4. Courageous & Biblical Parenting: 2024 Marriage Conference Session Four

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5. The Armor of God: Gospel Boots

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In this final session, we're going to talk about parenting, parenting together, husbands and wives together.

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We say parenting, but this is always a point I like to make, is there is no such thing as generic parenting.

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There's fathering and mothering. So kids get different things from fathers and mothers.

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Fathers and mothers are both necessary and valuable. There's no generic category of parent.

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So we can talk about parenting, but we need to always in our minds be going, there's fathering and there's mothering.

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So even when moms and dads are doing the same activities, playing with the kids, disciplining the kids, helping with homework, you're doing so as a mom or a dad.

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And that whatever similarities there is, it's always sort of colored or spun by the fact that mom or dad is doing it.

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We're men and we're women. So we want to keep that in mind. Kind of initially, let me give you kind of two metaphors.

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I've alluded to one of these already, but I wanted to kind of just have, you have a little vision. These help me to have a vision of that's an image that God has given us to help understand our homes.

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So if a family is a home, Jesus is the foundation,

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Christ is the foundation. Dad is the walls that protect the house, the walls and the roof that keep the rain out.

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Mom is the warmth within the house. She makes the house into a home. And then the kids are the residents.

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They live in the house. Okay. So Jesus is the foundation. Dad's the walls. And this is in general how it works.

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Men tend to form things, build structures, and then women fill them.

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Men form and women fill. Now, there's ways in which men fill and there's ways in which women form.

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It's not an all or nothing. But there's a truth there about forming and filling and the way that men and women operate.

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Here's the other image is the garden. So again, Christ is the sun that shines.

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He's the living water that waters the garden. Okay. That's Christ. Dad's the gardener. Mom is the garden, the earth, and children are the fruit.

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Okay. So those are two images that you can just have and they can help check, you know, am

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I faithfully being the earth, mom? Am I faithfully being the warmth within the house?

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Women, I was at a conference recently and one of the speakers said, women are fire.

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Women are fire. And controlled, that's great. It's a blessing.

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It's warmth in a fireplace. It turns a cold room into a warm room. Out of control, right, the house is burning down. Okay. So those are the two images, marriage is a home, marriage is a garden.

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Keep those in mind as we get to the practicals here. And then I've got one kind of main point, one big point about parenting, and then

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I'm going to apply that in about five different ways. What does it look like on the ground in the corners? Okay. Here's the main point.

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Okay. And I stress the one point, I was telling somebody at lunch, my approach to the

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Christian life in general is if you get the main thing right, you can get some little things wrong. Okay.

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If you get the main thing right, God's gracious, God's gracious, and all sorts of things you might not get right,

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I'm guessing that some of you maybe didn't grow up in Christian families, right, didn't grow up in Christian homes, and so you're figuring it out as you go and you're making all kinds of mistakes.

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Okay. That's okay. God's gracious. God's gracious. But if you get the main thing right, you can make those mistakes.

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If you get the main thing wrong, it doesn't matter how many little things you get right.

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Doesn't matter how many things you're buttoned up on in the details if the main thing is wrong.

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So, what's the main thing? What's the one thing? Okay. Here's the thing. Parenting is fundamentally about gospel presence with your family.

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Gospel presence with your family. So, I've been using that word presence in almost all of these talks as a core concept that we really want to reflect on.

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So, what do I mean by gospel presence here? So, gospel, this is the good news that as sinners, we are embraced and accepted by God because of what

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Jesus has done for us. That's the good news, okay? Jesus lived the life that we couldn't live. He died the death that we should have died.

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God raised him from the dead, triumphed over sin and death. Outside of Jesus, there is no hope.

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In Jesus, we have a living hope. That's the gospel. What do I mean by presence? Presence is there's a way of being, an orientation to life, a fundamental attitude that sort of colors everything that you say and do.

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It comes out of the core of who you are. It's the way you carry yourself. It's the impression that you give.

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That's what I mean by presence. And I'm saying gospel presence is the main thing, is the one thing.

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That's where we want to focus. So, if you have a Bible, you want to turn to Colossians 3. I'm going to unpack gospel presence from Colossians 3.

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Okay, this is a way of kind of getting this idea and then praying that God works it in your heart. Gospel presence, where do we begin?

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Gospel presence begins with setting your mind on Christ. So, in Colossians 3 verse 1, set your mind on things above, not on things below.

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Set your mind, set your affection, orient your life by Christ.

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He's the son. Everything in your life orbits around him.

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So, if then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

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Set your mind on things above, not on things that are in the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

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When Christ, who is your life, appears, you also will appear with him in glory.

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So, we set our gospel presence, we set our mind on Christ. He's our life, he's our hope, he's glory.

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That's where we look to, okay? That's number one. Number two, gospel presence puts on the new man, and the new man is

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Christ. It's the new self. So, this is verses 9 and 10. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you've put off the old man with his deeds, and you've put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him, okay?

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So, there's an old man, that's Adam, looking at that earlier this morning. Adam, passivity, idolatry, blame -shifting.

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And now, we're putting off that, I think it's clothing. See the clothing imagery? Put off, put on, put off, put on.

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So, we take off one set of clothes, we take Adam off, and we put Jesus on, okay?

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So, Adam rebelled against God, Christ trusted, obeyed, and imaged

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God. And so, gospel presence means that every day, you're going, I'm going to put on Jesus.

