Well here in GLCC, we have been embarking on a journey through Focus on the Family. And today, being the last Sunday of the year, it will also be our last sermon in Focus on the Family. And customarily, let's go to the video as we introduce the subject for today.

Video plays

‘Parenting is hard but at least your kids don't get blown away!’ I can't agree with this statement more, right? Parenting is really hard.

But you know something? Life is also hard. Life has its winds and its waves and it tends to blow our kids away, it tends to lead them astray.

And that's why parenting, strong and good parenting, is so needful in our day and age.


In our last sermon in Focus on the Family, we are going to look at parenting. And let me just say parenting is really a tough thing to do. It's easy to preach but it is hard to do. There is a preacher, a young preacher who was full of himself and thought he could preach a great message.


And so he decided to preach on parenting. When he came up to stage, he entitled his message “Ten commandments to raise perfect children" Well, he preached that, he felt great about himself. Some years later, he had his first child and he struggled with his first child. Then he is about to preach a message on parenting again.

This time he entitled his message "Ten suggestions to raising kids". After a while, he had a second kid, he has to preach the message again and he now entitled it "Ten hints on raising kids". And when he had his third child, he changed it to "Ten prayers for raising kids" and when the children were growing up and he was struggling and drowning in it all, he says, “My message today is: Help me, Jesus!” You know preaching about parenting is easy but parenting is not easy.

And I today stand before you as a fellow struggler in parenting. I am also learning how to parent my kids. I am also learning what parenting is all about. It takes a lifetime to learn and as I said in the first service, if I were to rate myself as a parent, my rating for me is a big fat "F".


I am a failure as a parent. Nevertheless, I want to share with you as a fellow struggler to strugglers today, what parenting is all about. There is a lot to speak about, I could actually do a series on parenting, but because it is the last sermon, just one message, and I want to answer just one simple question: “What is parenting for?” What is the purpose? What's the goal? You see we got to have parenting with a purpose. So what is parenting for?


If you ask Singaporeans today, their answer will be: “Well, I want to have kids who are great people. I want them to be doctors and lawyers, I want them to be businessmen. I hope that my son will become prime minister or president.” Some who are more spiritual may say “My goal for parenting is that my kids will be more like a preacher or a pastor or a missionary.” So this is what an average Singaporean thinks. This may not be what he says but this is definitely what he thinks. I want my son to be a successful, powerful, respectable person in society. And therefore to work back from there, their short-term goal for parenting is to make sure that they go to a good school so that they get to have good grades, so that they eventually get to a good university, to get a good degree and therefore get a good job.


But is that what parenting is all about? According to Scripture, it portrays a very different picture. In Ephesians Chapter 6 the Bible tells us, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother ( this is the first commandment with a promise) that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6: 1-4 ESV). I'd like us to link what God says to children and what God says to parents. Children are to obey, but let me say this, children will not obey by themselves. And that is the responsibility, one of the goals for a parent, is to teach the children to obey.


I am going to develop the purpose for parenting in this sermon, but I am going to start with this preliminary premise and it goes like this:

Parenting, number one, is for obedience.
It is not about making them doctors, or accountants or pastors, or preachers. Fundamentally, parenting is for obedience. And this is relevant for a younger kid or an older child. You need, this is the number one thing you need to teach you kids and help your kids with, that they will be obedient. I read recently about this young boy called Andy Lopez in the United States. He was walking around in the public with a toy gun. Of course in the US, you know people can have possession of real guns. But he has a toy gun that looks like a real one. And he was walking around in the streets and the policeman saw him with this gun and says, “Son, put that gun down!” He didn't obey. "Son" - second time- "Put that gun down!" He didn't obey. Instead, he turned the rifle towards the police and the police, thinking that this is a real rifle, fired a shot and thereby immediately killed Andy Lopez. You can search him up, it's in the news.

