and be re-parented. So, the point of this isn’t to give you ammunition to pick apart your own or someone else’s parenting.

Third, it’s not a comprehensive manual. These Sunday sessions will be summaries of each season. We will also have workshops that will go into much more detail. Matt and his team have been working on a video series that will follow this. We’ll have recommended resources. So, we’ll have lots more that will go along with this.

So, let’s start with season number 1. Let me summarize the four seasons and then pray. So, next week, July 2nd, Spring — 0 to 5, ages 0 to 5. This is the Season of Planting, characterized by loving discipline. During this season, parents humbly embrace stewardship. And I know we don’t use that word a lot today, but it’s a good word. It basically means I’m caring for someone else’s property. No parent can create a kid ex nihilo. Kids are gifts from God. We are entrusted from the Lord with this child. So, we acknowledge our inability. There’s huge amounts of humility, tons of prayer. We’re asking God for wisdom. And I would strongly admonish young couples to ask lots of older couples for wisdom. Interview kids. What was helpful? What was not? You’re not going to take it all, but don’t pretend. We can’t pretend like we know what we’re doing.

This is a season also where Dad and Mom come together. This is one of the ways when we read good things and take classes and talk about it together like this. We can talk about our different upbringings, and Dad and Mom can say, “We got to find a way to come together for the sake of our kids.” If you’re a single parent, this is the season where you’re building a team to help you.

The child needs two things along with diapers — love and law. Love and law. Loads of love — kids in this season are black holes of love. Whatever you pour in, they can take more. And as they begin to grow … Qualifier … As they begin to grow, they need law, that is clear boundaries. And I know this can be controversial for many Christian parents because when you’ve experienced the filling of the Spirit, the freedom of walking by grace, you desperately want that for your kid. And you’re like, “The last thing I want is to give my kid rules that can never save them.” Well, you’re half right. Rules can never save them. But Paul described the law as good if you use it lawfully. Rules can’t save, but law is vital to help us, each of us, learn we can’t save ourselves. We can’t perform. That’s why Paul described the law as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. So, there’s a vital role, and if you don’t bring in law early, someone else will bring in law later with your kids. So, you want that early, appropriately.

This is also the stage for a Copernican revolution, where your child realizes they’re not the center of the universe. Each of us bears children who are basically narcissists in a onesie, and age appropriately, we need to learn the world doesn’t revolve around us. It actually revolves around God. We must not expect our child to get this all immediately. So, we must be patient. This is the Season of Planting. Do not be deceived. What you plant will grow. A vital season we’ll talk about next week.

The following week, Summer 6 to 12, Season of Growing, characterized by intentional training. Parents purposely model, instruct, and engage. By “humbly model,” I mean parenting always begins with the parent, and it’s so frustrating because, as we just heard Steve describe on that nightmare trip, we think we have to do something in our kid, and God is doing something in us first. So, by “model,” we are the first to repent; we are the first to cry out for God to do Psalm 1 in us.

And then model and instruct. I’ve heard parents say foolish things like, “I’m not going to instruct my child. I’m just going to live it.” Well, do you do that with school? I’m not going to send my kid to school or homeschool or Christian school or public school. I’m just going to assume they absorb knowledge as they walk through life. They’re just going to learn. Also, we’re not smarter than God. Ephesians 6:4,

“Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

So, as we meditate day and night, the overflow of that is we live that and we share that.

The fact that we’re instructing though, please understand, doesn’t mean it has to be tedious, monotonous, brutal for the kids. Karen and I always prayed for how can we find creative ways to teach our kids. Let me give you one example. I had put Proverbs verses on cards with a ring on them, stuck them in a drawer near my seat at the table. So, after many dinners, I’d pull these out, and because I’m so bad at planning, it was just wonderful to have it right there any time. We also bought this little thing called The Eggspert. I don’t know if it exists today. But it’s a little thing, a console, a quizzing console you put in the middle of the table, and it has little wires. Now it would be wireless. This is a hundred years ago. And each kid has an egg in front of them, and then we would go over those verses and talk about what do they mean or memorize them together. And then I’d quiz them, and Karen would have little M&M prizes ready to go.

But what is stunning to me is so many years later, if you ask my kids about those verses, they can still tell you what they mean and some of the conversations we had. So, I’m not saying you got to get an Eggspert. I’m just saying you’re praying, “God, show us ways in which we can instruct intentionally, as well as casually.”

By engage, we mean this is when our kids begin to feel part of the team, to assume age-appropriate responsibility, to learn to work. If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ve heard me say that working kids are happy kids. My kids didn’t always believe that, but we crammed it down their throats. You’re looking for unique skills and contributions of each child and help them develop an eye for others, engage in the mission. The mission is so much bigger than our family.

