TLP 582: How Your Children Respond to Sin, Part 8 | Anger

It's not about us, it's about Him. It's not about failing our standards, it's about displeasing Him. This is not a failure of self-worship, it's a failure of God-worship. Parenting isn't about us. In fact, parenting isn't even about our kids.

Parenting is just one way Christian dads and moms are to worship God. So welcome to the Truth, Love, Parent podcast, where we train dads and moms to give God the preeminence in their parenting. Welcome to the show.

My name is Aaron Brewster. I am a biblical family counselor, author, speaker, homeschool coach, and passionate lover of God. This podcast exists to fill a very important hole in the Christian parenting world.

Too many shows are dealing with low-hanging fruit or coming to worldly conclusions about how to raise children. But what we desire to accomplish is to open God's Word and apply the truth we find therein directly to us and our homes.

God has given our families everything we need for life and godliness in His Word. That's why we have nearly 600 episodes that dig deeper and explore further the big and the little parenting challenges you're going to face.

In fact, we have a whole series called The Biggest Parenting Challenges You Will Ever.

Face.

Of this series, a listener by the name of Michael said, the very first podcast in the series might be one of the best podcasts I've ever listened to. Thank you so much, Michael. Anyway, that's why we're here.

We want to equip you to worship God with your parenting. And to that end, we include free episode notes, a transcript, and related resources with nearly every episode. All you have to do is go to the description of the episode and you will find a bunch of links to resources that will help you deepen and broaden your study even more.

So with that, let's dive into our topic for today. As we talk about how our children respond to sin, we started with the responses that are less intuitive. We looked at the knowledge response, the delusion response, the conviction response, and the callousing response.

On our last episode, we considered a response that was much more intuitive for us. We looked at the fear response children often have when they sin. And today is going to be very similar in that none of us are going to be surprised to learn about this particular response to sin.

In fact, it might be safe to say that we ourselves are more familiar with this response to sin than even our kids are. But before we get too much further into this subject, I'd like to remind you of two really important things.

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Therefore, if you are able, you can use the link in the description of this episode to donate to our general fund, or you can visit truthloveparent .com forward slash donate. Please prayerfully consider how much you can invest in your own family as well as families all over the globe.

This podcast has a truly global reach, so your donations are helping to equip dads and moms and kids in countries you will likely never even visit. Thank you for what you will do. Now, let's deepen and widen our understanding of the anger response to sin.

As was already mentioned, I think it's fair to observe that most of the parents listening to this episode today have responded in anger to their own sin. I repeat this observation because it's very helpful for us parents to recognize that our kids rarely struggle with things with which we didn't struggle in the past or with which we're not currently struggling now.

It keeps us humble, it puts us into a you and I together mindset instead of a you versus me mindset, and it helps us be more patient and merciful. But now we need to start with number one, the anger response to sin.

The anger response is a little different than the typical sin which we call anger. A child may ask for ice cream, be told no, and then choose to be sinfully angry. That is not about which we are talking today.

But if that is what you wish we were talking about today, then allow me to point you to our Parenting Angry Children series. That series will not only be very valuable in continuing today's discussion, but it will also help those of you who need help with kids whose main sin is anger, instead of merely being a response to the initial sin.

As I mentioned before, that link will be in the description of today's episode. The anger itself is just as wrong and cut from the same cloth as the initial anger. But this topic is different in regard to what is motivating the anger.

So let's unpack this a bit more. The anger response may be letter A, motivated by disgust in oneself. I cannot tell you how many times in my life I have sinned and then was either immediately or soon thereafter mad at myself for it.

Now this response isn't as noble as one may think. We may be tempted to view this as righteous indignation. However, I believe it's safe to say that much of the time, if not all of the time, there are definitely streaks of sinful anger throughout.

It might be motivated by pride or self-worship or rooted in fear or any of the other reasons we get simply angry. Therefore, if our kids are responding to their sin with this kind of anger, we need to be careful to not only understand the motivation, but also recognize that this motivation is not good.

