In his sermon 'Leading Families to Christ,' Peter Allison discusses the importance of training children in accordance with their unique ways, as advised in Proverbs 22. He emphasizes that training should be customized to each child's individuality and that it involves more than mere teaching; it develops the ability to act upon knowledge. Allison differentiates between teaching, which imparts knowledge, and training, which develops practical skills. He stresses that both are interconnected, akin to two sides of the same coin. The ultimate goal of training, as per the sermon, is to instill in children the ability to listen to and obey the voice of God, which starts with them learning to obey their parents. Key elements of effective training include incremental instruction, balance with life experiences, discipline, and testing, as well as opportunities for practical work. Allison also outlines biblical traits such as gratitude, humility, patience, and courage that should be nurtured in children. The sermon concludes with a call for divine assistance in the training process, emphasizing lifelong learning and the aspiration for children to become Christ-like.

Proverbs 22, I would like to read beginning at verse 6 through 16. These two interlocking chiasms. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is a servant to the lender. He who sows iniquity will reap sorrow and the rod of his anger will fail.

He who has a generous eye will be blessed, for he gives of his bread to the poor. Cast out the scoffer and contention will leave, yes strife and reproach will cease. He who loves purity of heart and has grace on his lips, the King will be his friend. The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge, but he overthrows the words of faithfulness. The lazy man says, ìThere is a lion outside, I shall be slain in the streets.

The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit. He who is abhorred by the Lord will fall there. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of correction will drive it far from him. He who oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he who gives to the rich, will surely come to poverty.

May these statutes and his words be our songs in our pilgrimage. Almighty Heavenly Father, I ask now that you would sanctify these sinful lips. I ask that you would open our hearts to enable us to receive with meekness your Word. Pray that you would bring your word to us in the power of your Holy Spirit, and not in mere wisdom of human oration. I ask all this in Jesus' name.

Well, we spent all last week looking at the meaning, the interpretation of and the application of how we ought to view this, verse 6, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. If you were here you will maybe remember the excruciating detail that we went through every part of this verse, every phrase in it, because of the great controversy and differences of view on how this verse ought to be translated and what sense it ought to be understood. Understood. And so the point of departure this morning is to come back to this because in all of our discussion last week, we never really talked about what it is to train up a child. What is involved in that?

How do we do it? This is a command. What are we being commanded to do? We saw last week that the command here is to train up a child according to his way. According to his way, according to his way.

That this training needed to be tailored to that individual child, because everybody is different. Because everybody is different. People think differently. Sometimes very differently. And none of these things are necessarily right or wrong, better or worse, they are just different.

Different people weigh different criteria more or less heavily in making decisions. Some people weigh personal criteria more heavily, others weigh impersonal criteria more heavily. Different people focus on different aspects of learning. Some focus on what is readily observable, what we might say the sense world, observable and concrete. Others focus on what is not observable, what is behind the curtain, around the corner, what is not readily seen.

Some people live very much in the present, and they are able to sense in the present. Other people live with contemplation, and they are less present, you might say. These all lead to very different attributes and ways of thinking and ways of learning. People favor different senses, some favor listening, some favor seeing, some favor touching, or some combination thereof. And so these all result in very, very different perspectives on things, very different ways of looking at things and learning things.

And this is all true of our children. They're all different people. As anyone who has half an eye open will notice, they're different. And so this verse is saying that if we are to train our children in such a way that is adapted to their way, it is adapted to their uniqueness. It is also a recognition of that, remember the Sicaeas in verse 15 is the other one, that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.

And so his way is always spoken of as a way of foolishness unless they are trained. And so we have to take, this tailoring has to take into account their way of foolishness. Now that doesn't mean that we have different standards for our children, but rather that in our training of them we are aware and seeking to study and understand these differences and how they should influence and affect and alter the methods and the techniques in our training. Now this is a command to train. And there's a difference between training and teaching.

Teaching is seeking to impart information, to give knowledge, while training is intended to develop the ability to do something. And I would say this, that training without teaching is dangerous and teaching without training is useless Imagine you have been trained to fly an airplane But you have not been taught anything about the principles of flight. You haven't been instructed about what is happening and how the plane is able to lift its way off the ground and what the forces of the physics are as you move the controls on the plane. You're ignorant of all of this. You've just been taught.

