SERIES – The Young and the Restless
Luke 1:66 NIV
Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.
Genesis 1:26 KJV – And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Isaiah 11:6d KJV – The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
What will this child be depends on?
I. Parental Policy
Who gets the child first?
The school – the streets
The teachers – hustlers, social media
The curriculum – survival, how to get over
The degrees – unemployment, crime, incarceration
Things that determine what the child will be”
- Correction
Hebrews 12:6 NLT – For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.”
Proverbs 13:24 NLT – Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them.
Proverbs 19:24 NLT – Lazy people take food in their hand but don’t even lift it to their mouth.
- Counsel
Deuteronomy 6:4-7 NLT – 4 “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.
- Confidence
Colossians 3:21 NLT – Fathers, do not aggravate your children, or they will become discouraged.
Unpleasable parents produce insecure kids.
- Compassion
- Attention
- Affection
- Affirmation
- Challenges
II. Public Policy
Will the child be born into the world or damned into the world
Some kids are born into high opportunity communities called privilege.
Some kids are born into low to opportunity communities called oppression.
Oppression is a state of being kept down either by force or neglect.
Networks – Associations
Examples – Aspirations
Way Up – Avenues
Support – Assistance
“Many deplored us using children in this fashion. Where had these writers been, we wondered, during the centuries when our segregated system had been misusing and abusing Negro children. Where had they been with their protective words when down through the years Negro children had been born into ghettos, taking their first breath of life in a social atmosphere when the fresh air of freedom was crowded out by the stench of discrimination.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Why We Can’t Wait
III. Prayer Policy