The child needs a new heart and needs to know why. By “a new heart,” I mean we’re going for the heart. Father’s Day passed recently, and I was just thanking God for my father. He’s with the Lord now, but he was not a believer growing up. As a marine, things in my home were pretty tightly disciplined. It was a fun home, but there was real discipline. And I look back now and think, “Lord, thank you that my dad loved me enough to discipline the hooey out of me so that when I heard the gospel, I knew I couldn’t do it. I needed him [God]. He gave me a new heart because I knew I couldn’t do this. And God later saved my dad and my mom. But he used that discipline, realizing that there wasn’t anything in me that could change myself. I was constantly in trouble.

And then to know why, that meaning there’s a growing understanding during this stage. You want to have a wide-open relationship, where your kids can ask anything because children are the world’s biggest receivers of information and the world’s worst interpreters. So, your kid is constantly processing and taking in things you don’t even think they observed. But the way they interpret that and then add the Internet to that — oh, my! And so, if we’re not talking openly and they’re not free to ask any question — Why? Why not? Then it’s scary what’s happening in their head and heart. So, we want them to be able to talk about anything.

This is the time when you begin to teach worldview — why don’t we absorb and reflect our culture? Why are we different? Why do we not walk, stand, sit like everyone else, Psalm 1? This is a very intense stage, kind of like learning a second language. Summer.

Now, next is Fall, ages 13 to 18, a Season of Guiding. We more intentionally begin training as inspirational coaching, inspirational coaching. Parents suitably mentor and entrust. “Suitably” meaning each child is different. And “mentor” — we’re sharing more of our struggles; we’re open and honest about our failures, again, repenting first. We’re “entrusting” — we’re giving our child an increased amount of responsibility, even if it’s not done perfectly. And we’re allowing them to begin experiencing more consequences.

I look forward to talking about how do we not overexpose or overprotect — huge tension there. The child needs wisdom and practice, practice — room to fail, room to flourish, opportunities to trust God.

Next is Winter. And can I say, if you think winter is automatically bad, that should not be the conclusion. Think of yourself as a skier. Winter is beautiful. This is the Season of Releasing, ages 19 and plus, characterized more by a supportive friendship. You’re not trying to be best friends with your three-year-old. You’re her parent. But as you do life together, throughout the seasons of parenting you will become more and more friends with your child. You’re still the parent to be honored, but the goal is not pursuing that honor. You’re living honorably.

Parents, we need to readily affirm and release, and this will be the season where we find out if we’re worshiping God or our kids. In this season, success will feel more like failure. What do I mean by that? Well, your kids won’t need you anymore, and that feels like failure but is success.

Your child needs support and freedom. Launching is a good thing. And we’ll talk a lot more about this in the coming weeks. So, where should we start?

First, today, let’s see the big picture. The blessed life is characterized by a seasonal fruitfulness, which means there’s a certain flexibility and progression. Different fruit in different seasons. Let me show you one example with this chart. You can see early on we’re high on require, low on inspire. We’re inspiring, but in contrast to requiring, it seems lower. But as our kids mature through the seasons of parenting, you’ll see later years, we’re high on inspire, low on require. We move from control to influence, and it’s vital. This is what we mean by Seasons of Parenting. Our parenting is changing. There are certain things that don’t change, Psalm 1 kind of things, but there are other things that will change.

Secondly, let’s start where you are. Again, it’s easy to look back with regret or forward with fear. Neither of these is helpful. Elisabeth Elliot knew what it was like to be a single missionary. She then knew what it was like to be a married mom. And then she knew what it was like to be a single mom. She would walk through many more seasons. But I think she, with the Lord now, has a word for us today as we talk about these seasons. She says, “We may be earnestly desiring to be obedient and holy. But we may be missing the fact that it is here, where we happen to be at this moment, and not in another place or in another time, that we learn to love him — here where it seems he’s not at work, where his will seems obscure or frightening, where he’s not doing what we expected him to do, where he is most absent. Here and nowhere else is the appointed place. If faith does not go to work here, it will not go to work at all.”

I love Psalm 145:15.

“The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.”

There’s our little word, “eth.” You give them what they need here, now, today. Let’s pray.

Father, as we talk about Seasons of Christian Parenting, help us to be here. Although we’re going to look at the big picture, like today, we want to be in this moment, not in the past of regret, not in the future of fear, but here, delighting in you, waiting on you. I thank you as you’re teaching me in a very vivid way today that you meet us in our weakness. You provide our daily bread. You bear fruit at the right time. As parents, we could so easily feel overwhelmed, underqualified. There’s no way to prepare for all the various things we will encounter. But we meet you here. You come to us in the moment. You give us what we need, and you bear your fruit, beautiful fruit, unusual fruit. I thank you for my brothers and sisters here. I see it in them all the time — the love, the joy, the peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

So, help us whether we’re mentoring someone, currently being parented, parenting a little one and feeling exhausted, or trying to prepare a child to be released/to launch, or trying to learn what it looks like to grandparent. Wherever we are, Lord, we meet you here, and you give us what we need, and we stand in awe. In Jesus’s name. Amen.