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I'm going to wear him like a cloak. And notice that here, there are practices or deeds that come out of that presence.

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So, it says, you've put off the old man with his deeds, with his practices. So, there's practices that come out of the presence, both directions.

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There's actions that flow from being in the old man, and there's actions that flow from being in the new man.

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And you can't do the practice if you don't have the presence. You can't do the practices if you've not put on the robe.

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That's second. So, first, set our mind on Christ. Second, put on the new man, put on Christ.

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Third, gospel presence means that you are fundamentally defined by God's love for you in the gospel.

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So, this is verse 12. Again, notice the clothing imagery. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, patience.

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Okay, so you hear that? As the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourself with these virtues.

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Here's all of these qualities that you want to have, okay? But how can you put them on?

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Well, you need to know that you are God's elect, God's chosen ones. You're holy and beloved.

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These characteristics are yours because you know that you are holy and beloved by God. He defines you.

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In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 10, Paul says, by the grace of God, I am what

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I am. Okay? So, if you think about that, God, God's name, remember in the

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Old Testament, I am that I am. God just is who he is. Well, who are you?

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You are who you are by the grace of God. It's the grace of God that defines you.

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It's the grace of God that makes you who and what you are. And so, his love, his grace is what defines us, and you know it in your bones.

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And that gives you a kind of gospel presence. That was third. Number four, gospel presence means that you are ruled by the peace of Christ.

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In verse 15, there, let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you were called in one body.

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So, this is related to that idea from last session about sober -minded courage.

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You're firm, you're stable, you're steadfast, you're unshaken, you're not tossed to and fro.

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When storms come, you're planted on a rock. When chaos erupts, it may erupt out there, but God's peace reigns in your heart.

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There's a stability and security that marks you. And why? Because it's the peace of Christ.

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Because you're defined by the grace of God, the love of God. You're fixing your eyes on him.

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You're clothed with him. Therefore, his peace reigns in your life. Number five, gospel presence means that the word of Christ dwells in you richly.

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Verse 16, let the word of God dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the

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Lord. So, not just that you read your Bible, but that there is a richness to your reading of the

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Bible. There's a fullness to the word in your life. It's not a dead letter, but it's richly, it's like fertilizer, right?

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This is the garden metaphor, right? It's what's making the plants full and vibrant and alive because it's a richness to that soil.

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One of the things, when you encounter gospel presence, the goal is that there's a felt sense, here's a person who's been with God.

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This is a person that has met with God. This is a person who's planted on the rock of Christ, okay?

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That's gospel presence. The word dwells richly. When you speak the word, there's a liveliness to it because it's not just empty words.

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It's not just on a page, but you've digested it. You've eaten the book, right? Think of it that way, right?

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You've eaten it, and now it's a part of you. It's made you who and what you are. Finally, last thing, six, gospel presence.

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Gospel presence means all of your practices are done in the name of the Lord Jesus. This is verse 17.

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Whatever you do in word or deed, so there's the practices, do all in the name of the

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Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. So your actions bear his name.

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Your actions, your words bear his name. They testify to him, point to him, draw attention to him.

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You're close with him. His grace defines you. You're seeking him, and therefore, your actions bear his name.

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People look at your actions and they go, that's a Christian. That bears the name of Christ.

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This is partly what's going on when we talk about the third commandment, taking the Lord's name in vain.

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Like, is that about cursing? Sure, okay? That's one way, using the name of the Lord in vain. Sure, that's one application. But you could never curse, you could never use the

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Lord's name in vain and still bear the Lord's name in vain by your actions because you're doing things in his name that don't reflect who he is.

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So let me try to drill into this, okay? If parenting is fundamentally about gospel presence with your family, then you ought to think of your parenting fundamentally as setting a tempo or setting a tune, use that musical imagery again, okay?

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If you want your family to make music, like I said the other day, Jesus is the tune, and dad should set the beat and lay down the baseline, and mom should pick up that beat and add the harmony, and now the kids can sing.

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Now the kids can sing. They can sing along because they've got a solid baseline and they've got beautiful harmony and Jesus is the music, but it's about setting that tempo.

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It's not just about... So if you think of it as giving orders and issuing directives and laying down rules, like all of those are involved, but this has to be first.

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It's about you want your kids to keep in step with you, right? So you're obeying God and then you're inviting them, calling them to obey

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God with you. It's not that you're trying to get them to obey God while you yourself... We'll come back to that. You yourself are disobeying in all kinds of ways.

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Or change the image and then we'll get practical. You should think of your parenting...

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Husbands, you should think of this in your marriage. Mom and dad, you should think of this in terms of parenting, is you're trying to cultivate a certain kind of atmosphere in your home, right?

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It's atmosphere management. You want your children to breathe life and joy and peace and gladness in the air because you're pumping high -quality gospel oxygen into your home.

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And in the metaphor here, right, the way that you breathe out life and joy and peace and gratitude in your home is you have to breathe in gospel.

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You've got to stand in grace, inhale grace, plant it on grace, and now you can breathe it out. Now you can bring it into your home.

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So that's the main thing. That's the big thing. Now, what does this look like on the ground? What does it look like in practice?

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So to do this, in Colossians 3, verse 21, we're told, fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged.

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Don't provoke your children, okay? In Ephesians, there's a parallel passage that says, fathers, don't provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord. So the idea here is don't provoke, embitter, exasperate, aggravate your kids lest they become discouraged, sullen, sulky, faint -hearted, listless.

