Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Was your dad encouraging or discouraging? What would you say, if you have children, about your relationship with them today? Are you a hindrance or a help to how they might see God? This time on Telling the Truth, we hear Stuart's message about dads and what the Bible says about the importance of fathers and how they raise their children. He'll get started in a moment.

If you've been feeling overwhelmed lately, like your mind just won't slow down, you're not alone. A lot of people today are carrying anxiety, uncertainty, and questions they don't know where to take. That's why Telling the Truth is sharing biblical teaching in digital spaces so people can encounter God's truth right in those moments, right where they are.

As we approach the end of the financial year, your support is critical to keep this ministry going. Right now, your gift will be doubled through an $82,000 matching grant, helping reach more people searching for peace and direction. And as our thanks, we'll send you Stuart Briscoe's book, *A Piece of My Mind*, a resource designed to help you experience God's steady pace when life feels unsettled. Call 262-788-4648 to have your gift doubled by the match or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Here's Stuart to begin today's message with a conversation he had with his grandson.

Stuart Briscoe: I got a phone call late one Sunday night from one of my grandsons. He said, "Hey Papa, did you think your days of doing Sunday school were over?" I said, "Yes, I did." He said, "Well, you're wrong. You and I have got a Sunday school project." I said, "Well, what is it?" He said, "They've told me I've got to identify an old person."

I said, "All right, I think I could probably give you a few recommendations." He said, "No, it's you." I said, "Why do you need me?" He said, "I have got to ask you 27 questions about your life, seeing you're an old person. You can look back over your life, and then I've got to get all these answers and I've got to write an essay about an old person looking back on his life." I said, "Okay, let's go."

We had all kinds of interesting questions. One of the questions was this: "Who do you admire most, Papa? Who do you admire most?" Well, I needed a little time to think about that, so I said, "Before I answer it, you tell me. Who do you admire most?" He was quiet for a minute and then he said, "My dad, most of the time."

I said, "What was that?" He said, "My dad, most of the time." I said, "Why just most of the time?" "Well," he said, "there's other times." I said, "What are these other times?" He said, "Well, you know what it's like." I said, "You mean when he's been a dad?" He said, "Yeah, kind of."

I said, "You mean when he's telling you you can't do what you want to do and you should do something that you don't particularly want to do?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "When he's telling you that your actions have consequences?" "Yeah." I said, "Does he do that sort of thing?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, he learned well, didn't he? Because I taught him that."

I said, "You know, it's not easy being a dad. It's not easy being a dad. Because, you see, we love you so much and we're so concerned for you that we've got to teach you that actions have consequences, or we've got to teach you discipline, or we've got to teach you obedience, but the problem is you don't want to learn it, and we can exasperate you, and we can embitter you, and we can discourage you.

There's such a fine line here. I am so glad that you admire your dad most of the time. What you've got to try and do is admire him the rest of the time as well. But here's the challenge. You see, being a dad is no job for a wimp. It's a job for somebody who's going to take very, very seriously the fact that here is a very, very precious, significant young person. And I have the incredible privilege of nurturing him or ruining him.

Fathers, don't exasperate your children. Fathers, don't embitter your children because they might become discouraged. I just jotted down a few words here as to how it's possible for us to exasperate our children by being basically inconsequential, playing no role in their lives at all. They can get totally frustrated.

When my eldest son was getting ready to go to college, people had told me that I have a strong personality. Now, I have no idea where they've got that idea. And they said, "You've got such a strong personality." So I was frightened to death of imposing my strong personality on my kids. And I didn't want to push him into being anything he didn't want to be or going to school where he didn't want to go. So I backed right off.

Eventually, getting time for some decisions to be made, and I said to him, "Dave, do you need any help with this college stuff?" And he said, "Well, I thought you'd never ask." I said, "What?" He said, "I thought you'd never ask." I said, "Well, I didn't want to impose anything on you." He said, "Impose anything on me? You've just been missing. I've been waiting for you to help me. I've been waiting for you to say something."

