Parents & Children: #1: Things I've Learned Since I Knew It All: Parents in Pain

I. Introduction
A. Today we begin a three week series on parents and children.
B. Explanation of subtitle: Things I’ve Learned Since I Knew It All
1. When the parents of my generation in this church were young, we had very few older, more experienced examples/advisors. We made a lot of mistakes, mistakes we are still living down.
2. If you had been here during those early years, you would have heard almost constant instructions about parenting at GPC. There was a time when I thought I pretty much knew it all.
3. I apologize for that. But it’s not that what I taught was wrong. Most of it was right out of the Bible. It was missing some things, to be sure. And it was surely too arrogant and cocky, and too confident-in-success.
4. I did do a lot of things wrong in my own parenting: I was too angry. I was self-righteous. I did not spend enough time with each child as an individual. I tried too hard to fit kids into the same cookie-cutter. I did not show joy in them enough. I did not inject enough joy into our household, not enough “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” or turning jobs into fun games.
C. This weeks sermon is entitled: Parents in Pain, a title taken from a book by John White.
1. When we were in seminary around 1980, the church we attended (with the Rices) had a SS class on this book. At the time I thought the class was silly. Here’s what I thought: Instead of addressing parents in pain, instead of just comforting ourselves in our pain, why not focus on preventing the pain or repenting of the things which led to the pain?
2. A few years later we had a missionary named Smoak speak at Becky Peach’s Missionary Kid’s Club. My wife and I still remember him saying that his nine (grown) kids were tearing up the world for Jesus. That pretty much summarized our ambition for our growing family.
3. And our parenting has brought us so much joy! Child-raising has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.
4. Originally I wanted 2-3 kids. But after we got started, I changed that number to 8 (because the biggest family I knew had 7 kids).
5. But it’s also been extremely hard and continues to be extremely hard. Lots of joy, lots of pain.
6. I know that children are often in pain as a result of the relationship with their parents, but today we’re talking about parental pain. And most of the young people here will one day be parents. This sermon will be good preparation.
II. The Bible talks quite a bit about parents in pain.
A. Proverbs verses
1. 10:1 “A foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.”
2. 17:25 “A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore him.”
3. 29:15 “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.”
4. 10:5 “He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.”
B. Stories of parenting pain
1. Adam and Eve (Cain kills Abel)
2. Noah (Shem dishonors him and as a result his children are cursed)
3. Isaac (Jacob and Esau don’t get along, Jacob deceives him)
4. Jacob (his sons sell Joseph into slavery and send him to Egypt)
5. Aaron (his sons Nadab and Abihu offer wrong fire and God burns them up)
6. Eli (his sons Hophne and Phineas sleep with the lady temple helpers and steal from the people)
7. Samuel (his sons were not godly men like him and not fit to lead Israel)
8. David (his son Amnon rapes his daughter Tamar and is killed by his son Absalom, Absalom and Adonijah rebel)
9. Hezekiah (his son Manasseh was the most wicked king Judah ever had)
10. Josiah (all his sons, the final kings of Judah, were wicked)
III. Parenting and pain
A. Parenting is painful in many ways:
1. Inconvenient
2. Expensive
3. Frustrating
4. Trying
5. Disturbing
6. Perplexing
7. Embarrassing
8. Longing to connect but they seem uninterested: How was your day? “Fine.”
9. Watching them suffer when there’s nothing you can do about it
10. Watching them make foolish decisions knowing there will be consequences
11. Being disrespected
12. Being taken for granted
13. Being considered irrelevant
14. Doing something out of love and being accused of being hateful
15. Being lied to, being deceived
16. Worrying about their welfare or their future
17. Being told, “I hate you!” by someone you love dearly.
18. Observing a lack of interest in the Lord or even a disdain for Him
B. And then there is the pain of sacrificing:
1. Sleep
2. Ease
3. Money
4. Time
5. Energy
6. Opportunities
C. Why does parenting cause so much pain?
1. Because of the hassle factor? That may add to the pain, but it doesn’t explain the pain. Parents of special needs children have lots of hassle too, but it doesn’t cause the same kind of pain.
