Discipline

TITLE: DISCIPLINE

Introduction:

Today we’re going to talk about taking back our children from this world through discipline and training

The fear of discipline leads to reverence or respect for the disciplinarians voice; Jesus said I’ll show you someone to fear, fear Him who has the ability to throw someone into hell- the author of Hebrews, likely Paul, said its a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God

Without that fear of God and the fear of God’s judgement, there would be reverence for his authority

And without the fear of the discipline, there is no reverence for His voice

Hook:

Who loves to be corrected and disciplined?

The answer is no one

But most of us can recall a time when we were disciplined

Discipline does two things

Discipline corrects bad behavior

Discipline trains us to do what is good

As parents we have to train the Heaven into our kids, while disciplining the hell out of them

Context:

I know Not everyone here today is a parent, but everyone here is a child

A child of God if not of anyone else

I want parents to listen and understand the importance of disciplining your children

I want children to listen understand the importance of accepting discipline

It is better that we discipline and guide our children than to allow the world to get a hold of them and guide them to destruction and depravity

It is better that we discipline and correct our children, than to allow them burn in hell

We live in a world that would rather have you ignore your children as they embrace the world concepts, than correct them and bring them to God

The world cannot be the voice of reason because the world is the enemy of God and does not have our childrens best interest at heart

The world would like to stop our children from listening to our instruction and respecting our authority

The world would like to shame us into being weak and feckless parents

That’s not how I will parent my children and anyone who undercuts my authority will not have access to my children

I will choose to follow God’s parenting plan, not the worlds, and Gods parenting plan is based on discipline and training

Scripture:

Hebrews 12:5–11

...My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives.

Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline—which all receive—then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Exegesis:

Endure suffering as discipline; God is disciplining you and I as sons.

In the original greek, the word used for discipline is paideia. Pie-day-uh

Paideia means both discipline and training.

He disciplines us for our bad behavior while simultaneously training us to walk righteously

Main Point 01:

When we think of discipline we correlate it with punishment

A child acts out, we punish them - that to us is discipline

But God makes it clear through His word that His discipline, and the way we should be disciplining our children is not only a form of punishment for bad behavior but a method used to train us to do what is good

Explanation 01:

Just as God has to train us to do what is good, we have to train our children to do what is good

We don’t come out of the womb with the ability to do what is right

David said he was sinful from conception and guilty when he was born

As he was, so are we.

We are born into this world as broken people

For any good to come out of us we have to be taught the difference between good and bad and then trained by our parents to do good

When we are born again, God becomes our Father and He then trains us in His ways

And His example is the one we must follow as parents

In order for our training to work, their must be a correction made to our children's behavior whenever they break the rules

But the first thing that we have to do, is set the rules.

A child doesn’t know what to obey if we don’t establish that with them

Illustration 01:

Think of the Mosaic Law

The Bible tells us that people were sinning prior to the law but it wasn't counted against them

Romans 5:13 says sin was in the world before the law but sin is not charged to a person's account when there is no law

Why is that? How can that be? How could people have been doing bad, egregious thing, sinning against God and it was not charged against them?

Because God had not yet set the rules. He had not yet given His children the dos and the don'ts

He hadn’t yet set the mark, so He didn’t hold it against them when they missed the mark

As parents we have to keep that in mind

We must set up the laws or rules of our home before we can rightly discipline our children for breaking them

Main Point 02:

It’s only once we have set the rules of our household that we can begin to train our children to follow them

Explanation 02:

Our God is a just God. And as our Father, He is a just father.

As parents we must follow His example and be just as well

If a child does something we don’t agree with, but as the parent, we didn’t set the rule to address it, disciplining them would not be just

It is our responsibility to set the rules and train them on the rules. Failure to do so does not fall on their shoulders, it falls on our shoulders

As angry or disappointed as we may be to see them make a bad decision, if we didn’t train them to make the right decision in that circumstance, that's on us. That is OUR failure.

Children will not just magically figure out what it is you expect from them, it must be communicated to them.

Illustration 02:

Proverbs 22 says if YOU train a child up in the way they should go, they will never depart from it

Proverbs 22 does NOT say if you leave a child to figure it out on their own, they will get it right every time

WE set the rules and WE train our children.

The rules of the home are the boundaries WE must set

It’s only once that we set the boundaries, that we can begin to train them on WHY it’s important to stay within them and HOW to stay within them

I watched a video of a man who had animal control called on him

His dog would sit in the front yard, close to the sidewalk, unsupervised, every day. Just watching the people and the cars pass by

Apparently this scared a woman who walked by with her kids so she called animal control.

