Welcome to the Further Gospel podcast where we are all about sound doctrine for everyday people. And on today's episode, we are digging into a hugely important topic about how to raise sons in today's world. I've asked onto the show a very special guest and one who has written on the subject and raised godly uh children himself alongside his wife. He's the pastor of Compass Bible Church in Eliso Viejo, California, the Bible teacher and host of Focal Point Radio, and the author of the book Raising Men, Not Boys, Pastor Mike Favares. Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me, Cossi. It's great to be here.
SPEAKER_00Well, let's jump right in. First of all, I want people in our audience to get a better perspective on your background and how many years you've been teaching God's people and pastoring in the local church. I know my wife and I have been blessed by your ministry. We've listened to you on the radio. We've read your books. We had the privilege of leading ministry in the Orange County area. So of course we're familiar with Compass and the influence there and what you've been doing there now for years and really been in the pulpit ministering for decades. But could you share with us a little bit about your family, your kids, your church, and how the idea of raising men, not boys, became a passionate topic for you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I uh found myself in ministry, and I say that because it was never my intention in the mid-80s after going to Bible school, which my dad required of me and my brother. And so that's a long story in and of itself. But the bottom line is it put me in a position of teaching the Bible uh since the mid-80s. So what's that uh, you know, 35 years or so. And um yeah, I just uh continued to love that process of teaching the Bible, studying the Bible, helping people understand the Bible. Uh started working in churches uh in college, uh first in uh Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, and uh then out here in Orange County. So uh been in Orange County for quite some time, about 30 plus years, and uh, and been in two churches during that period of time and uh been preaching, watching God be gracious to our ministry, multiplying ministry. We uh are into planting churches here at Compass. So we've been doing that, training up preachers to go out and plant churches and uh trying to underwrite those and get those off the ground. But always had a passion, of course, for uh seeing people replicate their Christian lives in their children, right? Discipling their kids. And uh it was 10 years after um we finally had our first child, our son, uh one of three. Um so we we went through many years of infertility. So we got to watch a lot of people, our peers start to parent uh children and uh until we had our own. And it was interesting in those years, you know, preaching on parenting and you know, it was all theory at that point, watching it secondhand in other people's lives. But by God's grace, um through some surgeries, uh, my wife was able to deal with some of these obstacles to having kids. We end up having three, two boys and one daughter. Uh, and um, it's been uh been quite a journey. We have watched God be really kind to us because we know there's a lot of good parenting that goes on, and uh there's some things you just can't control in terms of the direction that these arrows take once they get launched. But uh God has been really good to us. And and you talk about how the book came to be. Uh, it was actually a vice president out at um Southern Seminary, Boyce College, that approached me about uh got to know my sons and said, you know, just uh there's just not enough sons like the ones you've raised. We we I would just challenge you to write on kind of how that all happened. And so it was interesting. I was between writing projects at that point, and I uh pitched this idea to Moody and um Moody publishing was just favorable. It's just funny how the doors open. A lot of times you have writing projects, as you know. Uh sometimes they get shaped uh, you know, by the publishers. But uh Moody really just was so open to seeing me write, you know, what was uh on my heart about seeing the Bible guide parents, particularly uh boys, in a world that is increasingly feminized and really against the kinds of masculinity that the Bible presents for us. So uh I got to writing and really sat down first with my wife, Carlin, who've been married for uh 35 years now. And um I said, let's just sit, and we did it on the back of a napkin at a restaurant one night. Just, you know, what are the key issues of scripture that we think have helped us keep our boys focused on what the goals are for being a man in this world? And uh it just quickly turned into a uh table of contents. And then I got to work and started writing this book. And uh it's just been great to see how those principles applied. And it is proverbial in some ways because not a promise or a guarantee your kids are gonna, you know, turn out in a particular way. But God has been faithful uh in seeing these principles in my son's lives, at least. I'm very thankful and proud of them. I both of my boys are in full-time ministry now, serving uh leadership and churches and um just really grateful for them. They're in their mid-20s, so they're still early on, and and yet they're preaching the word and they love uh serving God's people. And uh we're really thankful for them. They're both married. Actually, they're both expecting children here uh this summer. So um we're becoming grandparents here for the first time, and it's been just an exciting journey to watch. And um I I also love raising my daughter, of course. She's uh I don't want to forget about her having written a book on raising women, not uh girls. But um I I think the need pressing in our culture, as I'm sure you know, Costi, is uh is men. I mean, what does it mean to be a man in our culture? And does that mean you have to be the middle linebacker on your football team? Or, you know, what does that mean? And uh so I I lay out in this book some of the what I think are the most important biblical principles to uh help raise these uh young boys to become men.
