The Marque of Maturity // How to Get More Out of Your Parents, Part 4

One of the things I did when I was a teenager is that I wanted to act like a child and yet, to be treated like an adult. So what are parents looking for in their teenagers as key indicators that they’re actually growing up?

Can I ask you a question? How would you define maturity? I mean, you look at two people, similar ages, similar backgrounds and you think that one, well she definitely has it but that other one over there, he just needs to grow up. So what’s the difference between the two? What sets them apart? What makes one person mature and the other one immature? Interesting.

We often think of maturity as a real issue amongst teenagers and to be sure, they're in a natural transition from the immaturity of childhood to the maturity of adulthood. What about amongst adults? Aren't they all mature? What sets a person apart as being mature? When we look at someone, what are we looking for as the indicators of maturity?

This week on the program we're doing a little series that I've called, “How to get More out of your Parents”. The idea kind of spawned out of a situation when I was asked to speak to a gathering of high school students and I just wanted to talk about something that they'd be interested in rather boring their socks off.

Now I operate on this basic premise that 99.9% of parents are hard wired to bless their children. We want to see them happy and healthy and well adjusted but there's this one thing that stops the flow of blessing from parents to children. It's like a cork in the line that completely blocks the blessing and that thing is rebellion.

Rebellion is something that happens, well it happens at all ages, but it particularly happens in the teenage years. You know when teenagers kind of roll their eyes and ignore their parents and disobey their parents and that in the end robs the teenager of the blessing that the parents wanted to give them.

I've been there as a parent, you make a silent decision, you take your teenage kids out for a meal, it's a nice meal and you get an attitude problem. You know, you get one of these moods from them and you sit there and think, "Well you know, the next time we got out for a nice meal I'm not bringing a teenager with attitude with us." So you wait until they're off doing something else and then you go out for dinner without them.

Now without even knowing it, their failure to honour their parents has robbed them of blessing. It happens a thousand times a day in some households. That's because there's a natural order that God has put in place. We looked at it yesterday on the program.

Honour your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land that the Lord has given you.

It's the 5th commandment, you go to the Ten Commandments, the first four are about our relationship with God and that's fair enough, the very next one is:

Honour your father and your mother ...

And it comes before:

Don't murder; don't commit adultery; don't lie; don't steal.

Obviously God takes this as really important and the struggle for teenagers is that they want to be grown up, they so much want to be grown up. I remember I did. I wanted to shed this whole childhood thing once and for all and be done with it and be an adult and yet, you're not really, you don't have independence from your parents and it's so frustrating and so our natural reaction, as teenagers is to rebel and when we rebel, instead of setting us free our parents would close us down.

When we rebelled it didn't have the desired affect, it actually made things worse and there’s this downward spiral. Why is that? Well because parents are looking for signs of maturity in their children before they'll remove some of the boundaries. Let me say that again, parents are looking for signs of maturity in their children before they'll remove some of the boundaries. You see it with young children; you don't let a young child use a sharp knife until you know that they're not going to hurt themselves with it.

Now if you're a teenager, I'm going to share with you the top three signs, the marks of maturity, the things that your parents are looking for and to make it easier to remember they all begin with an "A". The three are acceptance, appreciation and anticipation. It's one thing to say you should honour your parents, bottom line is we all know that we should but the question is how do you honour your parents? Well if you're looking for some really practical advice on the "how" front here it is, this is my top three list of "hows" if you like.

Let’s start with the 1st one: Acceptance. Acceptance just means that while we live under our parents roof we accept their authority over us, it's a heart decision, you flick a switch inside, “They are my parents; they've done everything from wipe my bottom to suffer my tantrums; they are the ones that God gave me and from now on my decision is, I am just going to accept their authority over my life. I know it won't always be easy, I know I won't always get it right but that's the decision.”

And when they see the outworking of that decision they are going to be delighted with you, it will expand their hearts. It's an amazing thing to see your teenage child just accept the authority of the father and the mother, THAT is honouring your parents. Acceptance. Accepting that they have a Godly right and a role to have authority over you.

The 2nd one: Appreciation. Parents do so much for their kids, they drive you here and there and everywhere and give you money for this and a lot of what they do is pretty thankless. They put dinner on the table every night, there's food in the fridge, we can all make a list of what our parents have done for us and it's longer than we can ever imagine. Now by and large they don't mind doing it all but what they hate is being taken for granted. What they want to see is just simply that you appreciate it.

Next time, if you're a teenager, your Dad picks you up from a party at 11.00 pm on a Saturday night and it's bucketing rain, why don't you look him in the eye and say, "You know something Dad, I really appreciate this, thank you." Not some "tick in the box" mumble thank you, he wants to know that you appreciate it and he may never show it but I guarantee you his heart for you just grew by 50% inside. They just want to know that you really appreciate all the things they do for you.

The 3rd one: Anticipation. This is the biggie and in growing up terms it's one of the hardest. It's looking around and seeing that your parents need a hand and just helping without being asked. You just get up from the table and instead of going back to your room to watch television, you start cleaning the kitchen or you see that the bin in the kitchen needs emptying so you just empty it without expecting to be noticed or thanked or anything else, you just pitch in and help and do it quietly. You anticipate other people’s needs and then you serve them. That I have to tell you if you're a teenager will blow your parents socks off.

You know what my wife and I say to each other quietly when our 16 year old daughter does something like that? We sit back and say, "you know something, she is growing up." It's the surest sign of maturity when a teenager all of a sudden begins to do things for people in the home for their parents, for their brothers, for their sisters without being asked, without expecting a big "hoo ha" pat on the back. Just quietly pitching in and doing it.

There are three things, acceptance, appreciation and anticipation, they are the marks of maturity. And when parents start seeing those things consistently in their teenage children’s lives, boundaries will start to come down because they know that their teenager is growing up and they know that their teenager can be trusted.

Honour your father and your mother that you may live long in the land that the Lord has given you.

When you do that the blessing just flows. You see you can't act like a child and expect to be treated like an adult.