2. It’s because of love. People who are not as much the objects of our love don’t cause us such pain.
3. Love is also the reason our children have so much capacity to bring us joy. 3John 4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”
IV. God and parenting pain
A. The God of parenting is not a tame lion (a reference from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis).
1. When you’re young, it’s hard to grasp this. You don’t have the capacity to understand how wonderful — or how torturous — it will be.
2. It reminds me of Mark 10:35–40, where James and John came up to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
a. Jesus’ cup refers to His crucifixion (at Gethsemane in Matthew 26:39 “Father, let this cup pass from me.”).
b. So does Jesus’ baptism (Colossians 2:12 “buried with him in baptism”).
c. Jesus knew that James and John would both suffer similar deaths (James was the first apostle to be martyred. John was the last.)
3. “We are able.” That was me when I was young. But now I look back at myself and say, “You had no idea what you were saying.”
4. I wanted to be the best parent ever and have the greatest kids ever! “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”
B. God has a purpose for the pain. It’s supposed to be painful.
1. Parenting pain reminds us of our need for God.
a. Barb Coleman: “Never ever resent something which reminds you of your need for God.”
2. God is working on us through our working on them:
a. Erica’s drawing of a sculptor who is being sculpted by God even while he is sculpting.
3. It keeps us humble.
a. Story of a family at an OCF conference with two very different sons: one very godly and upright, one very rebellious and immoral. We were married but still childless at the time and this startled me. How could the same parents produce such opposites? This was the parent’s explanation: “God gave us Bruce so we’d know that Brian was a result of God’s grace and not our efforts.”
b. I, for one, have realized over the years that I couldn’t handle the pride which would come if all my kids were spiritual giants.
C. I would suggest that the best paradigm for understanding parenting is dying on the cross out of love for our children.
1. In Matthew 16:24 Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
2. This is what parents do for their children. We bear the burden of dying in order that they might come to life.
3. It begins in pregnancy and delivery and it continues on from there.
4. It’s the same thing Paul talked about in 2Corinthians 4:11–12 “We who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake... So death is at work in us, but life in you.”
5. Jesus suffered pain.
a. Think about all the times He seemed frustrated with the disciples
b. Even before the cross, there was Gethsemane.
(1) His pain of anticipation.
(2) His frustration with the disciples: “Can’t you stay awake and pray for a short time?”
6. But His quest for our redemption was driven by love. And He calls us to the same things.
7. As Paul said in 2Corinthians 12:15, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.”
8. I think this is the best paradigm for parenting. It is dying for the sake of others, driven by love.
D. The hope of parenting
1. The cross is not the end of the story. It doesn’t end with pain.
2. Jesus was looking forward to something when He died. “For the joy set before Him endured the cross...” (Heb.12:2)
3. In sports, as in life, you never know how it’s going to end until the final buzzer (or final trumpet) sounds. In a contest, when one team gets way ahead of another, there are two big temptations.
a. It is tempting for the team which is ahead to get over-confident, to think they have it in the bad, to let down and stop trying so hard. Some of the greatest comebacks in history are a result of giving in to this temptation.
b. Likewise it is tempting for the team which is behind to give up, to get discouraged, to feel hopeless and stop trying so hard. What could have been some of the greatest comebacks in history never happened because of giving in to this temptation.
4. The same is true in parenting. When things are going great, it’s easy to think the game’s over and stop trying so hard. When things are bad, it’s easy to get discouraged and think it’s hopeless. But with God, neither is true. It’s always to early to give up hope. And it’s always too early to think it’s in the bag. Keep praying, keep loving, keep sacrificing, keep dying.
5. I’d like to mention one more Bible example of parents in pain: Zacharias and Elizabeth, barren for so many years, until long after their child bearing years were over. They had long since given up hope. But then the angel comes and says to Zacharias, “Your prayers have been heard.” And not only does God give them a child, but their child (John the baptist) has the privilege of being the forerunner of the Messiah.
a. Don’t give up. Your God is too big for that.