World Impact with Billy Wilson “Pivotal Parenting”
 
(Billy Wilson:)  Welcome to World Impact. I’m Billy Wilson, and I am excited about today's program. We're going to be talking about the pivotal role parents play in the twenty-first century. Now when my children were born I thought I had a lot of responsibility. I watched them grow up as children, become preteens -- what a moment that was -- become teenagers, both get married, and now both of them have children with their spouses, and I'm the grandfather of five. I've learned over the years that parenting is a job you never retire from. And I want to do a good job for the rest of my life in impacting my children and my grandchildren. Today we're going to talk about the fact that parents are the most pivotal people in the lives of their children, how that your influence outdistances the influence of anyone else, and how that God wants to use us in this generation, both as physical parents, but also as spiritual moms and dads in today's church to impact a new generation. I'm going to be looking today at a passage in Second Timothy chapter one, about how that Timothy's mom Eunice and his spiritual father Paul made a difference in his faith formation. I believe you're going to be blessed by this program and be challenged to make a difference for a new generation. Now if you want to be good parent I want you to stay with me today. We have a message I believe that can turn you, your family, and your life around. We're going now to a small offer about a book we'd like to put in your hands free of charge. So stay with us, and I'll be back in just a moment to talk about pivotal parenting in the twenty-first century.

(Announcer:)  From A to Z, today's parents can find no better source for raising children than God's Word. Parents today face the challenges of blended families, single parenting, negative media influence, and increased peer pressure. Overloaded schedules create struggles to balance schedules and to provide children with the nurturing they need. Although parenting is an around-the-clock job, taking a short break to rest, read and reflect will assist anyone in becoming a better parent. In "The Parenthood Plan," Reverend Billy Wilson highlights several key biblical principles for today's parent. Now, World Impact wants to send you a booklet titled, "The Parenthood Plan: God's A-to-Z for Successful Parenting," free of charge. To request your free copy, call 1-800-95-SHARE, or visit WorldImpact.tv. "The Parenthood Plan," yours free from WorldImpact.tv.

(Announcer:)  There is a poem written by William Ross Wallace in 1865 that says, "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." While every generation seeks self-expression, it's their mothers, fathers, and grandparents who traditionally equip them to face the larger world. Fathers taught sons, and mothers taught daughters. Before the mid-1800s, formal education was rare outside of religion and law. Even in affluent families, most studies took place at home under the parents' direction. Worldview, religion, politics, manners and even sexuality were considered a parent's sovereign domain up until the early 1900s. Then, following the world wars, formalized education brought a massive increase in literacy rates. But there's also been a global shift in attitudes toward parenting. In every major culture on earth, the trend toward the formal education of children has been accompanied by a decrease in parental involvement. Roles once the parents' responsibility are being assumed by the state. In some locations, parents can no longer legally stop schools from teaching sex or religion to their children. Other voices from Taylor Swift, to SpongeBob SquarePants, to the Arab Spring, are barraging children with mixed messages. Yet, every single study conducted by the Journals of Medicine and Psychology, the Journal of Pediatrics, Developmental Psychology, and universities from Harvard to Hong Kong, conclude that an active parent has the pivotal influence on the behavior, ambition, and worldview of their kids. So the question remains, which hand will rock the cradle? Who will hold the decisive role in shaping children, and so the world?