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And Andy Lopez demonstrates the high price people may have to pay if they do not understand obedience to authority. Obedience is vital. Your kids need to know obedience so that they will not dash across the road and risk their lives. Your kids need to understand obedience so they do not get scalded or burned when they are with you in the kitchen. Obedience is necessary. This is what the Bible says. Obedience is great, obedience is protective, obedience is good because this is the first command with a promise. Why a promise? Because God says when you honor, when you obey your parents, it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. He’s saying,” Parents, you have got to teach your kids to obey, so that they stay within the realm of protection and provision. If they do not understand this, they stray out into disobedience, they ruin their own lives. So it is vital that kids would understand obedience. Do you know that when you go to restaurants, coffee shops, you’ll see brats? You know brats? Spoiled brats, " Uhhh, I don't want this, I want that! " and they are so bratty, they want what they want and they don’t…, they are the real king of the family. Let me tell you something I learned about brats.


They are never happy. They are never happy. They always want more. They always want this. They have never learned obedience and they have never therefore enjoyed real happiness. It is an obedient child who really gets blessed and is happy. He has these boundaries. Children need boundaries. They are insecure without boundaries and parents, you provide that boundary. And when they learn obedience to stay within a boundary, they are really going to be blessed. So if parenting has anything for you as a message to go by today, parenting is for obedience. But the sad reality is we've got to teach it. We've got to instill it, we have got to lead them to obedience because children are not naturally obedient. This is a picture of my son. Many of you would have seen him as you came in. He is a cheeky fellow. He is a..he is such...”He is so cute,” everybody says, ‘’so cute” and they pinch here, pinch there. So cute and he is cute when he is in his dormant mode. But when he erupts and when he is activated, he is a monster. Just last night he was a monster. My wife had to struggle with him for two, three hours because he wants to get out of his cot “Ah.....” (Pastor imitating his son) and you know I was in another room preparing the message and I could hear him “ah......uh.....” he was such a…. My wife says he’s such an agony, such a mental torture because he doesn't let you rest.


He wants to have his way. You know he looks cute, every time he looks at you innocently, blur blur, sweet sweet, whoa, he charms you. But the moment you deny him something, the moment he wants something and you don't give it, he looks at you like that ..ahhhh, and he screams, and he screams many times and whenever he can find something around him, he takes it and he throws, he takes it and he throws. He wants to show you he is a rebel at heart. You know in Chinese we say: ren zhi chu,xing ben shan (A Chinese saying meaning “Men are born kind and virtuous”) We think that babies are so angelic, so we have these pictures of ‘Precious Moments’, every baby looks so cute, so sweet. But if you were to really peel open their hearts, you see a rebel. Because the Bible tells us we are all born sinners. You don't have, I don't have to teach Matthias how to rebel. It is natural. It is in him. And therefore whilst obedience is something great for him, he doesn't have it within him. And it is the job, the responsibility of the parent to teach him obedience.


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You see the Bible says: ”Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” (Proverbs 22:15) It is necessary. In fact, Suzannah Wesley, who single-handedly raised many kids, great kids, especially the famous two: John Wesley and Charles Wesley. She said, “The parent who studies to subdue self will in his child works together with God in the renewing and saving of a soul.” I mean, to her it is so important. I mean this is equivalent to renewing and saving a soul, because you recognize this child is a born sinner, and if I don't subdue that self will, if I don't teach my kids obedience, then it is equivalent to doing “the devil’s work” Because it “makes religion then impracticable, salvation unattainable and does all that in him lies to damn his child, soul and body forever.” She sees that parenting is so important and she sees that parenting is for obedience. It's not child’s play, it is not a by- the- way issue, it is not really about edu...now, don't get me wrong. It's important to give your kids education, provide them food. But if you do all that and you fail to teach your children obedience, you have really missed the mark, really missed it. But this takes a lot of effort, right? I mean all of you who are parents? It is easy to bring maybe food to the table in today’s day and age, for many of you. It is easy to earn money to buy the milk powder and diapers, it is easy to do that. It is maybe easy for you to send you kids to some enrichment class here and some music lessons there, it is easy for you to do that. But to teach obedience, it is very difficult.