The anger response may also be letter B, motivated by delusion. All throughout our study, we've been turning to Genesis 3 and 4 because those passages introduce us to the first sins. They are a perfect place to witness and understand how sinful man responds to sin.

Well, Cain is, I think, the best example of what it is to be sinfully angry. His first sin was worshiping self by pretending to worship God. When he was reproved by God, Cain's response was to get angry.

When reproved by God for his anger, Cain got even more angry and channeled that anger into killing his brother. And when reproved for murdering Abel, Cain got angry again. I believe part of the anger Cain experienced was due to his personal delusion.

He was deluded enough to think God was wrong for not regarding his gift. He was deluded enough to think that God was wrong about confronting him about his anger. And he was deluded enough to think that the consequences God gave him for killing his brother were too heavy to bear.

Because Cain viewed God, God's reproof, and God's consequences as being unjust, it's no surprise that he allowed himself to become angry. But our children's anger can also be, let us see, motivated by knowledge.

This anger may look very similar to the first kind, motivated by disgust. However, this is not engendered by failing myself or not meeting up to my own standards or simply being disgusted by my own self.

This anger is a sacred anger that is justly focused against the actual sin. This anger is appropriate, but it's easily mistakable. Therefore, it will be important to carefully identify if this is a sacred, sanctified anger motivated by knowledge or a sinful anger motivated by self.

Again, anger is motivated by many things, but the anger that results as a response to sin and the other responses to sin is unique in and of itself. And it's vital that we be able to understand and work toward categorizing it if we want to help our kids.

Once we do that, we're in a much better place to, number two, parenting children with an anger response to sin. I'd like to take this moment to remind you of the Parenting Angry Children series. I believe that will be so helpful in your parenting, but I'd also like to tell you about the Merciful Life series.

After we published the Parenting Angry Children episodes, I received a ton of feedback about how helpful it was. But then I started hearing parents, more so than they had with any other series, start talking about how much the episodes helped them personally with their own anger.

A lot of parents share with me how much they themselves struggle with responding angrily, especially in parenting. That's why I took the same biblical truth and published the Merciful Life series on the Celebration of God podcast.

That series steps through what the Bible has to say on the subject, but this time it's presented for the listener to apply to him or herself instead of someone else. I believe both of those series will be a blessing to you, but if one of your sin habits happens to be anger, I would highly recommend you start on yourself first.

Listen to the Merciful Life series and then allow what God is teaching you and how he's changing you to motivate how you help your angry children. Of course, both of those links are in the description of today's episode, so check those.

Out.

All right, but right now we're talking about parenting, so let's consider some important points for parenting our kids when they respond to sin with anger. Letter A, identify the root of the anger. Why does the child seem angry?

Why are they saying they're angry? Is it sinful anger? Is it divine anger? Are they angry because of self-disgust or delusion? If you don't know, you can't honestly parent your kids in truth in any helpful way.

We parents do this far too often. We have these pre-planned or knee-jerk responses to superficial behavior. And quite often, yes, the behavior is clearly wrong, but just as often, the fix we offer our kids is either no better than their sinful motivations or simply unhelpful because you're trying to fix a fungal infection with, let's say, motor oil.

There are many problems that are addressed with motor oil, but not ringworm. I know it sounds like a silly comparison, a weird metaphor, but I can't tell you how many times I myself have parented out of ignorance or watched someone else do it and what we are offering to our children was not helpful because it didn't actually answer the problem of the moment, didn't actually answer the heart issue.

So please, ask good questions, pay attention, be biblically informed, don't answer a matter before understanding it. Proverbs 18 .13 says, He who responds with a word before he hears, it is folly and shame to him.

Don't be a folly parent. Don't be a shameful parent. Proverbs 20 .25 tells us it is a trap for a man to say rashly, it is holy, and after the vows to make inquiry. Don't be a rash parent. Learn up front, research up front, investigate up front.

