But
The Greatest Of These Is Love
Lesson
#5
CHILDREN NEED CHEERLEADERS
Part
1
Intro
1. Is anyone really paying attention to the plight of children today? (And if you say,
“Oh, children are tough; they’ve always had a rough time of it,” I would like to
slap you.... in Christian love, of course!)
2. Children are victimized at home, at school, and in their neighborhoods. An incredible
number of children are beaten, maimed, molested, or even murdered by their
parents.
It’s no longer a news story to learn the parents go on vacations, leaving their
children home alone.
3. As divorce rates began to escalate, the statistics are finally in, and it’s not good news.
In an article published by The Atlantic Monthly, entitled “Dan Quale Was Right,”
we read:
According
to a growing body of social-scientific evidence, children in families disrupted
by divorce and out-of-wedlock birth do worse than children in intact families on
several measures of well-being. Children in single-parent families are SIX times as likely to be poor. They are also
likely to stay poor longer. Twenty-two percent of children in one-parent
families will experience poverty during childhood for seven years or more,
compared with only two percent of
children in two-parent families.
A
1988 survey by the national Center for Health Statistics found that children in
single-parent families are two to three times as likely as children in
two-parent families to have emotional and behavioral problems. They are also
more likely to drop out of high school, to get pregnant as teenagers, to abuse
drugs, and to be in trouble with the law. Compared with children in intact
families, children from disrupted families are at much higher risk for physical
or sexual abuse... Contrary to popular belief, many children do not “bounce
back” after divorce or remarriage.
4. Illustration:
It
happened around noon on Mother’s Day. According to a national new report,
twenty-seven-year-old Michael Murray decided to take his two children to the
medical center in Massachusetts where their mother was on duty as a surgical
nurse. The family wanted to drop off some Mother’s Day presents: a gold
necklace with the words “Number 1 Mom,” and a single rose. With their
mission accomplished, the father and his two children made their way back to the
darkened indoor garage where the car had been parked.
Murray
gently set the infant seat and three-month-old Matthew on the sun roof of the
car and turned his attention to buckling Matthew’s twenty-three month-old
sister into her seat. Without thinking further, Murray slid into the driver’s
seat and drove off, forgetting that Matthew was still on the roof.
Moving
slowly from the darkened garage into the bright sunlight, Murray drove through
busy streets towards Interstate 290. Despite heavy traffic, nobody beeped or
waved to warn him that anything was wrong. Pulling onto the expressway that cuts
through the city, the driver accelerated to 50 miles per hour and then he heard
it, a scraping on the roof of his car as the tiny seat with Matthew strapped in
began to slide. He said, “I looked to where Matthew should have been in the
car, and then in the rear view mirror I saw him sliding down the highway in his
infant seat.” That’s where he landed, in the middle of the interstate, in
the path of oncoming traffic.
5. Three-month-old Matthew is a picture of the generation of children growing up in our world---sliding down the highway, unprotected, toward oncoming traffic, and no one seems to notice.
No previous generation in America has faced the problems this generation of
children are facing today.
6. Children in this world are in trouble because families in this country are in trouble.
And we must be completely honest here: many families are in trouble because
many churches are in trouble.
There used to be miles of distance in the statistics between Christians and
non-Christians, but not anymore---their homes are pretty much alike.
7. We can safely state:
Good
families do not just happen.
a) The relationship between parents and children requires the same kind of
discipline and effort that is required of husbands and wives.
b) Today’s lesson is geared to those who are in the positions of encouraging
children---parents, teachers, neighbors, aunts, uncles, grandparents.
c) Children need all the encouragement they can get...cheerleaders in their lives,
if you will.
Four
Ways To Encourage Our Children:
*******
#1. Focused Attention
1. Consider this article by Chistopher Bacorn, entitled “Dear Dads: Save Your
Sons.”
What
would happen if the truant fathers of America began spending time with their
children? It wouldn’t eliminate world hunger, but it might save some families
from sinking below the poverty line. It wouldn’t bring peace tot he Middle
East, but it just might keep a few kids from trying to find a sense of belonging
with their local street-corner gang. It might not defuse the population bomb,
but it just might prevent a few teenager pregnancies. If these fathers were to
spend more time with their children, it just might have an effect on the future
of marriage and divorce. Not only do boys lack a sense of how a man should
behave; many girls don’t know either, having little exposure themselves to
healthy male-female relationships. With their fathers around, many young women
might come to expect more than the myth that a man’s chief purpose on earth is
to impregnate them and then disappear. If that would happen, the next generation
of absentee fathers might never come to pass.
2. It is no secret that we are all busy people. It is no secret that we are all tired.
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard someone say, “I’m not busy;
I’ve got time.”
And we all come home tired and worn out.
Good people, godly people are often too busy to see to it that their
children grow up knowing that they are a priority in their lives.
Parents live their lives, kids come and go.
3. Focused attention is something fathers and mothers give to their careers, to
their lifestyles, to their hobbies, but not to their children.
4. Robert Rains records the following letter in his book Creative Brooding; it
is written by a runaway son to his parents:
Dear
Folks,
Thank
you for everything, but I’m going to Chicago and try to start some kind of new
life for myself. You ask me why I did those things that got me in trouble, why I
gave you so much static while I was at home. The answer is easy for me to give
you. But I don’t know if you’ll understand.