SPEAKER_00Incredible and so helpful. I know from you know your ministry and what Compass has seen over the last few years, especially, but even going back further than that, um, I some of our dearest friends and parenting mentors have come out of uh Compass Bible Church there in the Orange County area, and then also the church planting element. Uh I know that you're no stranger to watching men raise up in the church and then deploy. I think of the Blakey brothers and a few others. Um they sound like a band or a movie, but they are doing great things in Boise and in Huntington Beach and different places. Um and so I'm grateful for your work and pouring into the next generation. But then I think what often gets missed is the element of a pastor's home and seeing the fact that your sons are raised godly, and yeah, it's early on, like you said, but they're in ministry and they're faithful, and growing and continuing in that faithfulness says a lot. I think there is no guarantee that anyone will have their kids be saved and can force conversion, but to watch them grow up and want to follow in your footsteps, I do believe, speaks volumes. If they are converted, and young men want to follow in their father's footsteps into ministry, it's a powerful example on that note. Leaving leaving and cleaving. You get into it right away in the book. It is a favorite topic that needs to be dealt with often in premarital, even earlier than that, where men need to have a good understanding of what the future looks like for them. What type of long-term vision should parents have for their sons? And how important it is for them to be shown the biblical priorities of a godly marriage. Speaking of your example to your sons, you know, speak to the mothers and fathers out there about preparing their sons for the future every day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think just to envision it, I mean, which really I think is the title I chose for that beginning of the book, you have to envision what that looks like. And I can remember my wife and I bantering about um whatever the issue might be, like what does this look like when they're 35? You know, we want to think about whatever the issue is, whether it's tantrums or, you know, whatever, selfishness or deception, you know, what how does this translate into something as a 35-year-old? I mean, the consequences are so much bigger and multiplied. And so we always tried to envision that. And we weren't afraid to talk about adult life in terms of seeing our kids grow up and work and get married and have children. And I find very few parents just naturally intuitively do that. It almost seems like they want to keep their children children, you know, kind of like uh, you know, people getting a dog, you know, and it's like that's my pet. And I just always want my pet around, man's best friend. And my kids aren't pets, right? These are disciples, as I referred to earlier, the arrow analogy, right? They're they're Psalm 127. We're launching them. And some of us aren't talking enough, even around the kitchen table, about what it looks like when they're working, what it looks like when they're married, assuming that they will be, which most statistically will, and when they're raising their own children and establishing their own families and paying their own mortgage. What does that conversation look like? And I think most parents, they don't even think that way. As a matter of fact, you hear the jokes, maybe it's more so for the daughters than the sons, but they'll say things like, uh, yeah, I'm not even gonna let my kid date until they're 30. And we joke about it and everybody gets a good laugh out of it, but we we we kind of perpetuate this juvenile, protective, cloistered mentality with our children. And I'm saying, think more about them being 35, because one day, Lord willing, they will be 35 and they're gonna be facing a world where you want them to be effective, you want them to be productive, you want them to be uh mature, you want them to be principled people. And so I want my kids to start thinking in those terms. And I want to talk about it, I want to see it in my own mind, and I want to pray about it. And we, you know, we pray out loud always in front of our kids when they were little and and in our home. And, you know, we're always praying about things that relate not to just homework and, you know, little league, but what, you know, what about life and the future and your job and your your way you're gonna serve the Lord down the road? So pray about it, think about it, envision it, and then talk about it with your kids. I think is a is a valuable step.