You've been given this ability to move some things, some levers, and push some buttons. And you can do that because you've been trained. And so you can take the plane off. Maybe you can land the plane, but you don't know what you're doing. Well, I think you can see that's a recipe for disaster.

Because things go wrong. Things happen that you can't possibly have been trained for, prepared for. But if you understand the principles, if you've been taught the principles by which the plane operates, then you can begin to figure out what it is that you need to do and how you ought to apply your skills and how you ought to modify what you're doing and what you've been trained to do to handle this particular situation. On the other hand, if you study everything there is to know about flying, and you know the physics, and you know the aerodynamics, and you know all the procedures, but you have never actually practiced flying a plane, who would want to fly with you? Who would want to learn from you?

You don't know how to fly. You've not been trained in flying. We recently saw the movie about Kermit Gosnell, the butcher of Philadelphia. He trained teenagers of Philadelphia. He trained teenagers to administer anesthesia and prescription medication to the mothers who came to have their babies killed.

But they didn't have teaching. They were not doctors. They never studied medicine. So he would train them by giving them a piece of paper with circles of different colors drawn on them to represent the different colors of the medication they were supposed to give. So you have people with no knowledge and just some minimal training in ministering medicine.

That is another recipe for disaster. It's dangerous to have this training with no knowledge. And it resulted in deaths of mothers, many problems, complications, and so on. Because these people had training but no knowledge. This passage here, this verse is speaking specifically about training.

But in the biblical way of understanding training, these things are more closely connected than the taxonomists of education may tell us today. Taxonomy is the classification of things into groups. It's sort of the fundamental science. And People study education the same way. They group everything into areas and goals and objectives for the cognitive domain and objectives for all these other domains.

They have divided teaching and training. There is a sense in which, as we've seen, that they can be different. But in the Bible's view of things, these two things are inextricably connected. You can't disconnect them. They go together.

We can consider them as different aspects, but they are like two sides of the same coin. You cannot separate them. You can't take a coin and separate the two sides. You always have two sides of the coin as long as you have a coin. And yet you can distinguish them.

You can distinguish them. They have different aspects to them. And so this morning we are focusing primarily on training. What is this imperative? Train a child according to the dictates of His way.

What does that mean? And we looked last week at the promise. It's attached to that. When he is old, he won't depart from it. Well, fundamentally, what is the goal of our training?

I would submit that the most fundamental summary or statement of the goal of training would be this. It is to teach our children to listen to the voice of God and obey. To listen to the voice of God and obey. That's not a matter of education, it's a matter of practice. It's a matter of flying the airplane to listen to the voice of God and obey.

Now, John said that if we can't love our brother whom we can see in front of us, then we can't love God whom we can't see. And so if we're going to say that we love God, we have to learn to love our brother. That it's easier to love our brother who we can see than it is to love somebody you can't see. And the same is true of obedience. And so as parents, we now have to teach our children to obey us.

Because as my father always said, you can't obey God, whom you can't see, if you can't obey your earthly father and mother, that you can see. I think that if there is one thing that you walk away with this morning, so what it is to train your children as this verse is commanding, it is to train them, to impart to them the ability to listen to the voice of God and obey. And to do that, they need to be able to listen to your voice and obey. It's a very simple thing, and yet it is incredibly difficult if you have anybody who has been a parent and thought about this. I can't tell you how many times I have said something and then walked away and forgot that I said it, or forgot to see that it was done, or forgot to see that they were listening and obeying.

But you know, You can check your training. If you, in a normal voice, give a request, a direction, a comment, and you focus it specifically to a person, to one of your children, You address them by name, and you tell them something, you give them a request, and then you move on. What do they do? What do they do with that? Do they do exactly what you've said, when you said it, how you said it, as you asked?

Or do they ignore it? Do you find yourself having to repeat what you just said? Do You find yourself having to maybe say it more loudly, or with more sternness, or maybe saying it a third time, Or maybe changing it, relaxing it a little bit. Maybe you back down that request and you only request three quarters of what you requested before. You see what's happening here?