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And I've got five ways that I want to push this into the corners. And the statement, they're all structured the same.

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So parenting with gospel presence means, okay, don't embitter your children by, and then

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I'm going to fill in that blank, but instead, and then I'm going to fill in that blank. Does that make sense? So parenting with gospel presence, that's the big thing.

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That means we're not going to embitter or exasperate our kids by doing this.

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Instead, we're going to do that. So do this, not that. Oh, it's actually, don't do this, do this.

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Okay, that's the order. Okay. So number one, don't embitter your children by bearing the burden of their salvation.

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Instead, parent out of the promises of God. So don't bear the burden of their salvations.

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You can't save your kids, okay? You can't change their hearts.

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You can't cause the new birth. You can't do it. You are not in that position.

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Only God can save your kids. Only God can change the heart, okay?

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So that's the one set. You can't bear the burden of their salvation directly. But instead, we need to realize it's also not a crapshoot, okay?

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God has given us promises, and he's made promises to Christians even about their kids. And so I know

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I'm in a Baptist church, and I know I'm not a Baptist anymore, so I'm mindful of that. This isn't about baptism, pedo -baptism.

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This is about parenting, okay? This is about the promises that God has given. So I'm going to read you a couple of passages, and I'll just tell you right now, it really does matter if when you're faced with things in the lives of your kids, do you run to these promises and say,

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I believe you, Lord. Now help me to live that out in relation to my kids. It does matter that you go to the promises.

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So Jeremiah 32, 38 through 40, this is...my wife and I chose this kind of as our marriage passage when we were first married, and it's been really helpful for me to come back to it again and again as a prayer.

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So here it is, Jeremiah 32. It's a new covenant promise. And they shall be my people, and I will be their

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God. I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for their own good and the good of their children after them.

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That's what I'm underlining, okay? So God's made new covenant promises. I will make with them an everlasting covenant.

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I will not turn away from doing good to them. I will put the fear of me in their hearts that they may not turn from me, and I will rejoice in doing good to them, and I will plant them in the land in faithfulness with all my heart and all my soul.

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And the thing that I wanted to stress there is there's God saying, all my heart, all my soul is directed towards doing good to you, and you get both sides of that coin.

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Notice he says, I will put the fear of me in you. God alone can put the fear of God in your heart.

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You don't have that power to do that for anybody, but God can. And he says he will. And then notice that he says that they may fear me forever for their own good and the good of their children after them.

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So when I come to God as a Christian and I say, Lord, give me one heart, give me one way, husband, wife, give us one way that we may fear you for our good and the good of our kids.

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I'm trusting you, Lord, for our good and the good of our kids. Help me to parent out of that promise.

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Here's another one. Isaiah 59 verses 20 and 21. This is again, this is about new covenant because it says, a redeemer will come to Zion, that's

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Christ, to those in Jacob who turn from their transgressions. And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the

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Lord, my spirit that is upon you. My words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth or out of the mouth of your offspring or out of the mouth of your children's offspring from this time forth and forevermore.

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So the redeemer will come, there's Christ coming, making a covenant. I'm putting my spirit in your mouth, and it won't depart out of your mouth or their mouth or their kids' mouths.

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That's the promise. Now, all of God's promises, they don't run automatically, okay?

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It's not like, it doesn't just run on its own. All of God's promises have to be grasped by faith.

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So when we parent out of the promises, it's the difference between parenting out of fear or out of faith.

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When you make yourself, when you place the burden of your kid's salvation on your shoulders, you will parent out of fear.

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Every little thing that they do, every sin that shows up will be a cause of anxiety, okay?

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This is especially true, moms, okay? I know this, this is especially true for you.

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This is a deep temptation. We talk about fearing anything that's frightening. You look at five -year -old sin, and you see 25 -year -old blow up, and it terrifies you, right?

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If that little sinner with that little tantrum stays like that, what's it going to look like at 25?

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And you can begin to be agitated. What do I got to do? What do I got to do? What do I got to do? And it's like, at that moment, you and husbands, this is where you come and help, is to say, no, let's go back to the promise.

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God's made a promise. He's put the fear of God in our hearts, hasn't he? He has. Okay, and he says he's done that for who's good?

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For our good. And for who else is good? They're good. So we're going to fear the Lord, we're going to trust the

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Lord, and now out of that, what has he done? Yes, there's sin here. There's five -year -old sin just making a big mess on my floor.

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What has God done to address this? He put you there. He put

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Christian parents right there, ready to deal with it. So it's not like God is absent.

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Oh, no, there's sin. What's God going to do? He gave you to them. But he gave the faithful you to them, the one who's trusting him, the one whose spirit is upon you and whose word is coming out.

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Like, he gave that version and said, I want that version, that gospel you, that gospel you needs to address this.

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Not the fearful, terrified, panicky you. That's just going to... I'll come back to this. That's just going to make things worse.

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So this is fundamentally about this mindset or orientation. It's a faith in God's promises that enables you to do this.

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Here's the banner that runs over. When I talk about parenting, when we established the church that I was a pastor at in Minnesota for eight years, the banner that ran over our family ministry was this, be the smile of God to your children, okay?

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Be the smile of God to your children. And where we got it was from the baptism of Jesus.

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So remember the baptism of Jesus, okay? Jesus goes into the... John baptizes him to fulfill all righteousness. Jesus comes up out of the water.

