I'm happy to be able to continue with you this evening and thinking about shepherding the hearts of our kids and in this session I want to accomplish two things. One is I want to lay out a model about the heart and the importance of the heart but I also want to talk to you about important training objectives for this middle period of our kids lives from ages 6 to 12. So we want to accomplish both of those things during this hour. I want you to imagine this situation with me, though. There are many things, once you teach your children to be people who are under authority, who honor and obey mom and dad, if you've accomplished that in the first five years, there are many things that come up as you're raising your kids that cannot be reduced to mere obedience. For example, one night I came home from work, and my children were playing together on the join one another's company. They were taking turns. They were playing a game. It was one of those golden moments for a father. You want to get a video clip of this because their kids were playing together nicely. A video clip of that is very important for those late night conversations when your wife says, all they ever do is fight. I can say, no, no, that's not true, honey. They played nicely together one time. I have this video clip. But as I went around the corner, there was something wrong with this picture. Because mother is in the kitchen preparing a meal. The potatoes need to be peeled. The table needs to be set. There's work that could be done. Now, for my children, this is the perfect world. We get to play and enjoy ourselves, mindless of the fact that mother is serving us in the kitchen. Now, they're not being disobedient. They're not being overtly disrespectful of her authority. they're exhibiting a crass self-centeredness that is a concern to me. And as our children begin to develop a self-consciousness about motivation, we want to feed that motivation with truth from God's Word so they develop a biblical self-consciousness about the things that push and pull behavior. And that really is the importance of the heart. A key passage of scripture about the importance of the heart is Proverbs 4, wellspring of life. We live out of our hearts. All the hopes, the dreams, the aspirations of the person reside within the heart, and from the heart they set the course of life. And that's what this passage is talking about. It's a very vivid word picture. The heart is like an artesian well, and if you trace the stream of life back to its source, it takes you to the heart. So it's a primary truth, really, in the Word of God, that all behavior is heart-driven. That if we're going to understand the things that people say and do, we've got to understand the heart, because the heart is the wellspring. And that truth is taught throughout the Scriptures. The heart is the initiator. And it's nearly impossible to overstate the importance of the heart, because the Bible talks about the heart from Genesis to Revelation. It's such an important theme in the Word of God. The primacy of the heart, the importance of the heart. Almost 700 passages in the Bible talk to us about the heart and the importance of the heart. I spent a summer a number of years ago studying every passage in the Bible that references the heart. and try to think through and categorize and catalog all the uses of the term heart in the scriptures. It is very eye-opening because it's a major theme in the Word of God. And if you take, for example, the classical definition of the person that we all have heard, mind, emotions, and will, all of those activities are driven by the heart. We think with our hearts. Remember, God flooded the world because the Lord God saw the thoughts of men's hearts We are only evil continually. We remember with our hearts. God says to Moses, remember these words of mine, fix them in your hearts and in your minds. We remember with our hearts. We know with our hearts. so the Lord disciplines you. We discern with our hearts. A discerning heart acquires knowledge. We store things in our hearts. A word have I hidden in my heart that I might not send against you. We see with our hearts. Paul prays in Ephesians chapter 1 that the eyes of your heart will be opened. The ability to make connections, to understand truth, To see the truth is an activity of the heart. We meditate with our hearts. Words of my mouth and meditation of my heart. Be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. We ponder with our hearts. Mary takes these things, she hears of Jesus and she ponders them in her heart. Emotions flow from the heart. We fear with our hearts. Remember Saul, before that final battle He goes to the witch of Endor. She conjures up Samuel. Samuel prophesies about his death and the death of his sons in the battle the next day. And when he sees the Philistine troops massing in battle formation, we read that he was afraid and terror filled his heart. We fear with our hearts. We grieve with our hearts. God says to Eli, the priest, you haven't restrained your sons. You've let them desecrate my sacrifices and abuse my people. All of your sons will be kept alive to fill your eyes with tears and your heart with grief and all your sons will die in their pride. We get filled up with pride in our heart. Hezekiah was lifted up with pride in his heart and God humbled the pride of his heart. We lost with our hearts the warning of Proverbs chapter 6, speaking of the wayward woman, is do not lust in your heart after her beauty. We rejoice with our hearts. Rejoice and make music in your heart to the Lord, Paul says in Ephesians 5. We love God and others with our hearts. And of course, the will is heart. Joel 2, rid your hearts and not your garments and return unto the Lord. We believe with our hearts. It's with the heart that man believes and is saved. Paul says in Romans chapter 10, we give with our hearts. Everyone should give what he's decided in his heart to give. Of course, we also know that the heart is deceitful beyond all things, desperately wicked. Your heart will lie to you. Your heart will tell you things are true that are not true. My heart has been telling me recently that I need a new car. And my wife keeps reminding me that my heart cannot be trusted. You see, our hearts will not tell us the truth. One of the worst pieces of advice you could give someone is to say, just follow your heart. Because your heart cannot be trusted. The heart is deceitful, Jeremiah 17, 9 reminds us. Well, there's so many passages of scripture we could talk about, about activities of