At least for me, it is hard. It takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of effort. It takes physical and emotional strength to teach kids obedience. I mean just last night, what does Matthias want? My wife was tired yesterday and what my wife wanted was sleep. But you know what my dear son wanted? He wanted to get out of bed. Now so you have a tug of war. He wants to get out of bed, out of his cot. My wife says “No, you have got to obey, you have got to sleep. It is time to sleep.” But my wife is struggling because on one hand she says he needs to stay there but she also wants to sleep. You know to spare herself the two, three hours of agony, all she needed to do is “Ok la ok la Matthias you win, you win, I let you out.” But she didn't. Because she realized far more important than her own sleep is the need to let the kid know his screaming, his fussing, his rebelling is not going to get him anywhere. So what happened was that my son screamed and screamed and cried for two, three hours and decided to vomit all over his body. He is so persistent that he is willing to vomit just to make himself get out of bed. I mean he is willing to cry and torture himself, but you know what we can’t lose that battle. We can't lose that battle for obedience. So it takes sacrifice of sleep and effort and energy and so on and so forth. It takes a lot of commitment to teach obedience. You see, let's say your kid is supposed to sleep at night again but he wakes up in the middle of the night, what do you do? What do you do? Uh, ok ,I am going to use a lot of Shawn because he’s 6 years old, I can talk to him. Matthias still can't quite understand. So I am going to use a lot of Shawn. “Shawn, you’re supposed to sleep . It's 9, it's 10, it's 11 pm” Shawn pretends to sleep. Half an hour later, I walked by his room, he is playing with his airplane. You know what a typical parent would do is: “Shawn, please get back to sleep,” switch off the lights and so on. You know what you have done? You have accomplished your goal of getting him to sleep, but you have not dealt with issue of what? Disobedience! It is easy to say go to sleep now but very hard to say: “Shawn come, I want to talk to you. Sit here.” Then you take your cane beside you ah, so that he’ll listen, you take your cane beside you, don't need to do anything, just say “Shawn, I want to ask you, what did daddy say half an hour ago?” "Daddy say I need to sleep." "What did you do?" "I didn't sleep." "So what did you do?" "I disobeyed." "What is this called?" "Sin" Of course, he doesn't go like this all the time la, he is not such a good theologian, he doesn't follow this, sometimes along the way he says, ”Daddy but my airplane, daddy can I drink water?” He tries to throw me off. But it takes a lot of effort. You know my heart is like: How is he going to respond? It’s so tedious. But you see I got to work with him. To help him realize that what he does or what he did is disobedience, it is sinful. It is wrong.


And it may mean that in the middle of the night, when he is stubborn and rebellious, you have to take out your bao jian, your da gou bang (referring to the cane) and (Pastor demonstrates action of caning), not that you torture him but that he needs to know that it is wrong. And the rod of discipline drives the folly that is bound up in his heart far away. And when you want to help your kids obey, not only must you do this with commitment, you have got to do this consistently. So between father and mother, you cannot have different standards. So sometimes my wife would say: “You finish that bowl of rice!” Then I see him struggle there, want to cry and sometimes I want to say: “Suah la suah la, (meaning “Nevermind’’ in Hokkien dialect) it is ok la. Never mind la, don't finish, it is all right la, 100 calories won't kill you if you don't have it. But you see, I can't say that because we got to be consistent. I can't teach my kid to disobey his mother. And so though sometimes we don’t have the same standard, the two of us as parents got to work towards the same standard. I say “You have got to obey.” At the end of the day, it is not about the rice. Do you realize it is not about the rice? It is about his soul. It is about his character. And that bowl of rice is an opportunity to grow him in obedience. So actually, we demand obedience, we want to help our children in obedience not only in big things -that will be too late - but in the small things, in fact in the everyday things of life, so that he may learn obedience when the big things come. So I say parenting is not easy. Takes a lot of effort, all right? You want to sleep and you cannot sleep.


