Sermon: "Setting Limits"

Second in "The Parenting Challenge" Series,
Delivered May 1, 2005 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3

Theme: A godless, selfish, unrestrained lifestyle is dangerous. What can we do about it as parents?

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Well, we are on week two of a series of parenting and one of the things that this has convinced me of is that we really need to have a class on this. There is so much that needs to be said and I get about an hour or hour and fifteen minutes across three weeks. It would take me that long to just talk about all the things that I did wrong with just one of my kids, and even then I would be giving you the abbreviated version. This is a huge topic and we really do need to spend more time on it and we will try to do that as a church and offer something for you who want to investigate this further. This is a huge issue.

About two weeks ago I was looking in the newspaper, and I noticed in the Ask Amy, it's an advice column sort of thing, there was a situation about a family. They had a 10-year-old and an 8-year-old and the mother and father hadn't gone out on a date since the children had been born. And the mother was sleeping with the children all these years because the children were afraid. Now, there are all kinds of things going wrong in this family, but I just want you to see that sort of pattern that's there. Just a few days later I am on plane. I am flying over to Chicago and I am sitting back in the back and the two flight attendants are talking to one another and one of the flight attendants says, "You know up in the front there is a mother and a father and they are both strapped in, because the seat belt light is on, but their child is running up and down the aisle." And so I went up there and I told them, "You know you need to get your child buckled in." And they said, "No we won't do it. Our child doesn't want to be buckled in". And so the flight attendant said, "Can you see something wrong with this picture?"

Something came up in today's news in today's newspaper. Brats need discipline, not excuses and lawsuits. Now that is not my title, that's the title of this article here,"Five year old in St. Petersburg, Florida". There is a video of this child being taken into custody and being handcuffed by the officers. It has been shown on TV all over. What they didn't show on TV was the 30 minutes prior to that on video where this child is systematically sweeping things off of all of the bookshelves in the room, taking pictures off the wall and deliberately throwing them down, and going over to the desk of the administrator and picking up things and breaking them off of her desk. All the while, the administrator keeps telling her that this behavior is unacceptable. What happened in St. Petersburg is but the mostly widely publicized episode in what seems to be a mini epidemic according to this author. Last year a kindergartner in St. Louis was handcuffed for disruptive behavior, and last week a 7-year-old in Bethlehem, West Virginia wound up wearing handcuffs. We are handcuffing these little 5 and 7 year olds all over the country and this person suggests that the mini epidemic is because of a not so mini epidemic of parents that rationalize and defend the misbehavior of their children.

Thinking of parents in Kansas who harass the teacher for flunking kids who cheated on a project and the parents went and harassed the teacher. Or the mother in greater Chicago who dismissed her daughter's part in a mob assault as something that just got out of hand. Or the mother in New Orleans who blamed the school, a school that had security guards and metal detectors, blamed the school after her son and another boy shot each other. It's not just things happening in the news. This morning, a teacher in the first service came up to me afterwards, Carol and she said, "I am running into this all the time." She said a few years ago parents called and said "Could you talk to my daughter about going to bed on time, because she won't listen to me?" Okay, and then this more recently a parent came up and said, "We don't believe in consequences, so we do not want you to exact any consequences on our child for their behavior." This is happening right now among us.

So that means that we can't look to the world around us for standards of what it means to raise a child up or what it means to have a healthy family. We have to look at the scripture. There is a lot of ways at looking at a family. If you want to look at a family in a biological sense, you've got the family unit here and its reason for existence and all of the shaping of what happens in it is because of the children inside of it. And this sort of mind set, the whole family unit exists to make sure that this generation happens. There is no other reason for the family and so this is what calls the shots. I don't think that is a Biblical way of viewing a family. Obviously children are important. I think it is more Biblical to take a look at the family unit and say in the center of a healthy family unit is the relationship between a woman and a man, a husband and a wife; that this is the central part of what defines a healthy family, that this has to be healthy, that this has to be functioning right, and then out of that grows a healthy family life that does wonders for the children. That if we focus on the children and what that seems to be the welfare for that, we can't build the kind of family unit that God wants to happen.