You see, it's not easy being a dad because on the one hand you don't want to impose your view on him, do you? On the other hand, you can become totally inconsequential. Just exasperate the kid. You can become totally inconsiderate. You can become totally inconsiderate and overlook the fact that this child of yours is not a piece of your property, but in actual fact, this child of yours is somebody who's created by God of infinite worth, with feelings, with thoughts, with desires, with aspirations, with fears.

It's the easiest thing in the world for a father to be so caught up in his own concerns that he just looks at this little piece of property who's driving him nuts and never takes the trouble to find out why the fears are there, what the aspirations are, what the longings are, and how he got the hurts that he got. Boy, you can exasperate your kids in no time flat.

You can exasperate your children by being inconsistent, by telling them this is what you're to do and this is what you aren't to do and then going around straight out and doing what you told them not to do. I remember flying back from Jamaica on one occasion, from Kingston to New York, and there was a very fashionably dressed lady sitting next to me. It was in the days before they'd banned smoking on airplanes, and so she was smoking like a chimney right next to me, and I was breathing in all this gook.

And she was puffing away and she said, "Oh, I'm so nervous. I'm so nervous. Oh, I'm so nervous." I said, "Are you afraid of flying?" "Oh no," she said, "I'm so worried about what my daughters are doing back home." I said, "Well, where are they?" She said, "I left them on their own." I said, "Well, what do you worry about?" She said, "I'm worried that they might be smoking pot."

Can you believe that? Can you believe that? Now, this was in the days when they were arguing whether pot was addictive or not. And I said, "Lady, I don't know whether pot is addictive or not, but I do know that what you're smoking is. And here's the remarkable thing. You tell them don't smoke what is proven to be addictive... let me start again. You know what I was going to say. Let's get on to the next thing.

How easy is it to exasperate your congregation by being totally inconsequential in what you're trying to say? I remember on one occasion my little teenage daughter coming tripping down the steps. "Bye, Dad! Bye!" I said, "Where are you going, Jude?" She said, "I'm going to a movie, Dad, with my friends. They're here in the driveway waiting for me." I said, "Which movie are you going to see?" She said, "Dad, they're waiting for me! I've got to go."

I said, "Which movie are you going to see, Judy?" She told me what it was. I said, "What rating is it?" She said, "Dad, it's PG, but I've got to go." I said, "What did you say?" She said, "It's PG." I said, "What does PG mean? Pretty good?" She said, "No, it means parental guidance." I said, "Which parent did you get guidance from?" She said, "Dad, you're embarrassing me." I said, "I know. That's what fathers are for."

She said, "Dad, these other kids, their parents don't ask them what rating it is." I said, "Well, bring them out here and I'll ask them." She said, "You wouldn't." I said, "I would." She said, "Yes, I think you would." We're having a wonderful time. She's jumping up and down. She wants to get out. "You're embarrassing me, Dad. You're embarrassing me, Dad."

She said, "It's not a bad movie, Dad. It's PG, but it's not bad. There's only one bad part." I said, "I know, Judy. It's at the beginning, and you've missed it. You can go." Guidance, interest, involvement, being concerned about them. But what a fine balance there is here. What a fine balance there is between dominating them and giving them a chance to begin to be what they need to be.

Fathers, don't exasperate your children. Fathers, don't embitter your children. And fathers, don't discourage them. You say, "I'm not even sure what would do it." Well, I'll tell you what to do sometime. Sit down with them and ask them. "Do I exasperate you?" You know what they'll say? "What's exasperate?" Well, find a synonym and ask them. It could be interesting.

Fathers should be honored by their children. Fathers should avoid exasperating their children. Thirdly, fathers should be involved in bringing up their children. That's what it says here. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, instead bring them up. Now, what does that mean? Well, it means, for one thing, recognize that the child that came into your home—and incidentally, they came into your home because of your action, not theirs.

A teenage kid was arguing with his father one day. He said, "I did not ask to be born in this family, Dad. I did not ask to be born in this family." He said, "You're right. And if you had, the answer would have been no." So never forget that this child comes into your family, it was your idea, not theirs. And they come in totally dependent. And now the responsibility starts.

And what is the responsibility? The responsibility is to help that child who is totally dependent begin to develop the right degree of independence. That's the scary word. Some people give kids independence far too soon and the kids can't handle it. Others don't give them it soon enough and they simply produce a frustrated kid. And every kid is different.