You want just to forget about it, you can't, because it is about his soul. But let me move on. Parenting is for obedience that is true, but that is not an adequate definition of what parenting is all about. I believe a second fundamental essence or element to this is: parenting is for obedience from the heart. In other words, we should not be satisfied if our kids obey us only mechanically. Now there are sometimes your kids won't want to obey and they are forced to, that's true, sometimes. But if that is the pattern of life for your kids for the rest of their lives, I think we have missed the mark, because parenting is for obedience that springs from their hearts. I see that in the scriptures in Ephesians 6. By the way, this is taken from the Ten Commandments. “Children, obey.” Why? Because the principle of the scripture is that you honor your father and your mother. The idea of honoring is not just mechanically obeying but there is respect and regard as an attitude from the bottom of your heart.

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So God is saying: Children, you have got to honor your parents. You have got to respect them. You have got to want, choose to follow and obey them from the heart. And therefore I say parenting is not just for obedience as an external compelled thing from the outside but something that comes from the inside. Let me ask you: How does God want you to obey Him? Think about it. How does God want we all as His people to obey Him? Just obey Him mechanically because we felt that we are forced to? How does God want you to obey Him? I think this is how God wants us to obey Him: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:36-39 ESV) The summary of the 613 laws in the Old Testament is this: Love the Lord thy God. He is saying, Jesus is saying, when you obey God, when you fulfill the commandment, it is not just doing what is necessary on the outside but it comes from the inside. Love God with all your heart all your soul, all your mind and that will be manifested in the obedience on the outside. The same way God expects us to obey Him and love Him is the same way we as parents are to help our kids obey, not just mechanically but from the heart. So parenting is for obedience, don't miss this phrase, from the heart. The question you have, I am sure, is:”Pastor, you say very nice to listen, very nice to hear, wah, from the heart, but how do we do this?” It is so hard, I am so used to kicking my son so that he obeys me. I am so used to scolding him until he obeys me. I am so used to instilling fear so that he obeys me, but to make him choose willingly to obey me from the heart? How do I do it? Ok, I know, I give him more laws, I give him more rules. I give him more regulations. Will that do? My answer to you: it will never do. You can't do that. So how? Giving them laws alone won't do, so what do we do as parents to encourage our kids to obey us from their hearts? This is the marvel of understanding our relationship with God and us. Let me ask you: God wants you to obey Him from your heart, right? How does He make you obey Him from your heart? How does He do it? Or maybe I ask it in another way: Why do you obey God today? Why? Anybody? We obey Him because we love Him. And why do you love Him? Absolutely! Because He died for us and because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19) You see, parenting by giving laws and punishments will produce kids who obey on the outside, but if you want kids to obey from the inside, you have got to follow how God does it. He doesn't just load us with laws, He gives us His Son, He shows us His love and therefore we love Him because He first loved us. I say, therefore, parenting is heart to heart. It takes your love, it takes you showing your love. By the way, God showed His love towards us. He demonstrated His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. As parents if you want to touch your kids' hearts, heart to heart, you have got to show them you love them. That's why parenting is not just being that authoritarian, strong, law-giving figure, but that loving father, that loving mother, who comes and cares and spends time and have wonderful precious memories together with the kids. That's why parenting is about love.