(Billy Wilson:)  Today on World Impact, we're talking about the pivotal role parents play in new generations' lives. I want to look at a passage of Scripture found in Second Timothy chapter one, verse two and then verse five through seven, to reflect on this role. The Bible says this: "To Timothy my dear son, grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord," and then says, "I've been reminded of your sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I'm persuaded now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan and to flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline." In this passage in the book of Second Timothy, we see two parental roles come together, that of the natural parent, which is Eunice, Timothy's mother, and the spiritual parent, which is the Apostle Paul, who has discipled Timothy as one of his followers. Now I believe that at any given moment on planet earth, there are always at least three generations alive. God has proven himself in Scripture as a generational God. He sees generations. And he always sees at least three generations. He says of himself, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Now there's always the grandfather, the father, and the son generation, or the grandmother, the mother, and the daughter generation. I want to speak to this whole concept of three generations together on earth and declare today that my contention is that the middle generation, the parent, the mom and dad generation, are those who make the greatest difference for the future. Scripture teaches us that parents have a huge role to play in rearing their children to fear, and admonish, and live for God. And I believe parents are pivotal in the generation in which we live in the twenty-first century. Now in Timothy's life, I'm convinced that his mom, Eunice, played the pivotal role for him. In Acts chapter 16 we read a bit about Timothy and his calling to the mission field by the Apostle Paul. "When Paul came to Derbe and to Lystra there was a disciple there named Timothy, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of Timothy. Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek." Timothy was from the city of Lystra. Now on Paul's first missionary journey at Lystra, he healed a man that had been crippled for a number of years. After this healing and after Paul's renunciation that he would not be seen as a god, he is taken into the streets of Lystra and stoned and left for dead. So Timothy as a child growing up had seen the best and the worst of ministry. He had seen Paul and the glory and power of God heal a man, and he had seen Paul left for dead, being persecuted by those around him. Something in that moment affected Timothy's entire family. Now Scripture teaches that Timothy's mom was a Jewess who became a believer in Jesus Christ, but Timothy's father was a Greek. So picture this. Here is young Timothy being raised in a home with an unbelieving father, who is a Greek, probably worshipping the gods of the Greeks of the day, and a mother who is a Christian believer who loves Jesus Christ and believes in the Scripture. Who will win in young Timothy's heart? Well it's obvious in Second Timothy that the mother Eunice wins the day. She is pivotal in Timothy's life. Paul says, this faith that is in you Timothy, dwelt first in your grandmother, then in your mother, and now in you. I am still convinced that parents are the most powerful influence of anything in the world in the lives of their children. I want you to stay with me, and I'll be back in just a moment to continue this discussion about the pivotal role of parenthood in the twenty-first century.

(Announcer:)  For many children, parents are simply absent. The number of kids living with one parent is increasing, with the majority of single parents being mothers. One in six school-aged children in urban areas go home from school to an empty house. Only three in ten children will sit down to eat with their parent today. Adolescents who feel close to their parents have lower rates of early sexual activity or drug use, but violent behavior is linked directly to poor parental involvement. Yet being a pivotal parent does not require great wealth, time or training. It does require attentiveness, love, and a key interest in a child's life.

(Yaunna Higgins:)  A New Hope is celebrating 25 years of offering help and hope to those that are facing crisis or an unplanned pregnancy. Several months ago, we have a hotline 24 hours, I received a hotline call from a young lady, and this is what she wanted to know. "I have no one. I'm from a foreign country. What can you do for me?" Legitimate question. If I decide to carry my baby, which at that time she did not want to, she did not have a mother's heart at that time, and we told her what we would do. And I knew that the more that I could be with her, the more that she could trust me. She just had her baby last week. Just had her baby. And when I talked to her several weeks ago I said, "What did New Hope do for you?" This is what she said. She said, "You kept loving me until I knew I could do this. So it's not as fearful if I know someone else has walked this walk and they won't leave me."

(Billy Wilson:)  There are over 13 million single parent homes in America. Twenty-four million children in the United States live without their biological father. Ninety percent of all runaways and homeless children are from fatherless homes. Eighty-five percent of children with behavioral problems come from fatherless homes, and 85 percent of all young people in prison also come from fatherless homes. In the next 24 hours approximately 2800 girls in America will become pregnant out of wedlock and over 3500 teenagers will run away from home. The challenges of being a parent today are astronomical. And yet Tom Perry says, and I believe the following, "Parents have the glorious opportunity of being the most powerful influence above and beyond any other on the new lives that bless their homes." Research continues to show that parents are the greatest influence on their children of anything or anyone in the world, either positive or negative. Participation in premarital sex, in drugs, in alcohol, in smoking, and even in religious engagement, are all influenced the most, not by media, not by what goes on at school, not by their friends or their peers or even by their cousins or anyone else in their life. It is still influenced the most by mom or dad. So our role as parents in the 21st century is critical. Physical, real parents can make a real difference in the lives of their sons or daughters. But how does that happen? I believe that parents in many occasions need to pivot or need to turn. Parenting is pivotal. And sometimes our parenting needs to take a turn or make a pivot. We need to turn our faith toward God. Joshua 24:15 says, Joshua declares, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." He's calling the people to serve God, but he declares first, "As for me and my house, we're going to serve God." So the first turn our parenting needs to take is toward God in faith. The second turn is to turn our words into affirmations. Proverbs chapter 25 and verse 11 says, "A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." When we use our words to affirm our children, we put on the halls of their life pictures that they can refer to over and over again, of confidence, of prophetic declaration, and even of destiny. We need to turn our words into words of affirmation. Number three, we need to turn our home into a sanctuary. In Leviticus chapter 14, we see the law of the cleansing of a leper first, and then we see the law that cleanses a house that has been infected by leprosy. Now the writer of Leviticus gives us this law of how a priest would go into a house and determine if the house had poison or the disease of leprosy in it. Then he would declare how the house could be cleansed. They would take out the stones that were tainted by leprosy and put new stones in, replaster the walls, and wait awhile to see if the disease was gone. If it was, then they would take two birds, cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop, all things that represent the cross of Jesus Christ, they would kill one of the birds, dip the other bird in the blood and turn it loose, take the hyssop and dip it into the blood and sprinkle it, and declare that this house was clean. Now all of this says to us the following. If there is sin or impurity in our home, it will infect and affect our children. God wants us to turn our house, our home, into a sanctuary for his glory. I want to ask you today, does your parenting need to take a pivot or a turn? If so, turn your faith toward God. Turn your words into affirmations of your children, and turn your home into a sanctuary for the presence of God.