The dogs owner told the agent that the dog was no threat, said he wouldn’t leave the yard for any reason, unless he gave him permission

The owner then took a ball and tossed it into the middle of the street. The dog bolted off the porch and through the yard but as soon as he got to the edge of the yard- DEAD STOP

The dog looked back at the owner and waited

Finally the dogs owner told the dog he could go get the ball and he did

The dog was trained on the boundaries and respected his owners voice

The dog understood the boundaries, understood the rules, and he respected his owners voice, because he feared the consequences of not obeying

Main Point 03:

Once we set the rules and the expectations have been communicated to our children, they have no excuse when they get out of line

Explanation 03:

Just as we have no excuse when we step out of line with God

because we know His rules and His laws, they have been communicated to us through His Word, we have no excuse for disobeying Him

And once we establish the rules of our home, our children have no excuse for disobeying us

But the Word tells us that who we are is plaing to God and He KNOWS we are going to screw up and fall headlong into sin. Thats why He sent an advocate for us.

And, as parents, we know our children are gonna screw up

Listen, no one bats 100. Everyone screws up from time to time.

That's why we have to discipline our children, as Fathers, as Mothers, to persuade them not to do it again.

We have to make sure they stumble but don’t fall

God knows that we, as His children, are going to trip over a stumbling block from time to time, but He doesn’t want us to pick up that block and build a home out of it. He doesn’t want us to live in the sin.

And as parents, we have to make sure our children don’t live in their screw ups.

As the scripture said in Hebrews, we have to discipline them because we love them.

No discipline is enjoyable; they're not gonna like it, but its for their benefit

It is our obligation to discipline those children we love

Illustration 03:

As a Father of four - I am currently learning the hard way what a lack of discipline will do to a child and to a home

Bad behavior is like a virus

A highly contagious virus that works its way through the home among our children

See, when my kids mother and I separated I thought, these kids have been through enough I’m not going to beat them down with rules

I’m gonna take it easy on them, they have enough on their minds and in their hearts to sort out

They’re going through a major life change, the last thing they need is a Dad who stays on their case.

I was wrong

I thought I could relax the rules and they’d respect the love I was showing them

But they’re children- they don’t think like that

The truth is; Children do not respect weak parents

I’ve never heard a well adjusted, respectable, adult talk fondly about their parents being pushovers

Most people will tell you they’re qualities come from having strong parents, who ran their household with authority

That's how I want my kids to describe our home; but I fear if I continue the current course, that won’t be the case

Now don’t, get me wrong our home hasn’t disintegrated into chaos, and they’re not broken kids, my kids are great kids

But by withholding discipline, they no longer FEAR the discipline

And just as I said earlier, when a child doesn’t fear your discipline they don’t respect your voice

Let me say that again - when they don’t fear your discipline, they don’t respect or have reverence for your voice

It use to be, when Dad spoke that was it. When I said ENOUGH.. that was the end of the story.

Because they knew that my discipline followed my voice

But I spent two years with the “please listens” and the “please stop you guys” and my children's behavior started spiraling downward

I was a weak parent.

A weak and feckless, ineffective parent. And They knew it. They didn’t respect it.

Truth is we have a whole generation of weak and ineffective parents.

A lot of them are going to be too far away from the Word of God to appreciate what I’m saying

Parents who want to gentle parent- create friendly bonds with our children

Because we’ve mistaken weak parenting with the creation of peaceful loving homes

It doesn’t.

In reality what we are doing is creating children that sense our weakness and take advantage of it

Proverbs says a youth that is left to himself, which is to say one without discipline, is a shame to his mother

Conclusion:

Parents- we have to be the adults in the room

This world would have you believe that you should embrace a child who is doing wrong and accept all forms of ungodliness that they choose to welcome in

God says they’re wrong

God says discipline your children as He disciplines us

God says Discipline imparts wisdom

God says Discipline trains our children to do what is right and what is good

Teach them now before it’s too late

There are empty grave plots and jail cells just waiting for our untrained and undisciplined children to fill them

There is a very real hell that is waiting for our untrained and undisciplined children to fill it

Don’t allow it

Take control of your home and your children today, before it is too late

Join me- in taking back our children

This world can’t have my kids.

Satan can’t have my kids.

And you have to do everything you can to make sure he doesn’t have yours.

And that begins in your home with training and discipline.

[Say a prayer for our children and to strengthen the parents]