Because love touches the heart of the kid. And you do not want your kids to turn out as someone who will just obey you because he is scared of you or because he will be punished but because he knows you love him and he obeys you because he loves you. Isn't this the way Scripture displays our relationship with God. “If you love me,” what does the Bible say? “Keep my commandments.” In short, if you love me, obey me. And why would you love me? You love me because I first loved you. And your kids got to see that. Now one word of caution is that please, when you say you love your kids and when your tell your kids you love them, please don't tell them you love them only when they do well and then you don't tell them you love them because they do badly. “Wah, ah boy, you score 95 in maths. I love you much much.” The next moment he scores 51 for his English, “Ah boy, how can I love you like that? You never work hard enough, I don't love you already, I love your didi (meaning ‘’younger brother’’ in the Hokkien dialect), he scores higher marks.” You know what? That is not the love that is patterned after the love God has for us. God doesn't love me because I score 95 in my spiritual walk. And God doesn't love me less- think about it -He doesn't love me less even when I sinned, not that I want to sin but if I do stumble in the sin, you know something? God doesn't love me less. He doesn't say, “I love you when you are a good boy, I love you less when you are a bad boy.” No, He loves me all the same in Jesus Christ. And as parents, learn that from God. Love your kids unconditionally so that your kids grow up in an ambience, in an environment, in that relationship of unconditional love. And when his heart is touched by your unconditional love, you have reached his heart. And you begin to understand obedience from the heart. You see if you teach your kids to earn your love, he will never obey from his heart. He will obey because he wants to get something out of you. So I think that is important. Parenting is heart to heart. Parenting is for obedience from the heart and it requires more than you giving the law, it requires you giving your love, showing your love. Let me tell you what I think, this is my own theory. I think there are children who grow up looking like nice kids. Wa, they are very nice, you know, they come to church, they yes sir, yes sir, they bow, they greet people, they dress properly, they go to good schools. But you know the moment they turn 18, or the moment they turn 21, they rebel. They say “I don't want to do all this anymore. I don't want to go to church, I don't want to do anything like this.” You have people like that, they are called rebels, and you have those who are brats. Brats are no matter what you do, they just don't care la, they have no standard. They just do whatever they want, they are bratty, they disobey their parents. And of course you have the third type which is the good child who obeys from the heart. You know what’s the difference between the three? A rebel, a brat and a good child? My own theory is this, all right? A rebel is someone who is always given the law but he doesn't experience love. So for all his life, he sits under an authoritarian figure at home, whether his father or mother, he is scolded, he is told all the things he’s supposed to do, but he never feels love, never feels accepted. And when he is 21, when he is accountable for himself, he says, “I have had enough of all this, I am going to the other end, I rebel” because his heart was never touched. Then you have a brat. A brat is someone who doesn't have love and is not given the law. The parents are so guilty, don't dare to discipline the kid. I think that is a problem today. Parents are not spending time and not loving their children and therefore they feel embarrassed to even have to discipline the kids, to spank them or to make them unhappy, so they forget about it, they totally leave it. They don't show love, they don't show the law, they don't teach them the law. And so the kids grow up to be brats. But I think a good child who grows up obeying from the heart is someone who has seen both the standards, the law and he is absolutely comforted by love.

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So ask yourself, what kind of kids do you want? What kind of kids do you have? Parenting is for obedience from the heart; it requires your love. Heart to heart, but there is more. I think it requires not only your love, one more point, it requires your life. You see, Jesus said, ‘’This is why I want you to do or this is why I think you would do what you are supposed to do. I left for you an example, I washed your feet. Therefore you should do just as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-15) The principle is this: Why would the disciples obey from their hearts? Because they saw the life of their Master. Why would they go to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ? Because “as the Father has sent me, so sent I you.” (John 20:21) Why would you and I today suffer willingly? Because Jesus also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we might follow in his footsteps. (1 Peter 2:21) You see what will really encourage your kids to obey from their hearts and not because they are forced to or they feel like they are caged up is because they see that in you. My son loves to ask me why. I think every child loves to ask, “Daddy, why? Why?” Sometimes you get frustrated, because the why never ends. From one thing can go to don't know where. “Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?” And I found a great answer to tell him why, that shuts all other questioning, and that statement, -you learn this, all right, is “Do you see daddy doing this?” “Daddy why I can't do this?” You can explain why why but he will keep asking until you are lost. The best part is “Shawn, do you see daddy doing this?” “Daddy, why can't I throw litter?” “Do you see daddy doing this?” Of course you can explain why, but the best example or the best convincement is: do the parents themselves do it? You know why kids won't obey from their hearts? Because they don't see it from their parents. You always tell me to do this but you, you also never do what, you hypocrite. You tell me to come to church, but you never come. Tell me to read the Bible, you never read. Tell me to pray, you never pray. Wah, therefore when I am 21, I am not going to do anything you tell me to do. I don't see it in you. Do you see daddy doing this? Parenting is not about your mouth, telling, telling, telling, telling, telling, telling, threatening, threatening, threatening, threatening. Parenting is a lot to do with your love and a lot to do with your life. That's why it’s so hard. That's why it’s so hard. Parenting is tough because it is all about a life of love, it is about a life of exampling. By the way, all the principles I mentioned here I think are equally applicable to discipleship. Takes more than you giving them what to do, telling them what Christianity is about, what the commandments say. Do you love them? Are you living it out? It comes to these fundamentals. Someone said: “Don't worry that your children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.” Because kids are smarter than just to believe your words. They watch your life. Be honest, ok, son? Then you keep cheating on your carpark coupon. Be nice to people, ok? Then he watches the way you scold your helper at home. Hey, this one, (Pastor pointed at his ear) not so good la, this one is the most powerful input you have. (Pastor pointed at his eye) They watch your life. One way to correct your children- you say “I want to change my son, I want to change my kids. I want them to be better”, I tell you how to make them better -change yourself! One way to correct your children is to correct the example you are setting for them. You see, they have got to see it. Then their hearts will be changed. And then, you will achieve what it means to say ‘’Parenting is for obedience from the heart.”

