I invite you to open your Bible to Proverbs chapter 6. As we think this morning about establishing family rules, nobody likes rules, but the fact is that nobody can live without rules. Can you imagine the Olympic Games without rules? Suppose there were no flags to set the boundaries, no clocks to establish the times. How would the winners and losers be told rules are necessary to play a game?
To drive a car, to buy a home, to get a job, to go to school, to paint a wall, invest in the market, get a loan, marry a wife, join the army, write a poem, paint a picture, take a photograph, program a computer, make a telephone call, mail a letter, paint a flower, change your oil, you name it. Rules are a part of life. Almost everything involves learning to live with the rules. Learning about rules begins shortly after life begins.
Even a baby has to learn to sleep through the night and to eat during the day. A person who thinks he can live without rules will potentially end up in a prison where every move will be regulated by rules. You see, to have genuine freedom, one must learn to appreciate rules and to learn to understand that they are a part of life for his good and for the good of all society. A society that loses its sense of rules and of responsibility to rules is a society that's on its way to destruction.
A society will eventually reflect the majority of what its families teach. By purpose or precept, by neglect or by default, families teach children and children grow up to make up society. America today is quickly losing its respect for laws and personal accountability to laws. And for that reason, we are on a slide to destruction. The failure in our society is at its heart the failure of our society's families. I don't know any families that are aiming toward failure.
That isn't built into the handbook. Yet the fact is that many families are coming unglued because of failure to instill values of respect, authority, rules and discipline in children. Establishing rules and discipline in a family is essential to its success. In the first few chapters of Proverbs, the writer is telling us about some important issues of life, giving us instruction as to how to live wisely. In this chapter, chapter 6, one of the themes is that of adultery.
We're going to clip off the first few verses of this larger paragraph and focus today on the importance of rules. I'll begin reading in Proverbs 6 and verse 20. My son, observe the commandment of your father and do not forsake the teaching of your mother. Bind them continually on your heart. Tie them around your neck. When you walk about, they will guide you. When you sleep, they will watch over you. And when you awake, they will talk to you.
For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light. And reproofs for discipline are the way of life. The first thing I'd like to do this morning is to draw out from our text some general observations about family rules. Observation number one, rules work best in the context of relationship. You notice here it speaks to the son. On behalf of the father and the mother. Rules that are laid down without the context of relationship can become self-destructive.
Rules work best in the context of relationship. The second general observation I want to make about rules is that rules in a family should be agreed upon by both father and mother. Notice it mentions the commandment of the father, the teaching of the mother. The implication being that both of them were involved in establishing these rules and they agreed upon them. Children know how to manipulate if mom and dad differ on family rules.
The third observation is that rules should be grounded in reason. The commandment of the father, the teaching of the mother. Rules need to be laid down with a rational basis. And as much as possible children need to understand why rules exist. Not that they will always agree or always understand. But we as parents need to be able to rationally understand and then explain to children why rules are what they are. Rules just for the sake of rules serve no positive purpose in any context.
There needs to be some teaching, some explanation, some reason for them. Now if children don't understand it doesn't mean that we should throw out the rules. There are times when kids cannot understand because of their age or will not understand because the rules do not accommodate their wishes. Yet the rules must stand and they must have a rational basis. We need to be open to hearing the response of our kids and their logic.
That may help us to better define what the rules ought to be as we listen to what they say to us in response. There's a fourth observation I'd like to make about rules in general and that is that rules provide protection in life's journey. Notice it mentions that in our text. When you walk about they will guide you. When you sleep they will watch over you. Rules establish boundaries that are necessary for life. They keep us from getting injured, from getting sidetracked and off the beaten path.
Rules are for our protection in life's journey which brings me to the fifth observation that rules navigate us toward a fulfilled life. It is by rules that we learn our basic value system. It is this value system that we learn as children through the rules of our parents that points us toward personal happiness and success. He mentions in verse 23, reproofs for discipline are the way of life.
By the rules that are laid down and what we learn when we disobey the rules, we learn how to live in this world to be fulfilled and happy. And finally, the sixth observation is this, that rules engender values that take root in the heart. You see that's the goal of the parent, not trying to get our kids to conform externally to what we want of them. But to receive internally in the heart the value behind the rule.
