RAISING DUCK DYNASTY KIDS IN A MILEY CYRUS WORLD
Home Improvement Series – Pastor Dan Burrell
When I was a kid it was Father Knows Best. I wasn’t watching it when it came on
originally, but I saw the reruns. It was from the 50’s and I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and you
could still see Father Knows Best. I grew up friends with the Cleaver family, Leave it to
Beaver, anyone remember him? And then in the 70’s we got Little House on the Prairie and we
had The Brady Bunch. And in those homes, in a variety of ways, we saw reinforced values of
what had been parenting and home life for generations in our country.
In the 80’s there was a little bit of a shift that turned into a tsunami of change as to how
we viewed family in popular culture. Some of you grew up and remember The Cosby’s, an
intact family, dealing with the problems of everyday life, with a mom and dad who were engaged
in their kids. That was the early 80’s.
But by the end of the 80’s we had a show called Married with Children. And that shift
was best indicated through the role of the father in the public culture from that time on. You see
when you looked at the father in Father Knows Best, even from the title; and then Ward Cleaver
in Leave it to Beaver, and then Michael Landon as he played Mr. Ingles. You had Mike as head
of The Brady Bunch’s blended family, and Bill Cosby in his role as Dr. Huxtable. These were
men who weren’t perfect, but who led with integrity, doing the best they could.
In the 80’s things shifted and dads became dummies. And whether you are talking about
Married with Children or Roseanne or even today’s, Modern Family, the whole concept of
fatherhood and roles in the home, and how families function in a healthy way, and how they
communicate with each other shifted. Today the communication is rife with sarcasm, rife with
bitterness; there is hostility between parents and children, and between husbands and wives.
Dad’s a dummy, mom is the smarter one, but you never lift up the role of one by tearing down
the role of the other, and that is what our culture seems to have tried to do.
Parenting today is hard. We don’t have the cultural support that we once had. When I
went to Kindergarten, we prayed before we had cookies and milk. We said the Pledge of
Allegiance and we talked about the Ten Commandments and this was in a public school. In the
public school in which I grew up, I had the lead part in the Christmas story because I was able to
read aloud and I read from the Bible the entire Christmas story. Can you imagine that happening
today? It is not going to happen. There would be lawsuits so fast it would make your head spin.
You see there was a day when kids would even come to church with a basic knowledge
of who Adam and Eve was, and who Noah was, and Moses, and the Ten Commandments and
Jesus and the disciples. Those days are gone. When kids come to our Kid Life many times we
have to start from zero. Many times you have to start from zero. The culture has changed. Now
the question remains for us, what are we going to do about it? How are we going to address it?
You know today we have this disparity in America between a culture that values family,
that you might see portrayed on a show like Duck Dynasty. On the other extreme we have
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Home Improvement Series – Pastor Dan Burrell
young role models who for a period appeared to be rather traditional in their childhood, who
when they grow up celebrate the worst values that any parent might consider for their child. I
can’t think of any better example of that than Miley Cyrus. The fact is this, rearing children has
never been super easy. The fact is it is hard. But it is not impossible.
For example, consider Noah. Noah raised three sons who were willing to leave
everything behind and to get on a boat because they believed God. You might want to consider
the fact that the children of Israel reared their children in order to give them the land that God
had promised them for a forty year camping trip. Now that had to be pretty hard. I couldn’t
survive a four day camping trip and they were doing it for forty years. You say well those were
some success stories and that is true because you know there are no guarantees in parenting.
Jacob, who was a man that God had blessed and honoured, had ten of his sons gang up and sell
another brother into slavery. Not exactly a father’s proudest moment when he learns of that, is
it?
You remember Eli, the high priest, and what happened to him. He raised two boys before
he raised Samuel. Samuel was the one we remember, but don’t forget his own two sons who
ended up being so vile, so anti-God, that God finally killed them. So even among those that
loved and pursued God, there is no guarantee that your kids are going to turn out in the way that
you pray and desire.
You say, well, it’s bad today; it’s bad in this time in history, and our generation, and in
America, and so forth. Yeah, you are right, this is a tough time to be a parent, but consider the
parents of the early church because those parents were rearing their children in a generation
where many parents would take their pre-pubescent children to the local pagan temples and
allow them to be used as prostitutes in pagan worship. Now we are bad, but we are not quite
there yet. And still the early church was able to parent by good Biblical principles in the midst
of a culture like that.
So in other words, there is no throwing our hands up and giving up. There is no saying it
can’t be done. There is no acquiescing to the culture that isn’t of a Biblical stance. Parenting
has never been easy. Let’s consider Miley Cyrus for a little while. Many of you remember those
days of Miley Cyrus when she was Hannah Montana, the sweet little gal of Disney fame. And
many, many of our young people, and I will even tell you this, even in my house, Miley Cyrus
was considered to be ‘safe enough, vanilla enough’ that from time to time the kids could watch
her on the Disney channel.
That’s something I quite honestly regret now because you see Miley Cyrus didn’t stay
young and innocent. She has now become the poster child of a hyper-sexual worldly child star
turned adult, all so she could make more money than she had even made with Disney. And this
is a girl who is Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter, his little girl. And by the way the picture you see up
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RAISING DUCK DYNASTY KIDS IN A MILEY CYRUS WORLD
Home Improvement Series – Pastor Dan Burrell
on the screen, I had to go through picture after picture after picture to even find one of her as an
adult that was even remotely appropriate for a church service. And this one pushes it in my
opinion. I have to think if Billy Ray Cyrus loves his little girl, he is heartbroken today. How did
she go from Hannah Montana to Miley Cyrus?
