Our Father and our God, we thank You, and that is the prayer of our hearts this morning that You fill our cup Lord and make us whole in the name of Jesus. Father, come and quench the thirsting of our soul this morning.
Father Lord, I yield myself to You as a vessel, everything that You want me to say, help me to say in the name of Jesus. Father Lord, I pray for the hearers, let us not be hearers alone but doers also in the name of Jesus. Father Lord, we say thank You, glory be to Your name, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
I want to give glory to God for this beautiful day, and I want to thank God for our father in the Lord, the APICR for this opportunity to bring this short exhaltation.
This morning by the grace of God, I’m going to be talking about “The Value of Good Upbringing”. What brought about this topic? Two Sundays ago, we had a Sunday school class on etiquette, and one of our daddies who sat there said that he wished we can talk about some of these things during the church service, not during Sunday school only.
And because of my work and my training, I see a lot of things going on and I know that some of these things, especially in the divorce courts, some of these things could have been avoided if there was proper upbringing – some of them, not all.
So this morning, I’m going to be talking to us on the value of good upbringing; I have a lot to say but I pray for grace to be able to say what is relevant this morning in the name of Jesus. I’m going to take my Bible readings from Deuteronomy 6: 6 & 7 and Proverbs 22: 6.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7And thou shalt teach them (these words) diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
So the Lord told Moses that these words which is in the word of God, in the Bible that we carry now, should first of all be in our hearts as parents, as caregivers, and then we now teach what we know from the word, we teach our children. And where should we teach them? We should teach them starting from home, we teach them in our house first of all before we now go out to teach others.
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Praise the Lord.
What is upbringing? When we are talking about the value of good upbringing, as the sermon is going on, cast your mind back to your upbringing, to your home, to where you came from, to your parents and to your home presently as a mother, as a father, and go along with us as the Lord will help us this morning in the name of Jesus.
So what is upbringing? Definition in the dictionary and online says is about the treatment and care and training that a child receives. When we were growing up, the kind of upbringing that my generation received and the kind of upbringing that my children received, and then because I am now a grandmother, the kind of upbringing my daughter is giving to her children, there are three generations.
In our generation, we had very traditional upbringing, meaning that we had parents, you study sciences or you study arts and when you study sciences, your parent will tell you you are doing medicine and your parent will tell you you are reading law, you don’t have any choice, you don’t say I’m not good in this, I don’t like this and that is why some of us in our generation, after reading what they said we should read, we now went to read our own later.
So in that our generation, it was traditional, our parents were strict, our parents gave us discipline, some of them were harsh but looking back now, we thank God for the training and the discipline and the upbringing that we thought at that time that they were wicked, but my own generation, my children, what kind of upbringing did I give them?
Our generation, we still tried a bit, we are still a bit firm, we still gave discipline, we still taught them what is good and what is not good, but the coming generation, everything is mental health. Somebody said it this morning, ‘it’s affecting my mental health’, they are called the iPad generation. The children are brought up on iPad from like age one, the child wants to eat, you put iPad, the child wants to do anything you put iPad.
And so I remember when my daughter had her child and I went to do omugwo, as a Nigerian mother I went with different things that I brought her up with, when I got there she said I’m sorry mom, I brought oja, the one that used to tie the child at the back so that I can tie the child at my back but they will put their child in the pouch in front like antelope.
So when the child was crying, they will not sleep, I will not sleep, so one day when they put the child in my room, I carried the tie and put at my back, the child slept like a baby, the child slept off, they now saw that there was wisdom in what I was saying. They have a mindset, they don’t want you to come and interfere.
But what I’m saying in effect is that there are three generations, there are different generations, the training that we got and the training that we are giving our children and those who are young parents, what kind of training are you giving your own children? Praise the Lord.
We have three generations like I said; we have the early formative years, when the children learn basic values; in the early formative years, that is when you teach them respect, honesty, kindness and manners. The etiquette we talked about is about manners, you teach your girl child to sit well, put your legs together, don’t open your legs wide; you teach your girl child to sit up straight, don’t slouch over your food, you teach your children you don’t talk when you are eating.