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The spirit descends like a dove and a voice from heaven says, this is my beloved son with whom

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I am well -pleased. And this is a window into the heart of God, right?

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Father, Son, Holy Spirit, there's Trinity here, right? Reflecting who ultimate reality is like right there, okay?

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And what do we see at the heart of ultimate reality? Fatherly delight, fatherly joy, fatherly pleasure, okay?

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And then we know in the gospel, this is gospel presence, God says that about his son Christ, and he says that about all those who are in his son.

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God looks at you and me in light of Jesus and says, I'm well -pleased with you. But I'm a sinner.

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I know, but you're in my son. You're united to my son. You've trusted in my son, and therefore, you are my beloved son.

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You are my beloved daughter with whom I am well -pleased. That right there is the dominant note in the parental symphony.

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Fatherly joy, motherly delight. So be the smile of God to your children.

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Communicate to them what he is like. When my kids were little, I thought about this a lot.

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That, like, ran on a tape in the back of my head whenever I would have tickle fights with my kids, okay?

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It's like, I'd throw my three boys, I'd throw them on the bed, and we would just, you know, go to town.

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It's like, what's happening here? And it's like, I am communicating ultimate reality to them.

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Fatherly joy, fatherly delight, fatherly pleasure, all right here. Mothers, you can do it in your own way.

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There's other ways moms can do it. But communicating that is the fundamental thing. And you can't do that if you're parenting out of fear.

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You must parent out of faith in the promises of God. So that's number one. Gospel presence means you don't embitter your children by bearing the burden of their salvation.

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Instead, you parent out of the promises. Number two, you don't embitter your children by keeping them permanently dependent on you.

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Instead, you bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

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So some parents want their children to remain permanently dependent on them.

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They don't want them to grow up. Oftentimes, it's because they have a deep need to be needed.

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Moms tend to fall in that way, or a threat of being surpassed. Dads tend to fall into that.

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You know, we'll talk about these two different temptations, okay? And parents in this boat will sacrifice the growth of their children in maturity on the altar of their own needs.

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I need to be needed and I don't want you to surpass me, and so I'm going to keep you down, keep you dependent, and make sure

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I assert myself over you, okay? Because the fear is, if I let my kids grow up, then they won't need me anymore.

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I'll lose them, okay? But here's the deal. This is the way God designed the world. If you let them grow up, if you raise them up, you will lose them as children, okay?

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But in God's world, right, faithful death always leads to resurrection. So you lose them as kids and you get them back as peers, okay?

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As friends, as mature adults who stand shoulder -to -shoulder with you in this great mission, okay?

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So they have to die as kids in order to get there. If you keep them as kids, they can't stand shoulder -to -shoulder with you because you're standing on their shoulders, holding them down.

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Instead, you want to raise them up so that actually they stand on your shoulders, they surpass you. Let me say this to moms and dads.

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So dads, the temptation for dads, I think in this area, is to stunt the growth and maturity of our kids, particularly our sons, but sometimes our daughters as well, so that they never surpass us in anything.

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We're always bigger, always stronger, always smarter, always wiser than them. Their growth is a threat to us.

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And so we embitter them because we keep them under our thumb rather than longing for them to stand on our shoulders so that they surpass us in every way.

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And I just want to commend to you a vision that says, I want my... So I think about this. I grew up in a nominal

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Christian home, okay? My parents...my dad probably didn't become a Christian at all until I was about 12.

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My mom became a serious Christian at that time. So I did not grow up in a solid Christian home. So there's lots of things about parenting and family life that are new to me.

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I've had to learn them sort of from others, right? I had to find other fathers and mothers to help figure some stuff out because my parents didn't know.

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My goal though is that there are things that are hard for me that will be easier for my kids.

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We're not going to get it all done in a generation, but it's like we think about this, my wife and I think about this.

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Her parents, her dad became a Christian when her older brother was born, so in mid -30s.

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And it was like at that point, you look back and there wasn't a lot of Christian, wasn't any Christian on his side. On his mom's side, there was some nominalist

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Christian sort of stuff on her mom's side. And so all of a sudden, it was like God started...he did a new work, changed some hearts, brought people to faith.

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And then now it's like we're looking at generational progress. So they did some good, we're grateful for it.

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We're going to receive it and we're going to make good on it. We're going to carry it forward so that now things that are hard for us will be easier for our kids and things that are...and

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then there'll be still some stuff that's hard for them and it will be easier for our grandkids and so on and so forth. Does that make sense? But in order to do that, you can't view your kids surpassing you as a problem.

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You have to view that as success. Otherwise, you're in the position of the acorn looking at an oak tree and going, ugh, right?

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Like it would be dumb for an acorn to look at a full -grown oak and go, no, this is bad. I wanted you to stay another little acorn like me.

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No, you want your acorns to grow up? Moms, here's how that temptation work for you.

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You'll try to avoid all of the breaches and separations of motherhood, okay?

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This is one way men and women are different. Motherhood in many ways is a repeated pattern of encircling and separation.

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Just think about this, okay? So a mother's body is literally a baby's home, okay?

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Like women are the sort of people that people come out of, okay?

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A woman's body is a home, it's a place, okay? And then after nine months, the baby makes a jailbreak, okay?

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Just breaks out, okay? And the baby breaks out, and this is painful, right? Postpartum depression, things like that, okay?

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What does a mother immediately do after the baby has broken out of the womb? Answer, she encircles.

