Basic Factor Number One: Setting specific goals for the development of our children. – continued
And if you want more details, you sit down this afternoon as a father, and you take the Book of Proverbs, and you say, “O, God, help me to bring within the scope of my goals for my children every goal that the writer of Proverbs had for his son.” And you write down every single category of concern, and you know what you’ll find out? That father was concerned, not merely with his son understanding the origin of true wisdom-the fear of Lord is the chief part of wisdom. But he takes within the field of his goals such things as fiscal responsibility, the dangers of loose women, the dangers of laziness, the dangers of gluttony, the dangers of drunkenness. He takes within his scope the necessity of integrity, the necessity of honesty in business dealings. There is not a facet of life that the father in the Book of Proverbs does not envision as his ultimate goal for his son. And I say our goals as parents must in their scope be as comprehensive as the Word of God demands.
Now, in applying this principle, do you fathers see the tragedy of having no self-conscious awareness of goals for your children? Do you see the tragedy of it? Paul could say, “All of my labors were bent to this self-conscious goal.” He was a wise spiritual father. And every effective father after the flesh, if you tap him on the shoulder and say, “Pop, what are you doing with your kids?” He’ll be able to sit down, and he may not do it with the eloquence of a trained speaker. He may not do it with the precise articulation of a lawyer. But he’ll be able to tell you, albeit faltering and stumblingly, “These are the things for which I labor in my sons and in my daughters. I want them to be wise. I don’t care if they ever go to college or even graduate from high school, but I want them to be wise. I want them to have accurate knowledge of God, and man, and life, so as to be able to relate to the real world with the insight of the God of heaven.”
Now for most of them that means they will at least have to get through high school. For some of them it may mean that they have to go to college, but that’s not the issue, and this damnable, cursed mentality, “I’ve got to get my kids through college.” Why? We’ve got more fools coming out of colleges than any other place. It’s your own stinking pride, parents! Pride that you can say, “O, I sent my child college.” For what? For what? You see, your goal must be wisdom, and, if in the pursuit of wisdom, it’s necessary for them to go into the halls of a school of higher learning, fine. But the moment you see those halls not contributing to wisdom, but eroding wisdom and making educated fools out of your kids, you’ll pull them out with violence, instead of footing the bill to damn them and send them out into the world as educated fools with no morals and no sense, because they’ve rejected the wisdom of Almighty God.
Do you have goals, fathers? You say, “Pastor, I’ve never thought of that.” Well it’s about time you did. You see the tragedy of not having goals that are clearly defined, biblical goals? Do you see the abnormality of having truncated and narrow goals? The goal some fathers have is simply to keep the kids fed and clothed until they can leave the nest, and get rid of them. What a narrow vision. The vision of some is simply to exert enough influence that they’ll be able to make it in life and have a decent job and raise a family. Is that the only goal you have, dad? O, may it make you weep to think that you would send your children out into life with no broader vision of what life is all about than that.
Do you see the wickedness of having carnal goals? The classic statement of a father who says, “Son, I’ve got plans for you, boy.” What he means is, “My own carnal ambitions which were never fulfilled in my life, I’m going to live them out through you.” What a wicked thing for a father to have goals that are rooted in his own carnal unmet ambitions in his own un-mortified pride or selfishness! You see, if we’re to be effective fathers, men, we’ve got to get our priorities straight, because you don’t get these goals sitting down for three minutes, and you don’t have those goals sharply etched in your thinking, nor do you have the ability to relate where your children are in respect to those goals, and listen carefully. I’m not using the exaggerated language of preacher’s talk, you will not have and maintain and have a workable handle on those goals without spending hours before God with an opened Bible, and hours on your face crying to God for wisdom, and for the mighty power of the Spirit to make those goals an actuality in the hearts of your children.