I always think, particularly when you've got teenagers... how wonderful it is that ours aren't teenagers anymore. I can still remember when they were teenagers. What a memory. I remembered the time feeling like a trampoline. That's what dads are like when you've got teenagers: trampoline. You see, the kids are trying to bounce on you to get into orbit, that delightful orbit of independence.

When they get their own car, and their own keys, and their own bank accounts. The amazing thing is they get their own car but keep coming back for insurance payments. Amazing, isn't it? Keep bouncing up and bouncing back. They want the independence but they want to be dependent. Now, here's the problem: when they come back, how are they met?

The old trampoline, you see. If the trampoline is too slack, they break their back on the floor. If the trampoline is too taut, they break their neck on the ceiling. Being a dad is no job for wimps. Oh, by the way, if you've got three teenagers all bouncing at the same time, they all need a slightly different tension as they come down. So good luck.

What are we talking about? We're talking about bringing up the kids. We're talking about bringing up the kids from dependence to a degree of independence. But that's not the end of it because, you see, what happens sometimes—and remember this, parents, very, very often after you've brought the child up from dependence to independence, it finishes up where you are to a certain extent dependent on them. Remember that, because they will.

So the ideal thing is to bring them up from dependence to a degree of independence to interdependence. And make sure that as years go by, you remember this: it doesn't matter how old your kids get, you're still their dad. And there's still a relevant involvement there, and it changes all the time. It's called bringing them up.

We bring people up from dependence to interdependence. We bring people up, we bring children up from innate selfishness to social maturity. One of the worst things that you can experience is a child who has never been taught that he is not the center of the world. One of the worst things that you have to put up with is a kid who thinks he's the only pebble on the beach.

I was at a Brewers game once. There was a kid sitting across the aisle from me, kept standing up on his seat. His parents weren't doing absolutely nothing about him. He turned around and he was mouthing off to the people behind. And in the end, one of the men behind said, "Hey, son, would you mind sitting down? I can't see."

And this kid gave him a mouthful of impudence. And the father said nothing about it, and the mother took no notice. So he just stood up there and he threw some popcorn at the guy. And this went on for two or three innings. And in the end, the man behind had had enough. He said, "Son, how old are you?" He said, "I'm seven." He said, "Would you like to see eight?" Would you like to see eight?

You ever come across any kids like that? Somebody messed up somewhere. They failed to be involved in bringing up the child from innate selfishness into a degree of social responsibility. And here's the third area. We need to recognize that the father's responsibility is to be concerned for bringing up the child in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Get that. The father's responsibility is to see that the child is brought up in the training and instruction of the Lord. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if God invented fatherhood, and God invented children, and God invented families, and God invented ova and sperm, that He would be the one who'd have the best idea as to how a child should be brought up? That makes sense, doesn't it?

Any smart man, therefore, I submit to you, accepting those premises, would say, "I wonder what God has to say about this?" And would be very, very careful and very, very assiduous to make sure of a fundamental thing, and it is this: if I am going to be the father that I need to be, bringing up someone that God created, the best thing I can do for my kid is learn how to be a godly man.

If it is true that God made those children, that this is God's idea, the best thing you can do for your kid is show them what it means to be a godly man who understands that he comes from God, lives through God, and goes to God. And the commonsensical thing in all this is simply that if it is true that because we are constitutionally made the way we are as men, there is the possibility of us becoming the weak link in the family, we need to be assiduous in ensuring that we're living a godly life.

And we need to expect the support and encouragement of our spouses, and we need to be open to all the help that we can get from other people around us, like Sunday school teachers, like youth club leaders. By the way, if you are saying to yourself, "None of this is relevant to me. I'm not a father. I'm not even married. I don't have a family," let me encourage you to look at it this way.

Look at it this way and say there is such a need among so many of the young people in our culture today that many people struggling to bring up their children with all that opposes them need all the help they can get. And I don't have children of my own, but I certainly have got some time, and some energy, and some love in my heart, and I can invest in somebody else's kids.