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She wraps it up. Now she's got here. Now we're nursing. We're doing all of the little times with infants, right, and newborns, okay?

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And then that baby grows up, and now all of a sudden it's not here. You've got a little toddler. And so what does a mom do?

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She encircles. She gets those little baby gates, right? She gets outlet covers to make sure they can't stick their fingers.

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She puts stuff on the corners of coffee tables so that they can't bang their heads. What is she doing? She's encircling again, okay?

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And then they grow up, and it's time. It's that now they're five or six years old, and they're heading off to school. And I remember vividly this moment when our oldest was going off to kindergarten,

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I think, and we were dropping him off at school, my wife and I, and our mentalities were fundamentally different.

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Because I, as a dad, was going, good luck at boot camp, son, right?

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I was sending him off to get trained, and she was like, get back in my belly, right?

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She was like, it was a breakout, okay?

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My wife was...I was sending him off to war. I was sending him off to get ready. And for her, it was like he's being torn away, okay?

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That's motherhood. It's a pattern of encircling and breaches. The temptation for moms is to hinder that, is to reinforce those walls.

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Like God intended that pattern to play out again and again and again. The tendency for moms is to try to reinforce those walls with steel, okay?

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And it won't work. It won't work. So, don't embitter your kids by trying to keep them permanently dependent upon you.

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Instead, bring them up in the discipline instruction. Lord, let them grow up to surpass you. Third, don't embitter your kids by taking things personally.

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Instead, stay sober -minded. So, now we're going to work that truth, which we've talked about, into the corners of parenthood, okay?

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We've talked about paying attention to your reactions and your passions. This is one of the blessings of God for your sanctification as parents, is that God is going to give you a workout when it comes to your passions, okay?

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Know when you're getting your dander up at your kids. You ever have... Okay, here's the deal. You're never allowed to have it up to here.

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When you find yourself doing that, right, I've had it up to here. What that means is you were letting your sin go and their sin go when it was down here.

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You decided, I'm not going to address it down here. I'm going to wait until it builds and builds and builds, and I blow up.

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I've had it up to here. If you're out of sorts, this is a fundamental parenting principle. Galatians 6 .1

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says, if anyone is caught in a transgression, let you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, but beware lest you yourself be tempted.

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So, the idea is that if someone's in a sin and you're going to correct them, you've got to be in the right place.

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You've got to be filled with the Holy Spirit, right? You've got to be spiritual. And if you're not, you're not qualified, okay?

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The first place you will apply that is in your parenting. Oftentimes as parents, we see sin in our kids and we're correct.

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It is a little bundle of sin just running around right there, okay? But you are not spiritual. You're trying to correct something and you yourself are not in a position to offer that correction and therefore it goes bad.

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So, if you're frustrated when your kid is throwing a tantrum or being selfish and you want to show them, kid, your passions are leading you astray, but you're doing so while your passions are running you.

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So, here's the deal, and this is a fundamental principle of parenting. Your kids will, in that moment, if you're doing that, your kids will not hear what you're saying, they will imitate what you're doing.

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They will not hear what you're saying. You're saying true things. You need to honor your parents. You need to honor your mother, okay?

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You need to love your brother. You need to not hit your sibling, right? You're saying all true things. They will not hear what you're saying.

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Instead, they will imitate what you're doing. And what you're doing is letting your passions run you. And so, the actual thing they're learning is passions are in charge.

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It's okay in this home for passions to be in charge, as long as you put some Bible verses over the top of it.

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So, put a point on this. I've run into this a number of times in my own heart.

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I've seen it, my wife's seen it in her heart. We've seen it in other families. So, you've got a kid who's getting frustrated, okay?

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Annoyed, angry, because something that he cares about isn't going his way. You got to pick, or she, pick your boy, girl, doesn't matter.

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Something that they care about is not going their way. Some desire that they have is being checked, shut down, and they can't do anything about it.

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And so, as a result, your child is angry, and that anger is just coming out in various ways.

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Make sense? Seen that? Okay, good. In that parenting, sometimes what we do is we're looking at that going, yeah, something

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I care about deeply is not going the way I want it to go. I can't seem to do anything about it.

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And as a result, I'm angry, annoyed, and frustrated. And that emotion is coming out in a variety of ways. And so, when you see it in your kid, you go, where did he learn that?

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He learned it by watching you, okay? So, the key here is when you see your kid's sin is there, do you think it will help?

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So, like, I thought about this as a dad. So, I'll say I'm in my office at home, and I'm working on something, and from the other room,

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I hear the thing, right? Eruption. Sibling fight, whatever it is. Disrespect to mom.

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Okay, I've got to go deal with this, all right? I'm dad, I'm home, I'm going to deal with it. So, I go out. If I go out there, though, in frustration, anger, and annoyance, because I was working on something, and look what you made me do, all

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I'm doing is bringing more sin to an already sinful situation, and expecting it to go better.

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This is the grand irony, right? It's like, I'm walking, I'm going to put a stop to this. I'm walking out there, expecting things to get better, because I'm bringing frustration to the situation.

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It's insane. It's absolutely insane. Instead, I don't want to channel passions back into the system.

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I want the passions, my kids' passions, to hit me, and I'm going to absorb them, and instead,

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I'm going to get curious. Curious, what do you mean? Yeah, sober -mindedness enables you to get curious, okay?

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This is often, this is an unrecognized aspect of love. So, when, but Peter, when he gives commands to husbands, says to husbands, live with your wife in an understanding way.