Now, here is the fact of the matter; we ought to pray for Miley Cyrus. I think she knows
better. I think she sold her soul to celebrity. And in our culture today celebrity is purchased
through notoriety. I believe there will come a day when Miley Cyrus, I pray so, will wake up
and be embarrassed, or hopefully even ashamed. And maybe at that point, Christ will use her as
a spokesperson for the dangers of chasing celebrity. This isn’t about her, it about our culture.
She needs our prayers. The fact is there are a lot of parents today who are willing to offer their
children on the altar of fame and success and money and Hollywood and Nashville and New
York and notoriety, so they can have the perks and privilege that come in this culture with
celebrity. And it is heart breaking.
But now let’s look at the other side. On the other hand you have the boys of Duke
Dynasty. And the fact is this, they are plain spoken, they are earthy, they are oblivious at times.
They are rather simple, yet they have struck a chord with many of us, many middle American
families, who desire relationships over riches, and values over celebrity. Let’s look at a few of
their comments and see if you can relate.
“[Phil Robertson on video] You got old Papaw here being your chaperone. John Luke,
never touch her below the neck until you sign the dotted line.”
[New scene with Phil Robertson on video.] “Hey, are you there? Can you all hear me;
can you all hear me now? Remove it from your head. What, are you all in a trance? What’s on
the video game? Huh? What’s these modern day girls up there you all fool with now, what do
they think about video games, Cole man? Find fast talking women and that will pick up the
slack on you all’s lack of conversation. You all might ought to go by Walmart and pick you up a
personality. Reckon? “
[CNN Entertainment Reporter speaking on video] “You know guys, one thing that really
stood out to me as a mom; I mean this couple is definitely doing something right with their five
kids. They have three biological and two adopted and they are involved in this orphanage. And
these kids have fame, money, everything at their fingertips, and I said how do you keep those kids
grounded? How do you keep them from being a Justin Bieber or a Lindsey Lohan? And bottom
line, they love family. And their faith is number one. And you look at those kids and go, wow!
They’re definitely doing something right.”
And so you see folks like this, and the sad thing is, in many parts of our culture, they are
the freaks. They are the ones we are concerned about. They are almost abnormal. And I just
have to say, if that is abnormal, give it to me. All right? By the way this isn’t about the
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RAISING DUCK DYNASTY KIDS IN A MILEY CYRUS WORLD
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Robertson’s or the Duck Dynasty culture, second amendment, and camouflage, any more than it
is about Miley Cyrus and Billy Ray and his one famous song, Achy Breaky Heart,’ and all the
other things that go on Disney Channel. It is not about that.
But what I am trying to remind us of is that there is a cultural war that is going on and it
involves our families. And if we want parenting advice let’s not go to Billy Ray for sure, and
let’s not go to the Robertson’s. Let’s go to the book of books, and that is the word of God. So
turn with me if you will to Deuteronomy Chapter 6 and we are going to see a little bit here about
what God was using for a plan for his children as they reared the next generation.
Deuteronomy Chapter 6, please follow along as I read, beginning in verse 1. “Now this
is the commandment, the statutes, and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to
teach you that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess it.” So the
children of Israel were getting ready to take the Promised Land and God was schooling them
about it. He was preparing them for it. You might even say He was discipling them for it. And
as He was giving them this foreknowledge and foreshadowing of what was going to be their
responsibility, He is saying let’s begin with the foundation. Let’s begin with the values. Let’s
begin with what is really real and what was going to be in their lives.
Now look in verse 2, “That you may fear the Lord your God.” The Bible says, “The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” by the way. “That you may fear the Lord
your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all the statutes and His
commandments which I command you all the days of your life, that your days may be long.
Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them that it may go well with you, and
that you may multiply greatly as the Lord the God of your fathers has promised you in a land
flowing with milk and honey.
Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all
your might.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children. And you shall talk of them when you
sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between
your eyes.
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates.
And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that He swore to your fathers, to
Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, to give you, with great and good cities that you did not build.
And houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not
dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant. And when you eat and are full:
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Then take care, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of slavery.”
This morning I want to look at this passage, and I want to talk to you for just a few
minutes on some facets of Biblical parenting. Here is the first thing I want you to consider from
this passage. Number one is this: Parents are responsible for the discipleship of their
children. Discipleship is a family matter, it is a family affair. So let me say this again, parents
are responsible for the discipleship of their children. Here is what happens. We get busy. We
think that parenting is about supplying material needs above all else. And as a result we get over
extended. We go into debt. We work extra jobs. We try to provide fun activities and
experiences. We enroll our kids in every possible thing to enrich their lives and to ensure that
they have healthy interactions, to be a part of a larger community.
