Dr. Ed Young - The Highest Calling

TOPICS: Calling

What is a worldview? Somebody will say, «Well, I don’t know.» Let me tell you exactly what it is: it is a philosophy of life. It is how you and I view life — animal life, Homo sapiens, human life-and how we relate to the universe and to the Earth. A basic definition of worldview: a Christian worldview begins in Genesis 2-3, and there are four cornerstones of a worldview- four cornerstones of how those who are in Christ see and view the world in which we live in the 21st century.

These four cornerstones are the foundation of our worldview- these cornerstones upon which we must stand before we can proceed to any other assumptions or decisions in life. If the foundation be destroyed, what shall the righteous do? We’ve looked at that verse before, and I think all of us can agree, as we look at these foundations, that they are being destroyed. That is the central attack of the evil one: to destroy the foundations. We see around us all those foundations upon which Western civilization, and upon which all of us have essentially stood for most of our lives, being systematically destroyed.

Here’s the foundation of our Christian worldview. There are one, two, three, four cornerstones in the foundation. The first cornerstone: Jesus tells us, he was asked in Matthew 22 by a lawyer-typical, isn’t it? — what is the great commandment according to the law? Jesus answered, «You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.» That is the first cornerstone. Then we look in the New Testament and discover that if we love God with all of our heart, our soul, and our mind, with our emotions, with our conscience, with the total essence of who we are, and with all of our strength, it enables us to understand how God loved us in bringing His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, who gives us abundant life now and a full life forever. So, the first cornerstone is to love God and to love Jesus Christ, which enables us to do the next thing.

The next cornerstone- remember what Jesus said: love the Lord your God with everything you’ve got. That’s the first commandment, the first cornerstone. The second cornerstone is to love your neighbor, love other people. We’re not able to love only as we have been loved. Some people have a tough time loving because they haven’t understood the total love of God, and they haven’t been loved by others. So, we do not have the total capacity to love. First cornerstone: love God, love Jesus Christ. Second cornerstone: we are able to love our neighbors and other people because we have been given love through Christ and the love of God.

The third cornerstone is marriage: love your wife, love your husband. We’re taught about this in many places, but particularly in Ephesians chapter 5. Third cornerstone: love God, love Jesus Christ, love your neighbor, love other people. Finally, husbands love your wives and wives love your husbands. The fourth cornerstone is to love your children, love your kids. Now, how do you do that? How do you love your children? How does that operate?

We are going to talk over the next several weeks about loving kids, and we' ll look at the Bible, which tells us with clear instructions on how to truly love our children. So where do we start? I think we start with the most familiar verse about family and children in the Bible. Most of us are familiar with it, found in Proverbs. We all know it, but I' ll read it to be accurate: «Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.» That’s how we love our kids; we train up our children.

I want to put this into a grid. By the way, it begins with the first season of training. Ecclesiastes says there’s a season for everything, and with our children, there are seasons. There is zero to three-this season I call the «season of being a servant.» It’s the servant season because that’s when the parents, especially the mother (90% of the time), look after that little one in every way: health, food, care, sleep, nurture. That is when the child, follow me closely, is the center of everything, and the mother (and, to some degree, the father) is the total servant of the child for the child to survive.

Now, other animals, when they’re born, can survive; they can make it. Humans cannot. We have a longer period of time in order to feel safe and secure than other animals, and we are not an animal in the general sense but, in the particular sense, made in the image of God. God evidently planned for it to take more time — for Mom to be in this servant role-where guess what, the child is the center of everything in the life of that mom: health, safety, food, temperament-everything.

Now, if the mother misunderstands what I’m saying, it’s the time of being a servant. In the second year, you begin to move into the wonderful experience of toilet training. You see? You begin to require something of the child. Then the child begins to try to eat and maybe put on their clothes. We develop that; all of this is involved in those first two years.

Now, season number two goes from three to 13, ten years, and now things totally change. Parents, no longer are you the servant and the child the center, but now Mom and Dad are the center. Stay with me. Some people do not make this transition, and the child becomes an idol. Mom and Dad are the center, and the child begins to feel this. All of a sudden, they’re required to eat at a certain time. «I don’t want to eat now.» «This is when we eat.» They get up at a certain time. «I don’t want to get up.» «This is when we get up.» We go to bed at a certain time. This is the second stage.

In the first stage, you were a servant. In the second stage, you are a leader, and you teach that child obedience and submission. You are in control. Now, the modern world says you have to tell your children, «No, no, no.» No, you don’t explain anything-why? Just because I told you. That’s that period from three to 13. If you try to go into something else, you’re not ready. «It’s just because I told you so. Stop! Turn around! Don’t do that!»