SPEAKER_00Excellent. And so practical. Um, something not talked about enough. I was in a uh sermon series recently with uh high schoolers and college students talking about dating and courtship and and marriage in the future. And that exact example came up from one of the young people about how dad had always joked, you know, you you can date when you're 80, and when he comes over, I'll be cleaning my gun. And it was fascinating to hear the desire of young women and young men are to be raised up, and the desire for from godly mature parents is actually to joyously bring their child down or well, their adult at that point down the aisle to someone who's been raised and ready so they can leave and cleave and let go of mom and dad. Um, on that note, Pastor Mike, you talk about spiritual trajectory and getting them going in the right direction. Can you speak to some practical steps that parents can model for their kids to get their spiritual trajectory going in the right direction?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, of course there's some basics, right? You need to be a Bible saturated home. You need to be a prayer-saturated home. That needs to be the practice of your everyday life. Obviously, Deuteronomy 6 talks about the fact that the word of God should be the thing we're talking about as we're walking along the way, or in our case, driving down the road. And uh, you know, prayer ought to be something which, you know, was just a habit of ours wherever we went, whether it was to church or to school, in the parking lot, we would pray together. And, you know, a lot of times it was my wife, more often than I that she's dropping them off. But uh, you know, to spend time, you know, sitting there in the corner of the parking lot and saying, we're gonna pray about what you're going in to do right now. And it's not the defensive protective praying, it's the offensive praying about, you know, God may we be uh, you know, a blessing to people today, may we be generous today, may we care about other people's needs today, and sending them out even as little arrows on that particular day to do whatever it is that they're supposed to be doing. And and that's the prayer saturated kind of of childhood I want them to think back on. It wasn't just a few words before bed that we pray or, you know, a couple lines before our meals, but you know, do they do they have the experience of praying with mom and dad as a regular part of their childhood? Do they hear the word of God not only read, but do they hear it talked about and discussed? You know, and and sometimes you think, well, I don't know what I'm gonna talk about today, but you know, I remember we had it, you know, in the family room, we had it in the car, and that's just like a Bible trivia book and just got our minds back to Bible. We would, you know, we would ask questions of each other, and then we would get us thinking about the stories. Might be a question about Samson, but then we talk about what was with Samson? You know, what's with his weakness with these women, the Philistine women? And, you know, it would just get us into conversations about application and and and the way in which we're supposed to live our lives. And I'll tell you, some Christian parents, they it's like they turn on the church thinking when they get to church, and then during the week it's all about, you know, what college we're going to get into and you know, what a good athlete you're supposed to be. And and and the Bible didn't find its way into the conversations on on a Thursday afternoon. And that's what needs to happen. We can't bifurcate our life. We can't have two different mindsets. And, you know, for me, you might say, well, you're a pastor. Well, yeah, but I can come home and check out a spiritual thing if I wanted to, right? But but I have to, I they have my kids have to see me in the pulpit and in the in the living room and the family room, being the same guy, right? And that means I care as much about the Bible when I'm at home as when I'm at the office or in the in the on the platform. And I think, you know, every good Christian family in your church, of course, you know, they they put on their best for church, but I just want them to have the same spiritual priorities when they are sitting at home around the kitchen table. A prayer-saturated, a Bible-saturated home is part of that trajectory that makes them think if I'm leaving, you know, this home, uh, you know, it I would have to depart from everything biblical and Christian to take this giant central part of our lives out. Let me give you one practical uh statement. And then I think about vacation, go on vacation. And it'll be Sunday morning and uh it'd be Saturday night, actually. We'd be saying, okay, tomorrow's Sunday morning. We could be in in Hawaii, we could be, you know, who knows, at the Grand Canyon. We're gonna go, okay, tomorrow, we're gonna go to church. And it's not just because dad usually has to lead the service, now he's gonna be able to sit and enjoy church. It's like, no, we are Christians, we go to church. And so we don't even bifurcate vacation. Of course, during the week we're doing all of our fun stuff, but uh, you know, I want my kids to know that church is a priority, even when we're outside of our little cloistered home. And I know so many Christians that go on vacation, and if it's Sunday, it doesn't matter, right? We're on vacation. And I'm thinking that's part of the of the trajectory we're setting. I want my kids to see church as a priority. I don't want them to go off to college and say, well, church isn't important because it's kind of like I'm on vacation for the next four years. So I just think it's those kinds of things that help set the track, the consistency between who I am at church and who I am in my home, prayer, Bible study, the priority of church and fellowship, those are key things that anchor our kids into a mindset that this is what's expected of mature people who believe what they say, you know, about God and and reality.