Another way of looking at the same thing is to say in a Christian view of the family the first thing that has to be in place is God. That has to be the number one priority and the number one focus for the family. In other words, in our belief, we can't have a family, get married and then just do anything we want in the family, just because we want to do it. We believe that because there is a God, God who created us, God who created the family, God who knows what works and doesn't work, God who has our well-being and the well-being of our children and the society around us, all that in mind, that God has said some things are good and some things aren't. God has to be the first priority. And so that means that families can have a mission statement just like our church has a mission statement; a family can. Joshua, in the Book of Joshua, Chapter 24 talks about his family mission statement. "As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." That is the way he looked at his calling and the calling of his family. So God has to come first in any healthy conception of what we have as a family. Cut off from this we believe that in the long run families suffer.

The next part is the relationship of the man and the woman, the husband and wife. We believe this because in the earliest part of scripture it says, "Because I created you the way you are, the man will leave his father and mother and the two will become one flesh." And this relationship of a man and a woman, of love and commitment, in and of itself gives glory to God and reflects a reality of God's relationship to humanity. And so that means that even apart from children, a marriage is a good thing and is whole and glorifies God and we will talk about that a little bit more next week. So this has to be in place and this has to be in place and that means then that cultivating this relationship is the best gift you can give to your children, to have a stable and growing and deepening relationship as husband and wife is a great gift to the entire future of your children and I know that it isn't always possible for these things to work out right, but the fact is when it does and when we are successful, it's a great gift to the next generation.

And then the last is the children, that they are a God given priority for us and that we must handle this responsibility before God. And so in this responsibility we basically have 18 to 25 years of teaching and training our children to leave, that's what it is all about. It really is. What we are out to do is to have such a family life that they mature to the point, that they are a mature, responsible, economically successful, believing, moral adults and that's what everything happening in the family is looking forward to, is the day they go out, you know you launch them. Go. And so your vacations are important. The times you correct them, the times you share things together, all those things are wonderful and meaningful when they happen, but the full fruit is born when this mature, godly, adult steps out and is ready to face the world as God's person. It's an incredible privilege that we have.

Now the problem is, when we think that this whole launching process is primarily something where we are trying to give them the academic tools and the technical skills to be successful in the world. If we think it is primarily that then we are wrong. You know so many people think that I've got to get him in the right kindergarten so that they get it right in grammar school, so that they get in the right college, and then by getting in the right college their future is assured. Well, you know as soon as you are out of college, a year or two, the rules change. Nobody's looking for your grade point average after you are out for a little while. What they are looking at is can this person accept responsibility? Do they have good manners? Are they sensitive to other people? Are they motivated? Can they complete an assignment? Can they endure and then also do they have the tools also they need for the job? But it's all of that and most of those things that people are looking for are things that come out of the family life. And when God looks on this child, now an adult, God is not primarily saying wow what an engineer. Whoa, cool. Yeah, it's impressive, but what God is looking for is does this person trust me and is this person striving to obey? Does this person have character? That's the thing that is big in God's site and again we are not talking about things that happen in school. We are talking about things that primarily happen in the family.

So, I want to tell you a story. I want to tell you a story about a family who had it all. Had a great job, a secure job in the community, had all the skills to do that job well. This group of people, these guys came from a good family, a religious family. So their family knew all the things they had to tell them about God. They were on a career track that was certain for the future, respected in the community and if they stuck with it they would eventually become the most respected person in the whole religious community and yet it all fell apart, they lost it all. And they lost it all because they didn't have character. I want you to go to the Book of 1st Samuel, the 2nd chapter and I am going to read to you some verses that come, verses 12 to about verse 17.

"Eli's sons were wicked men; they had no regard for the Lord. Now it was the practice of the priest with the people that whenever anyone offered a sacrifice and while the meat is being boiled, the servant of the priest would come with a three-prong fork in his hand. He would plunge it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot, and the priest would take for himself whatever the fork brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh. But even before the fat was burned, the servant of the priest would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, "Give the priest some meat to roast; he won't accept boiled meat from you, but only raw." If the man said to him, " Let the fat be burned up first, and then take whatever you want," the servant would then answer, " No hand it over now; if you don't, I'll take it by force. This sin of the young men was very great in the Lord's sight, for they were treating the Lord's offering with contempt."

Okay, here's the picture here. Eli is the high priest of all of Israel. He has two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. Now normally in the life of the community when people came to bring an offering to God it was divided up in a number of different ways. First part of it was trimmed off and burned and symbolically given to God, that way and no one could touch it. Then part of it would go to the family who was offering it. They could feast off of it. And then part of it went to the priests who were part of the religious institution because the priest didn't own land to grow their own crops or to raise their own flocks. So, the only way they survived is off of part of these offerings. Now the way it was supposed to happen comes up in verses 13 and 14. What is supposed to happen is that the meat is put into some kind of place to be cooked and then randomly they stick a fork in and whatever comes up goes to the priest. If it is a good piece, if it's a bad piece it doesn't matter. It is kind of up to God.