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Live with your wife according to knowledge. What that implies is that he has to sort of take into account certain aspects of his wife's constitution.

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As a woman, as the particular woman that she is, he needs to have understanding of that in order to love her well, to show honor to her as the weaker vessel.

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Okay? So, he needs to remember, in the heat of the moment, this is a conversation with your wife now, it's a conflict, he has to remember certain things about her in order to stay steady.

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Oh, okay. You know, she's had a hard day with the kids, maybe some of that's coming out now at me. I'm not going to,

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I'm going to absorb it and not, and engage in a different way. And then, if there's things he doesn't know, he's going to ask some questions.

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Whoa, where'd that come from? Okay, I'm not offended, I'm not taking it personally. Instead, I'm saying, okay,

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I'm going to ask some questions to try to get him behind. That makes sense? Okay, same thing with your kids. Kids, you know, come home and grumpy, frustrated, sullen, whatever, and, whoa, where's that coming from?

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Where'd that little voice of disrespect come from? Instead of taking it personally, how dare you offend my dignity?

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It's, hmm, what's going on there? Okay, and then taking action to address it.

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God here is a model for us. In Psalm 103, we're told, as a father shows compassion to his children, so the

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Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. So, God's compassion for his kids, and it says, he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust.

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He knows our frame. So, parents, do you know your kid's frame? Do you remember it in the moment of discipline, in the moment of correction?

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Is that front and center, or did you forget that and now it's just frustration and anger talking? Disappointment, shame talking, fear talking.

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This is especially true as kids get older, but it's true even from the little years. So, that's number three.

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Don't embitter your kids by taking things personally. Instead, stay sober -minded. Number four, failing to discipline.

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We can embitter our kids by failing to discipline them. Instead, we are to take responsibility for them.

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So, I think about this verse a lot, Job, in the book of Job, when Job's righteousness and godliness is being displayed before Satan wrecks him, we're told that his kids are grown, and they're having parties at one of their brother's houses.

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And it said, whenever they would do that, Job would go offer sacrifices and say, and he did so, lest they had sinned and cursed

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God in their hearts. And you say, and I look at that and I go, what is he doing? He's their father, he's taking responsibility.

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In other words, he's going before God and saying, Lord, the sin that's in my kids' hearts is my responsibility, and I know it, okay?

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So, we don't offer blood sacrifices for sins anymore. We don't do that, but I regularly, when

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I see sin in my kids, the first thing I do is I go before the Lord and I say, Lord, that right there is my problem.

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I just want you to know, Lord, as I start out to try to figure out how to address this, I just want you to know, this is mine, and I am ready and able, right, willing to do whatever is needed to address it faithfully.

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So, I'm not going to...well, you know the people. You know the kids, Lord, how their hearts are always set on evil.

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You know the kids. And God goes, yeah, I do. That's why you're there. That's why I put you there, because their hearts are always set on evil.

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They're yours. The sin in their hearts, that's your problem. That's your responsibility.

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So, we have to take responsibility for them and not fail to discipline them. And so, in Colossians, we're told that we should, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other, be long -suffering.

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And the reality is, is that many parents have complaints against their kids, and they just stew in those complaints.

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They fester. So, here's how this works, okay? Your child, that son of Adam, that daughter of Eve, living in your home, lets the old man and his passions and desires come flying out.

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Fussing, complaining, whining, defiance, whatever it is. And then you, as a parent, fail to discipline them, fail to show them how to repent and take responsibility.

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And therefore, the sin festers not only in their little soul, okay, but in yours, because they've not repented, you've not forgiven them.

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And so, now, it's just stewing in yours. So, you've got sin festering there and sin festering here, and you're carrying around bitterness at your kids all day long until you finally had it up to here, erratic anger, and you call that discipline.

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And the kid doesn't know what's going on in the world. Erratic discipline embitters kids. It doesn't make sense.

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They've whined for the last hour and a half, and you didn't do anything. And then, all of a sudden, they whined a little more, and you blew up.

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What did they learn? Right? That discipline is a mystery.

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I have no idea why sometimes it's met with discipline and sometimes it's not. My sin, I don't know why, okay?

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So, this is why consistent, firm, and cheerful discipline in the context of a glad -hearted and joyful home is so important.

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I stress both of those, right? If the environment of your home is joyful and glad -hearted, if that's the normal temperature, okay, sin interrupts it, and discipline is putting it right.

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And I think sometimes for parents, especially if you grew up in a home where discipline was erratic and your parents flew off the handle, have a real hard time because discipline in your head is associated with anger, frustration, and bitterness, and so you don't know how to do it.

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And you're like, oh, I don't want to discipline because I don't want to disrupt the relationship.

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And it's like, time out. Nope. The sin is what disrupted the relationship. Their little sin just now, that little tantrum they just threw, that broke the relationship.

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Discipline is you fixing it. It's putting it back together, right? And so, you should do that.

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You should be excited about this. You should rejoice. I'm going to fix the sin now. How? I'm going to show them how to repent.

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They're going to get a spanking, and the spanking is going to be under control. I'm not just flying off the handle and whacking them.

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Instead, it's sober -minded, careful, calm as the day is long, ready and eager to spank and then to receive them back, right?

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Just like God does us, receiving them back, praying with them, and then now, tickle fight.

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Now, we're back into joy. Welcome back into joy. Sin had killed your joy. I'm bringing you back into joy.