And I want you to understand some of that is necessary. Kids have to eat. Kids have to
sleep. And when they go out they have to wear something. You want your kids to be able to
communicate with others. But what we have done is we have gone to a complete extreme in
those areas and we have delegated it out. If I want my kids to learn sports, I put them in the city
league. I want my kids to get educated; I take them to the school. I want my kids to become
spiritually aware, I take them to church and I drop them off at the student ministry. And we do
these things by proxy rather than investing in our children ourselves. And there is a price that we
pay in doing so. The discipleship of our children is not something that can simply be delegated
to others.
Several years ago I was living in Florida where I had been the principal of a day school, a
Christian day school, and then I became the pastor of the church. We had a guy who owned a
commercial plumbing business; his name was Cato. And he was a great guy; he and his wife
loved the Lord. And they put their kids in our school. They had a son named Brandon, and
Brandon was a big ol’ burly guy, really a sharp guy. He was the kind of guy that you would
really want your daughter to date. And sure enough he falls in love with one of the girls in our
school. Her name was Michelle, and she was just a sweet girl, and she had wonderful parents.
And they grew up together and eventually they got married.
I will never forget the week of Brandon’s graduation. I was out in my yard working
around, and I saw a Cato’s Plumbing truck coming down the road. It went by my house, but then
it stopped and backed up and pulled in my driveway. And here was Mr. Cato. He came walking
up and he stuck his hand out, and he called me Dr. Burrell. I don’t like to use that, so I said it’s
Dan. And he said, “Dan, I just had to stop and I just want to tell you something. Thank you for
the way that Brandon has turned out. I am so proud, he has graduating, he is going to work with
me in the business and he is in love with a sweet young lady. And I just wanted to thank you for
all you have done in the way that he has turned out.”
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RAISING DUCK DYNASTY KIDS IN A MILEY CYRUS WORLD
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I will never forget that day because immediately I went, “Uh oh, hang on just a minute.
Mr. Catao, if your son was awaiting trial and was going to spend the next twenty years in prison,
I would not take responsibility for that. Therefore, I will not take responsibility for the way he
has turned out in a good way either. Let me remind you of this. You are the one who rocked him
when he was sick. You are the one who took him to Sunday school. You are the one who made
sure he got a Christian school education. You are the one who rode with him in the truck and
taught him values. You are the one who taught him how to work. I was just a small part in a
partnership with you. The credit goes to you.”
I looked at my Facebook wall this week and there was a picture of Brandon and Michelle
Catao. He is now a middle-aged guy, and he has kids of his own graduating from school, and
they are involved in Christian school, and sports, and all kinds of things. And I looked at that
picture and my heart was warmed, not for the fact that I made that happen, but for the fact that
his mom and dad asked me to have a small part in his life. And I rejoice with them.
You see discipleship is a family matter. Now that doesn’t mean you don’t get other
people involved, I think you should. I have found in my life that sometimes my kids will listen
to what other people will say when they won’t listen to what I’m saving. It drives me nuts. It is
kind of funny because sometimes my kids will come home and say well, so and so said this to
me and that was really great, I really appreciated their telling me that. And I think how many
times have I said that to them. And they never heard it one time. But once I get past the pride
and the ego thing, I am like praise the Lord.
My son loves Harold Hanson who teaches Life University at our church. Harold Hanson
is the grandpa he never had. And you know one of the cool things about Harold is, I can know
that when my son is interacting with Harold that he is going to have those values that are
important to me reinforced. I am kind of a picky dad. I won’t let my kids just go anywhere and
be with anybody. The Bible talks about a fellowship of fools, and you know the sad thing is
many times our kids gravitate toward the corny, the funny, the extreme, the outrageous and so
forth, and I don’t need my kids to be educated in that way. So when I see them forming a
relationship, I want to make sure it is going to reinforce those things that are important to me.
And sometimes it means I have to be a bad dad in their eyes. But it is important. It is important
that we help them build those relationships.
We home-schooled for part of our kids’ lives, and sometimes people would say “your
kids are going to be social misfits, because they don’t get enough interaction with their peer
group.” And I have to tell you that many times my kids need less interaction with their peer
group. They get a lot of interaction at church, and at home with the family, and the
neighbourhood, and so forth, but the important thing is whether it is with their peer group or not
their peer group, the bottom line is are they hearing the same message reinforced in their lives
over and over again. You see that is where mom and dad have to be aware and have to be alert.
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And so God was telling Israel that they were getting ready to go into the Promised Land,
and there was going to be a lot of things going on there that they were not quite ready for. They
have been walking around this wilderness for forty years, so He was telling them to pay
attention, dads, and don’t go to sleep. Dads, make sure you are paying attention to your kids,
and if your kids are grown, then make sure you are paying attention to your grandkids. But don’t
sit back and hope that someone else does your job. You have to get involved. You will never
feel qualified to disciple your children. And there are times when people have said to me, you
know what, I have to send my kids to a Christian school, or I have to send my kids to Student
Life, or I have to take them to Awana’s, because I am not qualified to disciple them.
Here is the cool thing. You will never be qualified enough to disciple your kids, I
guarantee you. They are going to have circumstances in their life that you have never dealt with
before. There are going to be things that are going to be difficult for you, and so when those
times come, it is an opportunity for you to grow as well. It is an opportunity for you to get down
and seek God and His word and find the solutions to the problems that your kids are dealing with
and together you can be discipled. Don’t be afraid, by the way, to ask others for help. Don’t be
afraid to get in with another group of parents and ask them how they are handling this. ‘Man, I
really blew that one this week. Man, I will tell you what, I stirred the pot and it overflowed .’