I have one last point. Anybody who can guess the next phrase I am going to add, gets a free lunch. Anyone? Parenting is for obedience from the heart, you add to that, free lunch. I may even get you to preach. You see, why I think the third point is so important is because the first two points, important as they are, miss the mark of your parenting. This will satisfy if I go to a… to a secular talk. And people say, “Hey, you are a pastor, can you say something about marriage, about parenting?” Oh, well if I share this, I think it makes sense, anyone can understand this. But what makes Christian parenting unique is that I think “Parenting is for obedience from the heart…” -no free lunch already -”to God.” Parenting is not getting your children to obey you but ultimately parenting is getting your children to obey God from their hearts. See, this is like disciple making again. It is like discipleship. Discipleship is not getting guys to follow you. That’s not discipleship. That’s just power mongering. Discipleship is getting your disciples to follow Jesus Christ. And you are just that channel. You are just that instrument. Parenting, realize this, you are just the means of grace by which God is using to bring your kids to Himself. What is parenting for? Parenting is for obedience from the heart to God. You see Ephesians 6:4 tells us “Parents, you are to nurture them…” In what way? In your way? No, in the “instruction of the Lord”. You have to lead them in the way of the Lord. There is a famous man. I think he is one of the greatest theologians ever to live and his name is Jonathan Edwards, extremely profound man, hundreds of years ago, write deep theology, already that amazes us even right up to today. He was a president of Princeton seminary and he fell sick. He was about to die. His family was not with him except for his daughter. So he wrote a note to the rest of his family because he knew he was dying. And this was what he wrote in an excerpt. He said, “Tell my wife that the uncommon union which has so long subsisted between us is, I think, a spiritual one and therefore is one which will last forever,” He is comforting his wife. ‘I am going to die, we are going to separate, but it is fine because we are going to be united in heaven above. It is an everlasting union.’ What he says is “Tell your other brothers and sisters it is about time they look to a father that does not die.” No, Jonathan Edwards is not saying mom is going to get married again. I don’t think so. What he is saying is, “You know all my parenting is for this goal: that you will begin to learn to look to a Father that does not die and that is God. I am a mere servant in my God’s hands. I parent you to obedience. I parent you to obedience from the heart. But more than anything else, I look forward to your obedience from your heart to your true spiritual Father. Do you realize today when you look at your kids, they are your kids today, but if they know Jesus, they won’t be your kids in heaven! They will be your brothers. They will be your sisters. Amazing, but that’s the reality because we all have one heavenly Father. And your job today for your kid is to help him come to know Jesus Christ, to know God, to know the gospel. It is not just that they obey you but that they will have a real living relationship with the God of the heavens. Parenting is for obedience from the heart to God. Question again, “How? Pastor, how can I help my kids have a heart-felt obedience to God?” Can I teach him the Ten Commandments? Can I tell him all the rules and regulations? Sure, you can. But let me warn you about something. Teaching your kids about rules and regulations, the Ten Commandments alone, is not going to produce love. Singapore giving us ten more laws on spitting and chewing gum and road safety is not going to make you love Singapore more. Your wife or your husband giving you ten more rules in the family is not going make the wife love the husband more. So the key to creating or to instilling this obedience from the hearts to God is not achieved by giving more laws. It is not going to work. What does it need? It needs love. It needs to know love. It needs to know the great love of God and the great love of God is seen supremely in the gospel of Jesus Christ. See the gospel is about the love of God in sending His Son to bear away the sins and wrath of God upon our lives. That’s the love and parenting must be about giving this gospel to your kids. It is not just behavior change. So many of us we just want to raise up kids who do the right things, say the right things, but their heart is not changed. You know what your parenting is called? Behavior modification. You are just inculcating behaviorism, but you have not touched his heart. He does not have a genuine love for God.

