Dr. Ed Young - Character and Commitment

Hebrews chapter 12, verse 11: «Now no discipline seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.» And it is discipline; God loves those He disciplines, says the Bible. Postmodern psychological parenting is a fraud. Dr. John Redmond, who I believe has written the best material you’ll ever find on how to be a biblical parent, has a PhD in psychology but realized that all the ideas of postmodern psychology are flawed. What is postmodernism? Postmodernists believe there are no absolutes. They believe everything is relative. They believe that a child is born pure and perfect, and it’s the parents who mess them up. Parents mess up their children because they themselves were screwed up by their parents, and this dysfunction goes all the way down the line-even in DNA. Therefore, to be «saved» in postmodernism is to go to a counselor or a professional secular psychologist and let this secular psychologist walk you through your life in a fraudian style. You’ll begin to pick up, «Well, this happened there and that happened over there, and my mother, my dad, and this and that.» They try to explain you and explain me through postmodern psychology, and it becomes an ongoing affair; you’ll need counseling for the rest of your life to sort out all the things that have made you who you are. Their basic theory is determinism: you don’t have free will; everything is determined by environment, background, parents, and other influences in your life.

Christianity says that a baby is born in the image of God, but that baby lives in a fallen world and is, therefore, a fool. We talked about that if you were here last week. What is a fool? A fool is someone who does not know what is best for them. Want to debate that? Sure, that’s a fool. Therefore, a lot of us are fools because we do things, say things, have done things, and said things that were not best for us, right? It’s called rebellion. We are saved not by ourselves; we confess that we were born in sin and that we have sin. We turn away from all of that in our lives and ask Jesus Christ to make us brand new. The phrase is, «be born again,» a fresh new start. That’s Christianity-a totally different view.

Therefore, if we’re parenting our children in a postmodern way or we’re parenting our children according to God’s principles, God’s way as taught in His book. I have looked at verse after verse after verse, and I have seen many verses and many lifestyle situations that teach us through that book how to be a mom and how to be a dad. Now, let me say something upfront to make every parent mad. If you’re not mad at this, you didn’t hear it. I’m going to end with this: if you have a problem with one of your children, the problem is not with the child; it’s with Mom and Dad. If your children are making you uptight or uneasy about something, you’ve got it mixed up.

When problems arise in the disciplinary area of children, the pain that parents feel must be transferred to the child. That’s what discipline does. We have to understand this if we are going to be effective parents. There are a couple of types of parenting I want to look at. First of all, there is that nearsighted parenting. Mothers are often very skilled at this. Some nearsighted parents deal only with what is right now: homework. They say, «Oh, I want to make sure Billy, who is seven, gets all his homework exactly right. I’m going to help him, tutor him, and check it to make sure it’s turned in.» You do this over and over again because you want him to be a good student. You never allow your child to turn in homework that is not accurate or checked. When they get in trouble, you’re always there to take the place of accountability. You want your child to be happy, accepted, and to experience as little pain as possible-not go through the things you went through as a child. So, you are there micromanaging your child. Every micromanager, whether in the business world or the family world, is always tense and uptight. Every little thing is catastrophic; everything is Armageddon. A mom and even a dad can be so involved that your children sometimes need to experience the pain that results from the poor choices they make.

Now, we move from nearsighted parenting to what I call farsighted parenting. You see the end-the goal that is out there. I want to ask you a question: 30 years from now, say you have a son who finishes university, makes good grades, and goes with a corporation, rising to the top to become a CEO. «Oh, how proud I am of my boy! He’s sturdy and already the CEO of this corporation! Oh, he’s really got it.» The only problem is, he’s already divorced from his wife and is sending money so she can bring up the kids. He’s a womanizer. He thinks the world revolves around him-his success, his money, and it’s all about him. That’s your boy after 30 years of upward success.

Now, you have a daughter. She knows God; she knows God has a plan for her life. She has the gift of teaching and has been teaching at school. Boy, is she contagious to the kids! They love her, and she speaks truth to them, sharing Christ. She’s not worried about getting married; that’s no big deal. She has a call from God to invest in the area of her discipline and life. Which child would you rather have-the boy or the girl? It’s an easy answer, isn’t it? But we often aim for the boy’s success, and therefore we micromanage our kids so they’ll be on that road to human success.