Get involved. We have some wonderful people and opportunities even in this church
where iron can sharpen iron. I look at the Rays’ down here and Bruce and his wife have written
a wonderful book on guiding your family through generations. And they have actually written a
manual. You ought to ask them for a copy. Give them twenty bucks for it and ask them for a
copy of it, I’m serious. I actually had them teach a Life University class. And I went this far, I
wrote a course for Liberty University graduate school called, Family Discipleship, and you
know what the textbook is? It is their book. That’s how good it is.
Now let me say this to you. I have raised four kids. I have not been a perfect dad and not
everything has turned out exactly as I wanted it to, and I bet every parent in here can say the
same thing. There have been times when I was ashamed to be my kid’s father because of things
that I had done. But kids need to see parents work through their own spiritual journey as well.
And we are all just pilgrims. And Satan walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may
devour, and he is going to do his best to discourage you from being the disciple maker in your
home. Don’t let him do it.
Ask others for help. Take classes. Read books. Get involved. If your children do not
learn spiritual truth, it is not the fault of the church, it is not the fault of the pastor, it is not the
fault of the elders, or the children’s ministry, or the student ministry, it is the parent’s
responsibility. And it is perfectly acceptable to partner with others for the good of your children,
but it still remains the domain of the home. God told them what to do, dads. Make sure it
happens to your sons and to your grandsons. Make sure it happens in this generation and in the
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next generation. You can have an impact with your children, and maybe have an different or
even better impact with your grandchildren if you will be alert.
Here is a second thing I want you to consider: Discipleship must be daily and
intentional. Let’s go back to the Scripture for a moment and look again at verse 7, because here
is the great discipleship plan. “You shall teach them diligently to your children. And you shall
talk of them.” So this is both instructional and it is intentional, but it is also conversational and
casual. In other words, you don’t want to disciple your children like you were teaching school.
Now there are times when you may do that because it is intentional, but rather be strategic in
making discipleship in your family a way of life.
And here is what God said as He was commanding the children, “Do this when you sit in
your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise.” Now, there is
a perfect discipleship plan right there. Look what it says, when you are sitting. When are you
usually sitting? At home. When I was a young pastor and my kids were growing up in our
home, I would go to other pastor’s kids who grew up in a pastor’s home and continued to live a
joyful Christian life after that experience. Because I think we all know the stereotype is that
many times pastors’ kids grow up to hate what their dads did, and so as a result they get angry
toward God.
I wanted to be proactive with my kids and to hear what other kids had experienced. And
you know what the coolest thing was that I learned? These pastor dads weren’t super dads, they
didn’t gather their children around at their feet and teach them the nuances of the dispensational
position of eschatology, and they didn’t teach them to sing seven-fold “amens” before every
meal. You know what they did? They just hung out with them. The number one thing that
pastors’ kids said about their dads was that he was just around. They said sometimes he would
be studying for his sermon in his chair, and they would be doing their homework on the floor,
with ESPN on the TV. And they said they didn’t expect their dad to play Monopoly with them
every night, they didn’t expect their dad to sit down and do every page of their homework with
them, but it just mattered that he was there. And that presence, that intentional decision to not
separate from the family was important to their lives.
So when we are sitting down it is an opportunity. It may be you are watching TV and
something inappropriate comes on and you need to make a stand in your family about what is on
your TV. You know it is interesting to me that if you were sitting in your living room with your
family and a good looking young guy knocked on your door with his beautiful girlfriend and
they came in and said hey, we want to hang out at your house for a little while. And you might
say absolutely, come on in. And if they then got on your couch and began disrobing and making
out inappropriately, groping each other, and moving toward where you were afraid they were
going to be moving, what would you do? You would kick them out after saying ‘what in the
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world do you think you’re doing? I have children here. Who do you think you are that you
would come into my house and start using it as your private boudoir?’
And yet many of us watch it night after night after night on a screen. And our kids see
our reaction to it and they think well, it must not be too bad. Therefore Hollywood is discipling
our children in our very presence. And you are probably thinking, ‘ouch, Dan, that hurts.’ But
the fact is many times your kids are literally watching things like that. The other night I was
working, and I work in the living room. I am a professor, and I was grading papers, and
sometimes the TV is on but I am not paying attention. So I was just going along working on
grading, and Josh and Katie are sitting in other chairs doing something, and all of a sudden Josh
said, ‘hey, dad, what are you watching there?’ And I said, ‘what, what, I wasn’t paying any
attention.’ And he points over to the TV, and said ‘how come you are letting that stay on.’
Well, conviction time for Burrell here, I wasn’t paying attention. And what was going
on? They were watching to see if dad was going to take action. And many times our kids in the
formation of their own values will set the standard for their own life based on the standards that
you set for your life. You say well, that’s not fair, that’s not right, I’m not God. But in your
home you are God’s representative because of the divine order that He has established. We
follow God and our children follow us, and they will teach their children what they have seen
demonstrated before them.
That’s why it frustrates me when I see people letting their kids just run wild. I was at a
grocery store a few years ago and there was a little kid about three years old and he was having a
meltdown. And every kid does that, right? It doesn’t mean it’s a bad kid or a bad parent, it just
happens. My kids would do that. I mean they could be perfectly behaved all day long and I
would take them in public and they would turn into demons. Has that ever happened to you?