SPEAKER_00So helpful and uh probably convicting for a lot of people in our culture and day and age where you're spot on. Vacation is vacation from church. Pastors, you know, view the church campus as a workplace. You know, it's work. I need a break. I need I don't want to work, I don't want to be at a church, I don't want to hear preaching. Um, what a convicting reminder. Uh it's the Lord's Day, it's the Lord's gathering of his people. Uh so on the church note now, I meet parents all the time who say to me, you know, Costi, I can't get my teenager to come to church. Or, you know, I I would get my kids more involved in discipleship here at church, but they don't really want to come. And and I don't want to force them. You know, religion got shoved down my throat and my parents forced me to church and I didn't like it. I don't want to be a legalist. So how would you respond to that approach, Pastor Mike?
SPEAKER_01Well, I always ask people who tell me that, well, if your 14-year-old or 15-year-old came home and said, I don't want to go to school, um, what would you say? And they would say, Well, of course they got to go to school. And I said, Well, what if they really said I don't want to go to school anymore? And I hate to press that too far in our day because a lot of parents might go, well, okay, they're they don't have to go. But it used to be that people would say, at least 99% of the time, hey, you know what? Uh, I don't care if you don't want to go to school, you're gonna go to school. Or what if they say you don't want to do my homework? Well, uh, you may not want to do your homework, and I get that, but you're gonna do your homework. And I extend that to things like, what if my kids said they don't want to brush their teeth or take a shower, right? You're gonna do that. And and I hate to say it because I always think of the exception. I've met people in ministry who say, I can't get my kid to shower. And I'm thinking back to my childhood. I can't imagine telling my dad I'm gonna take a shower. He'd take me in the backyard and hose me off. I just like it's insanity where we think the children have such autonomy that they can choose whether or not they're gonna go to church while they live in our home. And I always say if they got access to the frosted flakes in the cupboard, uh, they're going to church, right? If I'm paying the gas bill to heat the water so that they can shower, they're going to church just like they're going to school, just like they're going to brush their teeth, just like they're going to shower every day. That's part of the expectation of parenting. And if that sounds how it hardcore or Nazi, which I think some people have accused me of, I'm like, you know, ask my kids. It's it's you don't have to create this adversarial relationship. It's just there are certain things that are expected. I don't see very many parents going, my kid just really thinks I'm being overbearing by making them brush their teeth. You just have to show them the importance of how significant it is. And maybe you can see that in the microcosm of getting cavities within a matter of years, but they need to see what happens if you take God out of the equation. And even if you're not a saved, people say, Oh, my kid isn't saved. Well, it's okay. It doesn't matter. They're in my home, right? Just like Bible reading or prayer before a meal. If I said, Well, we're not gonna pray around the dinner table because my 15-year-old's not saved. And, you know, we don't want to shove religion down his throat. I'm like, no, I don't care. You're at my dinner table. We are Christians. Your mom and I are gonna pray and thank God for our meal. And you're gonna sit there and you're gonna have to politely bow your head and close your eyes and not disrupt us. Same thing at church. You're gonna go, you're gonna sit there, you're gonna stand up when we stand up, you're gonna sing when we sing, you're gonna open your Bible when the pastor says open his Bible. If you want to at 18 leave the house and be on your own, well, then I guess you can decide what you're gonna do about church if you're gonna shine God on. But in this home, right? It's the old Joshua 24, right? As for me in my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. And if my little kids are in my home, you know, and I mean little, I just mean if they're not independent and autonomous financially, uh, they're gonna they're gonna do what dad and mom expect of them.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Let's can I press in on that just a little more because you're touching on something I think we can just sort of rabbit trail here real quick and then and then jump into the rest of the interview on the book. Isn't that teaching our kids good general morality anyway, so that even if they're not saved, they're not lunatics who are throwing stuff at the police and running away from authority. They're gonna make better citizens, better employers. If we were just even to take off the the label of, you know, saved or Christian. Isn't this what sort of the old school parenting philosophy was? You were raising kids to be good model citizens, even if they didn't want to believe in God or go to church ever again, they would have a healthy view of authoritative structure and end up being those who the boss actually likes, the guy who can take orders, the gal who can do her job and execute effectively. Because, you know, mom and dad in calm, godly, steady consistency modeled a trajectory and even at 18 said, Hey, God bless you, great job. Thanks for following this home. And, you know, now go on with your life. Isn't that a good way for anyone to teach their kids to follow authority?