That's why the heart is emphasized in verse 21, bind them continually on your heart. We want our rules to move from the external to the internal. That's the goal in them. Now laying that foundation of the general observation about rules from the Word of God, I'd like to go on to talk about some specific guidelines for discipline. I hope that these will be helpful to you and I want to acknowledge up front that I cannot say in these few minutes everything that could be said about discipline.
But I want to say some things that I hope will be important to you and helpful as well. Number one, discipline must be loving. Proverbs 312 says, when the Lord, whom the Lord loves, He reproves even as a father the son in whom He delights. Discipline must be in the context of love. Children must never be abusive. There is a contrast between discipline in the biblical sense and in the right sense and child abuse. Now in the day we're living in there's confusion about that in our society.
As they talk about the rights of children, be very, very careful. They're saying that children should not be disciplined as the Bible says they should. However the Bible never condones child abuse, ever. Charles Swindoll in one of his books writes about the contrast between child abuse and child discipline. Abuse on the one hand is unfair and unexpected. It comes out of nowhere and strikes.
Discipline is fair and expected because the rules have been laid down in advance and children know when they cross those rules. Abuse is degrading and demoralizing to a child. But discipline upholds the dignity of that young person. Abuse is extreme. It is too harsh. It is brutal. But discipline is balanced. It takes place within limits that are set. Abuse is torturous. It leaves scars behind that sometimes last for life. But discipline, though painful, leaves no scars.
Abuse results from hatred and resentment. Discipline is prompted by parental love and concern for the children. Abuse creates terror, emotional damage, and resentment of authority. But discipline leads to healthy respect for authority in the child. Abuse destroys self-esteem. It leads to horrifying and permanent damage and the inability later in life to maintain responsibilities. But discipline strengthens self-esteem, leads to the individual's ability to later discipline himself.
When we talk about discipline, let's remember it is never abusive. It is always loving. We are being told by some today that spanking is totally inappropriate, that it teaches children violence. Abusive spanking does. But proper spanking is necessary for children to learn discipline. Pain needs to be associated with wrong. But that pain needs to be properly applied, and God has provided a wonderful spot on the human body where there is padding for spankings.
So that it does not injure the child, and yet there is some pain involved that the child can associate with the wrong that was done. And I should say too that that spanking should probably be a paddle. Proverbs talks about a rod, which pictures a terrifying thing to most of us, but that isn't the biblical idea. The idea in the Bible seems to be to cause the pain to be associated with something else than your hand. Slapping a child in the face is never right.
Hitting a child in the back is not right. And even spankings, when done in love, need to be applied best, I think, with a paddle. And then when the discipline has been applied, it needs to be followed by words of correction and teaching, as well as words of reassurance of the parent's love for the child. The second guideline I'd like to lay before you today for discipline in the home is that discipline needs to aim to shape the will. The will is the battleground.
Discipline ought never to be geared to crush the spirit of the child. To extinguish that self-confidence that is so important for later in life. Rather discipline is geared toward the will. To bring the will into subjection to authority. To teach the child a servant's heart. To be submissive in spirit. But discipline ought never to put out that light that is down deep inside the child that represents that child's identity as a created person by God. Discipline aims to shape the will.
The spirit of a man can endure sickness, but a broken spirit, who can bear? Let not our discipline ever cross that line where we crush and we break the spirit of our children. The third guideline for discipline in the home is that discipline should be age appropriate. Discipline needs to begin when the child is young in Proverbs 22 and verse 15. It says foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of discipline will remove it far from him. And it needs to be removed far from him.
So we begin early in childhood to discipline children, but let's understand that expectations need to vary with the age. We certainly expect more out of a toddler than a small baby. And we expect more out of a child than a toddler, and more out of a teenager than a child. Expectations vary and so do methods of discipline. God may work at one age, will not work at another. Discipline is a process and it has an ultimate goal.
That goal is that day when we will release the child to independent living of a godly life. When we let the child go to live wisely and with self-discipline, because the rules that we have laid down and the discipline that we have taught have been brought internally into the heart so that the child is able to function in this world. Discipline needs to be age appropriate. Fourth, discipline should focus on the natural consequences.