(Robbi Zwarycn:)  I think you just start very simply. I just believe so firmly how important it is for prayer, for prayer over your children, for prayer over your home, whenever you have a moment, even if you're at the dishes, you start and you pray. And I would say to pray out loud so that your children hear you and realize that mom can pray even when she's doing something else. We were very careful about anything we allowed into the home, especially on the TV, because I felt like anything that I allowed in, I condoned, and they thought it was acceptable. And the other practical thing is that I don't think it's important to spend money on your children, but I think it's critical to spend time with your children. You just have to see where God is giving you those moments and run after them. Don't let them slip away because they slip away very quickly.

(Billy Wilson:)  During the first Great Awakening in Northampton, Massachusetts, Jonathan Edwards would say, "There were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house." I pray you will turn your home into a sanctuary. But there's some other pivots or turns we need to make in parenting in the 21st century. I believe we need to turn our child's minds toward the Bible. In Deuteronomy chapter 11 verse 18 through 21 it says, "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates, so that your days, and the days of your children, may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth." The Talmud says, "When you teach your son, you teach your son's son." We need to turn the minds of this generation toward God's Word. God's Word has the power to secure them, to save them and to guide their life in a way that will make them fruitful. Another term many times that we need as parents is to turn our heart, our own personal heart, toward purity. I want to say to you today, dad, mom, your own personal piety and purity will affect the purity of your children. Proverbs 31 and verse 10 says of the noble woman, "A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies." It goes on to say in verse 28 and 29, "Her children arise and call her blessed, her husband also and he praises her. Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. A noble, or righteous, or pure woman, who can find?" When you are pure in your home before your children, it creates an influence and a covering that no evil can stop in their heart. And finally, a turn that many parents need to make and perhaps you need to make today is to turn your life over to Jesus Christ. One night in a Philippian jail with Timothy watching from the outside, Paul and Silas are praying and singing praises to God, and God sends an earthquake. When the earth begins to shake, the cell is open, the stocks on Paul and Silas fall off, and a Philippian jailer is afraid. He comes in, he asks Paul, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and your house shall be saved." Within the power of that Philippian jailer's testimony was the power to save his house. Turn your own life over to Jesus, and then you can lead your children into faith in Christ. If you want to know how to do that, call me right now at 1-800-95-SHARE. I'll be back in just a moment to continue this discussion about the pivotal role of parenting.

(Announcer:)  The late Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, will forever be remembered for his square hamburgers, but he was also an outspoken advocate for children. Dave himself was adopted as an infant. When his mother died just five years later, he found stability with his grandmother Minnie. Through her, a young Dave learned the values of doing the right thing and treating others with respect. These lessons helped later in his life as a businessman and entrepreneur. Dropping out of school at age 15, Dave didn't earn his GED until he was 59. And so, he devoted the latter part of his life to promoting education and helping children in the foster care system. Adoption was the first step for Dave, but it was his grandmother's pivotal influence that propelled Dave Thomas forward. The square hamburgers are really just a footnote.

