Their experiences shape the spiritual welfare of any new generation at home. We are grateful to see how the grace of God overcomes many terrible experiences. God is very kind. However, it matters what kinds of homes we grow up in. Children tend to do what they see, replicating communication patters and lifestyle patterns of their parents. Sometimes these are burdensome to the children. Our discussion today focuses on setting good habits before your children.

� Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture, and today we want to talk about a sufficient scripture for the patterns that we have in our lives. God has created an orderly universe, the sun rises, the sun sets, there are seasons and we live in an orderly, rhythmic, regulated universe and our lives follow that same pattern and so we're here to talk about good patterns for your family life and how important it is not just for you but for your children and your children's children. I'm so grateful for my own wife in the way that I see patterns working out like for example I usually get up in the morning earlier than she does and she comes down the stairs and I walk over to the stairs every morning and I give her a big hug but she always has the most cheerful voice way more cheerful than mine. It's amazing and if I call her on the phone and I just did this about two hours ago and I was just so stunned at how energetically embracing she was when she said hello to me.

She does it all the time. She sounds like the 20-year-old girl that I married. But that's a pattern. It's a pattern in Debra's life, and I'm so appreciative of it. And so, Jason, We're here to talk about patterns.

Right. Yeah, I hope you like your marriage because you're going to see a lot of it in the marriages of your children. I hope so. At least Debra's part of it, at least. Hey, I think that's the way it works.

Children grow up in your home, They observe a marriage for 20 years. And it's hard to break out of the things. It's not impossible, but most people do what they do what they saw in large part. So we should be conscious of this as we are establishing and reinforcing patterns in our home. Because we're probably going to see them again when our kids get married.

Yeah, God is looking and your children are looking for sure. But, hey, so you've talked about patterns of your parents. Yeah. We've talked about this a number of times but your parents had certain ways about them that were just consistent. Although they're in their 80s now.

Yeah. And my parents are the same way. Yeah. And I don't even understand how they've affected me really but I'm grateful I don't have bad baggage from them anyway. Exactly.

So tell us about your parents. Yes I didn't have perfect parents, nobody does, but I had great parents and my problems are my problems and a lot of the good things in my life came from my parents and me meaning I'm to blame for the things that aren't right but a lot of the things that aren't right are right because I observed it growing up vi a couple of examples. The worst fight ever saw my parents have? When I think it was something like 10 years old, my parents had had a bridge party. Bridge is a card game that's hardly ever played anymore, but they had their friends over.

They played bridge and there was a bad playmaid, something snarky was said that was not appreciated so this followed them to the breakfast table the next day and there was tension that my sister and I I only have one sibling my sister and I did not recognize tension at the breakfast table. That never happened, but it happened that morning because of what happened at Cards of the Night before. And honestly, because we had had it so good and not kind of seen tension or heard kind of sharp things said, nothing inappropriate, but sharp things were said. And we went off to school that day. And honestly, as a 10-year-old, I was � དགཕ཈དདཔགཔཆབནཌཕདཏདཔཕཔཕཔདཔཐདྷཎདྷདདདྷཾདཔཔདྷཆདྷཕདདྷདཐདྷཕཕཔཕཕཔདཔདྷཕདཕནདདདདྷདདྷདདཕདདྷདདྷདཕདདྷ � that the marriage was in jeopardy.

It was no such thing, you know, but it just kind of proves the point of how good I said it. So I came home from school, did homework, and at dinner, they had worked through whatever was to be worked through, and things were back to normal at dinner time hey Scott that's that's all I've got in terms of my memories of my parents fighting and that is so mild do you know what a gift that is to carry patterns like that that being the worst story that is a nothing story you know but it's the worst I've got And it means things for me in my marriage. Janet brought kind of similar memories into our marriage as well. And so we didn't have baggage that we had to fight against there. I'll give you a second example.

Giving, Janet came out of a giving family. They gave first, they gave cheerfully, they gave sacrificially and my mom and dad did the same so I don't I don't we probably had a discussion at some point but I don't ever remember a discussion about should we give cheerfully sacrificially regularly it would we just kind of rode that into our marriage a couples fight over fight about money but we never did because we received healthy patterns from the homes that we grew up in. You know, that's what a blessing that is. I cannot remember a single time my parents got in an argument. They must not have played bridge.

They must not have played bridge. I know that they disagreed, you know, about things, just normal things. They weren't massive issues, but I can't recall one single time or my dad yelled at my mom or my mom yelled at my dad now I don't think they were doing it privately the walls were thin and we were all in a little house you know growing up in California I I just don't have any framework for tension in a home. I don't even think we experienced a single day of it. Yeah.

Yeah. If you look at Deuteronomy 6, So this is really sort of the watershed passage. And it's walk along, talk along, discipleship, meaning that you're supposed to speak to your sons and daughters when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. That really covers the day from start to finish. You don't need to do that just to impart information.

You can do that in a classroom. Have them sit down, put the stuff on the chalkboards, test them until they can prove that they have competency in the materials. But that's not what Deuteronomy 6 is calling for. It's calling for you to talk and impart information verbally. But also to have the ability to talk to your students.

So, I think that's a very important thing. � and drive home the things that you've been saying or they can completely undo the things that you've been saying. If you play the part of a hypocrite as a father and a mother in the home, then your kids, they get the message loud and clear even though you've not said a word, and all the saying that you've been doing can be completely unraveled. It's interesting, you know, with Deuteronomy 6, it's a pattern of life that begins at the beginning of the day and ends at the end of the day. And it's all about communicating the law of God.