SPEAKER_01Sure. And there's always good payoff for common grace, right? And common grace is that you play by God's rules. I I want my non-Christian neighbors to have a solid marriage. I don't want him sleeping with everyone in the neighborhood. I don't want them snorting cocaine at night. I just think, even if it doesn't affect me, right? I just know that's a good thing for society, that's a good thing for our neighborhood. Uh, even if I can't point to, well, the drug dealers are shooting bullets across my driveway, it doesn't matter. The point is it's a good thing. And then I'll add another layer, which I think is even more important. A hundred years from now, what's going to matter is even for non-Christians, how much wrath they stored up for themselves for the day of God's wrath, right? And Romans 2 says that's a real thing. So if my neighbor is not sleeping around and is faithful to his wife, even though he ends up at the judgment seat, the white throne judgment seat of God, right? It's better for him that he were a good citizen, right? And I will say this it's better for my kids to be taught all of these things and to go to church and to learn to pray and say thanks, even if they're not saved. That's a much better thing. Not only will it pay off because common grace always does, there's a good benefit for that. But I I want to restrain evil in the world. I'm salt and light. I don't want my non-Christian co-workers and my work at a church. Hopefully I don't have too many of those. But you know, the average person at a at their workplace, they want their, they want their coworkers to be moral and upright people. And people that say, well, they're not Christians, don't subject us to your morality. Well, the bottom line is it's God's morality, and everyone's going to have to answer to God for how they responded to that. It's always good to restrain that evil. Now, we never want to make the mistake of thinking that being moral makes you a Christian, obviously, right? And that's clear, right? And I know that sometimes it can be overstated. You can read books that say, well, Satan would just love it if everyone were moral and doing good things, and they would all miss the gospel. Well, they could miss the gospel if preachers weren't preaching the gospel. But the bottom line is, I would rather my town be a moral town because in the day of God's judgment, like Jesus said, there's going to be some towns that far fare worse on the day of judgment than other towns. And I want those lost people, right, not to store up any more wrath for themselves than they need to. And I want my kids, even if they're non-Christians and reject the gospel. I want to set them on the path that says no to drugs, you know, that that doesn't sleep around, that's faithful, it tells the truth. I want all of that because that's a good thing for them ultimately, and it's a good thing for society.
SPEAKER_00That is a gold line of wisdom. I I'll I don't want to even say anything. They'll just let that settle in on listeners and um you can preach flat out. Pastor Mike. All right, here we go. Next one. Uh, one of my favorite sections in the book is in chapter five and six. You titled those chapters Make Him Sweat Every Day. And then chapter six, I think is called Instill a Manly Work Ethic. Both of these chapters, if I could tell parents once they understand the gospel and the need for uh sending their arrows out, strong in the Lord, and all of the things that surround parenting, if there were two sections I think we need to live in more often than not, it would be those two chapters. Can you talk about the dangers and the deficiencies of raising bubble-wrapped boys, you basically call them, uh, who can't handle hard work, they shirk from dogmatic instruction, and they've not really had a lot of bumps and bruises on the road of life. Can you talk to now the parents who are raising their boys and they're they're bubble wrapping everything, and we're not really pushing them into manhood?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, the word misogyny, we all know that, right? That that men are against women. Uh, I remember the first time I started reading books on misandry, which when I tried to write some notes in my Microsoft Word, it came up as a misspelled word. I had to check my printed dictionary, an old dictionary, make sure I was spelling it right. But the the animosity toward men is seen so often in our culture by expecting our boys in particular to act like little girls. And I don't mean that in a feminized way. I mean that in restricting the kind of of even uh the the the aggression, the competition, the the willingness to take risks. That's part of God's glory in distinguishing the genders, right? Male and female, they complement each other. We're complementarians. We believe that both of the genders, both sexes are complementary, that God made them in a way to fit together perfectly, not only in a family and in a relationship romantically, but in society. And here's the problem we've so feminized our culture, uh, and there is a misandry, there is a kind of hostility toward men in having my second grade boy who's getting a wash of testosterone in his brain in the development of his life, to be able to sit there, crisscross applesauce for the same amount of time with the same amount of passivity that you might have more naturally biologically inclined for a little girl to do. Uh the my boy is going to be a fidgety animal. My boy is going to need to run. My boy's going to need to yell. My boy's going to need to make noises and grunt. That's what they're designed to do. And now that all needs to be harnessed, but it cannot be quashed. And that's what's happening in our society. So that chapter about making them sweat every day, I'm just saying we're fighting natural theology here. General revelation in biology is that my boy's got a different chemical composition than the chemistry of his blood. And so I want to make sure that I'm allowing that uh an outlet. I'm forcing that outlet. I want that that sweat coming off of his temples every day. That's part of how he's designed to run. And I want to make sure that he does. Now, here's the problem with kids that never get a chance to do that. In in a feminine, here's how I like to put it when I talk to parents in a mixed audience. I say, um, husbands and wives, when it comes to your children, uh, you guys are going to disagree on so many things about your kid, about risk, about injury, about things that he does. I said, can you uh at least shoot for uh compromise 50-50 as opposed to what most relationships do? It's a 95-5 split in that if the mom doesn't think it's safe enough, if the mom doesn't think it's okay, then uh the dad folds. And here, all I'm saying is it's like like, I don't know if he's gonna buy a skateboard. If he buys a skateboard, if we get him a skateboard for Christmas, he's he might break his wrist. And I'm saying once the dad hears the mom say that, I'll be like, oh, but think about intuitively when my kid gets a bike, if mom concedes, and my kid falls off of his bike. Uh, think about how men and women naturally respond to that, right? The the mom is gonna run over and go, oh, sweetie, are you okay? Are you okay? Let me kiss the boo-boo. I mean, that's just natural. That's a that's a mothering of instinct. Dad is gonna say, hey, there's no bones sticking out, get back up on that bike and ride it, man. Isn't it great to ride this bike? And and there's there's two different ways to to respond, even to risk and injury. And I kind of say tongue in cheek, you know, if you're if your boy hadn't been to the ER a couple of times in his childhood, you're probably doing something wrong because he's not learning to take those risks and to be a man who's willing to brave this world. And this is not a safe world, and it's a world that needs uh, you know, warriors. And I know that can be abused, right? You're creating this knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal kind of man. You're taking a step backwards. Listen, I'm not, I'm not saying every masculine boy needs to be, like I said, some kind of football star. Uh, but there is something about being male and masculine uh that is going to involve risk and is gonna necessitate from time to time injury. It's going to be the kind of uh willingness to say, I'm gonna let him out of my sight to live some life in a way that I know is going to involve risk. And this COVID thing has certainly taught us that, right? I mean, if you want to mitigate risk down to nothing, right, good luck with that, right? You're gonna find yourself insane. And right now, I think it starts with our babies when we buy those, you know, monitors. And now it's like you got to get the high definition monitor to make sure my kid in that crib is still breathing. And I remember telling my wife and others, you know, listen, there's no camera is gonna keep my kid breathing. I can't keep my kid alive for another second, right? I'm not gonna set them out on the freeway overpass or anything like that, but I am going to recognize the fear that I have to coddle and to protect can be taken too far so quickly in our culture. And I'm saying to wives in particular, can you realize that God did not design your child to be raised with two females? And I'm not even trying to make a statement about homosexuality. I'm just saying, can you concede a few of these arguments to your husband that maybe the mountain bike or the skateboard or the you know walking in by himself to ask for a catch-up packet at the McDonald's is, you know, not gonna probably end his life. And we can take a risk here and let him out of the car and do a, you know, buy something at the store. I don't know. There's just we have to work harder to get our kids out there to live the kind of of boy life that will help him become a man who's gonna take some risks and be a leader and be brave and be courageous.