the heart. And these, it's so important. get a hold of this truth because these activities of the heart are really the things that drive behavior. Behavior is pushed and pulled by what's going on within the heart. And there are great areas in which we can develop questions for our children. What was your heart lusting after? What was your heart loving? What was your heart hating? What was the fear of your heart? What were the desires of the heart in this situation or that? Great areas in which to ask questions. Great area of Bible study for our families. And I will suggest to you in a few minutes about how we can develop a heart notebook with our children and fill that notebook with truth from God's Word about the heart and deepen their perception and understanding of these motivational things that flow from the heart. It's a major truth throughout the Word of God, the importance of the heart. It's one of those truths that are woven throughout the fabric of scripture. I think of one of my favorites as being this passage in Deuteronomy chapter 10, where Moses asks this great question. He says, now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you? Isn't that a great question? What does God ask? What does God want? But that you fear the Lord, and walk in His ways, and love Him, and serve Him with all your heart. Look, this God wants wholehearted service, wholehearted devotion to Him. Remember when David is giving the kingdom to his son, and his son is following him, and he's giving the fatherly advice one would expect a father to give to a son who's going to be king. In 2 Chronicles 29, verse 9, you Solomon, my son, Acknowledge the God of your father and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. Remember we think with our hearts. God is a search of hearts even down to the motives for what we think. And of course you're familiar with the passage in 1 Samuel chapter 16, Samuel was sent to anoint a new king over Israel. So he goes to the house of Jesse. He knows he'll be one of the sons of Jesse. And he and Jesse and Jesse's sons go out to offer sacrifices. And in the course of things, the sons of Jesse are brought before Samuel the prophet. And he's waiting for word from God about which one should be anointed. The first young man that comes into his presence, You probably don't remember his name. It's Eliab. We don't remember him because he doesn't become the king. But when Samuel sees Eliab, he thinks, this must be the man. He's tall. He's handsome. He looks regal. He looks like the kind of person who can lead troops into battle. And Samuel thinks, this must be the man. Surely the Lord's in my defense before me. He says, do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. What is God concerned with? God is concerned with the heart. He's concerned with the deeper things. He's concerned not just with the external, observable, is concerned with what's going on inside. So many other passages we could look at. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lead to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He'll direct your path. Sometimes people would say to me at pastoral ministry, Pastor, I'm really having trouble trusting God in this situation. And I would say to them, then who are you trusting? What are you trusting? Because when we're having trouble trusting God, we haven't stopped trusting Well, a major theme throughout the Word of God is the importance of the heart. It's everywhere in the Scripture. And we can look at so many other passages. You know the passage in 2 Chronicles 16.9, the eyes of the Lord run throughout the whole earth to show himself strong to those whose hearts are fully devoted to him. Well, in the ministry of Christ, not surprisingly, the heart is a reoccurring theme. Think about Christ's ministry. Think of the Sermon on the Mount. The largest sermon we have of Christ's in the New Testament. The heart is one of the reoccurring themes in that sermon. It's there to be attitudes. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Later, Jesus talks about treasure. He says, whatever you treasure, it owns your heart. Where your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be. And remember how Jesus applies the law in the sermon. He says, you think of murder as killing someone. But I tell you, if you hate your brother in your heart, you're guilty of murder. If you say, Rick, are you a fool? You're guilty of murder. Do you see what Jesus has done with the law? It's brilliant and it's so insightful because he says the law is not just broken by external observable acts. The law is broken with the heart. So when I give my heart to that which God's law forbids, I've broken the law of God. It's the same point that is made in the 10th commandment, isn't it? I don't have to steal my neighbor's animal or his wife or his land. If I covet it, if I steal it in my heart, I've broken the law of God. This is what Jesus says, remember the sermon about adultery. He says, adultery is not a matter of throwing a kidney with a woman. You can commit adultery from across the room if you look at a woman to lust after her. You have committed adultery with her already. Where? In your heart. Do you see what Jesus is saying? Do you see what he's doing? with his application of the law. He's taking the application of the law outside the normal parameters of how we think of breaking God's law. We think of breaking God's law with words that are spoken or acts that are done that are contrary to God's commands. And that truly is breaking the law of God. But Jesus is taking it deeper than that, isn't he? He's saying it's not just a matter of murder. You don't have to shed any blood to be a murderer. If you hate your brother in your heart, lust after a woman, you're guilty of adultery. Do you see what he's done? He takes the application of the law inside. And he says, when I give my heart to that which God forbids, even if I don't act in any overt way, I've broken the law of God. And I'm guilty of violating the law of God. It's a penetrating analysis. And of course, it's not a surprise that since Christ understands the heart with such precision that the ministry of Christ is filled with the importance of the heart. If you think about the passage in Mark chapter 7, there's a parallel to it actually in Matthew 15. I'll read the Mark passage. And the story here is that the Pharisees have come to Jesus with accusations against Jesus' disciples. And they've said, your disciples have defiled themselves because they've eaten without going through a ceremonial washing, and therefore they're defiled for what they've eaten. And Jesus upbraids the Pharisees. I mean, he rebukes them in such forceful, flat-footed terms that the disciples are actually shocked by the forcefulness of Christ's rebuke. And you get a sense of that, particularly in the Matthew 15 passage. So after the Pharisees have gone and the dust has settled, The disciples come to Jesus, Peter says both of them, we're not told that in Mark, but we are in Matthew, and he asks, he says, Lord, connect the dots for us, help us to understand this teaching. And Jesus says to them on beginning Mark 7, 18, Are you so dull? He asked. Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from outside can make him unclean? For it doesn't go into his heart, but into his stomach. and then out of his body. So he's saying, you're not defiled by what you eat. That was the accusation of the Pharisees. Your disciples are defiled because they've eaten without a ceremonial washing. Therefore, what they have eaten has defiled them. Jesus says, no, you're not defiled by what you eat. What you eat passes through you. That's not how you're defiled. And he goes on and he says, it's what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. For from within, out of men's hearts, one word here for our purposes tonight, because we're talking about raising children. So we could say, with equal authority, it's what comes out of a child, because the word man is being used here generically to describe all of humanity, not just men, in distinction to women and children, but it includes men, women, boys, girls, children. So we could say it's what comes out of a child, that makes him unclean, for from within, Out of children's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. says and make a child unclean. It's these things from inside that defile. Now many of the things in that list are things you see in your children. Have you ever seen any envy? I said, well, why do you think you should have ice cream today? He said, you guys had ice cream last night when I was gone. I couldn't believe it. This kid came home. He checked the box of ice cream to see if any ice cream was missing. And he asserted his right to ice cream. Now, they never come home and say, hey, you had ice cream last night. Good for you. I'm so happy for you. I hope you ate it all. I hope you enjoyed it. That's wonderful. Good for you. I'm glad you had ice cream last night. But no, I get what you did. You had ice cream last night. We see that kind of envy in children, don't we? Or we see greediness in our children. When I was pastoring, I have six grandsons, when I was pastoring and I would be greeting people in the foyer of the church after my sermon and my grandsons always wanted to go to my office with me. Now they didn't want to go to my office with me to discuss my wonderful sermon and to pray over it. The reason they wanted to go to my office with me is because I had a large So I would take them into my office. And I can promise you, there was never a time when one of those little boys reached in and took one M&M. You know what they did. They buried their hand in the jar. They took as many as their little hands would hold. And they would shove them in their pockets and try to take more before I got the lid back on the jar. We see that kind of greediness in children, don't we? Or we see malice, malicious behavior. One of our grandsons wrote a narrative about himself. It was under the heading, How I Know I'm a Sinner. And I'm not sure what inspired him to write on this topic. Certainly, none of us had any doubts about whether or not he was a sinner. But it was, How I Know I'm a Sinner. And he described this circumstance in which his brother built a castle out of Lego building blocks. And he kicked it and knocked it down. And his brother told his mother what he had done. He lied to his mother. And she scolded his brother for not being more understanding of his clumsiness. And he got away with this lie. This was to hide Armisenner. Well, malice. We see malice in our kids. We see our kids doing malicious things like this. Doing bad things just for the joy of being bad. I mean, what good comes to him from destroying something his brother made and takes joy in? Except that ugly delight in being destructive. We see that kind of malice in the hearts of our children. Or lewdness. Now, not every child is lewd, but I'll bet there are people here who have a lewd child. I have children who pick up every double entendre and they can make something prudent out of a very innocent statement. I remember one time teaching a group of fourth graders and I had used with his friends about it. He had a lewdness in his mind that made something dirty out of something that was a very innocent and very fine word. Or we used to slander our kids. My kids used to come to me slandering their brothers and sisters. They would say, Dad, your brother's not being nice to me. I used to ask them, help me understand, why are you telling me this? Would you like for us to pray for your brother? We can do that. You wouldn't do that, would you? Or we see folly in children. You know that folly is bound up in the heart, that baby who's fighting you over a diaper change, who will not allow you to help him. Or deceit. Isn't it amazing how children can deceive you with words that are technically true words? I asked my eight-year-old son, did you remember to brush your teeth? He says, yes, I remember. Well, I looked at his toothbrush. The brush has not been wet for three days. I thought you said you brushed your teeth. He said, you didn't ask me if I brushed my teeth. You asked me if I remember. I didn't remember, but I didn't actually do it. Now, he understood the intent of your question. He knew what you were asking. He knew you weren't asking, was toothbrushing ever a passing thought over the course of the day? He knew you were asking, did you brush your teeth? parsed the words and he argued with you about the definition of the word. You didn't ask me if I brushed them, you asked me if I remembered. Yes, I remember that, you brushed them. Deceit. We see this in our kids. Sometimes we say to our spouse, you know, we're having those late night conversations about the children and we'll say with dismay, you know, where does he get this from? It must be from your side of the family. No one in my family ever acted like this. You know, I think he's just like your brother. Where does it come from? The passage tells us, doesn't it? All these evils come from inside and make a child unclean. In Luke chapter 6, Jesus teaches this through the use of an analogy, an analogy brought from plant life. He says in chapter 6 verse 43, no good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Now you understand that instinctively, don't you? I mean the final test of the tree is the quality of the fruit. If it's good fruit, it's a good tree. If it's bad fruit, it's a bad tree. You can tell what kind of tree it is by the fruit. So he says, people don't pick figs from thorn bushes or grapes from briars. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. A good man brings good things out of good, stored up in his heart. An evil man brings evil things out of evil, stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks. I want you to imagine this analogy with me. Imagine with me that I have in my yard here in Pennsylvania, in the United States, an apple tree. The tree blossoms beautifully in the springtime, but as it grows toward fall, it's obvious that the apples on this tree cannot be eaten. They're rotten inside. They're spotted and shriveled and blighted. And my wife comes to me every year. She says, Ted, can't you fix this tree? And like any man, I want to please her, so I try various things to fix the tree. I spray it with an insecticide. I prune the branches. I aerate the soil, loosen the soil around the base of the tree. I fertilize it. But no matter what I do, we still have these rotten apples. So one day I'm home on a Saturday, and I say to her, honey, don't worry. We're going to fix the apple tree today. So I go out to my tree. I take all the rotten apples off the tree, put them in the compost pile. I go to the store, and I buy three boxes of the most beautiful apples I can find. I take them up to my tree. And I get some string, and I hang these apples in the tree. So I decorate the tree with apples. So when I'm all done, the tree looks beautiful. I go in, and I find Margie. I say, honey, I have a surprise for you. You won't believe how beautiful this tree looks. And I lead her to the window that overlooks the tree. And I say, OK, look at the tree. Ta-da. It's beautiful. And she looks at it, and all these apples are hanging on the tree. They're juicy, succulent apples. They're shiny. And the branches are bowed over the weight of these apples. But she knows there's something wrong with this picture. So she goes out and examines the tree and she discovers all these apples are hanging by Monofilament Nylon. Now how would my wife respond to me if I did that? She would say, you're nutcase. I didn't want you to hang apples on the tree. I wanted a tree that bears apples. But think about our children, how great the temptation is to hang apples on the tree, to ignore his heart, and just try to secure through some means the behavior that we're looking for. So we say to our young son, tell your sister you're sorry. Sorry. Could you smile at your sister when you say it? Sorry. OK, you can go play. Now, I've just hung an apple on the tree, haven't I? There's not a sorry bone in this kid's whole body. I've hung an apple on the tree. There's so many ways we can do that. We can bribe our children. We can promise them prizes and rewards and incentives. You can bribe a little child with a sticker. If you're really good today, daddy's going to put a sticker on the refrigerator by your name. Now, you can't bribe a 10-year-old with a sticker. You're going to have to come up with something better than that. In fact, did you ever notice how there's incentive inflation? By the time they're teenagers, the things that would motivate them, you can't afford anymore. But you can bribe the children. We can shame them. Did you ever have those times you're trying to do something fun with the kids? I used to have this happen when I was pastoring. Very busy, trying to spend a little bit of a modicum of time with the kids. So I would plan this little outing we're going to have. I know in my mind I've got two hours to do this. Trying to get the kids corralled and ready to go and one of them can't find his shoes and they're grousing with each other and complaining we're not getting out the door and the time is going by and I find myself heaping shame on them. See this is why we never do anything fun. You guys are always complaining, you want to do things that are fun. This is why we never do anything that's fun. This is the way you kids act. Forget it, we're not going. Or I might heap guilt on my children. It makes me so sad when I see the way your kids fight over your toys. I have no joy in my life. What could I possibly be happy about when my kids are home fighting over their toys? Or I might bring Jesus into it. You know, Jesus can see right through the roof into the family room. But you think Jesus thinks of the way you fight over your toys. It's not a bad question if you ask it for the right reason. But you know lob Jesus at them this afternoon, maybe that will fix them. Or we might threaten our children. We might make emotional appeals. It just makes me so sad when I see the way you kids fight over your toys. Or it makes God so sad when he sees the way you fight over your toys. And all those things misfire. Because what's going to happen to these apples over time. They're going to rot. Why are they going to rot? They're going to rot because they're not connected to the life-giving juices of the tree. See, I can produce the behavior I want for the moment through some form of incentive or disincentive, but it doesn't produce lasting change because it doesn't deal with the heart. The heart is where lasting change takes place. behavior always begins with hard attitudes that are reflected in the behavior. And godly behavior begins with hard attitudes that are reflected in the behavior. So if you think of parallel columns, ungodly hard attitudes produce ungodly behavior. Godly hard attitudes produce godly behavior. And if you think about common behaviors, imagine your kids are fighting over the toys. I mean, it's a problem that everybody has in every family. the children fighting over the toys and not sharing their toys as they ought. And we can approach that from various ways. Maybe you do what we did when our children were young and they were fighting over the toys. We'd say, okay, who had it first? Now, where in the Bible does it say the person that had it first is absolved of any responsibility to share with others? I mean, the law of prior possession is not in the Bible, but we used to say that. Who had it first? And that approach to it really misses the mark because it views one child as a