Now with my first two kids you could still take them into a bathroom and do a little business if
you know what I mean. But as society changed we had to go to the van to do the business,
because they will arrest you and take you to jail if you discipline in public too much. And my
kids had this thing, and I don’t know if your kids did this or not, but mine would do this boneless
chicken trick on me. It is like where you pick them up and they are just completely limp. And
you are taking them out to the car and it is like carrying a rag doll. I call it the “boneless
chicken”; they are just limp, like they have nothing solid in their entire bodies.
And by the way grocery store people are just mean. They put all that candy right up there
at eye level for the kids. What do they put up at our level? Mostly cigarette lighters and gift
cards. But at the kids level it is always the good stuff, the candy. And you are busy, you are
trying to get your stuff on the counter, you are trying to pay, and the kid is pitching a fit that just
registers on the Richter scale, making you tempted to give in. And this kid who was about three
years old was just raising a ruckus and causing all kinds of trouble. And he looked at his mom
and said, ‘I hate you, I want this.’ And she finally said, ‘oh, just take it.’
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Now here is the problem with that. She felt stressed and pressured because people were
in line waiting and her kid is crying and she is embarrassed, but she made a parenting decision
that could have ramifications for years and years and years. Because a child who will not respect
the authority of his parents will eventually not respect the authority of the almighty God. You
see it is a part of learning to submit. Eventually we all will submit before our creator. How
much wiser are we when we learn to do that sooner rather than later. And there may be times
when you literally as a parent are going to have to say ‘hang on just a moment, there is
something going on here a little bit more important than the twenty items or less line.’ You may
have to put your stuff back into the cart and move into the back and you may have to pick up
your little boneless chicken and head out to the van and have a little tea party out there. But you
will never regret, never regret taking those opportunities, those moments to do the discipleship.
It is daily and it is intentional.
When you sit – mealtime is a perfect time for that. And by the way mealtime ought to be
one of those sacred moments. And let’s face it, when you have teenagers you aren’t going to be
able to have three meals a day with them. It just isn’t going to happen. But be intentional, make
some nights mandatory family night. In our family right now Thursday nights and Sunday
evenings are mandatory family meals. And my married children come, the doors are open, we
want everyone there, and we are all going to have a meal together. Interestingly, on Sundays do
you know what we talk about almost every single Sunday? Bobby’s message. And we talk
about wow, this was really good. This illustration really hit me between the eyes. What did you
learn today? Those conversations occur weekly.
And I love telling our Pastor, Bobby about them because sometimes the things they get
are things that he didn’t even intend to teach. And yet they pick up things. That is the work of
the Holy Spirit. And we take avenues like that. I urge you to do that. And what happens is
many of us have turned family mealtimes into just grabbing your own thing and doing your own
thing with the TV blaring and people honking in the driveway, and it is chaos and nothing is
accomplished. Turn the TV off. You may say I don’t have time to cook. Then go to Taco Bell,
get twenty tacos for twenty bucks, that’s very easy to do. Bring them home, paper plates are
fine, nobody died because you ate off of a paper plate. Put your tacos out on your paper plates
and eat tacos like it is roast beef and mashed potatoes and talk. Because you won’t remember
what you ate later, but you will remember what was said later. So when you sit down.
Then He says next, when you travel. “When you walk by the way.” In Bible times they
didn’t get into the Honda and take off down to the Lowes hardware store, did they? They
usually had to travel by their feet in most cases. So they had long hours of walking from place
to place. We have the same privilege today in creature comforts. So we get into our nice leather
seated vehicles, we are able to turn on the air conditioning, and we are able to run errands. What
has happened in our culture today? I don’t know if you fight this at your house, but I fight it at
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my house, particularly with my teenagers, as they want to get in the car and what is the first thing
they do? Put on earbuds. Do yours do that?
I was chaperoning a senior trip a few years ago and I told everybody no earbuds on the
bus. My goodness, you would have thought Hitler was resurrected in that school. They whined,
they griped, they complained, they threatened, they called their parents, but I wouldn’t back
down. And you know what happened? In the bus there was conversation, there was laughter,
there was horseplay, and good things going on. Later we got on an airplane and everybody had
their earbuds, and nobody was talking. Maybe we need to have a ‘no earbuds’ rule. Maybe we
need to have a ‘put your cell phone in this bowl’ rule at your meal time. Maybe there are times
when you force your kids to disconnect. And you say well, they don’t have anything to say.
Well, just sit there and blink your eyes at each other and eventually someone will come up with
something. By the way, silence isn’t always bad. We don’t have to have noise in our ears
constantly. But use your mealtimes in a way for discipleship.
When you rest – bedtime. For years I will tell you I planned on having my kids have a
spiritual thought in their ears when they went to bed. But here is what often happened. The last
thing they heard dad say was “if you get out of that bed one more time, I’m going to ….” There
is a way to send your child to sweet and pleasant dreams, isn’t there? We eventually learned
that one of the wise things we could do was stagger bedtimes so that we could go in, and with
fifteen minutes apart, and with four kids, we could spend a little time with one kid, and then go
down the hall and spend some time with the next kid and so on. And you have a little word of
prayer with them and give them a pat on the back.