And what's the law of God all about? Love. Love, love. So, it's a whole life saturated by patterns of love, the truth that bears witness to love. And I can't think of a better pattern than to have your mind filled with the knowledge of God and then leading your children in it.

� in the same thing. So leading them in all the laws of love. What a fantastic pattern. Maybe that's why the psalmist says that the descendants of the righteous will be blessed. You actually do leave things behind.

Now, some children will not love the Lord, they will not turn to Christ, they will not have the power of sin broken, and they will go astray. But there are deposits that will stay with �'s word to constrain evil so that it may be in the unconverted state. It wouldn't be as great as it could have been. Yeah, I think this is a question that is very worth considering. If it's true that we're all inclined towards doing the things that we saw done, especially if it was you saw it done over the period of two decades which most people spend two decades in their parents home if you're inclined towards doing what you saw if if your children do that, will that be a blessing to them or will that be a curse for for Janet and I it was a tremendous blessing that we could do more or less what we saw and that was a blessing and not a curse and wow have we known friends who had a hard time not doing what they saw bad patterns that they saw and and fell into in some instances those bad patterns that they saw and and doing what they saw their parents do it was a curse to them what a grief to come to the end of your life and see your parents struggling with things that you actually handed off to them.

Yeah, parents just need to realize their life is not their own. And there'll be long-term implications of how they live and their family and the patterns that are there. There are the kinds of patterns that you were bringing up in Deuteronomy 6. You teach your children when you sit in the house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. And so there are patterns of life as well, you know, patterns of family worship.

You know, the Puritans believed that morning and evening, you know, based on the morning and evening sacrifices should be, you know, paralleled in the home. And we both know that everything wages war against that. If you want to open the Bible and pray with your family, there are ten things that are saying no, including your own spirit. So, there are lots of things that the devil would use to break up the patterns that are really a blessing to children. And there are other things, there're more physical patterns of life that I wanna say really support other godly patterns.

Like sleep patterns, consistent sleep patterns, consistent sleep patterns are a blessing to your work life, to your children, you know, patterns of getting up. How do you get up in the morning? How do you make yourself ready for the day? In our family, this is going to sound really bad. We didn't let our kids come down in their pajamas.

They had to come down being ready for the day. And that's, that's how they function. And because we had to live life in the day and eating patterns, consistent eating patterns, where you're all sitting around the table is a massive blessing people hardly do that anymore. But it's a it's a really significant it's a very, very powerful thing that you do for your children. Yeah, So when you think of inheritance, I immediately think of I die and my kids get money and property.

They're going to get an inheritance if you live a normal lifespan. Your kids are going to get an inheritance. They're getting it every day, actually. And they certainly will have received it long before you die and long before they get any money because as we lay down these patterns, they are receiving from us. �'s a good inheritance so they can say the things that I'm saying.

My mom and dad gave me good patterns and made it easy. They sent me into marriage, into life without baggage that I see so many other people carrying around with them still. Amen. Yeah, so it's so critical. One of the things that I was doing when my kids were growing up was to recite to them some of the Psalms that reflect the morning hours.

I wanted their morning hours to be sweet. Then the only way for that to happen is really to turn toward the Lord early in the morning. And I just want to read some of them. Psalm 5.3, my voice shout thou here in the morning, O Lord in the morning, will I direct my prayer unto you. Psalm 88 verse 13.

But to you I have cried out, O Lord, and in the morning my prayer comes before you. You know, David had this sense of the rhythm of life and the importance of the morning. In Psalm 57, 7, we actually wrote a song coming from this Psalm. I will sing and make music with all of my heart. I will awaken the dawn.

I will praise you. You know, I wanted that to be the pattern of their life beginning at the dawn of the day. And you know in Psalm 63 you have a similar one, Oh God you are my God early will I seek you my soul thirsts for you My flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land. And then Psalm 119 verse 147, I rise before the dawning of the morning and cry for help, I hope in your word. Well, that's a pattern of life.

You know, there's so many simple patterns that can be so helpful to us, just like the pattern of my wife when she walks down the stairway and she greets me like a million bucks. It's actually helpful to me every day. But that's her pattern, and I'm the beneficiary of it. It makes a difference. It changes things.

There are quite likely people who hear this and they they think back on their patterns, what their kids have been watching and their consciences are sort of bothered when they think back on missteps and things that aren't healthy. Here's the good news to them. We always remember most distinctly the events that happened most recently, meaning now's the time. To the extent that you can identify bad patterns that your kids have been watching. Go to work on them right now.

Root them out. They'll remember. If you replace those with good patterns, they'll remember most distinctly the things they saw last in your home. So now's the time. Yeah.

And maybe they'll say, I can't even remember the last time my parents yelled at each other. Yeah, exactly. Amen. Hey, blessed patterns for family life. So anything else Jason?

No, I don't think so. Just knowing what a blessing it's been to receive those from my parents, and how in some ways free and easy it's made relating to Janet in a healthy way in our marriage, because we saw our parents relate to each other in a healthy way. So we've received a gift, and stewardship comes with that. We really want to give that gift to our children as well. Yeah, amen.

Okay, so hey, we're here to say you can do this you can do this it's possible it actually is possible we have parents to prove it And hopefully you know we're continuing some of those good patterns that we learned. BUt it's not hopeless. In the power of the Holy Spirit. With the tools of repentance and cleaving to the Word of God It really is possible. It's possible to have wonderful patterns for your children and for your children's children.

So thank you for joining us. Thanks for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast.