News broke on Sunday of a cocaine-related arrest involving the son of a major movie star. Though occurrences like this aren’t exactly rare, what was surprising about this particular instance is that the suspect in question was Indio Downey, the son of Iron Man star Robert Downey, Jr. While he proudly claims he has been sober since 2003, it’s no secret that Robert had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse prior to that time. While I don’t know enough about yesterday’s situation or about the Downey family to speak in detail, I do want to focus on one part of this story that seems strange. Wouldn’t you think a parent who struggled so mightily with substance abuse would do everything in his power to keep his child away from the same temptations? Obviously he can’t control his son’s life, but every parent would want to work his hardest to keep his child from making the same mistakes that he did, right? Well, not exactly.
One very sad thing I’ve observed in a number of congregations and among a number of parents is an attitude that kids just have to “sow their wild oats.” You hear phrases like “Everybody does it,” or “It’s just a natural part of growing up,” or, especially, “We all did it when we were their age.”
First, parents can NOT glamorize a lifestyle of sin. They cannot and should not recall their days of wandering away from God by getting into “mischief” at prom, partying at college, and other similar scenarios as the good old days or the time of their lives. When parents talk nostalgically about their days of sin, what lesson do we think kids are going to learn from that? They’re going to see that it’s something to desire. They’re going to see the attitude that their parents had to “give up” a lifestyle they enjoyed to submit to God. Paul would have used his pen to slap these people in the face, just as he did in Romans 6 (and 1 Corinthians 6, to a certain extent). We have DIED to sin. Why should we want to live in it any longer? Why should we look back on it positively? We were doomed to hell! Parents lease, don’t ever talk about past sinful escapades with a tone of yearning.
Second, expectations have to be raised. Look at those men and women in the Bible who are shown to be young either by the text itself or by history – people like Joseph, Esther, Mary, Timothy, among others. How different would our Bible and even our world look if those people were given the “sow your wild oats” or “boys will be boys” or “they’re young, they’ll grow out of it” free pass that we so carelessly hand out today? By the age of 18-20 the young men and women in our churches need to be actively involved in the church and learning to lead through service and teaching. Our lack of expectations for young people and our willingness to make excuses for them are massive factors when it comes to young people leaving the church. If they can be expected to make decisions for college, voting, and their careers, then they are more than capable of making the right decisions for sex, drugs, alcohol, and companions along with decisions about serving in the church, praying, and studying their Bibles.
Third, we have to stop letting the culture dictate the terms of a child’s life. Our culture says they NEED to see what is out there. They NEED to be exposed to the world. While sheltering to the point that young people are ignorant of the world around them isn’t helpful, on the other hand it’s ridiculous to think that someone has to experience sin to make a decision. One can know both the path and the destination of two roads before making their choice as to which one they’ll take. Of course, the parent can’t ever make the decision to follow Christ for their children. What they can do, and what they are called to do (Proverbs 22:6), is make the decision so clear that they would have no reason to choose otherwise. Allowing them to make decisions that lead away from faithfulness with hopes that they’ll get done sowing their wild oats and come back once their life settles down a little bit isn’t working too well for us. Our goal should not be to hold on to hope that eventually they’ll figure it out. Our hope and aim should be that they become life-long Christians who have the full ability to choose for themselves and choose to live a life of obedience to Christ.
As we continue to lose Millennials year after year, we have to start looking inward for solutions, and this is one area that must change. Our expectations have to be raised. It’s not just a natural course of life for someone to go explore all the options of sin, and we can’t look the other way when that happens. Giving them the freedom to wander into the world from a young age in hopes that they’ll eventually figure it out is taking a gamble against long odds, and most families are losing that gamble. Young people often hear 1 Timothy 4:12’s call to be an example of a Christian in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, and it’s time that we start expecting that of them within the church and (especially) within the home.
By Jack Wilkie
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” – Galatians 6:7-8