This is where the rubber meets the road in training our children to listen to the voice of God and obey. It's a very simple test that we can evaluate ourselves as parents. Do our children listen to our voice and obey it without us having to repeat it, or say it louder, or say it more sternly, or back down, in effect negotiate with them? The goal of training our children in the way in which they should go is that they are able to listen to the voice of God and obey it. To do that they have to be able to listen to our voice and obey it.

Now God is gracious and our children are, all of them, far better than what we deserve. But this is something that will be of an estimable value to them. To be able to simply listen to God's Word and do what God's Word says without arguing with God, without debating the Word of God. And it starts with us. You know, this is really, we are all children.

John calls us little children even. Little children, my little children. Love one another. And he was writing to a broader group of people of all ages. So we are all in this training and in this need to be able to listen to the voice of God and obey.

Now Proverbs, to flesh out this goal, gives in the very first couple of verses, and it's been a while since we've looked at the first chapter of Proverbs, but it really gives an overall summary of the goal of this training. It's really the goal, the purpose of the book of Proverbs. And so the first goal then, or the building on this foundation, this underlying foundation of all that we are seeking to do, is, as Proverbs 1 says in the very first verse, or second verse, The purpose of Proverbs is to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity, and to give prudence to the simple. Those four things are listed right there at the beginning of Proverbs. That's why Solomon was writing this book, to know wisdom and instruction.

We've seen all these words before, but a review might be helpful for us. It's been a while. That wisdom is chokmah. It's the ability to rightly apply knowledge. To rightly apply knowledge.

It's not just knowing something, it's being able to rightly apply that knowledge. As I, if You may remember the little phrase that I gave you when we were back there. A Christian is a lion and a lamb. The Bible says that we are both of these. It says that We are a reed and a cedar.

Wisdom is knowing when to be what, when to be the lion and when to be the lamb, in what sense. See, it's to be able to rightly apply knowledge. An instruction is that word, Musar. It's more than just hearing a lecture. Musar encompasses learning submission to authority, learning to receive correction.

Musar involves acquiring self-discipline, such that we are able to govern ourselves by the Word of God without needing the two-by-four. Mussar is that chastening of the Lord that the Lord gives us. It's the shaping of character to produce spiritual maturity and wisdom. Mussar is getting up because it's morning. It's saving playtime for when the work is done.

It's the ability to, as Paul says, to buffet our body, to bring it into subjection to the Word of God. That's that training. That instruction in righteousness, Musar. And so our training then is to, is for a goal of bringing both wisdom, the ability to rightly apply knowledge, and this discipline. This ability to do.

Secondly, Solomon said, it was to perceive the words of understanding. The words to perceive and understanding are the same word, one is a verb, one is a noun. That means simply to have discernment, discretion, or simply to understand, to be able to distinguish between two similar items. When God was calling Samuel, Samuel ran into Eli, remember in the middle of the night, God called Samuel, Samuel, and little Samuel, little boy ran to Eli and said, here I am, and Eli said, I didn't call you, go back and lie down. That happened a couple of times and then Eli understood.

He discerned what was going on. And he said to Samuel, well the next, it's the Lord probably, the next time you hear that voice, Samuel, Samuel, Say, speak Lord for your servant is listening. See, Eli demonstrated here this perception, this discernment. David was fasting for the child that God said he would take. And then he saw all the servants whispering among themselves.

And he discerned what that meant. That meant that the child had died and they were just afraid to come tell him the child had died. That is this perception, this discretion. It is the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. And this is something that Hebrews says comes with practice.

It doesn't come just by a theoretical study. It comes by practice. We have to train our senses. Training involves the doing of it. We have to train our senses to be able to discern right and wrong, to have this perception.

The third purpose is to receive instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity. That instruction is that misar again, the same word. Receive that instruction of wisdom. But the word wisdom here is a little different word than we had earlier. It's not the hokmah, it's the sakal.

And this is the ability to grasp the implications or the meaning of a situation or a message. It's to understand practical matters and interpersonal relations, and to make beneficial decisions out of that. You could say it's the ability to grasp complicated things, involved things, complex issues. Justice right from wrong. Judgment is that sentence.