victim and the other as a perpetrator. But if we ask ourselves the question, what might the heart attitude be behind the fight over the toy? What's the abundance of the heart? At the very least, we would have to say, behind the fight over the toy, there's love of self. as that love of self is a hard attitude that is motivating the fight over the toy. And if my child is going to be willing to share the toy with his siblings, it is love for others that will motivate sharing the toy with your siblings. But my problem is when I have two children fight over the toy, is I don't have a victim and a perpetrator. I've got two selfish kids. Because one kid, in effect, is saying, I know that I've been playing with this for a long time. And I know you've been waiting to play with it. In fact, I was almost done playing with it. But now that I know that you want it, you have renewed my interest in this toy. And the other child is saying, in fact, I know you're playing with the toy. I know there are 100 other toys in the house I could play with. But the only toy in this house that I'm interested in is the one that you have. And I will do whatever I have to do to get it from you. You see, I've got two selfish kids here. If either one of them was loving others more than he loves himself, we would not be having the fight. We're having the fight because I have two children who are full of crass self-love. And our temptation as parents is to isolate the behavior, fighting over the toy, and see this problem as a problem of fighting over the toy rather than sharing the toy, and trying to get the behavior so many ways we can try to do that. We can use shame, guilt, bribery, threats, incentives, disincentives, all kinds of things we can do to manipulate the behavior to get the kids to share the toy. And they all miss the mark. But I was teaching this in the church that I served as a pastor, and a man came to me afterwards and he said, We had a problem in our house with our kids saying shut up to each other. And it bothered me that they were saying that all the time. And so I told them, you've got to stop saying that. And so from now on, whenever you say shut up to each other, I'm going to fine you a dollar. And he put a jar on the counter in the kitchen. And he told the kids, every time you say shut up, you've got to put a dollar in this jar. So I'm trained as a counselor, and I ask questions. And so I said, well, what happened? He said, you wouldn't believe it. Within two weeks, we have $100. I said, $100? That's a lot of money. He said, yeah, my wife and I were putting it in, too. I said, well, what happened after that? He said, well, a couple of weeks passed. No one was saying shut up anymore. I thought we had learned our lesson. So Friday I came along I wanted to do something fun with the kids and money's always tight but I remember that hundred dollars we went out for pizza I went to a movie we had ice cream after the movie we spent most of the money. So what happened after that? He said you wouldn't believe it within two weeks they were saying shut up again. I said you know what I wouldn't have believed you if you told me they weren't. You see when the kids stopped saying shut up did that represent heart change? It was a marketplace decision. If I say, shut up, it's going to cost me a dollar. I can say, drop dead, cost me nothing. So the kids just move from the expensive words to the free words. But the heart remains unchanged, because finding the kids a dollar for saying shut up didn't change what's going on inside. And of course, that's the problem we have. There are so many things we can do to manipulate the behavior of our kids. We were young in ministry. We used to go visit another couple who were also in ministry. And we were there one day on our day off. And the wife said, oh, I have this wonderful system that's really working for us. Let me tell you about it. We were all ears. Tell us. We're happy to learn anything. And she said, I came up with this idea. I took a shoebox. put an opening in the top, cover it with a tinfoil, told the kids, every time you kids do some random act of kindness, I'm going to write your name on a piece of paper, put it in a box. At the end of the week, we'll shake off the box, we'll draw a name out randomly. The person whose name is drawn gets a prize, something really worth having. Now you know how that works with children. When children realize the object is to give my name in the box as many times as possible with as little actual sharing as possible. And there's no sense in me sharing in the playroom when Mother's in the kitchen cooking. That's just wasted sharing. That's not even good stewardship of sharing. And so, you know, I wait till Mom's around to do my sharing because I want to get credit for it. I want my name in the box. So Mother's coming down the hallway. Here, would you like to play with my truck? Oh, honey, that's so sweet. I know how much you love that truck. That makes my heart so happy. I'm going to go write your name and put it in the box. say, how long? Mother comes back, I thought you were going to let your brother play with your truck. I did. He drove it across the room. I didn't say I was going to give it to him all day. You see, kids will work the system. Whatever you give them as an incentive, they will figure out how to gain the benefit of the incentive with as little actual sharing as possible. And there's another thing to think about when you think about behaviorism, when you think about manipulating the behavior of our children through some incentives or disincentives, what are we appealing to in the child? When I promise, if you're really good, I'll give you some kind of a monetary reward, what am I appealing to in the child? I'm appealing to his avarice, to his greed. I'm appealing to his crass self-centeredness. I'm appealing to things in the child that are wrong. I'm reinforcing in the child attitudes that are wrong. Things that ought to be repented of and turned away from. And that's what I'm appealing to when I manipulate behavior. And so I appeal to pride. Parents will say to the kids, you don't want to be a liar. You don't want to be like those kids, those liars. Now what's a parent appealing to? Pride. Prove that you're better. Don't be a liar. And you see, we can go on and on. And there's another problem too. You know, if my focus is on behavior, I will miss right behavior that is done for wrong motives. So you can have a child who does the appropriate thing externally out of wrong motives. by a craven desire to have your approval. And having mom and dad's approval is the idol of the heart for which I will sacrifice. So he does things that are externally appropriate. I used to always warn our teachers in our Christian school, you know, that the neediest kids in your classroom are not necessarily those kids that act out in wrong ways. Now they're needy, but they're needy in different ways. But you can have a child who always does his work on time, who does good work, who always follows classroom direction, and who looks disdainfully down on other kids because he's full of pride and self-righteousness and a desire to be approved by others. That child is in just as much trouble as the child who's acting out in wrong ways. It's just that missed by the adults in this world because externally he's doing the appropriate thing. And we'll miss right behavior for all motives if our focus is just on the behavior. But I want you to think about this. If I ignore the attitudes of heart, I ignore the level of self that's behind the fight over the toy, I manipulate the behavior through some kind of behaviorism to get the child to share the toy even though I've never addressed the hard attitude behind the fight over the toy to begin with. What do we call that kind of change? Is that Biblical change? Let me ask this question. Is it commendable to do the right thing for wrong motives? Is that not what Jesus condemns in the Pharisees? Jesus says to the Pharisees, you are like whitewashed tombs. which appear clean on the outside, but inside, you're full of dead men's bones and all kinds of filthiness. You're like cups, Jesus says, that are clean on the outside and dirty on the inside. You see, in those analogies, the external looks appropriate. The tomb is whitewashed. The cup is clean. But inside, it's full of dead men's bones. Inside, the cup is full of filthiness. And Jesus says these amazing things Between those two illustrations in Matthew 23, he says blind Pharisee first claimed the inside of the cup and then the outside of the cup. Profound words. What is the matter of first importance? What is the matter that we ought to be striving toward and working toward? What is the most important for the child? It's not the external behavior. It's what's going on inside. First clean the inside of the cup, and then the outside will be clean. You know, if we think about behaviorism, we can evaluate behaviorism in this way, that whenever I'm manipulating the behavior of my kids through some incentives or disincentives, the real need of my child is not being addressed. Because this real need is not a behavior need. his behavior reflects the real need, which is what's going on in his heart. So the real need is not being addressed. Because his real need is not just that he behaves badly. His real need is what's going on inside. The second problem with behaviorism is I'm offering to my children false basis for ethics. Because in behaviorism, what answers the question, what ought I to do? The answer is, what will give me what I want and avoid what I don't want? What's the answer to the ethical question in a biblical vision? What tells me what I ought to do? You see, there's a God in heaven who revealed truth to us about how we ought to live for our good and for his glory. So, in the biblical vision, the being and existence and revelation of God is the basis for ethics. not just a crass concern with what will get me what I want and avoid what I don't want. And of course, one of the problems with manipulating behavior through some form of behaviorism is I'm training the heart in wrong ways. I can manipulate my children with guilt and teach them to be people who respond out of a sense of guilt. I can manipulate them with shame and teach them to be shame-based people. I can manipulate them with pride and teach them to be people who are motivated others think of them, or I can manipulate them with the fear of man. And so they're always asking the question, what will people think of me if? But whatever I use to motivate behavior trains the heart, because the heart and behavior are so inexorably bound together, that whatever is used to motivate behavior trains the heart. core of my message. If I bring it in tangentially, I might try to because I'm a Christian and I want to somehow bring Christ into this story, but it won't be the core of my message. It won't be the heart of what I have to say to my child. It won't be the central theme of my message. The gospel will not be the core. It will be a tangential thing because the core of my training will be focused on getting the behaviors that I want. rather than helping our kids understand their hearts and how profoundly they need grace. Of course it also shows the idols of our hearts, because why is it so important to me to have them behave in right ways? Sometimes I would have to confess it's because I'm proud, I want to be respected, I want to be appreciated, I want to be admired by others. I'm trying to, I'm working for And I'll miss the important things because my focus is on behavior. And really, I'm just serving my own ideals, my pride, my sense of my desire for control, for ease, for respect, for the approval of my peers. So easy for us to do that. So easy for pastors to do that. So easy for laymen to do that. be motivated by really crass, self-centered ways. Now, I want to talk to you about attitudes of heart, and I want to give you a list of attitudes of heart, because when I say it's out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, that's kind of an abstract statement, but let me fill this in, and if you're taking notes, it'd be valuable for you to make notes of these things. I'm going to give you a contrasting list of motivations. that are ungodly attitudes of heart as opposed to godly attitudes of heart. For example, revenge. Do you ever see any revenge behavior at your house? Did you ever hear these words? He hit me first. That's a revenge statement. He deserved it. He had it coming. Serves him right. Those are all revenge statements rather than entrusting myself to God. When he was persecuted, he did not retaliate. Instead, he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. Or the fear of man, rather than the fear of the Lord. The fear of man will prove to be a snare. Jesus says, don't fear a man who can destroy your body but has nothing else he can do. Rather, fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So it's easy for us to be motivated by the fear of man. Or think of pride rather than humility. My six-year-old son is playing checkers with