Sermon Cloud

David is famous for all sorts of great things, but he was one messed-up guy when it came to his parenting. Absalom is his favorite son, and it’s a tragic story of how NOT to parent. Absalom ends up being killed by David’s chief military advisor Joab when he leads a nearly successful coup attempt against his own father. How did things get so bad? A history of permissive parenting. Absalom’s name means “peace of a father”, and David seemed to want a son that liked him and was close to him more than he wanted a son who knew what it meant to be disciplined and raised with healthy limits. First David does NOTHING when his other son Amnon rapes his half sister Tamar. Actually, David does get furious, but doesn’t do anything beyond that. So Absalom, Tamar’s brother, takes matters into his own hands and murders Amnon. And guess what David does about that? NOTHING. Interesting how Absalom is expecting David to do something, he flees, but David does nothing. (2 Samuel 13) David clearly just wants a peaceful relationship with the son he adores. David doesn’t rock the boat. But it doesn’t get David his son’s love and devotion: Absalom revolts against him, telling the people that they can’t count on David for justice. The father who did nothing to correct things in his own family is the king that Absalom says can’t be counted on to do anything for his subjects, either. What we see in David is not just permissive parenting, but sentiment-driven parenting. For him it’s all about how much he adores Absalom and longs to be loved by his favorite son. This is so common today: parents who under-discipline and spoil their children, usually in hopes that their children will love them and like them and be close to them, and most of the time, it doesn’t yield that kind of closeness. It usually yields selfish, defiant, disrespectful, self-absorbed kids. Absalom was WAY past spoiled. He was completely self-involved. And even after his death, David is still driven by his feelings for Absalom, until finally Joab sets him straight and tells him he needs to start doing his job as king and do what people need him to do as king. (2 Samuel 19:4-6) Finally, David gets past his sentiment and starts being who he is meant to be as king, but only after it is too late for his relationship with his son, Absalom. In this message we will encourage parents to take a good long look at how they discipline their children (or DON’T discipline them, as the case may be). We’ll talk about how Ephesians 6:4 warns parents to not exasperate their children which is usually taken to mean that being overly strict is exasperating (which literally means to provoke to anger) but also UNDER disciplining children tends to provoke kids to anger, too, because as Hebrews says, discipline is part of what makes a child feel truly loved (Hebrews 12:5-6) And we may also include stuff on how God as our father loves us too much not to discipline us when we need it.