Guilt or innocence. Equity is about what is fair. And fourthly, it is to give prudence to the simple. Solomon wrote this proverb, to give prudence to the simple. Training a child according to the dictates of his way, according to how his way dictates, means giving prudence to the simple.

One of the characteristics of very young children is that they are simple. They tend to be naive. In prudence, the Hebrew word that we looked at earlier, is Ormah. It can mean being cunning in a bad way, but it can also mean being shrewd, being wily and clever in a good way. One person defined it as the ability to devise and implement adroit and wily tactics in the attaining of one's goals.

Now if those goals are good and honorable and righteous goals and the adroit and wiley tactics are righteous tactics then this is certainly a skill we ought to have. And in Proverbs, it is in many places, wisdom is said, lady wisdom is said to dwell with Orma. In other words, David was a mighty warrior because he had Orma. He had the ability to plan adroitly and scheme to achieve his purposes. So one of our goals in training is to give prudence or Orma to the simple, to the naive.

Our children are certainly naive and That's good. We want them to be naive initially because it enables us to teach them. They are willing to listen to everything that we say, and they believe it. That is until they find out that you are pulling their leg. This is one of the problems with these ideas of Santa Claus and so on.

Because you are pulling a child's leg and when they learn years later that you were just making something up, they immediately then begin to question, well, what else is made up? What else is just made up for fun and games? So we need to guard very carefully the innocence of our children and the trust that they have in what we say. But, one of the goals of training is to give shrewdness, to give a good orma. This is prudence here, this orma is the ability to know when to be quiet.

A fool's wrath is presently known, but a prudent man covers shame. When to be quiet is a prudent man conceals knowledge, but the heart of the fools proclaim foolishness. So what do we talk about? We don't have to talk about everything that happens. There's a prudence that knows what we should talk about and what we shouldn't.

Navy used to have a saying that said, loose lips sink ships. People could say the most innocent of things in seemingly innocent circumstances, and yet it comes back. That little bit of knowledge gets put with another little bit of knowledge, and gets put with something else, and all of a sudden, somebody figures out some very, very significant piece of information. So prudence knows what to conceal and what not. Prudence discerns truth in others.

To the simple, believe every word. But the prudent man looks well to his going. Doesn't necessarily believe every word he hears. He's able to discern what's true and what's not. This orma, this ability to plan adroitly, includes the foresight and ability to hide or evade evil.

A prudent man foresees the evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished. And are punished. To do all these things requires training. It requires putting our children in circumstances where they have to be able to think for themselves. It requires putting them in circumstances where the risk of failure is real, and where the consequences of failure are real.

Where they have responsibility, Because it's in these circumstances, it's in this kind of training, it's in this kind of work, and this work is really where this kind of thing happens. Doesn't happen in play, because the consequence, if you lose a board game, if you lose some game, there are no real consequences to that, other than some bragging rights. But if you're working and you're not careful, There are real consequences to that. And so one of the most effective means of teaching these things is through work, because it puts our children in these circumstances where the consequences are real, and they have the opportunity to figure these things out. It gives them a challenge, and when people are challenged, They will often rise to that challenge and work provides that challenge it provides a challenge to their knowledge It provides a challenge to what they they think they know how to do They They do it and it flops and they realize, I guess I didn't know that.

Like I thought I did. Now you could have told them so they were blue in the face, or you were blue in the face, that they didn't know how to do that. But when they do it themselves and it doesn't work, then you don't have to say anything. You see, you've taught them, you've trained them. And so work is a really wonderful tool.

You cannot, I would say, I would submit, it's very difficult, very, very difficult, to train our children as this verse commands, without work being a big part of that. Because work has the ability to challenge us. This world that God made is incredibly complicated. It's complex. We don't understand it all.

And when we put our children into that world with the teaching of the Word of God, and give them the ability to experience it and live in it, then they begin to see and learn these principles, as they have to make whatever work. And so teaching ought to never get ahead of our children's work. We need to be looking continually to what we can do to challenge them, to give them projects of greater scope, greater consequence. That can be scary, right? Because it's not very soon when the consequences can get really real.