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So, not lashing out, not reacting, stable, secure, peace ruling in your heart. You're giving your kids a gift.

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So, don't fail the discipline. Instead, take responsibility for them. And then finally, the final way you can admit it is with harsh and foolish discipline.

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Instead, discipline with wisdom, using the right tools at the right time in the right way. Right tools at the right time in the right way.

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So, one of the surest ways to exasperate your kids is to be exasperated by them. One of the surest ways to exasperate your kids is to be exasperated by them.

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One of the surest ways to provoke them to anger is to be provoked to anger by them.

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When we spank in anger, when we react, when we speak harshly, when our tone of voice communicates that we're on edge, we are sowing seeds of bitterness into little souls.

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Okay? If you're trying to show your kid who's the boss, you're teaching them that God's not the boss.

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You're not clothing yourself with the new man. Tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, those virtues, they're gone.

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You've got Adam all over you. And here's the thing about this, I always love to do this, okay? Every one of you that are parents, right, you are fully capable of having a compassionate heart of tender mercy towards your children, okay?

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There are times, I know this, for every parent in here, when you look at your kids and your heart just swells with tender mercies and love and affection and delight, like, it's called nap time, okay?

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You laugh, okay? Let's analyze the humor for a minute, okay? It's perfectly fine, it's a joke.

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But you need to remember what the joke is, okay? Because I tell that joke and you laugh, and you think that the joke is saying something about our kids.

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Sometimes, they're little angels, and sometimes they're not, okay? The joke is really something about us, okay?

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The contrast, the reason that we laugh at the contrast and the incongruity is that we're the joke.

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Children are children, okay? Immaturity, childishness, inability to control their emotions, sinful hearts, all of that is baked into the cake.

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That's just, that's human kids right there, okay? What's surprising is our immaturity, our childishness, our inability to control our emotions.

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We're supposed to be the adults. We're supposed to absorb the toddler tantrum, not add a parental one on top of it.

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The only thing that can cheerfully absorb toddler tantrums is gospel presence. And I said, use all of the tools in the toolkit.

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So, I don't have a ton of time to unpack all of these, but sometimes when we think about,

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God's given you a bunch of tools in your tool belt. So, there's some that I would call proactive tools.

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That's like instruction, teaching, like there's no issue going on right now. You're just saying, hey, here's what

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God expects of us. This is just like the steady state. This is what you need to believe as a

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Christian. This is what you need to do. Formal, informal, apply, you know, as you go. This is the proactive stuff, okay?

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Then there's also warnings and admonishments. Warnings and admonishments, okay?

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That's when you anticipate a particular danger, right? If they haven't yet fallen yet, they haven't gone down that path, but you're wiser than they are.

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And so, this is, you know, hey, we're going to the playground, and I know that that girl that you're always fighting with, honey, might be there, and I want you to make sure that if she gets really upset at you, that you don't respond in kind, right?

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They're not anticipating, so you're going to anticipate for them and warn them ahead of time. That's also a tool in your tool belt, okay?

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And those kind of tools are often about, you just had experience that your kids haven't had, and you're bringing that to bear on a situation, okay?

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And you have to realize that those are the sorts of things you have to give over, and over, and over again, and you're not allowed to get frustrated when you're like, how many times do

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I have to tell you? It's like, well, how many times does God have to tell you? Okay, that's always a check for me and my wife.

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We talk about this. It's always a check when it's like, when we feel like, man, how many times do I have to tell my kid this is the rule?

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And it's like, well, how many times has God had to tell me? I'm 41, right? He's still merciful, long -suffering, patient with me.

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This is just parenting. Say it again. Teach them again. Teach them again. Then you've got not only warning and admonition, you've got correction and rebuke.

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So this is when they've started down the path, right? So warning is they haven't gone down it, but they might. Correction and rebuke is, oh, they're starting to go off the rails.

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I'm going to then bring them back, right? So rebuke speaks to them when they've begun to travel down the path.

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Rebuke should be sharp but gentle. Sharp but gentle, okay? It flows from affection and not from frustration, right?

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You love them, and therefore, you're trying to spare them. And the common pitfall here is that strong disapproval, they're walking down a bad path, will come through as harsh and bitter.

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So sharpness can become harshness really easily. So it needs to be sharp but gentle, sharp but affectionate.

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So there's a gentleness that needs to be in play when you're doing the correction, a patience with the correction.

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Finally, I got two more actually, reward and discipline, reward and discipline. So this is after something good's happened or something bad's happened.

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This is sort of, you've got children are young, you've got spanking, and you're giving artificial disciplines, okay?

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So when they're little, they did something wrong and you spank them because when they grow up, if they did that thing, there would be disastrous consequences, right?

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And so you're giving artificial ones when they're small so that they stop doing it, okay? Whereas as they get older, you might let some of those real -world consequences fall on your teenager, right?

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They need to learn that you're not always going to be there to interrupt it. And so, you know, when your kids are little and they forget something that you told them to bring, you might give them a spank because, hey,

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I told you to bring that, or they break something, when your kids are older, they have to pay for it. You let the consequence fall on their head.

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But, and then that's the negative side. Praise is just as important, okay? And so, be the smile of God is sort of the baseline.

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What I'm using praise here is specifics, when they do a good job, when they work hard, when they go above and beyond.

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It's not enough, if you only speak to them about this whenever they get it wrong, you're only doing half your job.