These are the early formative years where you teach them manners, you teach them discipline, you teach them honesty. If somebody broke the plate, who broke this plate? And nobody wants to own up, if you own up, don’t break the plate again, if you don’t own up, you get a cane. Is that not how we were brought up? Because they taught us honesty, but these days, there is no more honesty, and because the upbringing is now bad, the society is how it is today.
So there is the early formative years, that is when we teach them discipline. They are still malleable, they don’t have their own opinion at that time and that is when we should not miss it as parents, the Lord will help us in the name of Jesus.
Then we have the teenage years and the young adulthood and that is the stage that they form their own identity and they begin to question everything. They want to explore, they want to assert their independence, ‘mommy, I’m not a child’, if you call a teenager baby or child, they say I’m not a child, I’m a teenager. By the time they are 13, 14, 15, they believe they are adults and they are not, so that stage is a very delicate stage in upbringing.
The boys, because they start to have a thick baritone, they think they big boys because they grow tall these days quickly. Because your boy is 14 and is already as tall as a dad does not mean he’s not a child, don’t abdicate upbringing because of the height of your son or because your daughter has a big breast that you think -, she’s not an adult, she’s still a child, don’t abdicate their upbringing. The Lord will help us in the name of Jesus.
And then that is the stage that they become rebellious, then how do we react to their rebellion? We begin to shout in the house, shouting does not help teenagers, shouting does not solve any problem with teenagers, they want engagement, they want you to sit down with them and reason with them. Tell them the reason why you are telling them to do this and then they see reason with you and then they comply, but when you shout, when you bully them, it does not work, they just become resistant to you.
In those days when we were in school, those young ones that are rebellious, if the teacher wants to beat them, they’ll do like this – take one cane, after the cane they do like this and just go away. It’s like you have done your worst, they have not learned anything from that caning. So sometimes bullying and shouting and caning may not be the right parenting tool. The Lord will help us in Jesus name.
I’m going to now go to the values, I’m going to have a quote before I do that; a statement I heard from Praise Fowowe, I’m sure some of us have heard of him, he’s a family life strategist, he said that if you want an elite child, you have to design their environment, you have to design their exposure. What are they exposed to? You have to design their responsibility.
Do you give them responsibility? Because in these days of comfort, we have money, so we have abdicated responsibility, we don’t give them responsibilities at home. When I was growing up, we all had responsibility, there’s somebody in charge of cleaning, there’s somebody in charge of toilets, there’s somebody in charge of cooking, so everybody has their role in the house.
It’s not these days that we have allowed our children not to know how to do anything – househelps, nannies, driver, cook, everything, we have money but we are not training our children, they have no upbringing, they have no manners, the way they talk to the domestics because they see the way we talk to the domestics, that is how they talk to them also without any respect and this person, the nanny is old enough to be her grandmother or his grandmother, because of money we have made our children to lack training and proper upbringing. The Lord will give us wisdom in the name of Jesus.
So what are the values, are there values in good upbringing? Apart from the relationship values for us, when we have good upbringing, we have very wonderful relationship not only marital which is the most important, marital relationship is very key. Yorubas have a saying, meaning that you don’t have good manners and you say I don’t know what is happening to me, my husband does not like me again, it’s because you have no training, you have no manners, you don’t know how to speak, you don’t know how to talk, you don’t know how to comport yourself, and men, I’m not talking only to the girls.
What about our boy children? When we are training the girls, we don’t train the boys. We said they are boys, because they are boys they don’t know how to wash plates, they will get up from the bed and not lay their bed, they don’t know how to keep themselves neat and then they are rude. Then at the end of the day, this your boy child will go and marry somebody’s girl and then there’s trouble because he has no home training, he does not know responsibility.
He does not know that you are not to be selfish, it’s not only about you, you have to care for other people. You have not trained your boy child and then you upload him onto somebody’s child and there’s problem and then they come to you, there’s always fighting. The Lord will help us in Jesus name.
So what are the values? Number one value is when you have good upbringing, it is a strong moral foundation. Good upbringing instills virtues like honesty, respect, responsibility, humility, hard work; when you have good upbringing, you have all these virtues.
Our APICR when he’s here, he’s always talking about his mother – my mother used to say this, my mother used to do this, what is he saying? My mother gave me good values while growing up. What can you say about your parenting? What can I say about my parenting? Can my children remember me and say, “Ah, I thank God for my mother, I thank God for my dad, my dad is a disciplinarian but he’s loving.”
My dad was a discipline when he was alive but I have memories of him that he will take us out, there’s no public holiday, when we have Easter Monday, boxing day, he will take us to the zoo. In those days, the zoo at Ibadan was still good, he will drive all the way from Lagos, take us to zoo at Ibadan; he will take us to amusement park at Apapa when amusement park was still there. I still have those family memories that he created for us even though he died very young.
What memories are you creating for your children? Are they having memories that you are a bully? That you’re always beating their mom? Are you giving them memories that the house is always tensed, whenever you come home there’s always tension because you’re always angry, you’re always shouting, the mom is always angry, there’s always conflict in the house. What memories are you giving your children? What upbringing are you bringing them up with? The Lord will help us in Jesus name.
In 2 Timothy 1: 5, Paul gave a testimony about Timothy; he said the way you have turned out, I can see the hand of your mother and your grandmother. When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice;, and I am persuaded is in you also.” Praise the Lord.
So that text that we read earlier, it said the word of God that is in your own heart, teach them to your children, teach them in the house, teach them in the way. Some of us are now grandparents, what kind of grandparents are we? Are we also teaching our grandchildren the way of the Lord? So Paul gave a testimony about Timothy that the way you have turned out is because of the grace, what your mother taught you and what your grandmother taught you.
What can be said of you and of me as a parent? What can be said of us? What values are we bringing to the table? What virtues are we inculcating in our children? Especially the teenagers and the youths, they see how we live, they see all the abuse, they see the fighting, they see the neglect.
Some children are traumatized because of the home environment. I’ve had occasion to talk to some of my sisters in the children’s church, we come and we put them in that children’s church but they are coming with a lot of baggage because they are not happy at home, because of what is happening in the home front. What virtues are you training your children about? What are they having? What are they taking to their future? The Lord will help us in Jesus name.
So raising a child properly, number two virtue is that when you raise a child properly, you partner with God to shape a vessel for His glory. When you have good upbringing, you are partnering with God to shape a vessel for His glory.
A child that is well raised is a weapon in God’s hands to advance His kingdom. A child that is well raised, no matter where your child goes on the face of this earth, what you have given them, the virtues, the values goes with them, they cannot forget even though you are not there.
Some of us, our children are not near us, they are far away in many countries of the world, but what they are doing there is a function of how we trained them, is a function of their upbringing. The children that will give us shame and disgrace, we will not have those children in the name of Jesus.
Samuel was a product of his mother’s prayers and his love. In 1 Samuel 2:19, you remember the story of Samuel that he was promised to the Lord; so immediately she weaned him, she took him back to the prophet Eli and then every year his mother would make a little coat for him, even though the child was now being fostered by somebody else, she would take a coat to him year by year when she and her husband went to Shiloh for the yearly sacrifice.
So the fact that your child is far away does not mean that you will no longer care about their well-being, about their growing up, and these days of technology, it is easier but visit is also very important. God will help us in Jesus name.
And then this Samuel because of his upbringing, he lived with the priest Eli and Eli had two sons who were terrible boys, Bible called them the sons of Belial, they were terrible boys, that is in 1st Samuel 2:12, but Samuel was not influenced by them. So sometimes we say it’s because of peer pressure, I trained my son very well but peer pressure made him to lose it, Samuel was having peer pressure but he did not fall.
In other words, what is the difference? The difference is a praying parent. Are you praying for your children? Are you praying only about money or are we chasing only money and we are not praying for our children? Samuel was not influenced by the bad behavior of Hophni and Phinehas.
Number three, value of good upbringing, it produces discipline and character. Two days ago, I had a problem with my inverter, so I’ve been calling this my electrician to come and help me because he’s the one that knows how the system in the house is. So he finally came, I said what happened, where have you been? He said mommy I’m doing projects in Lekki area, some JV.