They might hurt themselves. They might cut a finger. They might chop a hand off. Something can fall and hurt them. And so these are real.

But we cannot, for fear of hurting our children or their safety, keep them from ever having these experiences with the world of God, in the light of the word that God made, that gives them the opportunity to acquire wisdom. Chokhmah, Musar, Zikal, Ormah. Basically, the basic principle is our children, when they are little, watch us. As they get a little bit older, they help us. As they get a little bit older they help us.

As they get a little bit older we help them and then we can watch them. And that's a wonderful thing, you watch your children work. And you see the skills that they've learned. But that's the principle. Now it says there in Proverbs 1 that a wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will obtain wise counsel." In other words, this whole concept of training has just been lifted right out of our little children.

You are all thinking this is a sermon about our little children or our bigger children. But really this is saying a wise man, wise men and women will hear and increase learning. What that's saying is that no matter what age you are here this morning, we are to be training ourselves. Yes, when we were young we had our parents to train us. And they understood the path ahead of us, And they hopefully made it easier for us, pointed us in the right direction, encouraged us along, gave us a boost, helped us out, held us accountable when we were not diligent.

But now it says a wise man will hear and increase learning. Now it's up to us. If you're beyond that, even if you're beyond, your children are grown, your grandchildren are grown, A wise man will hear and increase learning. A man of understanding will attain wise counsels. This is a lifelong process, being trained in instruction in righteousness.

No matter what age, this is something that we ought to be working on. But then there's one more goal. So that goal is we're training our children to a lifetime of learning, a lifetime of being trained in instruction and righteousness. We're giving them the skills so that they will be able to continue to train themselves Once they leave our home and set up their own homes and have their own children, they will continue to train themselves. But the next goal is then to give to our children, this training is to give them the ability to teach, able to teach others.

Paul told Titus that the older women were to teach the younger women. Older children should be able to teach younger children. There's no better way to learn something than to teach something. I still remember the very first physics class in college, the very first day the professor was talking about, he'd been teaching for years, but he said, you know, I went through school, I loved physics, I went through college, I enjoyed physics, I went through graduate school, I did well, I got a PhD in physics, I started teaching physics, He's been doing all physics for a decade now or so. But it really wasn't until I had taught a year or two that I really understood physics.

So teaching, God gives children to young people and commands the young people to teach them because Teaching other people is the best way to learn something. And God knows that we need to learn. So He gives us children to teach so that we will learn. But this again doesn't stop just when our children are grown. We are learning and we, as we learn, should be able and willing to teach others.

The best teachers instruct others how to pass on the truth that they've been taught. So those are the goals of teaching. What are some of the elements, the tools that we need to be able to train our children according to the dictates of their way. Well the one that's obvious that probably doesn't need to be said but we need to be reminded of it is that in order to train somebody the trainer has to be trained himself or herself. We have to be, the trainer has to be all the things that they are trying to train in others.

We can't teach, train our children in self-discipline and discernment if we don't have those things. It takes discernment to perceive what students are receiving. It takes a passion to stir up a passion in those who are students under us. And we're really best able to teach that which we are learning. When you learn something, that's what you want to teach.

That's what has your interest and excitement. You've read a great book, now you want to talk about it, the things you've learned. And so as parents, as those who are called to teach and to train, we are going to be much better teachers if we ourselves are constantly learning and training ourselves. Second essential element of instruction is incremental instruction. We can't just wake up and realize, oh we haven't done anything for so long, let's get busy and do it, and expect to catch up what has been neglected over days or weeks or months.

Training is ongoing, little by little, line upon line, precept upon precept. It's not something that can be squeezed into a short time frame. It's not something that can be done in big steps. It's like paint, it has to go on one thin layer at a time. It's best done a little at a time.

It doesn't have to be big. You don't need that big talk, that big lesson. What you need is daily little lessons, almost imperceptible lessons. So they may not even realize that they are learning. Isaiah 28, 10, for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.

Those repetitions are in the text. Here a little, there a little. A little bit. That's all you need. The training and the teaching and the instruction have to be balanced so they go forth together.