SPEAKER_00So good. So good. And those examples are about as literal as you could get. Uh you can tell you've been doing this for a long time and talking with a lot of families. I the last two places I want to go in our conversation are money and then sexual purity. First, money. How can parents teach their sons to take dominion over their wallets in order to prepare them for a life of faithful stewardship? You talk about that in the book. Can you unpack that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, money, like sex, right? Sexual impulses and appetites, they have a strong pull in our lives. I mean, the Bible has a lot to say about greed and materialism and and lust and sex outside of marriage. I mean, these things we just need to know are going to be strong desires and temptations for our adult males, our 35-year-olds that we're trying to raise. So we have to think, even as children, let's give them some opportunity within the safety of mom and dad's house to learn to manage money, to learn to, you know, make those decisions about saving and giving and spending on ourselves and what we spend on. Um, that means I'm not going to always direct them in those things with a, with a demand, but I am going to start when they first start. Here is what is expected of you. I expect you to at least give 10% of your money to the Lord. I expect you at least to save, you know, 10% or 20% of your money in a in a bank account. And then I expect you to make good decisions about how you spend the rest of this. And and now helping them through that and giving them a sense of knowing what it is to have decisions that sometimes are bad in that regard. And then to remind them of the lessons. Like I had all three of my kids are very different about how generous they are. And from time to time, I like to point out to them how God, and again, this is just a God thing, how God is always so generous to the most generous of my children, you know, in practical ways, just the the the you know, providential things that God brings into their lives. And sometimes I'll point that out to the more miserly children that I've had. Like, you know, this, I'm not trying to say look at your brother or look at your sister, but I am trying to say there are consequences that God puts in place. And it's the same thing in terms of sexuality, right? There's a there is a damage to be had in your life. There's bells that can be rung that cannot be unrung based on how you deal with that game, you know, platform or that, you know, that uh, you know, that that iPad that we let you use or whatever it might be. So you have to obviously put guardrails and restrictions and accountability in place. But I just know there's not a kid that can't get around those things, right? There's they're there they're able to do what they want to do. What you need to remind them of is the consequences and the penalties of that, all the while trying to be very accountable and as parents, keeping them accountable for what they're doing. Because we just know sex is powerful, materialism and greed is powerful, and both of them can destroy your life. So we have to focus hard on trying to get them to see those things and honesty about it. I want to talk honestly about my finances. I didn't grow up in a home where my parents ever talked about finances. If it were their finances, maybe my allowance, I might have a conversation about. But I think to be more transparent about how mom and dad are making decisions about our money, about vacation expenditures, about whether we should buy a car or not or stick with the old one. Those are conversations I was willing to have in front of my kids again, because I was envisioning them as 35-year-olds. If I envision them as 10-year-olds for the rest of my life, I will never have conversations like that about insurance, about, you know, whatever it might be that relates to finances or sexual issues as well. I don't want to just shield their eyes from what, you know, they might see if I drive up the 405 freeway on a billboard, if I get near, you know, downtown LA. I want to say, let's talk about why this is that way, what that gentleman's club is all about and why this is such a damaging thing for not only each man that goes gets pulled into that, but for society in general and for the girls that are wrapped up in this. I mean, those conversations we need to have, even at the mall with Victoria's Secret, you know, uh posters. I want to be able to say, here's why that is. Even before they think, you know, girls are alluring and interesting, even when they think they're icky, I want to get them to think, you know, there's a reason that this has become such a prominent part of our society, why you see women in underwear at the mall on 20-foot-tall posters. Here's why that happens. And then to always speak well of there's a good use of money and there's a good use of sex. I like to say parents who want to put this completely out of their kids' lives to extinguish this, as they have budding interests in the other, in the opposite sex to extinguish is a bad, it's a bad strategy. I want them to realize there's a right place for fire. It's in the fireplace. And I'm all for you having a fantastic flaming fire in your life. Let's just make sure it's in the right place. And some parents, they say, oh, it's too embarrassing to talk about those things. So we don't want to talk about them at all. And we want to act like we're asexual people and that you should be an asexual person. And all that's gonna do is destroy the conversations that you can have because all of that's gonna be underground. It's gonna be somehow denied or suppressed, or they're gonna talk to other people about it. But we need to keep conversations about money and sexuality, something with age-appropriate boundaries, something that's discussed. And I know it's more embarrassing for us, often as parents, than it is for our kids, but we need to have those conversations.