Now what's going on where Phinehas and Hophni are is that they forget about this practice and instead before its even offered to God they want a raw piece cut off before it is even given to God and what it says here is that this was holding God's offering in contempt. It was totally against the law; totally against the spirit of what God wanted to happen, where God was first and then what we did was second. Now if people said, "No this is not right, we don't want to do it that way," they would say, "Well you better do it, if not we will take from you by force." What they wanted, when they wanted it, how they wanted it, no matter whether it offended God, no matter whether it hurt other people, these guys were doing their own thing.

Now, it gets a little worse. It's not the whole list of things that are going wrong. In verse 22, it says this. "Now Eli, who was very old heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they slept with the woman who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting." So on top of all of this that they are doing that offends God in the ceremonial side, they are also sexually immoral and having relationships with people who are part of the temple community. They are totally rejecting everything that God has held up as being what's right for our lives. Now this is a serious problem. And so Eli then goes to his kids to talk about it. Now I think we need to reflect for a moment, how did this happen? How did it happen that one generation seems to be trying to obey God and then you come into a new generation and absolutely nothing is going right. These people seem to relish the idea of disobeying God. In fact, these two guys are called Sons of Belial, which translated in verse 12 is wicked men, means children of chaos, people who are causing all kinds of things to break around them. How did that happen in one generation? Now there is a certain mystery to this. We can do everything right as parents or everything we know to do and still there can be problems with the next generation. It happens. We don't know exactly why. We need to pray and we need to struggle with issues like that, but there are times when we can see what's gone wrong and I think this is one of those cases. This case of Eli. I think we see something in his relationship with his sons as adults that maybe show us some of the problems they have been carrying as a family all along. So let's take a look at verses 23 through 25.

"Now Eli, who was very old, heard about everything his sons were doing and how they slept with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting"

And now verse 23: "So he said to them

"Why do you do such things? I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours. No, my sons; it is not a good report that I hear spreading among the Lords people. If a man sins against another man, God may mediate for him; but if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him?" His sons, however, did not listen to their father's rebuke, for it was the Lord's will to put them to death."

This is a very serious problem in the life of Israel. Priests, major people in the religious community, respected positions, were abusing the office, were defiling what God was doing and so their father and the high priest comes to them and says to them, guys this is not smart, this is not a good thing to be doing and that is all that he does. It's a very anemic response to something that is extremely serious. Eli had two other options he didn't do. The first was, he could have removed them from the priestly office. He had that right as high priest, as a major figure in this community, he could have made sure that they were not part of the religious life of Israel and he doesn't do it. The other thing he could have done was even more severe. He could have brought them before the leaders of Israel to stone them to death for their immorality. That was actually commanded in the Book of Deuteronomy for situations like this. He doesn't do either. He simply comes up to them and says, "Golly this is not a good thing." And what I think we are seeing here is a pattern that might have been in their whole life together, that the limits he wouldn't set for his kids when they were three, it's impossible for him to set now that they are 33 or 43, that Eli wasn't willing to assume that proper responsibility to set limits on the members in his household, long before the things happened that we read about today. So let's take a look at how God sees it through the mouth of a prophet that comes and talks to him. We are going to begin at verse 27.

"Now a man of God came to Eli and said to him, " This is what the Lord says: ' Did I not clearly reveal myself to your father's house when they were in Egypt under Pharaoh? I chose your father out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my alter, to burn incense, and to wear my ephod in my presence. I also gave your father's house all the offerings made with fire by the Israelites. Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?' Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel, declares.."

And I will stop there for a moment. When the prophet looks at Eli's family life, the main indictment he has, he says, " Why do you honor your sons more than me? See, Eli had this all backwards. He just couldn't take a stand against what his children were doing even if it clearly violated what God had commanded and because of that Eli's family and his whole future of his family begins to fall apart. Let me read now to you verses 30 and some of the verses following that.

"Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel declares: 'I promised that you house and your father's house would minister before me forever.' But now the Lord declares: 'Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained. The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your family line and you will see distress in my dwelling. Although good will be done to Israel, in your family line there will never be an old man. Every one of you that I do not cut off from my alter, will be spared only to blind your eyes with tears and to grieve your heart, and all your descendants will die in the prime of life. 'And what happens to your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, will be a sign to you- they will both die on the same day. I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind."