his sister, and the game gets to the point where she's going to beat him. She's going to win. And he decides, checkers is boring. I hate this game. Flips the checkerboard over and goes out of the room. What's going on with this kid? It's pride. It's bad enough to lose the checker game. To lose to your sister, that's a fate worse than death. Or our kids get caught up in love of self, rather than love for others. Greater love has no one than this, Jesus says, than man would lay down his life for his friends. Or self-preservation, rather than being willing to lay down his life. Or fear, rather than knowing the perfect love of God that drives out fear. The biblical opposite of fear is not bravery. It's being confirmed in the love of God. It's knowing God loves me. or we see covetousness in our children rather than generosity of spirit toward others or envy rather than a desire for the good of others. Cornelius Plantinga in his book on sin makes a distinction between covetousness and envy. He says covetousness is wanting what someone else has. Envy is even uglier than that. It's wanting to strip them of what they have even if you can't have it. or hatred rather than love. Sometimes even in our Christian families we hear those horrible words, I hate you. Words that are never to be said. Or we see anger in our children rather than peacemaking. Have you ever been trying to reconcile kids who have had a falling out and one of them is quite willing to be reconciled and the other one is sitting there and he's retaining his anger and he will not say he's sorry, he will not accept extend forgiveness. Or we see bitterness rather than forgiveness. Bitterness is what happens when I fail to forgive. I become embittered towards someone else. Or a desire to be approved rather than a desire for God's approval. People-pleasing rather than God-pleasing. Not in the sense that we earn God's approval, but in the sense that in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 we are ambitious to be well-pleasing to him. Or we see anxiety and fear. Paul talks about that in Philippians 4, doesn't he? Anxiety and fear rather than peace and contentment. Or we see in our children rebellion rather than submission. Now, all of these are just things that motivate behavior. And one column are the godly attitudes of heart, the other are the ungodly attitudes of heart. And one of the most important things we can do in these middle years of our children's lives, 6 to 12, is to help them to understand these hard attitudes that motivate behavior and be teaching these things to them. So I would suggest you develop a heart notebook with your children and you could go through the scriptures. Just use your concordance on your computer or a strong concordance and you can look up revenge, vengeance, look up every passage you can find that talks about revenge. Get your kids a heart notebook. God's Word. Look at every passage, you can find a revenge. So have them write the passages out in their heart. Romans 12, do not take revenge my friends, leave it for God's wrath. For it is written, mine to avenge I will repay, says the Lord. Look at the passage, discuss it with the kids, talk about it. Now you do this in non-confrontational times. So you're not doing this when they're being scolded for taking revenge. Those are not the best times to teach these things. But in non-confrontational times, no one is in trouble. Family is just studying God's Word together and you can get them to talk to you about it. What does revenge look like in an 8 year old? They'll be able to tell you. So talk about revenge. What does revenge look like? How do children show revenge? Can you think of examples in the Bible of revenge? Or can you think of examples in Christian biographies of revenge? Or think of examples of entrusting oneself to God. Jesus is a primary example. Or think of David. He goes into the cave. He has the opportunity to take Saul's life. Saul's been trying to kill him. But he doesn't take his life because he's not going to touch the Lord's anointed. He's entrusting himself to God and to God bringing him to the throne at the appropriate time. But look up these passages of Scripture. Look up every passage you can find on revenge and vengeance. Write the passages out. My suggestion is do one a night in family worship. Just do one. Five minutes, ten minutes. You don't want to go on with this for hours and hours. Otherwise, next time you suggest the Heart Notebook, the kids will say, oh no, not the Heart Notebook. I'll be good. Please don't make me do the Heart Notebook. You don't want to go on an hour and a half with it. Ten minutes. Write a passage out. Discuss the passage. Put the book away. Get it out another night. Look up another passage. Discuss the passage. Put it away. And do the same with entrusting yourself to God. Or the same with the fear of man. Look up passages on the fear of man. Discuss the fear of man. When have they experienced the fear of man? When have they seen the fear of man motivate people? How does the fear of God set us free from the fear of man? These are biblical terms that describe motivation. And if you go through them with your kids over time, you could fill that notebook with truth from God's word about human motivation. And you're giving your children insight into the motives that rule in them. And you do it in non-confrontational times. So you're not scolding them. They're not in trouble. But you're just going through this with them and trying to help them to understand these things thoroughly and well. And the goal is to develop a self-consciousness about the heart to which I can appeal in times of correction and discipline. And you know, so it's and powerful when you do this. Margie had the experience, a young girl came to her at the beginning of the school year and she said, Mrs. Tripp, 14 year old girl, she said, Mrs. Tripp, I'm having trouble getting along with the other girls in school. And so Margie agreed to talk with her. She said, I need counsel, I need help. But as the girl was talking about it, she said, I'm having trouble getting along with the other girls. Now that's not real shocking. Fourteen-year-old girls, that's pretty common. Girls can be very catty at that age, and it's not unusual for them to have trouble getting along. But what followed was incredibly unusual. She said, I know part of the problem is I'm proud and judgmental and self-righteous, and I think I'm off putting together girls. That kind of insight in a 14-year-old girl? Where does that come from? See, she's in