(Billy Wilson:)  Today we're talking about the pivotal role that parents play in the lives of their children and still play in the 21st century. One writer said, "The trouble  with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you're unemployed." So we need more than just parents in order to influence this generation, or physical parents. We also need spiritual parents. In the life of young Timothy, not only did his mother Eunice make a difference for him, but the Apostle Paul took Timothy as his spiritual son. I believe that in this generation, there is a cry going on in the hearts of young men and women around the world for spiritual moms and dads, those who will mentor them intergenerationally and help them be all they can be for God. So I not only believe there need to be some turns with physical parents, but there need to be some turns or pivots in the church to help us become the spiritual parents this generation needs. Number one, we need to turn our heart to new generations. Malachi chapter four verse five and six says, "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and hearts of the children to their fathers, or else I will come and strike the land with a curse." I believe the Holy Spirit is calling us to turn our hearts toward our sons and daughters and to see God raise up a new generation for his glory. The second pivot I believe God is bringing in the church in regard to helping us intergenerationally mentor a new generation, is to turn our prayers toward fresh, or new, outpourings. In Acts chapter two verse 39 it says, "This promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call." The promise of Pentecost is an intergenerational promise. God says, "When I pour out my Spirit, your young men are going to see visions and your old men are going to dream dreams." We need the generations to come together in the power of the Holy Spirit and unite our hearts for the days ahead of us in the 21st century. The third pivot, or turn, that I believe the Holy Spirit is bringing and wants to bring in the hearts of the spiritual fathers and mothers of our generation, is to turn our hopes into prophetic declaration. We need to learn how to prophesy with our words into the future of the generations that are coming on. The Bible tells us in Genesis 49 and verse one, that Jacob in his old age called for his sons and said, "Gather around so I can tell you what will happen to you in days to come." Those of us who are spiritual fathers and mothers need to rise up in the strength of God and prophesy into the future of our spiritual sons and daughters. We need to see what God sees for them and declare it in their lives to give them a track to run on. Paul would say to Timothy, "I want to remind you of the prophecies that were given to you when I laid my hands on you. And also, we need to turn our efforts into future preparation. At the age of forty, I believe it should all be about the next generation anyway. Paul was giving himself even in prison to try to prepare Timothy for the future through these epistles. And finally, we need to turn the next generation loose. When David came before King Saul, Saul tried to put his armor on him to fight Goliath. But David said, "I can't wear this armor. It's awkward for me." We do not need to put the restrictions of prior generations on this generation. We need to release them with their technological savvy and their heart to change the world and let them follow God with everything in them. You'd be surprised what a sling and the faith in God can do, even to the giants of our day, in a new generation. So today I believe the role of parents is pivotal in the 21st century, of physical parents, and of spiritual parents. Paul made a difference by being Timothy's spiritual parent and Eunice made a difference by being a godly mom in Timothy's life. Together, physical parents and spiritual parents can help form a new generation that will change the world for Jesus Christ before He comes.

(Announcer:)  Although parenting is an around-the-clock job, taking a short break to rest, read, and reflect will assist anyone in becoming a better parent. In "The Parenthood Plan," Reverend Billy Wilson highlights several key biblical principles for today's parent. Now World Impact wants to send you a booklet titled, "The Parenthood Plan: God's A-to-Z for Successful Parenting," free of charge. To request your free copy, call 1-800-95-SHARE or visit WorldImpact.tv. "The Parenthood Plan," yours free from WorldImpact.tv.

(Billy Wilson:)  Today we've been talking about the pivotal role that parents play in the hearts and lives of children. We've been talking about physical parents and the role they play, and also about spiritual parents, how that intergenerational mentoring is needed desperately in today's church. If you've been watching this program and you are a mom or a dad, we want to help you. We'd like to send you a little book called "The Parenthood Plan: God's A-to-Z for Successful Parenting." This is a very simple book. It goes through the English alphabet and gives you pointers on how to be a successful parent from God's Word. If you'll write me right now at the address on your screen or call us at 1-800-95-SHARE in the United States, we'll send you this free book. Just be sure to ask for "The Parenthood Plan." You can also go to our website, WorldImpact.tv, and download this program to reflect again and again on what God wants to say to you about your pivotal role as a parent today. Also I want to say to you that some of you watching this program have young men, sons and daughters, who are away from Christ. They're in trouble, they're in desperate situations, and we want to help you pray for them. We want to turn our faith to heaven with your faith, that you and your house can serve the Lord. So right now I want you to call me, 1-800-95-SHARE. Give us the name of your son or daughter, tell us the situation, and I promise you we will pray that God will touch them and turn their lives around. You have a pivotal role. And one of those pivotal roles is to pray for your son or daughter. We want to join you. So call me or go to the website, WorldImpact.tv. You can leave a prayer request, describe your situation. We'll intercede for you. We believe that God is bringing his children home and he wants to bring your son or daughter home as well. And finally I want to say to you, if you're a church leader today and watching this program, it's time for us to turn our hearts toward a new generation and to turn this generation loose for the glory of God. Turn your resources, your prayers, your words, to prophesying into the hearts and minds of a new generation, and let's see this generation evangelize the world in our lifetime for the glory of God, and take the message of Jesus around the world. Here at World Impact we are committed to just that. We appreciate your prayers and your faithful financial support. We need your help. You can donate at the website. Go there right now and help us stay on the air where you live. And thank you. Thank you for joining us today here on World Impact, and thank you for helping me share Jesus with the world.