And that’s the problem with some of you fathers. Your priorities are all mixed up. All your spare time is spent snipping your shrubs and feeding your lawn. All your leisure time is spent whacking a ball down a fairway, parked in front of your TV, tinkering with your car, wetting a line in order to boat a fish, dreaming of your cabin in the woods or your boat at the dock. It’s a tragedy that in a day when men had a work week much longer than the current week, and when to mow a lawn it meant you had to go out with the old reel-type mower, and push and sometimes go over the same spot three times because you let the lawn grow a bit too long, and you had to clip the edges by hand because you didn’t have weed-whackers going zing, zing, zing.
When men had a longer work week and it took far more time to keep up the mundane responsibilities of the home, they were far better fathers. Why? Because this hedonistic age, with the shortened work week, has as its mentality, “Get through that work week, so you can play.” We’ve got fifty-year-old men playing, playing, playing. Whether with shrubs or golf ball or boat or cabin, playing, playing, playing! And we’ve got young men who are the fruit of that kind of a playing father, and you know what you do when you hear something like we heard last week, you cop out as a miserable sluggard. You say, “O, that standard’s too high. I had no model. There’s no sense trying.” Ah, you miserable sluggard. That’s a cop-out! What a cop-out! What you’re saying is, “I’m too lazy to get off my duff and to start becoming the man I must be, if I’m going to be the father God says I ought to be! It takes time, self-denial. It costs, man! It costs dearly to be an effective father–to have biblical goals, goals that are as comprehensive as the Word of God demands.
And let me say a word to you children. Do you resent the fact that mom and dad are always on your case? You better thank God for your parents. I do. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, whether they were always on my case. Why? Because they had goals for the development of my character. And they were determined to pursue those goals, not in a way that would please me; you see that in the opening verses of I Thessalonians 2: he said when pursuing our goals, we didn’t use flattering words, and he says, “You know it.” And I’m sure many of the Thessalonians said, “We sure do, Paul. We remember the times when you bore in upon us, and you were far from using flattering words, but thank you, Paul, because we know a little more what it is to walk worthily of God because you were faithful.”
If you dear children have parents that are always on your case, don’t resent them. Thank God for them. Thank God you weren’t left like top seed, just to grow. That’s the tragedy of this generation. There are times when I sit in my study, as I said last week, and say, “Lord, is there any sense in even trying to do something in a generation that has simply been left to itself?” Next to mighty preachers full of the Holy Spirit, the thing this generation needs more than anything else is effective fathers to begin to mold and shape a generation of kids who will be able to face life in the power of God and in the realism of biblical norms.
O, you dear fellows and girls, who have moms and dads that have goals derived from the Bible. They don’t care if you’re wealthy. They don’t care if you ever get a name for yourself. They don’t care if you are ever recognized by the world. But they do care if you’re honest, if you’re trustworthy. They’re giving their lives to see you become upright, trustworthy young men and women, with sensitivity to other people, with a concern for other people. O precious children, don’t fight your moms and dads. Don’t fight your pastors, because we labor with them to see you molded into boys and girls of whom it can be said, “They advanced in wisdom, and in stature, and in favor with God and me.”
Even when they won’t let you have all the sweet junk you want. There’s a method in their madness. They’re not just coming out of their bedroom having agreed together, “Now what will be our meany thing today? All right, mommy, our meany thing today is only one ice cream cone per day. You think that’s why they make those rules? No! They know that if you imbibe too much white sugar, if you give in to your sweet tooth, that you’re going to be undermining good health for your mature years, and they know you girls are going to have to have bodies strong enough to bear children and to rear them and to endure the rigors of the household, while at the same time being frustrated you don’t give into your sweet tooth and become so corpulent that your husband is tempted to look elsewhere for someone who is attractive to him, because you’ve let yourself go to pot.
See the relationship between teaching a child to govern his sweet tooth at age five and that woman being a good wife and mother at age thirty? There’s a direct line, dear people. Do you fathers see this? Do you see it? And has it gripped you? Do you have a hold of that household, so when your wife, in ignorance or with her unusual sensitivity, bends in the weakness of that which is her strength in other areas. Do you lovingly and graciously and yet firmly bring that area into line as the administrator of your household?
The first factor which constitutes effective fatherhood is the setting of specific goals for the development of our children.