When God gave the Ten Commandments, He asked the Israelites, «Let’s talk about these. What about the one on adultery?» «Y’all all far that, one on stealing? No.» God said, «This is it.» So, parents, from three to 13, what you say, what you command, that is when you are authoritative. Well, you will be me? No, that’s a sign of love. We’ll talk about discipline later on; it’s a sign of love. You love that which you discipline, that which you require, and we’ll see that develop in our study.

So this is a time of leadership, a time when Mom and Dad take the role of God in their life. I read about a Christian psychotherapist who tells an example. A mother of a 16-year-old said, «My 16-year-old doesn’t respect me. He comes home, and he’s on drugs and he’s drunk, and I get on to him and we fuss and argue, and he just is mean to me. He says he hates me. What am I to do about it?»

The Christian psychotherapist said, «Well, what you have to do is squeeze him back until he is 12 months old.» Parents, get that: three to 13-unquestioned obedience. Well, you’re being hard. «I want my children to love.» Listen, your child doesn’t need a buddy-buddy mother or a buddy-buddy daddy. They need a dad and a mom who teach them obedience.

Then, from three to 13, this is God’s plan. We develop discipline, and we’ll talk about this later, but it indicates you really love. So this is a time in which you spell it out, explain it, and say, «This is how we do things in our house, in our family,» and you do it because you love them.

I went to a play in a secular school this week, and there were kids there, and as I was leaving, I went out the door and a whole bunch hurried at me, so I just held the door and let them go flying through, bang, bang, bang. Toward the end, a young man said, «Thank you, sir.» Hello! What kind of parents do you think he had? Did they teach respect? Did they teach manners? Did they teach appreciation?

This is when you do it, primarily between three and 13. Those ten years in which Mom and Dad are now the center, and the child is not the center. And the child doesn’t like it! Man, it’d be good to have a servant all your life, wouldn’t it? Some parents keep on serving, serving, serving. We’ll talk about that style of parenting as we move through this.

Stage two: Authority. Leadership by the parents. Stage three: this is from 13 to 18, and this is when you give reasons. Folks, this is when you explain what you’re doing. Now you reason with them. From three to 13, don’t do any explaining; you don’t need any explanation. You don’t ask for any explanation. Explanation won’t do any good. They’re beyond that point of reasoning. They just, «This is it.»

You see, if we do these things in these stages-stage one, stage two-we’re ready for stage three. They’re growing up; they make decisions of their own. Primarily, you’re still there. The Jews have a wonderful practice of bar mitzvah, which signifies that they graduate and become adults. They learn scripture, and almost every culture has it. The Japanese have a custom where you reach 20 years of age, wear a suit, go into business with your dad, and there’s a celebration. That’s when you begin to vote; that’s when they say you move into adulthood.

An ancient tribe that lives today on the Amazon River had a rite of passage. When the child became about 13 years of age, they had to put on gloves filled with bullet ants. A bite from a bullet ant is said to be about 30 times worse than a bee sting. They had to put on those gloves and keep them on for ten minutes, 20 times. The thesis is, they’re teaching their kids as they grow into adulthood that there will be pain, suffering, and heartaches, and you have to learn how to deal with that if you’re going to be a man or a woman.

You see, that was their way of transition. But the Cherokees had a wonderful method. When a young brave would reach a certain age, they would take that brave out into the middle of the forest, blindfold him, and he would have to sit there on a stump for no reason, taking the blindfold off, in rain, snow, sleet, or cold wind. They would never let him take the blindfold off until the sun went down. Then, when the sun came up the next morning, he would see that though he did not know it, there was his father sitting on a stump about ten feet away.

See, parents, do you get the picture? This is when you begin to give them independence. You begin to allow them to make their own decisions. You’ve built the right stuff in their lives; you’ve gone through season one, and now you’ve gone through season two when you were the commander -in-chief, the role of God in their lives. They obeyed without question, without pouting; you didn’t negotiate, «I’ll give you this if you’ll do that.» Parents, don’t do that; that’s foolish. You’re losing the battle of being a godly parent.

Let’s not cover all of it; this is a general introduction to our whole study of parenting, but let’s see the third thing I want to look at: what is the goal of parenting? The goal is to help them find out God’s purpose for their lives. This is the goal that parents have: to lead them toward that.

Let me say something as a side note: being unsuccessful is someone who was a success but found no lasting meaning. An unsuccessful person is someone who was a success but whose success has no lasting meaning or significance. That’s an unsuccessful life- success without meaning. Parents, we have an obligation to tell our children that God has a purpose for their lives, a plan, an agenda, and they will find it when we point them toward the goal.

