God's Equipping of Parents

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Do you feel qualified to be a parent? What do those around you think of your parenting? Are you equipped to be a good parent?Maybe you are a teen parent, still needing to grow up yourself. Maybe you are a confused young adult who wasn’t sure you even wanted children. Maybe you are in a difficult marriage and children have further complicated communication and compromise. No matter where you started or are on in your parenting journey, reality is that some stages of parenting are harder than others. Some folks think they are good with babies but not able to parent teens well. Others are the opposite.And, no matter where you fall on the spectrum of natural parenting abilities or stages of child development that interest you more, God will see you through these parenting days if you will let Him.Children are referred to as a blessing in the word of God; Psalm 127:3 states that they are a heritage from the Lord. Thus, if God has blessed you with a child, He has called you to be a good and godly parent, AND HE WILL EQUIP YOU TO DO SO. Joining the subject and verb of Hebrews 13 verses 20 and 21, we see that “the God of peace…equips us with everything good to do his will.”So, how will God equip us parents?2 Timothy 3:16-17 states, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” Just as we see in 2 Timothy, God uses Scripture to equip us. That means, five minute parents, to become good parents in the biblical sense, we must allow God’s Word to saturate our entire lives. We parents must carve out time for:1. Personal Bible reading. One of our old pastors stated it this way, “The biggest transformer of a life is reading God’s word daily.”2. Bible study which can be in the form of Sunday school, videos, organized lectures, or even commentaries and other books about the Bible3. Corporate bible learning such as sermons or other lectures 4. Small group discussions - In Exodus 4:10-12 Moses shares with God how he does not feel equipped to follow God’s leading. God replies that he will help him speak and teach him what to say. Moses STILL asks God to send someone else! Parents do not have the luxury of tapping out of parenting completely, but just as God sent Aaron to be Moses’s spokesperson, we can engage in biblical community to know that others will speak God’s truth to our children when we do not understand the needed biblical truth or5. Scripture-inspired music - Be careful to not go with just music that makes you feel good. Choose music that is filled with Scripture that helps you learn more of God’s word.God speaks to parents throughout his Word with examples of guidance and leadership but also with specific Scriptural instruction:Deuteronomy 6:4-7 Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.Hebrews 12:7-11 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline—which all receive—then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.We challenge you today to begin to apply the five areas of getting into God’s word and to commit to memory at least one verse that can become your parenting motto. Thank you for joining us this morning. Be blessed!