SPEAKER_00Outstanding. That topic is one that we should probably bring you back down the road for um and have you back on to walk with parents on how to talk about uh sex with their kids. It's something that we see often in the church, people shy away from. And nowadays, it used to be the stat was around 11 by 11 years old, your son has been exposed to pornographic imagery. Um, even just watching the Super Bowl now, you know, there's there's no hiding from it. Nowadays, the stats are starting to come out where we're looking at more like seven and eight years old. And so if we're not going there as parents, the world and the culture, they're beating us to it. So why not get there first? Um, if I can just steal one more answer from you on that, how early did you start having these discussions with your sons?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my wife's better with the timelines, but it was young. I mean, it was before puberty. There were pre-adolescence. I well, let me put it this way. I had conversations about the billboards and the Victoria's Secret stuff uh when they were really young. Uh, and even when there was some kind of interest or or or or question, I think they had normal kids. They didn't have a ton that they were willing to verbalize, but when they did, I used this as an opportunity to have the discussion. But to sit down and to talk to them before they got to the place of having any, I think, desires for the opposite sex, to start having conversations about here's what's going to happen to you in the next year or two. And to have them sit there petrified that I'm having this conversation with them, but to explain to them, here are some things. And then to always say, and I remember with both of my boys saying, now, I just want you to talk to me about anything that comes up between now and the next time we have one of these conversations, we're gonna have more, but I want, I want, if something comes up, if a word is said, if a thing happens, if some kid brags about something at school, I just want you to know the door is open. Now, if you ask my adult kids right now, did they come to me every time that that they had? No, they would say they didn't. But at least we had conversations and occasionally they would come and say, I don't understand this joke, or I don't get why the kids said this at school. And to be able to have a conversation to help educate them. I want them to know that they can get the truth from me, right? And that's one of the reasons we didn't lie to them about the Easter bunny or Santa Claus, right? I wanted them to know that we are going to tell you the truth. We may not tell you everything because it may not be appropriate for me to tell you everything, but I'm gonna give you the truth and uh age-appropriate truth about every topic under the sun.
SPEAKER_00That is fantastic. Pastor Mike Fabar is just ruining all of your Santa Claus charades and your Easter bunny fun. And I could not agree more. We're the same way. Don't come to my house at Christmas. If you want to preserve your Santa Claus, um, my oldest son Titus will ruin your Christmas, not even meaning to. Pastor Mike, honestly, thank you. Cannot thank you enough for your wisdom on the subject and for your Bible teaching throughout the years.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me today.
SPEAKER_00Well, to our listeners, keep an eye on social media this next week coming up. We're gonna be giving away copies of Raising Men Not Boys by Pastor Mike Fabaras. And if you don't want to wait, I don't blame you. We've got this book and have given away to friends and people in our churches that we've pastored at or have friends at who are leading and looking for resources on this. If you don't want to wait, go to Amazon.com and just type in Raising Men Not Boys or MikeFabaras. And I would order copies of the book for yourself, your church, your small group, your student ministry, for parents, anything you can do to get this book in people's hands. It's out by Moody Publishers. It's a green book, you can't miss it. Uh, thank you all for being with us today on the For the Gospel podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review. And for blog articles and more video resources, go to furthegospel.org. We'll see you on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and we'll be back next Monday with an ep another episode. Uh, Keep Living for the Gospel.