I will stop there. It's a frightening thing. There are serious consequences to the rebellion that's being lived out in the lives of these two men. A Godless, unrestrained lifestyle is dangerous, so then, what can we do about it as parents and a community that surrounds parents? It involves setting some limits. Now, we can't go into that in any great detail, but I want to get a few real quickly while we are together. First, is date your mate. One of the first limits we have to put is to keep having children from interrupting the necessity for building a strong relationship as husband and wife. So, that means that even after having your children, you've got to give some time to this relationship you have together. You have made a holy covenant in marriage. You have taken vows in marriage and what this is, this is an agreement, a covenant on steroids, this is very serious, strong thing that we do in a marriage and so that means that we have to give time and effort to loving, and cherishing, and honoring this person that we are married to. And sometimes that isn't easy. Sometimes we don't get the agreement of the one-year-old when its time to leave.

I can remember the first time I went out after our daughter was born, our daughter would only nurse; she did not want a bottle. We tried to get her to suck her thumb, anything to just get a little bit of independence from this baby. We finally went out for a meal and we were not there for 45 minutes to an hour and we get a phone call. This is before cell phones. They called the restaurant. The people come to us, are you the Schmidt family? Here's the telephone. Sarah cried non-stop the whole time we were gone. It wasn't an easy thing, but we built those habits. This is one of the areas we have to set limits. We've got to focus on that relationship. Another area of setting limits. Say goodnight. Bedtime. It's not appropriate to say, "Honey are you sleepy yet"? No. Wrong question. You just say, "It's bedtime." Children need to sleep. All kinds of grouchiness and lack of focus will be solved in lives if they get enough sleep, and you, as parents need that time to connect once the children are asleep, particularly with young children. We need to set limits there. It's part of having an ordered household, part of having a life together. Another area where we need to set some limits is respect. There are limits on how our children can express themselves to their parents and to other adults. Now, we want our children to be honest and we want them to be free, but there are some things that you just can't be free to say it exactly the way you feel it, not and survive in society. So they're feeling, "oh I hate you. I hate you." It's not an appropriate thing for them to say that to their teacher every Monday morning. And we are teaching them certain limits on how to express themselves, that they can have these feelings and that we can talk about those things, but there are still limits. And so we are trying to build them in habits that will allow them to function well within the society around it, and then we need to model that respect in the way we talk to them as well.

We've got to have limits on material things. You can't have what you want, when you want, every time you want. We've got to get our children ready for the real world. We've got to learn how to have patience trying to get something that's important, to learn what it means to work and save in order to get something that is really important to them. These things are part of life. It's part of them succeeding in the long run, and its part of what we are trying to train our children to do. Setting limits is kind of like there is two bridges over a canyon. One of the bridges is this little rope bridge, but it has no hand rails on it, and so when you walk over it there is always that sense that any step now you might plummet over the edge, and what parental limits are, is where you actually put a handrail on the bridge. It still looks rickety sometimes and it is still going over something that you think might be a little bit dangerous out there, but there are those limits, there's that sense that if I am in between and hold on tight, I am safe. And that's what we are giving our children. It reduces their anxiety and it reduces ours, as parents, because they know there are dangers out there, but if I am here and inside of this I am okay.

My son Jonathan is 6'4", he weights 270 lbs and he lives in another state. There is almost nothing I can do to really make him do anything. I know that. My daughter is married and lives in another country. So, all the battles, all the great times, all the times I messed it up and all, all of those things were really fought in the past when they were closer and a lot smaller. So if you are at that point now when your children are at home, then let's do our best right now before God, while we've got the chance. And if we don't have children, let's do our best to support those families that do, to do our part as aunts and uncles and friends and grandparents and teachers, to do our best to support them, to shape a new generation, because what we want to do together parents and all the rest of us around, what we want to do together is to shape a new generation, that unlike Phinehas and Hophni, unlike them we want to develop a generation that knows God and is willing to honor God.

Let's pray. Gracious God, we come before you right now, we come to this table that's before us and Lord as we look at the bread and the cup we are reminded how broken we are. We are reminded that as individuals and as families we fall so short of what you have created us to be. And so Lord as we look at this and as we receive these gifts with thankfulness we remember that you love us so much that in Jesus Christ you found a way to forgive us, found a way to remake us, found a way to set us in the right direction, found a way to invite us into your family, for us to be your children. And so Lord as we receive these gifts, we give you honor and praise, even as we pray to you the words that you taught us,

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

© 2005, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org