There's a chapter in the book Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Klein and Jim Fay that is entitled Children's Mistakes are Their Opportunities. We usually think of their mistakes as problems for them or problems for us as parents. But Fay and Klein correctly point out that actually children's mistakes are their opportunities. As they make mistakes and the consequences come, they learn. Kevin Lehman, popular author, calls this reality discipline.
In his book Measuring Up, he says, what you are striving for with reality discipline is getting your child to see and understand what he has done wrong, offering him an opportunity to repent of his actions and seeing to it that he knows he has been dealt with fairly. You must remember that you're not punishing your child nor are you simply trying to make him toe the mark.
Instead, what you're out to do is to help your child become a responsible adult who will exercise realistic self-control and self-discipline. He goes on to warn against authoritarian parenting, saying it seldom works. It's not fair for the children involved. It's not fair for the parents who feel personally responsible for making sure that their children toe the line in everything they do.
A child who's reared in this sort of environment may seem to walk the straight and narrow, but he's doing it out of fear, not because he's learned responsibility and knows what's best for him. He goes on to say that the best way for a child to learn is through reality discipline, letting the child understand realities in life, not protecting him from the reality that discipline comes when we do wrong. To illustrate his point, Lehman talks about a boy named Bobby who's 10 years old.
He's one of those boys who never comes the first time he's called. Now, I pick out this illustration because it has no application to families in our church. Bobby, dinner's ready, Mom says. Nothing happens. Five minutes later, Bobby, I said dinner's ready, please come to the table. And still nothing happens. Another five minutes pass. The food gets cold. There's no sign of Bobby. Only the blips and the bleeps from the computer game emanating from his room. Bobby, get yourself in here right now.
And with that, Bobby knows that you mean business. And so he turns off the computer game and comes to the table. Only by this time, you're ticked off. And dinner time is going to be anything but pleasant. And so Lehman says, use some reality discipline. Bobby should be called once to come to the table. If Bobby doesn't show up, Mom and Dad should go ahead and eat. And when Bobby finally wanders into the kitchen, he's surprised to find Mom and Dad already clearing the dishes from the table.
Oh, I'm sorry, Bobby. But I called you to dinner and you didn't come. We finished eating and so if you're hungry, feel free to help yourself. Or if he comes 10 minutes late to the meal, you say, Bobby, I'm sorry, you're just going to have to wait until the rest of us are through eating. If you want something, you may fix it yourself later. You see, what happens in a case like that is the child learns that your word means something.
And also learns from reality that he can be hungry and may have to wait when he doesn't come to the dinner, as called. Reality discipline is talking about consequences. One should focus on the natural consequences. Guideline number five, discipline for defiance, not for childishness. It's important to understand the distinction here. For example, children who cry, I should say a baby who cries in a church service, should be taken out but not disciplined.
However, a toddler who fusses and doesn't learn to sit still may well need to be disciplined. Because a baby doesn't understand defiance. But there comes a point when a toddler understands it very, very well. We have to accept the fact that children forget. Children spill, they get dirty, they fall down. All of that is a part of growing up. It's childishness. But deliberate disobedience is not childishness, nor is it cute.
All you have to do is to talk to the teachers in our church who deal with children in the public schools to understand that children today are defiant. Defiant of authority because of failure in our homes. Talk to clerks in stores who have to deal with children to understand that today we're dealing with a defiant generation. And they learn it on television, in the sitcoms, and the cartoons that we allow to babysit them.
We must learn to discipline defiance even as we accept childishness on the part of our children. Talk to the youth workers in our church if you want to hear about defiance. Or talk to our Sunday school teachers who from time to time have defiance in their classrooms. And I want you to know that our workers here at the church are expected to discipline children who are defiant. To do that with your approval.
And sometimes it may be necessary to bring them to you to let you discipline them if they're defiant. Defiance cannot be accepted in the home, in the church, or in society. It must be disciplined. Dennis Waite, who is a popular speaker and author, tells the story about Bradford the Barbarian, whom he encountered in one of his weekend ministries.
He says, in my parenting and leadership seminars, I tell a true story about a young couple who invited me to their home for dinner some time ago after an all-day program at a university. This man and woman, both highly intelligent with advanced degrees, had opted for a child-centered home. So their five-year-old son Bradford would have everything at his disposal to become a winner out there in the competitive world.