Let's do that. Because you see, we've got a problem in our culture. The problem very often is simply this: we're not producing the godly men who know how to train and instruct their children in the Lord. And if they don't do it, somebody needs to help them. And where better place to produce people who can help raise children in the knowledge of the Lord than in a community of believers like this? We have a whole city full of kids out there, so much to do. Let's start in our own families and spread out. What we need is godly fathers.

Guest (Male): Men, will you commit to being a godly father? Stuart Briscoe ending out today's Telling the Truth. In just a moment, he talks about how fathers can encourage their children and what it means to foster independence and interdependence. What if your generosity today helped place biblical truth in front of someone at the exact moment they needed it most?

That's what's happening every day through Telling the Truth. Through social media, our Telling the Truth website, and other digital platforms, people are encountering God's word, many for the very first time, right where they are. And more people than ever are searching for the kind of peace that can only be found through life in Christ.

That's why, as we approach the end of the financial year, it's so important that we finish strong. Because your support can help us reach even more people with biblical truth in the coming year. The great news is that a group of generous friends has offered an $82,000 matching grant, doubling your gift to expand the outreach even further.

Now is a powerful time for you to step in and help keep God's word going out to the people who need it most. And as our thanks, we'll send you Stuart Briscoe's book, *A Piece of My Mind*, to help you experience the peace of God in whatever you're facing today. Just call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org.

For many, our smartphones have become our social connection. But we want to help you make a spiritual connection with the Telling the Truth mobile app. You can listen to daily programs, engage in Bible reading plans, journal, and share your thoughts and prayers on the community wall. Get the Telling the Truth app through your App Store or log on to tellingthetruth.org/mobile-app. Remember, you can also give to support Telling the Truth on our mobile app. Here's Stuart Briscoe now with more.

Stuart, as a dad with just a bit of experience, how can other dads build their children up and encourage them?

Stuart Briscoe: Well, thank you very much for saying that I've had a bit of experience. Yes, I do have three children, all of whom are in their 50s. So I guess I've had an aggregate of about 160 years as a father. Then since that time, of course, I've been introduced to the role of grandfather to 13 people who are now mainly in their 20s. So I've no idea how many years there are there. So yes, a bit of experience.

And out of all that experience, I think the advice I would give to a father in order to build up and encourage their children is first of all, be firm. In other words, be firm so that people can understand there is a place for legitimate authority that should be respected. Be firm, but then be fair. Sometimes authority is abused, particularly in parenting.

And so it's imperative that the authority that we do have as a parent be exercised in a fair and a just manner. So be firm, be fair, and thirdly, be fun. If you're dealing with children, which of course you are, admit it. Children love to play more than anything else. And if they've got a dad who in addition to being firm and fair can be fun and they can play with him, they're probably going to have a pretty good relationship. So that's my bit of experience speaking today.

Guest (Male): Stuart, how does a parent encourage independence and interdependence?

Stuart Briscoe: The reality of the parent-child relationship is it starts out with the parent completely in control and the child totally dependent. All right, fast forward now to the end of the parent's life, and what do you discover? Very, very often, you'll find roles have totally reversed. And now parent is totally dependent and child is in control.

Somebody has said be kind to your children, they will choose your nursing home. Now then, if that reversal takes place in the course of a lifetime, what we've got to accept is there's a relatively short period in which the parent moves from control to lack of control, and the child moves from dependence to a degree of independence.

Now, it doesn't suddenly happen. And the parent's responsibility is to learn how to relinquish control at the right speed, and at the same time, how to grant independence at the right speed to the young person. If we get the speed at which this change is taking place wrong, then we're going to have a relationship that is deeply, deeply flawed. And so I would say concentrate very much on the fact that things are going to change. There is a period where the changes will particularly be addressed, and we should focus on them at the right time.

Guest (Male): Before we go, here's something important to remember: your support this month can help Telling the Truth reach even more people in the coming year. Right now, your gift will be doubled through an $82,000 matching grant, helping extend biblical teaching to people around the world through digital platforms.

And as our thanks, we'd love to send you Stuart Briscoe's book, *A Piece of My Mind*, to encourage you with the promise of God's peace. So please request your copy when you call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org.

Thanks for joining us for today's program. Come back soon for more teaching from Stuart and Jill Briscoe to help you experience life in Christ. See you next time on Telling the Truth.