0:40:08

Because all you give him is laws, no love. So what we produce and I fear in our church we produce because we want our children to look good in church. We want our children to make us gain face, not lose face. We make our children moral, in a sense they do all that seems to be necessary to be done but we neglect their hearts. I want to say this: Are you raising today kids in morality or Christianity? Are you raising moral kids or are you raising spiritual Christian children? You say, “What is the difference, Pastor?” Let me give you two simple points. Morality is focusing on external behavior. Christianity is about an internal devotion that manifests outside. It is an inside-out reality. Moralism is an external behavior change. Morality is about someone knowing the law of God but Christianity is someone who has embraced the love in the gospel. And that means, for Christianity to take place in your kids, you have got to give them the gospel all the time. Parenting is for obedience from the heart to God. So how can I give the gospel to my kids? How can I, if I may use this phrase, ‘gospelize’ my children? I give you practical points. One is, I think you have got to regularly point your kids to the gospel. You see, what you do is at all times point them to how Jesus loves them, at all times point to them that they are sinners in need of the love of Jesus. For example, my son, if he, Shawn, should disobey, let’s say he, just let’s say he umm, he steps on water. Yesterday he did that, all right. I mean my wife has told him many times don’t splash water. He likes to play [in dirty] water. So anyway, you walk on the road, there is a pool of water, dirty water. He goes there, [steps into it], everybody kena (meaning ‘’is hit”’ in Malay). All right, so he disobeys, right? So we will, we can do this, we can scold him, go back and spank him because he makes us dirty. Or we could say, “Shawn, come!” So you take him to a quiet place, you don’t discipline him in front of everybody. Take him to a quiet place and say: “Shawn, what did you do? “I stepped on water.” You know he begins to cry. He knows what’s coming up, right? So he begins to cry and tries to play the sympathy game with us la. I know he is doing it because after a while he (Pastor walks around smiling innocently), so he knows this game: Cries. “Do you know want you did?” “Yes, I disobeyed.” “You know the same thing? You know why we have to talk to you?” “Because I sinned”, blah blah. And my point is this: I could stop at saying it was wrong. I spank you, change your behavior. That will be easier, right? But I will be producing a moral kid who changes his behavior because he knows the law. But I am not having a kid who knows the gospel of the love of Jesus so that his heart is changed. So I have to move on, I have to say, “You know that was wrong? And that shows that you have sinned because you disobeyed your parents? And do you know that we are all sinners and because of our sin we have to be judged and we are separated from God and we are naughty.” I used the word “naughty” a lot. “We are naughty, we are bad. But Shawn, do you know that Jesus loves you? God loves you and God gave you Jesus to die on the cross to pay for your sin. Shawn, you can’t save yourself. You need Jesus to save you.” You share the gospel. You point him to his sinfulness and you point him to the love of Jesus Christ. And “Shawn, daddy prays for you that you know Jesus. But we also have to teach you what you did is wrong. Pull down your pants, here is my bao jian(meaning “cane” in Chinese).” You still have to do that. But you have got to point him to the gospel. When he knows why he is disciplined and when it is done, you hug him and you tell him: “Shawn, daddy loves you. I know you have done wrong but daddy still loves you. And I want you to know Jesus loves you.” You know that exercise is quite long. And I, sometimes you don’t have the emotional…. because for him to pull down [his] pants, [he] also struggles. Pull a bit, and he keeps worming away from me. Wa liao,(An expression of exasperation in the local Hokkien dialect ) it is like… painful la. But you have got to do it!