I said all these projects you are telling me about, who are the people buying these properties? How much are they selling? He said ah mommy, I have one at one freedom way, is 850 million, they are selling one at so and so million. So I said there’s money in this Nigeria, who are the people buying? He said mommy there’s something that shocked me, I said what shocked you? He said I saw some small girls that came to buy the terraces that we just finished at Olokolo.
I said small girls, what do you mean? They are small 26, 27; I said where did they see that kind of money? He said, what is shocking me is that they go out at between 12 midnight and they’ll come back around 4:00 a.m. Ah. I said okay, I understand. Those ones in legal parlance, those ones that have escaped parental authority, it means that they are selling something, they are girls of the night, I’m just assuming.
So what I’m saying is that some of us parents, our children are living beyond our capacity, what we provided for them, but are we asking? We don’t care, you even ask them to send us money. The children that are in the university, they are fending for themselves, you are not providing for them and they are still giving you money. What kind of parenting is that? You are not asking where they are getting money from, whether they are selling their bodies.
The one that shocked me the most, I’m hearing that young girls in the universities now are selling their ovaries – 400,000, 500,000, they are selling their ovaries to women who want to do surrogacy. Every month they harvest their ovaries and they sell 400,000, 500,000, what are we doing parents? They are mortgaging their tomorrow because of today, they are living big and we are not asking questions.
Our sons are riding big cars, they are using expensive phones, they’re using expensive wristwatch, we are not bothered, we are not asking them where’s this money coming from? The world is now so easy for Interpol and FBI to come and get you, if you are stealing somebody’s money, you say the person is maga or mugu, whatever you call them, you see that interpol is trailing you, one day they’ll just come with handcuffs and you are going back to America to go and answer to your crimes, at that time that parents that refuse to train you will be in a big shame.
So don’t think anything you are doing – there’s a sowing and there’s a reaping, let us train our children, let us give them good values of hard work, let us train them with good values of working hard for them to get a pay.
I have a friend, a lawyer friend, we’re just talking one day and he said I do a lot myself, I said why? He said some of these young ones, we employ them but they don’t want to be trained, some of them are not employable. I said what do you mean? He said they have the certificates but they are not employable, they cannot bring anything to the table.
In other words, they passed through school but school did not pass through them. How did they get the degree? Do you know how they got the degree? Good upbringing. Our future will not be mortgaged in the name of Jesus.
Number four, good upbringing helps fulfillment of destiny. The parents of Samson did not do well in raising him; he was an anointed child from the womb, razor must not touch your head, you must not drink hot drink. He was consecrated from the womb but he loved strange women.
He told his mother, “I want a Philistine woman, marry her for me;” the mother said you are not supposed to marry Philistine woman. He said I want her, my soul desires her; he went and married Timnah, afterward, he went to look for harlot in Gaza. And finally, Delilah who nailed him and he told Delilah, “The secret of my power is my hair,” you are somebody that God gave a destiny, a command, ‘no razor must touch your head’, and you now told a woman on the lap of a woman.
One day I was reading that Bible passage, I said what kind of sleep did he sleep that somebody is scraping your hair and you did not wake up till the woman scraped the whole of your hair? That is serious sleep. So he lost his destiny because he did not follow his consecration.
The contrast is Jeremiah. Jeremiah fulfilled his purpose, Jeremiah 1:5, God said, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; ordained thee to be a prophet unto the nations;” he fulfilled destiny because he did not derail. Our children shall be taught of the Lord, great shall be their peace.
Some of us have done well, God is helping us, we have taught them well; it says they shall be taught of the Lord, we have done our bit. Those that are derailing, you can now ask God, Father, now teach them, bring to their remembrance all the virtues, all the values, everything I’ve taught them, everything they have learned, bring to their remembrance. You can ask the Holy Spirit, that is where their peace is coming from.
Some of our children have no peace right now, is because they need the Lord to bring to their remembrance all that they have been taught and great shall be their peace in the name of Jesus.