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But you want to commend what's good, okay? Hey, that was a great job. I noticed today that you got up and you did the dishes without even me asking.

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That was awesome. Thanks so much. Do so more and more, right? You're doing great, right?

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So there you're praising what you want more of. And you need praise to be coupled with that correction, that discipline.

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Finally, you've got exhortations and commands. You can just say, do this, do that. And exhortations, the difference between a command and an exhortation is, you must, that's a command, and let us, that's an exhortation.

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So exhortation is often, hey, let's do this. You're including yourself in it. There's a whole talk there, right, on those different tools.

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You just need to know you've got all those, and you need to think, what's the right tool for this moment? What's the right tool for this kid?

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So, for example, when it comes to disciplining, with some kids, it's like, you're going to have to use a wooden spoon.

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It's going to be, you're going to need a paddle in order to address this. Others, a stern look is all it's going to take, right?

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Just one disapproving look, and it's like, you get this, they crumble. Other kids, it's like, that disapproving look, and it's like, watch me do it again, okay?

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So you need to know what's the right tool for the right kid at the right time. This is wisdom, and it's what helps us to not embitter our kids.

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Last thing, two more things, actually. No, I'll just, I'll finish this one. So, closing here with an exhortation, the book of Proverbs, in the book of Proverbs, Solomon says, my son, give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways.

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I just think this is a great, like, capture the heart of parenting in 13 words, okay?

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This is the heart of it, okay? So, there's an exchange that we're after in our parenting.

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As our children grow up in our homes, we want to receive something from them, and we want to receive, and we want them to receive something from us.

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So, notice here, we want their hearts. So, what do we want from our kids? My son, give me your heart.

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And what do we want to give them? We want to give them our ways. I want your heart, and I want you to get our ways, okay?

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This is why you got to keep your eye on the ball. It's easy to think that when you're giving your instructions about obedience, okay, it's easy to give instruction and discipline because you want your children to obey externally, or because you want some peace and quiet, or because you have important work to do, and the fussing, and whining, and quarreling is an interruption to it.

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So, you're giving the discipline because you're after their obedience or peace and quiet, but you're not after their heart, okay?

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So, you want their obedience, but what you want more than their obedience is their heart. You want obedience from the heart.

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You want peace and quiet from the heart, which means you have to go after the heart. So, when you're setting rules, are you after their heart?

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When you instruct them in God's laws, are you after their heart? When you enforce the rules, are you after their heart?

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When you say yes to their requests, are you after their heart, or are you just catering because they're whining?

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When you say no to their requests, is it because you're after their heart? Okay? So, this is the heart, but again, my son, give me your heart.

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My son, give me your heart. I'm after their heart. How do I get their heart? God, help me to get their heart. That's what you have.

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And then, the flip side is, let your eyes observe my ways. Literally, it's let your eyes delight in my ways.

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Let your eyes delight in my ways. So, the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him. It's the same word. The Lord delights in those who fear him.

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The Lord takes pleasure in his people, Psalm 149 .4, it's the Lord delights. Same word. Okay? So, the idea is, my son,

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I want you to look on my ways, our ways, and I want you to gladly receive it. And so, we say a lot in Moscow, we talk a lot about, it's not enough to get them to obey the standard, we want them to love the standard.

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Not just obey the standard, not just meet the standard, but love the standard. And this is the thing.

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This is the exchange. So, when you give instruction, is it with exasperation or cheerfulness?

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What ways are you actually imparting? Because again, you may think, well, I've got all the good list of all the good rules, and I'm giving them those.

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But are you giving them with frustration, exasperation, harshness, anger? Because if you are, then they will observe your ways.

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They will imitate those ways, and you will not like it. And these two exhortations hang together, okay?

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Our ways will be more delightful to them if we are gladly seeking their hearts.

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One of our fundamental callings again is to be the smile of God to our children, reflecting his smile, reflecting his delight in us and in them.

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And ultimately, we want our children to give their hearts to God, okay? The giving their hearts to us is just practice, right?

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Give me your heart because I want you to give your heart to God. It's practice. And there's a great little thing

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I want to do here. So, in Mark 9, Jesus says, remember he puts a little child in the midst of the disciples and says, whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.

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Whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. So, to receive a child in the name of Jesus is to receive

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Jesus, right? This is also a banner over our children's ministry at my old church, right?

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Like, we want to receive children in Jesus' name because we want more of Jesus. And those two, receiving children and receiving

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Jesus, fuse together here because it's done in his name. So, when you receive children in Jesus' name, what do you actually end up with?

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You have the children and you have Jesus, right? Make sense? Same thing, okay?

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There is a way that your children can give you their heart that becomes over time and by the grace of God, a giving of their hearts to God.

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They give their heart to you, and if you're teaching them and instructing them and disciplining and correcting them rightly, they give their hearts to you in the name of Jesus.

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And when they do that, who has their heart in the end? You do, and he does.

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That's what we're after. So, let me pray, and then we'll take a short break, and we'll come back for some questions.

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Okay, so I'll pray, 15 -minute break. We'll have time for some questions before we're done for the afternoon.

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Father, help us to be the smile of God to our kids. We do delight in them. I know the parents in this room want so much good for their kids, just want to pour it out on them.

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And yet, Lord, we're fallen, we're sinful, we can want more from our kids than they can supply. Help us to parent out of your promises, to be the smile of God, to receive them, and to get their hearts.