0:45:14

And you have got to point him to the gospel all the time. Just one point of note. Don’t mention Jesus only when it comes to discipline. You know, right? It happens, right? Wa, you discipline so every time you need to trust in Jesus. So whenever he hears Jesus, it is associated with discipline. Not a very wise thing. But regularly in your life, point him to Christ, to the goodness of God. When you bring him out to the beach, pray with him and tell him: Son, isn’t this a great day? God has given us fine weather, He has given us a great family. We have joy, so many things around us all because of Christ. And you help him, regularly pointing him to Jesus. So Gospeliters, I pray that in our church we will not just raise moral kids, but we will have our kids realize their own sinfulness so that they may trust Christ. And there will be times even among us you see our...Looking at the people in our Sunday school, [exclaiming] “Whoa! this boy so naughty ah”, then you look at the parents “tsk,tsk, wa”(making disapproving noises) and there is no tolerance and understanding that there needs to be growth, there needs to be a gospelization of the kids. Salvation is of the Lord. Even if you do everything right -let me say this, all right -even if you do everything right and you are living the gospel, you are a great example, you know something? It doesn’t guarantee your kids will be saved. And that’s where it is absolutely humbling. As a parent, you not only share and point your kids to the gospel. Not only must you personify the gospel but you must pray that the gospel will go deep into your kid’s life, because it is not guaranteed. I think God allows it this way so that we will not have this Messiah syndrome. “Ah, my kids are naughty. My kids don’t know Christ. Here steps in the Messiah, ME. And I am going to make him a Christian. I am going to be….” You know God doesn’t do that. He doesn’t allow you to even think about that because salvation is of the Lord. You may tick all the boxes in parenting success or principles. But whether your kids have obedience from the heart to God is where you have to humble yourself and pray “God, save Shawn!” “Save my kids.” “Save my son because he may end up a man who may be moral on the outside but doesn’t love you on the inside.” What a tragedy that will be! So in summary, I know I’d spoken a lot. I said this could be a series. But I just give you the main points what is parenting for. Putting it in another way, parenting is leading. You don’t change children, you can’t, all right, you can’t. It is our mission statement in GLCC.GLCC exists to lead generations into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ. We don’t say GLCC exists to change lives. We don’t. Jesus changes lives. All we can do is to lead people to Jesus. And that’s what we do as parents. We can’t change our kids’ lives. Their hearts, whether they trust Christ, is not in our hands. But this is what we regularly, conscientiously, intentionally seek to do. We want to lead our children into a Gospel-centered obedience, not to me but ultimately to God. If this sounds complicated, well, listen to the sermon again on the YouTube when it is posted. But let me just end with a statement from Kevin DeYoung: “I want to spend time with my kids, teach them the Bible, take them to church, laugh with them, cry with them, discipline them when they disobey, say sorry when I mess up and pray like crazy. I want them to look back and think, “I’m not sure what my parents were doing or if they even knew what they were doing. But I always knew my parents loved me and I knew they loved Jesus. Maybe it is not that complicated after all.”

This ends our series in Focus on the Family. It’s a series of nine sermons. I hope you have enjoyed yourself. I hope you have been blessed. And most of all, I hope you have diligently prayed and sought to live the principles. Let me say this: these nine sermons are preached in nine weeks but it takes a whole lifetime to practise. I’m a failure in many of the sermons I preach. Pray for me as you pray for one another in living out the gospel in our families for the glory of God. May God bless your homes in the new year that is to come. Let’s bow for a word of prayer together.