Our Savior Jesus had a good upbringing. Luke 2:52, the Bible says Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, in favor with God and in favor with man. He was taught, He was guided, He was nurtured, and to show that He had a good upbringing, He was responsible, when He was hung on the cross in John 19; 26-27, He was on the cross about to die, He saw his mother, He saw John, He gave her responsibility to John, He did not leave her comfortless.
He said, “John, see your mother; take care of her for me.” That is a responsible Son. So our Lord Jesus Christ showed virtues and values of good upbringing, even while He was dying, He made provision for His mother. Praise the Lord.
As I round up, finally, good upbringing brings joy and not sorrow. Proverbs 10:1, “A wise son makes his father glad, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.” This Bible passage is the adage, the popular adage, the son that is good belongs to the father, the one that is not good belongs to the mother, that’s where that adage comes from.
What it means is that mothers have a lot of roles to play in making sure that our children, the men are busy, they are looking for provision but that should not mean they should not contribute, there’s an authority that the daddy brings to the house, because they see mommy all the time, there’s familiarity that breeds contempt but immediately daddy comes everybody will align.
That is the daddy who is responsible, not the one that before daddy comes in the mother has already maligned him – useless man, rubbish man, so already the children are biased, she has brought them to her side, she has rubbished the man. That is not good upbringing, no matter the issues you have with your husband, don’t rubbish him in front of the children because that is the way they will see him, and when they grow up, they don’t want to have anything to do with him because of what you planted in their mind while they were growing up.
Maybe it was just a season that the man misbehaved, but he has aligned, but the children never forget, everything you told them about him, that is how they see him. And some men in their old age, they suffer, they are lonely, they are alone because the mother has snatched the heart of the children away from from him, that is not good upbringing. The Lord will help us in Jesus mighty name.
As I close, yesterday when I finished preparing the outline, I now began to reflect. I said, but some people may truly have childhood trauma, maybe they were subject of abuse, subject of terrible upbringing and they are angry with their parents, they are not speaking to their father, they are not speaking to their mother, they are angry, and the Lord impressed it on my heart that I need to make this call.
Forgive your parents, forgive them, some of them are now old, forgive them. Maybe they did not know better, that was the parenting style they knew at that time, not because – like PICP use to say, if I make a mistake is a mistake of the head and not of the heart, meaning that was what they knew, the exposure they knew, how to train you. Forgive them.
So when I finished, I now sent a message to my children, I said I’m sorry, if in our upbringing (me and daddy) there’s any way we hurt you, forgive us. The three of them quickly called back, mommy what’s the meaning of that? You trained us well, what happened? So I said I’m preaching this morning and I want to start the message from myself, perhaps in our upbringing we hurt you, please forgive us.
You know sometimes adults don’t want to seek forgiveness, we also can ask our children maybe I did something wrong, is that why you are angry with me? Please forgive me.
Let us rise up as we pray. The Bible says in Psalm 147:3, he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds; there are people who are looking good but they have deep wounds from their background and from their upbringing, they have wounds of rejection, of betrayal, of harsh words.
Maybe you were brought up with curses, disappointment, abuse, and you are bitter, you are angry, Jesus understands your pain. The Bible tells us in Luke 4:18 that He came to heal the brokenhearted. Are you brokenhearted this morning because of your background or because of what is happening right now in your home, in your marriage? Is your marriage a conflict zone? There’s so much bitterness, there’s so much conflict going on and you are brokenhearted, the Bible says Jesus heals the brokenhearted.
So this morning, say Father, heal my pain (mention that pain to Him). You know the area you are in pain, you know the area you are hurting as a parent, you know the area you are hurting as a child, as a youth, you know the area you are hurting as a wife, as a husband, mention that area of pain to the Lord.
The Bible says He has come to heal the brokenhearted, tell Him about your pain.
[Altar call]
Say Father in the name of Jesus, give me grace to raise my children well, give me grace that my children will honor You in the name of Jesus. Give me the grace to raise them well in the name of Jesus. Say Father, let my home be a home where Jesus reigns and rules, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Our Father and our God, we thank You; thank You because You have helped me to deliver the message You sent me. Father, help us, forgive us, have mercy on us, heal our homes, heal our relationships. And Father, we pray our children will not be lost, in Jesus’ name I prayed.