When I arrived at their driveway in front of a fashionable two-story Tudor house at the end of a cul-de-sac, I should have known what was in store for me. I stepped on his ET doll getting out of the car and was greeted by, watch where you're walking or you'll have to buy me a new one. Entering the front door, I instantly discovered that this was Bradford's house, not his parents'. The furnishings, it appeared, were originally of fine quality.
I thought I recognized an Ethan Allen piece that had suffered the wrath of con. We attempted to have a cup of hot cider in the family room, but Bradford was busy running his new Intellivision controls. Trying to find a place to sit down was like hopping on one foot through a minefield blindfolded. Bradford got to eat first in the living room so he wouldn't be lonely.
I nearly dropped my hot cup in my lap in surprise when they brought out a high chair that was designed like an aircraft ejection seat with four legs and straps. I secretly visualized a 20-millimeter cannon shell strapped to a skyrocket under the seat with a short fuse. He was five years old and had to be strapped in a high chair to get through one meal.
As we started our salads in the dining room, which was an open alcove adjoining the living room, young Bradford dumped his dinner on the carpet and proceeded to pour his milk on top of it to ensure that the peas and carrots would go down deep into the shag fibers. His mother pleaded, Bradford, honey, don't do that. Mommy wants you to grow up strong and healthy like Daddy. I'll get you some more dinner while Daddy cleans up your mess.
While they were occupied with their chores, Bradford had unfastened his seat belts, scrambled down from his perch and joined me in the dining room, helping himself to my olives. I think you should wait for your own dinner, I said politely, removing his hand from my salad bowl. He swung his leg up to kick me in the knee, but my old-fashioned ex-pilot reflexes didn't fail me and I crossed my leg so quickly that he missed, came off his feet and came down hard on the floor in the seat of his pants.
You'd have thought he was at the dentist's office. He screamed and ran to his mother sobbing, he hit me. When his parents asked what happened, I calmly informed them that he had fallen accidentally and that besides, I'd never hit the head of a household. I knew it was time to be on my way when they put Prince Valiant to bed. By placing granola cookies on the stairs as enticers, he ate his way up to bed. How are you ever going to motivate him to go to school, I asked quietly.
Oh, I'm sure we'll come up with something, they laughed. Yes, but what if the neighborhood dogs eat what you put out? He concludes by saying, I asked the Lord for forgiveness for not remaining silent as I drove back to the airport. Young Bradford's need attention of discipline. And finally, discipline with consistency. That's the hard one, isn't it, for a lot of us? To show the same values and principles day in and day out.
And to consistently model what we're teaching our children in our own lives. Oh, but someone says, I'm afraid my child will question my love if I discipline him. But on the contrary, the Bible says that your discipline confirms your love. From the Lord loves, he chastens, just as a father, his son, in whom he delights. Charles Wendall says, when you care enough to set healthy limits, take time to enforce the rules and model the things you expect.
Children grow up much happier and more secure than those who are given virtually free reign. Numerous tests have proven that well-loved, yet justly disciplined children are healthier and they mature to be more productive, secure adults than those raised in ultra-permissive environments. Thus the importance of establishing family rules. I hope we've laid out today some groundwork that may help you in your task as a parent to do that.
And let's remind ourselves that as we discipline our children, we are actually following the model of our Heavenly Father, who as our Heavenly Parent disciplines us because he delights in us. And as we follow his model, then surely our children will learn what it means to respect authority and to internalize values that will guide them safely and successfully through life and into the Kingdom of God. Let's pray.
With our heads bowed, I wonder if there may be someone here who has been spanked by God this last week. Yes, God takes us through situations that are like spankings, discipline. And he does it because he loves us. Let's not pout about what God is doing. Let's not rebel against his discipline. Let us never be defiant. But rather learn to be submissive and accept the discipline of God, for it's for our own good.
Father, I pray that you will continue to discipline us as your family, as your beloved children. Teach us to submit to your discipline and to learn what we need to from it. And for those of us who are parents, may we learn to likewise discipline the children you've put into our homes in a way that will please you and benefit them. In Jesus' name. The Lord said, I will show my greatness.