the home where they talk about attitudes of heart. She's in a church where the pastors are not preaching moralistic sermons about how to be externally appropriate, but they're dealing with the heart attitudes that motivate externally appropriate behavior. She's in a school where those things are the foundation for discipline and correction and motivation in the school. And so in all the important arenas of her life, she's being confronted with the importance of the heart. And that's why she has insight into her pride and her self-righteousness and her judgmentalism. And you see, the more we talk about those things, the more we help our kids to see how profoundly they need grace. You see, the danger we have, often, as parents, is we can hypocritically distance ourselves from our children. We can say to our eight-year-old, I can't believe you're so selfish. Your little brother's going to take a nap. Five minutes, he's only two years old. Would it kill you if he played with your truck for five minutes? I can't believe you're so selfish. You uncircumcised Philistine. How did you ever get into this Christian family? I can't believe a child of mine would be so selfish. And I would submit to you, that's hypocrisy. Is there any adult here tonight who does not know how selfishness works in the human heart? Sometimes at night, I'll say to Margie, we're sitting around talking together and thinking over our day. reading and I'll say, would you like a cup of ice cream? Just get a cup because we're always counting calories. So I go to the kitchen, dish up these two scoops of ice, cups of ice cream, head back to where she is and say with my ice cream and I'm feeling very good about myself at this moment because I went to get the ice cream. I'm such a servant. So I'm carrying this ice cream thinking of trying Most men would have said, hey, why don't you get us some ice cream? But I went to get the ice cream. And while I'm congratulating myself, this act of self-sacrifice, I also am weighing these cups. And I'm trying to remember, which is the better cup of ice cream? Which was the one where I firmly compacted the ice cream in the cup? And which was the one that's full of air? Now, think about this. My dear wife has been washing my dirty socks for all these years, and I'm willing to cheat her out of a couple spoons of ice cream. And yet I'll say to this child, I can't believe you're so selfish. Do you see the hypocrisy of that? See if I, if I miss the heart, if I just focus on behavior, I'm always going to be hypocritically distancing myself from my kids. I'm going to say, I can't believe you did that. I can't believe you said that. I'm so ashamed of you. And I'm missing, I'll be missing the heart. But if I deal with the heart, it changes the story altogether because we have with the things we say and do toward one another are attitudes of heart. And because I'm compulsively self-serving, things I do that are wrong are tied to things that are wrong within. And they show how profoundly I need grace. They show how profoundly I need God. I need God to forgive me. I need God to transform me. I need God to change me. And the reason Christ came is so that he could live in this world without sin, so that we might have righteousness. And he could die as a sacrifice for our sins, so that we might have justification and freedom from the penalty and guilt of our sins. And if I deal with the heart, then I could stand in solidarity with my kid. I could say, you know, I understand the problem you have with selfishness. I could write a book on selfishness. And there's hope for people like you and Daddy. Because we have a Savior who came into our world in order to live without sin, to die as a sacrifice for our sins, and through Him we can have forgiveness and new life and change of heart. He will take out our heart of stone. He'll give us a heart of flesh. Who put His Spirit in us to cause us to walk in His ways and remember His commandments. There's hope for us because Jesus has come into our world. And He's come as a Savior to redeem us. We're not stuck in our sin. I'm not stuck with attitudes of heart from which I can never be delivered. But there's grace for me so I can know God and be set free from my heart attitudes that are wrong. I want to give you some questions to think about these last couple of minutes I have with you. I want you to think about, can you identify ways that your focus tends to be on behavior rather than the overflow of the heart? What are the ways you need to think about that and change your program with your kids? What are the ways in which behaviorism appeals to things in our children that are wrong? How does behaviorism hook things that are wrong in our kids? Third question, how do we tend to focus on cleaning the outside of the cup rather than the inside of the cup? Another question, why does focusing on behavior and exclusion to the heart create a temptation me having a focus on behavior and responding to my children hypocritically. Another question, why is it always easier to get to the gospel when I deal with the heart? See, if my focus is on behavior, I'll never get to the gospel. But how is it that focus on the heart opens the way for the gospel? And last question, how does standing in solidarity with our children, with their struggles, because there's no way your children sin that you know nothing about. You sin with the same kind of pride, the same temptations to lie, the same temptations to gloat when your enemy fails, the same temptations to pride and selfishness. How does standing in solidarity with them make it easier for us to bring them into the hope of the gospel. See, that's where we want to go with our kids. These middle years, we want them to develop a self-consciousness about the heart and understanding those things that motivate behavior so they can see how profoundly they need God and God's grace. May God help us to do that. Let me pray with you. Father, we know that these themes of the heart are some of the most deep and thorough things that are laid out for us in the scriptures. We pray that you would make us people who, like the Puritans, are physicians of the heart. That we would know how to get beyond just simply requiring behaviors of our kids and how to shepherd their hearts. Give us grace, Lord, we need you, we need your help with this. Pray that you'd help us to do the self-examination necessary, but also that you would help us to to know you and to know your grace and strength to bring these truths to our kids. We ask this for Christ's great glory.