I can tell you that for every person who is fabulously successful in human terms, once in a while they stay and walk with God, but so many times they go in the opposite direction, caught up and bought by the world. Look at the long picture, folks. Focus on the goal that is out there. Now, let’s get very practical in disciplinary matters. You say, «Well, I have a problem with my kids. When they come home from school, they take off their shoes, throw them on the floor, toss their jackets everywhere, go upstairs undressed, and leave their school clothes all over the floor.» You tell them to pick up their clothes. They don’t do it. You say, «Lou, go pick up your clothes.» They don’t do it. You say it loudly, and maybe they pick up part of them.

What are you going to do? How are you going to discipline them? I’ll tell you what you do: you go and pick up all their clothes and put everything where it belongs-shoes, satchel, whatever. Then, you take your son or daughter with you and say, «I want you to go with me. This is where your shoes belong. You got it? Yeah, I put them there.» Right? «Yeah, this is where your coat goes.» You walk around and show them firsthand as if they didn’t know where everything belongs. Then you say, «Next time I ask you to pick up your clothes, I want all those clothes right back where they belong-not part of them, all of them. If you don’t, here’s what is going to happen: on Saturday, you’re going to stay in your room. I’m taking away all of your equipment-iPads, phone, computers.» By the way, you don’t discipline in proportion to how much they have done wrong.

Now, follow me here: if a scale of 1 to 10, where the worst is a 10, let’s say they commit a 3. You punish them on the basis of a 6. «Boy, you’re over-punishing me! All I did was steal $5 out of your pocket!» No, no, no. You punish in proportion to the wrongdoing. That way, you start training them. You got me?

We had a couple in our church who moved to another city. They were a great family with three kids and were a tremendous Christian couple. They set a rule that when their young child had a birthday party, they could keep only two presents. All the rest were donated to Goodwill. That was their policy. They would have a birthday party, pick out two presents, and give all the others to Goodwill.

One night, true story-I’m not making this up-a little boy named Mike was praying. They prayed together at night. He prayed for his mom, dad, sister, brother, teachers, and everything, and he prayed for Goodwill. He continued praying, «Lord, I want to be a fine person like Goodwill so I won’t have to keep giving them all my toys.» You see, parents, there are many ways to discipline your children with love and redemption.

You say, «I want my children to be happy.» Listen, when you discipline them, they won’t always be happy. You aren' t in the business of having a happy child; you’re in the business of raising a child who grows up to be who God designed them to be. It’s expensive to do that; you won’t always be popular. You won’t always be the best friend of your daughter or son. Many people don’t discipline; they just bribe the child. «If you do this, I’ll give you that» or «If we go over here.»

Listen, that is one of the most ignorant, foolish, non-biblical ways to raise a child you can imagine. Now, somebody might say, «Here’s an 8-year-old. He is sarcastic, mean, and vicious-he pays no attention! We’ve tried everything in the world; there’s nothing we can do with him. He’s 8 years old and just a disaster! What can I do?» Dr. Redmond said a good idea was to take that young rebellious king out of the garden and put him in the brier patch. You do that by removing everything that belongs to them from their room. Every single thing- take it out! All they’ve got is their bed and the clothes they’ll wear the next day. Everything else is removed. You say, «This will last for a month, son. That’s pretty heavy. You’ll get one of your lesser possessions back every day for a month. As long as you’re perfect in being obedient, respectful, and honest within this family, that’s fine. But once you fail-bang! — it goes back into the closet, and we start the period over again.»

That’s severe! Children, by definition, do not know what is best for them. When you and I fall and fumble, we are being childish. At that moment, we didn’t know what was best for us. Here’s the operative principle for parents: if you’re having trouble with your child -if you say, «My child is giving me trouble,» the problem is not with the child; it’s with you as a parent.

You say, «Well, the psychologist said this child has all kinds of chemical imbalances; they can only be treated with heavy medication.» There may be situations like that, but they are rare and not as common as the secular psychologist would have us believe. Parenting is sometimes nearsighted, needing to stay close. Most of the time it’s farsighted, with a goal in mind. Parents, be willing to pay the price. It’s easier to bribe; it’s easier to give in; it’s easier to say yes than it is to get down in the trenches and try to love that child all the way to God and toward a life that is worthwhile, beautiful, and fulfilling.

I was eating in Myrtle Beach years ago at a restaurant named Ms. Seafood and Country Cooking. You can’t get a better name for a restaurant than that in my book. As I was waiting in line -those restaurants are always crowded- the owner came out and started speaking to us. I was sitting in a rocking chair when he came down and sat next to me. We began to talk. He said, «I want to tell you a story. You may know a little about it. I was a pastor in Columbia, South Carolina.» Then he told me this story, which I’ve never forgotten.

«It’s about Rusty Welburn. A year or so before, he had gone on a crime spree through the whole state of South Carolina-burning, destroying, attacking, and beating up people until finally he killed a beautiful young 19-year-old girl. He was prosecuted and sentenced to death. I don’t think anyone who knew him or any member of his family were there in the courtroom when he was being tried. Rusty was sentenced to death row and remained there for five years. But I want to tell you what happened during those five years.

He was hopeless and helpless. His story was tragic. He was brought up in West Virginia, in one of the poorest families, with numerous children. He didn’t even know who his daddy was, and his mother had all kinds of diseases. He just existed-hated by almost everybody-a little bully in junior high school who wore one pair of pants and two shirts for three years. The teachers didn’t like him, and he didn’t like anybody. He fought all the time. It was a tragic story in West Virginia. When he got into the ninth grade, Rusty dropped out of school. He lived under bridges and in fields, in public restrooms. He stole what he needed to eat. He fought, used drugs, alcohol-you name it. He went on this spree through South Carolina and killed that young girl.

Now he was on death row. At the same time, there was a man named Bob McAllister. He was the associate chief of staff for the governor of South Carolina, and the governor’s office was close to the state prison. Bob was a Christian. He decided he wanted to do something nice, so he arranged to have a minister in the prison. He started going to the prison, going in for lunch every day during that period, visiting those on death row.

He said the first time he went into Rusty’s cell, he found him lying in the corner in the fetal position, unmoving. The cell had a stench, and the only things moving were roaches crawling over Rusty. He said Rusty didn’t even notice when he brushed one of them off. Bob went over to him and told him as a Christian there was hope for him, and although he had killed many, God could forgive him. He read a little Bible to him. Rusty just opened his eyes and closed them again, never saying a word.

Bob said he went week after week after week with no response -finding the same empty, hopeless person. But finally, one day, he went in, and Rusty opened his eyes. Bob told him how God could forgive him, and he listened. Suddenly, for the first time, Rusty broke down crying- conviction hit him. After crying, he prayed to receive Jesus into his life. He had no hope, no future; nobody cared about him. Nobody who had known him before even visited him in prison. Bob left and came back the next week. There was Rusty, sitting in a chair, a brand new person. He was smiling and said, „I think God has really forgiven me. I feel like a new person.“

So, Bob McAllister, in the next three or four years, went there twice a week to read the Bible to him and disciple him. Rusty felt so guilty that he tried to figure out how he could make restitution for all the people he robbed, hit, beaten, and especially for the family of that little girl he had killed. Of all things, that little girl’s brother became a Christian. He had hated Rusty because this was the man who killed his sister. But he decided he must forgive Rusty. He wrote Rusty a letter in prison. Rusty was thrilled and scribbled back a note, saying, „I’m a Christian.“

The brother wanted to come see him, so it was arranged. Can you imagine? Here’s the brother, who had become a Christian, who had so hated the person who killed his sister-rightly so-and now he was coming to see him with his wife. Bob McAllister set it up. He said he was there when they opened the cell, and they rushed into each other’s arms, weeping-just weeping. The brother said, „I forgive you.“ Rusty said, „I don’t see how you can.“

Fast forward a bit, it was the day for Rusty’s execution. He hadn' t tried to get out; he told Bob McAllister he was looking forward to dying because for the first time he’d have a family. Bob asked Rusty, „What do you want to do?“ He said, „Bob, I’m going to lie on my cot and look forward to going to my family.“ Bob read the Bible to him and prayed with him. He read to him about heaven line upon line, verse upon verse, until he looked over, and Rusty appeared to be asleep.

Bob stopped breathing and praying, then went over, covered Rusty with a little blanket, and called the jailer to open the door to let him out. Just as he was leaving, he turned around and kissed Rusty on the head. The jailer let him out, and he left. A couple of hours later, Rusty was carried away to his execution. As he was going away, he talked to the person escorting him and said, „You know, it’s a shame that a man has to live to be 23 years of age and that the last night he’s on this Earth, he was kissed and tucked in for the first time.“

Dads, when a mother is a Christian, statistically, 17% of the time, the child will become a Christian. When the dad is a Christian in the family, 93% of the time, the kids become Christians. The shrinking father kisses and tucks in your kids every night. You’ll be a parent who understands how to love and discipline, keeping your eyes as a farsighted parent on the goal that God has for your son and daughter, which is character and Christ.