You can't separate this kind of training from life. That's why example is the most important element in training. By example, I'm not excluding words. What we say in everyday situations, what we say about everyday situations, is a big part of our example. One of the worst things you can do is to do something that fits and starts.

To start something, do it for a week, and then it falls by the wayside and nothing happens. It's better to have little plans. Little plans. And do it faithfully every day. Than to have great big plans that you don't do every day.

That you are very infrequently do. It's better to do a little bit, and do it regularly. Now there also, the other element, Another element in this instruction, this training, there has to be the ability to say no. There has to be the ability to say no. There has to be discipline.

That can be hard. For some people it's easier than others. But that is an essential element of discipline, of training our children according to the dictates of their way. Of course, for there to be discipline, there has to be self-discipline. And this is where verse 15 comes in.

This is the other part of the chiasm. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him. God knows that we need chastening. God says that everyone He loves He chastens and scourges because we need it. And our children when they are young need this as well.

It's when rightly used to break up a hard heart, it is very effective. It prepares them to receive instruction and training. So it must be something that we have to be able to say no. We have to be able to say no when we want to Yes, because that is what discipline requires. In many of the cases where children have grown up and fallen away from the Lord, The examples we have in Scripture of David, of Samuel, of Eli.

In each case the Bible says that they as fathers failed to confront and tell their children no. Failed to hold them accountable. Failed to ask them why are you doing this. Failed to enforce it. Eli would say, what you are doing is not good, but he never enforced anything.

David never confronted Adonijah. He never said, no, you are wrong. Stop. And enforced it. There has to be a force behind it, or it is not effective authority.

I talked about opportunities for work and for practice, but that's something that we should think about. How can we, when our children are little, it's easy to challenge them and give them constructive work. As they get older, it gets more difficult. It does become a challenge, especially in a culture where we have made it unlawful for our young men to work. When they have the body to do so, most sixteen, fifteen year old boys are young men and they have a man's body and they can begin to do a man's work, and yet in our country, they can't easily.

They can if you work at it, but they can't just walk down to a business and get hired. And that would be a great help if they could. What it means is that it puts more burden upon us to have these work opportunities for our young men. The last element I want to talk about in training, and again this is a very big, big topic. People take whole 12-week courses or sessions to talk about this topic.

So I'm not presuming to cover everything this morning, but rather just a few highlights, touch a few mountain peaks. But the last one I would look at is testing. Effective training requires testing. Are the lessons being learned? Have you ever noticed how often Christ tested his disciples?

How often God tested his people? God tested Abraham when he told him to offer Isaac his son. God stopped them from actually doing it, but God tested him to see if he would do it. To see if he would listen to the voice of God and obey. God said to Abraham, sacrifice your son.

Abraham said, yes Lord, and he went and did it with a sorrowful heart, but he went and did it. He listened to God's voice and obeyed. And when he had the knife above Isaac, Isaac was bound on the altar, he was ready to plunge the knife in, God said, stop. Now I know that you can listen to my voice and obey. God tested Israel at Marah over the bitter water.

What are you going to do? You don't have any water, you're in the middle of the desert. What do you do? Do you complain? Do you murmur?

Do you grumble? Are you discontent at God's providence? Israel was. God said He did that to test them. The manna.

God sent the manna. God sent no food. He led them out into the wilderness and they said, well, what are we going to eat out here? We'd rather be slaves in Egypt and have food to eat Why did God do that did it to test them would they believe the Word of God that God? Created all things holds all things in his hand.

He just parted the the Red Sea and They walked across and dry ground They should have believed that God could provide food for them, but they doubted. God did that to test them, Moses said. God led them in the wilderness for 40 years to test them. God tested the Israelites by leaving some Canaanites in the land to see whether they would follow the Canaanites or remain faithful to Him. God said He did that to test them.

Psalm 11 5 says, The Lord Jehovah tests the righteous, But the wicked and the ones who love violence, his soul hates." Jesus tested Philip. Remember when he asked them, they had these 5, 000 people or something like that there. And Jesus said, well Philip, you should feed them. Kind of a gargantuan task. What would you say if the Lord said to you, there's 5, 000 people I want you to go feed them.