Remember
when I was about 6 or 7 years old and I used to want you just to listen to me? I
remember all the nice things you gave me for Christmas and my birthday, and I
was really happy with those things for about a week. The time I got those
things, but the rest of the time during the year all I wanted was you. I just
wanted you to listen to me like I was somebody who felt things. Because I
remember when I was young, I felt things. But you always were busy. You never
seemed to have time. Mom, you’re a wonderful cook and you always have
everything so clean, and you were tired from doing all those things that made
you busy. But you know something, Mom? I
would have liked crackers and peanut butter just as well if you’d only sat
down with me a while during the day and said to me, “Tell me all about it.
Maybe I can help you understand.”
I
think that all the kids who are doing so many things that grown-ups are tearing
out their hair worrying about are really looking for somebody that will have
time to listen a few minutes, and who will really treat them as they would a
grown-up who might be useful to them, you know. Well, if anybody asks you where
I am, just tell them I’ve gone looking for somebody with time ‘cause I’ve
got a lot of things I want to talk about.
Love
to all,
Your
Son
5. We’ve all heard of the success Susannah Wesley had with her 19 children.
She even home schooled them through their elementary years.
The boys were so well-prepared that they were able to go to Oxford University at the age of 16, with but one year of preparatory school.
John Wesley became the founder of the Methodist Church. Charles, the celebrated hymn writer, composed over five thousand hymns. Samuel, another brother, was a scholarly priest of the Church of England. And one daughter, Martha, was a member of the inner circle of the famous lexicographer, Dr. Samuel Johnson.
In a letter written by Susannah to her son John, she told of her
relationship with the children:
“I take as much time as I can spare every night to talk with each
child apart. On Monday I talk with Molly; on Tuesday, with Hetty;
Wednesday with Nancy; Thursday with Jacky; Friday with Patty;
Saturday with Charles; and Emily and Suky together on Sunday.”
Each child had his or her day. Once when her famous son John
struggled with a difficult situation, he wrote to his mother, “Oh, Mother, what I’d give for a Thursday evening!”
6. The disciples were over-whelmed with what Jesus accomplished. But
He always gave them His full attention. Jesus had time for
individuals.
7. One of the best things a parent can do is to give each child about an
hour each day...an hour that belongs to just him/her.
Some say their best time is at the supper table; others find the right
time is around bedtime. It is a time to talk, encourage, and pray
with each child.
#2. Individual Affirmation
1. Each child needs to understand his uniqueness. He needs to know he is
special and unlike any other child God ever created.
2. Proverbs 22:6:
Train up a child in the way he
should go
and when he is old he will not
depart from it.
a) The Hebrew word or phrase for “in the way” describes the habit or
character of an individual at his own age level. The emphasis is
upon adjusting our training according to the ability of the child at
each stage of his development.
b) Each child is different. Parents need to study and know the “labels” of
different personalities.
c) Some children love to read; some children don’t. Some children love to
be involved in sports; some children are content to sit and play chess. Some are bent towards music; some are not (TR!).
Discerning parents and teachers learn how to read a child’s personality and nature, adjusting the way they reach that child, according to his individual “way.”
3. Worse case scenario: “Why aren’t you like your brother?”
a) Every child is uniquely created by God.... “a heritage of the Lord.”
(Psalm
127:3)
b) God puts a certain formula in the heart of every child.
c) Successful parenting/teaching comes from those who spend time:
Studying
Looking
Listening
Observing
d) Many times when Christian kids grow up, they leave the faith. More
times than not, it is a result of someone(s) not carefully identifying
the individual’s personality and taking the (quantity) time to reach him.
4. It has been said that all children can be placed in one of two basic personality
types:
pro-authority and anti-authority
a) 3/4 of all children are anti-authority in their personality. These are the
kids that come into your world wanting to move your rules around.
b) The other 1/4 are the kind that asks, “What can I do to help you?”
c) Some parents are blessed to have all of their children in the pro-authority
category. These are the parents whose children gave them very little
real challenge in growing up, so they have a difficult time trying to
understand what it is other parents are struggling with in training
their children.
Of course, there are good parents who have taken their strong- willed, anti-authority children and re-directed them towards a life of submission and serving the Lord.
This is not a matter of one personality being “good,” and the other
being “bad.” Many “good” children grow up never doing the will
of God.
5. The word “train” in Proverbs 22:6, has as its root meaning the words for
palate or roof of the mouth.
The picture is this: the Arab midwife would take olive oil or crushed dates on her finger and rub the palate of a newborn baby to create in the infant a desire to suck. The real meaning of training is to create a taste or desire.
Application: God’s Word is reminding parents that it is their task to
develop in their children a hunger, taste, or desire
for spiritual things; to cultivate the personal urge to
love God and follow Him.
6. Most parents err on the side of permissiveness rather than on the side of
authoritarianism. Both extremes will encourage rebellion.
My personal observation is that too many parents are trying to treat
their children like brothers or sisters, rather than like their own
children. One RCA parent, in fact, told me that her son was more like
the brother she never had and she like it that way. The only problem was
we were at the point of putting him out of kindergarten because he refused
to obey those over him.
*******
Conclusion:
1. Next week we will conclude this second point and add the final two.
2. Why not take a few minutes today as we close in prayer and consider seriously the
children you come in contact with throughout the week.
Some of you are parents in two-parent homes.
Some of you are single parents, trying to do the best you can.
Some of you are couples without children at this time.
Some of you are singles, not yet married.
Does your lifestyle lead you to be in touch with children, with teenagers?
You could become a encouragement to them, if you wanted to be.
3. If you’re too busy, then you truly are too busy. Take the time this week to encourage
children.
4. And remember to work with children one-on-one. They need to know individually that
they are important to you.