My oldest boy and I used to have this nightly ritual. He had a real spongy bed and I
would bounce him up and down like a basketball about twenty times. He would giggle and that
would be our night time ritual. No big deal, every dad does stupid things like that with their
kids. I stopped doing the bouncing one night as I thought he had outgrown it, and one night my
wife was putting him to bed and he told her that I didn’t love him any more. And she asked him
why he thought that. And he said because he used to bounce me every night when I would go to
bed and he doesn’t bounce me anymore. Well, let me tell you, at seventeen years old I am in
there bouncing him up and down, up and down. It is amazing the little things, those little rituals
that can mean things to your kids.
And then when you get up – morning time. Morning time in my house is hectic. It is
horrible. And for you it may be while you are driving your kids to school, and you are all eating
a granola bar, but what a cool tradition you might have is as they get ready to leave the car to
have a quick word of prayer, or to say a verse together, or to have a Christian epigram that you
say together. ‘Good better best – never let it rest, so your good is better and your better is best.’
‘Only one life will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.’ Have this little thing you
say together. And you may think that your kids will think that is corny. Yes they will, they
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will howl, they will mutter, they will hate you for it. And then they will do it with their children
when they grow up as well.
And by the way you can’t let your kids control your tactics. Because kids are made to
whine, that’s why they are kids, and that’s why you are needed, you are necessary. If they are
not whining, you are not doing your job. If they are not resisting, there is something wrong. So
embrace the pain, go for it.
Let’s be practical for a few moments. Just think about these:
Have required family meals daily and weekly. Plan them.
Don’t run errands alone, and when you go turn off the radio. You know I don’t know
that I ever went to Lowes without asking one of my kids to go with me. For me Lowes is better
than going to Carowinds. I make excuses up to go. Oh, a light bulb is out. I don’t think we
have enough light bulbs. And I’m gone! And I grab a kid to go with me. And then sometimes
you stop for ice cream, or go to Cook Out. Do something cheap and fun. One day I was driving
and I saw a drunk stagger out into the street and someone almost hit him. My son and I had a
huge conversation about the dangers of alcohol and things that can happen. And he saw this guy
who obviously had some problems, or he wouldn’t be that addicted. Those moments, those
teachable moments, come along when you spend time together.
Work to make bedtime a ritual of reflection and peace.
Start the day with a thought and a prayer.
Fill your home with spiritual messages. I have this little plaque in a house that we use as
a vacation house sometimes, and it has that little verse, ‘Only one life will soon be past, only
what’s done for Christ will last.’ That is why I quote it because every day I saw that plaque on
my wall growing up for twenty years. My mom was going to sell it at a garage sale and I about
had a coronary. “Don’t you dare sell that, I want that in my house.” Probably cost a dollar ninety nine in the 60’s when she put it up, but it has made an impression on my life for fifty years.
Church ought not to be optional. The fact of the matter is, church ought to be an
important part of your life. And if it is optional for you, it will be unnecessary for your children.
I love the fact that my dad, an old crusty railroad engineer who farmed on the side, and if he got
in at 2:00 in the morning from his trip as an engineer, at 6:00 in the morning he would be
upstairs banging around. He always fixed breakfast on Sundays. I’m not a morning person, but
he was. He would be singing and I would hate him on Sunday mornings. We had Melmac
bowls; some of you older people will remember Melmac dishes. My dad would take those
things and he would spin them on the table, like he was some kind of circus freak. And he would
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try to have them all spinning at the same time. And he would be singing about how he loved
Jesus, and I just wanted to sleep in. But there was no sleeping in at my house on Sundays.
We had a blizzard one time on Saturday night, and my dad got up at 6:00 in the morning,
started the tractor and broke the drifts down the country road in front of our house so we could
all pile in the pickup truck and make it to church. There were only two families at the church
that day, the pastor’s family and us, and we had church. He wasn’t going to miss it. It was
important to him. And your kids will value what you value. And if everything that comes up
allows you to cut out of church, if they never see you minister, if they never hear the songs of the
Lord erupt from your lips, then you are missing a discipleship opportunity.
And here is the third thing for us to consider: Teaching spiritual values requires
consistency and presence. There was a phrase that came up in the 70’s. It was this: It is not
the quantity of time that you spend with your kids that matters, it is the quality. And that was a
lie from some pop psychologist who thought he was being cute, by saying as long as you spend
quality time you don’t need to spend a quantity of time. But let me just say this. Raising kids
requires quality time AND quantity time.
Your kids aren’t going to schedule their crises based on when it is convenient for your
calendar. And there are going to be times when you will have to call in and cancel an
appointment because your kid needs you right now. And I guarantee you that at the end of your
life you will know that you have made the right decision all those times all those years ago. No
one on their death bed said they wished they had worked a little more overtime. No one says
that. A father’s engagement with his kids needs both quality and quantity time. And if you have
an intact home where dad is involved, guys step up to the plate. Don’t be the couch potato, don’t
be the Married with Children doofus. Don’t be the lazy dad, be the dad that says I’m here and
I love you, and everything is going to be okay. You provide security and significance in the
home. Rise to that challenge!
Several years ago I was invited to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. At
that time they had a speaker by the name of Ben Carson. This wasn’t the time that Ben Carson
did it just recently, but it was the first time he spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. He got up
and he talked about the need of fathers in the home. And he gave statistics that went like this.
He said more than any other factor whether a child is addicted to drugs or alcohol, whether a
child is sexually promiscuous, whether a child has a sexually transmitted disease, whether a child
has ever been raped, murder or robbed, whether a child graduates from high school, whether a
child has mental illness, whether a child commits suicide or tries to commit suicide, in all these
different risk factors the number one influence on whether a child does well or falls prey to one
of these influences, was the presence of a dad in their life. And this was a speech by a guy that
was raised by a single mother.
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So, dads, you are more than the bread winner. You are more than the guy who brings
home the bacon. You are more than the guy who owns the remote. You have to be the dad who
is proactive in their lives. You need to be consistent and present. You know, dads, we don’t
realize how much impact we have on even the littlest things with our kids.
Several years ago, when my oldest was just about two years old, and he was just learning
to talk. And so he was like a little monkey just mimicking everything. We were driving down
Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach, Florida where we were living. And Okeechobee
Boulevard is a big old street and it goes right by two very large Jewish communities of retired
people from New York. And these people had never driven cars in their lives until they moved
to Florida. And they always dreamed of having a boat. They couldn’t afford a boat so they
decided to buy one called a Lincoln Continental, you know, these great big old cars. And you
would see them driving down the street, two little hands gripping the top of the steering wheel, a
little puff of blue hair over the headrest, and they would be going kind of back and forth, back
and forth between the lanes.
I’ve always been a guy that is not very patient. So I was driving down this boulevard and
there was this poor little blessed lady in her big old Lincoln, two hands on the steering wheel
gripped like she was going to slip into hell, and her little puff of blue hair, going down the road
and I couldn’t get around her. And I was frustrated, and I was late, and I was being very, very
carnal and I said, “Would this jerk please get out of my way.” My wife gives me the look of
death. Do you know what the look of death looks like? Every guy in here knows what it is.
She looked at me and she pointed at my son in his car seat in the back seat.
Well, I’m a dad and I have an ego and I looked at her and whispered, “Don’t worry, he
never heard a thing.” About that time in the back seat I hear this little voice going, “Jerk, jerk,
jerk, jerk, jerk.” So I did my dad thing and I pulled the rear view mirror down, and I looked at
him right in the eye, and I said, “Nathan, daddy was wrong, he is sorry, Jesus needs to forgive
him. That was a bad word, don’t say it again. Okay.” And Nathan said, “Okay, daddy.”
I put the mirror back up, I looked at my wife like the father had spoken, and the problem
is solved. About two seconds later in the back seat I hear it not quite so loud this time, “Jerk,
jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk.” And I again said, this time in my stern daddy voice, “Now listen to me.
Daddy shouldn’t have said that. Now you need to stop that. Don’t say that again. Okay?”
“Okay, daddy.” I didn’t even look at my wife this time; I could just feel her eyes looking at me.
And then I hear again in the back seat very, very softly this time, “Jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk.”
So then I did what every good dad tries to do. I take my left hand and put it firmly on the
center of the steering wheel, I take my right hand and flip it over the back of the seat and I start
swatting. “I -- said -- don’t – say -- that.” Every kid that age is able to take every bone in their
bodies and collapse it until there is no way you can make contact with them, but you can bloody
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your knuckles on the edge of that hard plastic car seat like nobody’s business. So when I had
sufficiently bloodied my knuckles and fanned my son, I thought okay, he’s got it now. I had
forgotten to put the mirror back up the last time I looked back there, and now Nathan is
soundlessly, just moving his mouth, going, “Jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk.” All it took was one little slip
up on my part and that became his new favourite word. Guys, we have huge influence and we
need to use it for the glory of God and the good of our children.
Number four, very quickly let me just say Maintaining control is not the same as
training disciples. The fact is God wants us to see transformed lives in our children. And
maintaining control is absolutely a poor way of bringing about transformation. Because you see,
control is only good during the time you are in charge. There comes a day when none of us are
in charge. It may be when they are by themselves, it may be when they leave home, it may be
when they go off to college the first time, but once the controls are off the real ‘us’ emerges.
Now you have to have some controls, but controls are a tool to measure transformation. I
used to say this to my kids: When you are little, here is the control, I determine your bedtime,
where you sleep, what you eat and everything else. When you show me that you can crawl out
of your crib, we put you in a big boy bed. And then after that, when you can eat your vegetables,
we lessen the control a little, and then eventually you can cross the street by yourself. And then
eventually I will leave you at home for an hour to see how you do. And I keep taking these
steps, moving the fence out further and further. And then I find out one time that you are not
where you are supposed to be, and I move the fences back in again. And the day that I get to
take down the fences is the day I know you are mature and ready to go. And there was a lot of
fence moving going on for a lot of years but eventually there will come a time when dad didn’t
have to move the fences.
So control is the easy way of parenting, but it is the least effective way of parenting,
because unless it changes from the heart, it is never going to last. And so we have to work on the
issues of the heart. When you emphasize the head only by saying do this, don’t do that, know
this, watch out for this, what you will get is a clever devil who is rife with arrogance because he
knows the facts, but he thinks he can do it his own way. When you emphasize the heart only,
you get sloppy agape with a flawed sense of truth. Well, as long as it feels good, as long as
people like me, then it’s okay. If you say oh, I’m only going to emphasize the hands by having
them do this, and I will brag on you and stress achievements only, what happens then is they
become a pragmatic servant who works to be accepted by others and ultimately to be accepted by
God based on what they do.