Well Lord I don't have any money to buy food for 5, 000 people. Jesus said, the Bible says Jesus did that to test Philip. To test Philip. Would he put his trust in the Lord? Would he believe the Word of God?

God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He owns the gold in all the mountains. He holds the world in His hands. Feeding 5, 000 people isn't hard. But Sometimes we forget.

And so God tests us. Do you test your children to see what they will do? Do you put them in challenging situations to see how they will handle them? Do you give them orders, commands, to test their obedience, to see whether they will listen to your voice and obey? If you care about their soul, you will.

Because they need to learn to listen to your voice and obey, so that they can listen to the voice of God and obey. Count how many times you give a command or request and how quickly it is obeyed. How many times you have to repeat your direction to be quiet, stop talking, to sit down, to get something? The little things, not the big things. The little things.

Test your children. Test them. God does. God tests us. The summation of all of this training is that we fear the Lord.

That we fear the Lord. That we through instruction and training in righteousness may be completely, thoroughly furnished to every good work. Jesus said that a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. It Didn't say taught, didn't say perfectly taught and instructed, didn't say have imparted to them perfect knowledge. Jesus said everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.

That's why we are training our children to listen to the voice of God and obey, not us. We don't want them to be like us. We want them to be like the Lord. We only want them to be like us in that we are like the Lord. To follow our example in that we are following the Lord's example.

We want our children to do better than us, hopefully. We want them to be able to stand on our shoulders and to do that we have to be teaching them to fear the Lord and not us. We have to be teaching them that it's His Word they have to obey, not ours. It's Him, the Lord, with whom they have to do. What are a few of these, I'd like to in closing just briefly list some of these character traits that we need to be teaching, training our children.

Training. These are training matters. This is not a matter of telling them. This is a matter of training. Training.

One is gratitude. A recognition of what others have done on our behalf. Another is humility, an accurate assessment and acceptance of our gifts and abilities. Humility is being able to receive criticism without being defensive, able to learn of our failures without becoming emotionally crushed, able to win without fearing superior, able to be unjustly treated without feeling bitter. That's humility.

Modesty is restraint in our expression. A mutual respect, asking before doing something that might affect someone else. You know, just the other day, one of my sons was staining wood, and I asked, well, would operating a saw create too much dust? That's just mutual respect. Patience, a willingness to wait without agitation, generosity, cheerfully and willfully giving for the needs of others.

Courage, taking Necessary actions in the face of fear. It's not being unafraid, it's being able to act and do what is needed in the face of fear. Compassion, weeping with those who weep, to feel something of the pain that others are experiencing. Cheerfulness, honesty, hospitality, reverence, to be able to show honor when honor is due. Trusting, forgiveness, loving kindness, Loyalty, wisdom, the right application of knowledge, having knowledge, having understanding, having their reputation, peace, to be those who make peace, justice, responsibility, moderation, justice, responsibility, moderation.

You are doing things in moderation. Piety, spirituality, repentance, devotion to God, willingness, a ready willingness to work, silence, silence when that is needed, repairing the world. That is the Lord's prayer. Thy will be done on earth as it is already being done in heaven. Training our children to see and to work for the will of God to be done on earth as it is in him.

These are some of the things, some of the traits. Just a quick reminder of some of the biblical traits that we train our children in. May God train us and instruct us in His righteousness that we might be like Him. That is the goal of all of our training, that our children would be like Christ. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

And we thank you that it is a powerful word. We pray that your Holy Spirit would use it in us, All of us, that we might be trained, that we might be more like you, loving what you love, hating what you hate, walking in your ways with a will to do your will and a willingness to labor in your vineyard. Oh Father please grant to us your Holy Spirit for who are we to do all these things unless you quicken and enable us? We look to you this morning for the power to train, to train our children, to train ourselves. We ask that you would instruct us, make us wise, give us that wisdom, fit us to spend eternity with you in heaven through learning patience here on earth.

Father may this week be a profitable and a fruitful week in our instruction and training in righteousness. In Jesus name we ask, amen.