What is the bullseye that parents aim at? I want to say, «By the way, I’m not including everything,» but let me clarify: sometimes parents can do everything possible and do it all right, and still a child will go astray. Some will come back, some will not. We use this verse, by the way, inappropriately: «Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.»

Well, my child, I tried to train him, but now he’s out there drinking and has had 16 marriages. Listen, that verse is not a promise; it’s a principle. Get the difference? «Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he' s old, he won’t depart from it.» That is not a promise; it’s a principle. Was God a good father to Adam and Eve? What happened to them? Because they had the freedom of choice, they made a decision that affected them and all of humanity.

So we must realize there’s a way to parent; it’s not the way of Cain. Read the Old Testament; look what happened to all his descendants. He killed his brother. Look at the other child, Seth: look at all his descendants; they followed in God’s way. Cain followed his way. Look at what happened in the results. It doesn’t take someone five bets to figure that out.

So, what is God’s method of parenting? I’ll be quick. Number one, the goal is to let them imitate Jesus, to be like Jesus. Well, that is so high up there it is. Romans 8:28 says, «All things work together for good to those who love the Lord, those who are called according to His purpose.» Doesn’t that sound great? I love that verse! Whatever is happening, all things will work out for God’s glory and for God’s good.

I love that verse-that’s Romans 8:28. But Romans 8:29 says your children are to be conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Hello! All things work together for good, and then your children are to conform-in other words, they are to follow Jesus Christ. We are to build in their lives godly principles, morals, manners of love, and a respect and reverence for God.

Deuteronomy 6, the Shema- that’s what a Jewish father did every day with their children every night with their children. What does it say? «Hear, O Israel, there is one Lord, one God, and you are to build these godly principles in their life.» When they go to bed, remember when they get up in the morning, when they eat their meals, when they go out the door.

Well, that sounds awful hard and super pious! No, it’s just the atmosphere of a Christian home. I grew up in a Christian home because of my mom. My mother saw to it that we prayed when we ate. We’d sit down and eat a meal; we had a blessing three times a day. We prayed every night before we went to bed. It didn’t matter when I came in; my mom would be waiting there with the Bible. I missed with the Bible, and she’d read it, and I would read it, and we would pray for missionaries and for people. I did that every night of my life from the time I was born all the way until the last night I spent with my mom before she went to heaven.

We did that in our home. I would come in every day; I never rode to school in my life. I walked to and from school from first grade all the way through high school. When I would come home, I’d hear my mother sing thousands of times the same chorus: «In the morning, I see His face; in the evening, His form I trace; in the darkness, His voice I know; I see Jesus everywhere I go.»

She didn’t just pour it into us; it was the atmosphere of our home. The atmosphere wasn’t a super pious kind of thing; it was the atmosphere. Therefore, we’re teaching our children to follow Jesus, to let Him be their example. That’s the first goal. You know what the second goal is? It is for the parent, particularly the father, to be a serious follower of Jesus.

Some of you dads would say, «Boy, I’d do anything for my children that I could.» The best thing you can do is to be a genuine man of God. That’s the best thing you can do for your child-nothing else. All these kinds of parenting-helicopter, possessive parenting-you want to keep your child from having any pain, challenges, shortcomings, or failures- no, no, no, no. That’s part of the 3 to 13 growing up, so they’ll be able to be a man or a woman when they get into their teens and will make right choices themselves.

That is our goal. Nothing we need more than for Mom and Dad to say what Paul said in 1 Corinthians: «All you children, you’re my children. I want you to imitate me.» Can you say that, Dad? Can you say that? Children would do what we require them to do until they’re about 14. Then they begin to do and live like we live.

«I’ll do anything for my kids.» Be a godly man; be a godly woman. Love your wife; love your husband. That’s the highest priority.

There’s so much to say, and we’ve only just begun. We’ve laid down the principles; you’ve got them. The foundation is being destroyed. We see the strategic role of parents, how to parent, and how to bring up a child God’s way. The first two years, remember, you’re a servant to the child. The next ten years: from three to 13, you are a leader; you become the authority figure for your child without a lot of explanation.

Then from 13 up, you see your child growing, developing, and making choices on their own. But you’re still sitting there on the stump when they go through it all. You get that? «Train up a child in the way he should go.» Not many ways-God’s way. «And when he is old, when he' s older, when they mature, the GPS system will be built in their heart and their life, and they’ll make the right choices.»