So the wise dad and mom says I am going to emphasize the head to know what it truth; I
am going to emphasize the heart to submit wilfully to that truth; and then work it out with the
hands to live in truth. And when we do all three, we create that balance that results in healthy
adulthood.
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Number five - Each generation must re-commit to God’s authority and
commandments. Salvation is not inherited. Let me say this very carefully to you. If you grew
up in a Christian home, you may think that is good enough. “I am a Christian because my mom
and dad were Christians. I got baptized as an infant, or I got confirmed, or I got baptized when I
was fourteen so I’m good to go.” But I want you to understand something. Spiritual truth can be
transferred, but ultimately what you do with that truth cannot be transfered. Each generation
must decide. And here is where the warning is. And God said, understand this, there is coming
a day when you are not going to be around so you need to make sure you train your son and your
son’s son. You need to understand that their life is going to be different than yours. They are
going to cities that you did not build. They are going to live in houses that you did not plan.
They are going to sit on furniture that you did not buy. They are going to harvest fruit from trees
that you did not plant. They are going to have a whole different set of circumstances, and it
better be real in the heart. And their generation must decide what they are going to do with the
Lord their God, and whether they are going to love Him with all their heart, all their soul and all
their mind.
There is a huge fall off in generational Christianity that has existed from the beginning of
recorded history. And parents we must pray, if you are a first generation Christian, you pray for
that second generation, that they will have their experience with God and that it will be every bit
as powerful and real as was your experience.
Number six, Be aware of a style of living that requires no investment and no
sacrifice. Affluence is a threat to reality living, and living a life with no spiritual opposition can
create a sense of entitlement or hypocrisy. Many of our young people grow up in the Christian
culture and they have learned to live two lives. Because of all the affluence of Christian
messages and all that it permeates, they can put on the Christian faith and then they blend in with
the world. And that is a tragedy. It gives them a false sense of security and gives the world a
false impression of what Biblical Christianity is all about. And some of us live that way as well.
That is why a good old fashion dose of authenticity is needed. Your kids need to know you sin.
Don’t hide your sins from your kids. Confess your sins, and show them that you need
forgiveness like they need forgiveness. Let those moments be real in your life. And make sure
they know that our salvation was purchased at great cost through the blood of Jesus Christ.
And then don’t let your kids live without spiritual opposition and without a sense of awe
of God. You see, you know what, in a few years when we are in a new building we are going to
appreciate what we had right here, aren’t we? It is going to be wonderful. But the next
generation, who never sat on hard concrete with folding chairs, they are going to whine because
they don’t like the colour of the padded seats that we have. We are the pioneers here. And some
of you are the pioneers in your homes as well. And we have to teach our kids to experience
their own personal walk with God.
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The last thing is this: There are no guarantees in parenting. The fact is this; we have
to be on our knees praying to God that He would do the work that only He can do in the lives of
our children. Many times people quote to me the verse, “Train up a child in the way he should
go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” And they claim that as a promise. But
Proverbs aren’t promises, Proverbs are principles. And the principle is this, the smartest thing
you can do is to train up your children in the way that they should go, and when they are old,
they will always remember that. And God may use that to bring them back. The word ‘train’ is
the Hebrew word chanokh, and it means to’ set to the right way,’ like a trellis for a rose plant, or
like the starting gate for a horse who it racing. And that is the way we must get them going.
But ultimately every person has to run their own race. Teenagers and young people that
are here today, let me just say this to you as I close. You have a choice. You can be a Miley
Cyrus, or you can be a Luke or Cole Robertson. You can be a child that rebels against
everything that your parents have stood for, and everything that the word of God teaches, or you
can be a kid who experiences the best of his purposeful design as an image of Christ. But
ultimately you must decide. Your parents can only do so much. What will you do with truth?
What will you do with the investments that have been made in you? What will you do with the
sovereign design of a holy God who placed you in a home that is not perfect, but cares about
truth? He could have put you a whole lot of different places, but He chose to put you in your
home.
You might say well, my dad is a hypocrite. Everybody’s dad is a hypocrite. And you
think well, you don’t know what it is like in my house. You’re right, I don’t, but I know this.
God can take you out of the most difficult circumstances for your good and His glory. Don’t
make excuses; follow truth all the days of your life.
Raising Duck Dynasty kids in a Miley Cyrus world may not be easy, but it is possible.
Let’s bow our heads and close our eyes. Folks, as we conclude this morning I just want to urge
you to please consider the role of parenting as a sacred calling. The most important calling that
any pastor has is not to simply be a pastor, but to be a pastor to his family first. If you are a
bookkeeper, then you be a bookkeeper who disciples your children. If you are a doctor, or a
lawyer, or a banker, or a construction worker, or a teacher, or a counsellor, or a social worker, or
a postman, understand this: Your occupation is just a tool to give you the privilege to be able to
administer to your family. So see it as that. The most important thing in your life is not what
you do, but it is who you are in Christ.
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The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes the actual words of the
message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context. Hebrew and Greek words are spelled
using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some cases.
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