We have so many episodes about communication, asking the right questions, and drawing out our children's hearts. I hope you'll click the link in the description to peruse our communication topics. One of the episodes I'm referencing is called, Why Why is More Important than What? Asking the Right Questions to Reveal the Wrong Heart.

And that's where I want to take a moment to remind us that sometimes we just need to stop making so many statements. Now listen, I get it. I don't really ask questions on this show and I know I don't do it nearly enough in my communication with others.

But that doesn't make it good. I need to grow in this area as well. But a podcast obviously isn't a conversation, and too often we don't approach our parenting as a conversation either. It's a lecture, it's a diatribe, but we really need it to be a conversation.

We can't draw out the heart without conversation. We can't identify the motivation without questions. We can't unearth the roots without a discussion. So when it comes to identifying the root of the anger, we absolutely need to ask questions and have that conversation.

Not in order to affirm or give our kids a chance to defend their sin, but to parent intelligently and wisely. So after picking the fruit and investigating and asking, once we determine the root of the anger response, we need to parent our kids through them a little differently.

Therefore, if we discover that our children's anger response is motivated by self-disgust, we need to B, redirect a self-focus. Listen, pride is self-focused. Humility is God and others focused. It's okay to be angry at our sin because God is angry at our sin, but it's not okay to be angry at our sin because we failed ourselves.

It's not about us. It's about Him. It's not about failing our standards. It's about displeasing Him. This is not a failure of self-worship. It's a failure of God worship. Therefore, we need to help redirect our kids' focus from self to God.

James 1, 19 -21 reads, Know this, my beloved brothers, but everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore, laying aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in gentleness receive the implanted word which is able to save your souls.

We and our kids need to fixate on God's righteousness. We need to set aside our own wickedness, not because of personal preferences, but because of the implanted word. In Ephesians 4, 31 and 32, we're to set aside our self-focused anger and embrace the kind, tenderhearted, gracious forgiveness motivated by God's gracious forgiveness to us.

It's about Him. It's not us. Now, is it wrong to be rightly angered by our own sin? No, but that's not this category. That's the last one. We have to be wise enough as parents to correctly identify if our kid's anger at themselves is the result of righteous indignation or personal offense.

How do you do that? Well, we're going to outline that in our last point today. For now, when you discover that your kid's frustration has to do with their own annoyance and failures and there is little to no comparative recognition that they have displeased God, they need their focus to be redirected back to God.

But what about if their anger is a response to delusion? Letter C, confront delusion with truth. This should be pretty straightforward. A few verses before Ephesians 4, 31 through 32, verse 25 tells us,.

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. We mustn't simply speak truth to each other. We must first and foremost speak truth to ourselves.

Our hearts are deceitful. We need to fight that tendency to delusion and lies by filling our gaze with truth. Yes, the child sinned. Yes, there is appropriate knowledge to be learned from this experience.

But we must fight delusion. We must aggressively tear down strongholds in every thought that raises itself against the knowledge of God. Our contemplations must be obedience to Christ. We've talked so much about truth on this show.

It's literally in the name. But I want to remind us of the source of that truth. It's not inherently in you. This is not a your truth, my truth thing. Truth is a divine reality of God. We don't find the truth that changes our lives and sets us free from our sin in man and this.

World.

We find it in God's perfect and holy word, which is inerrant and sufficient for our every spiritual need. Therefore, if we're going to be parents who guide our children in truth, we absolutely have to know our scriptures.

We have to be filled with it. We have to weep it, sweat it, and bleed it. It has to be the first and second and last words on our lips. Listen, just like our children's anger must not be motivated by their own selves, so too our parenting must not flow from our desires and passions.

We must be filled with the spirit and the words of the Bible he inspired. Otherwise, our parenting is just delusional. Okay, so what about if your child's anger is actually motivated by the purposes of God?

Is that possible? Yes, it is. So letter D, encourage sanctified anger. Now, I know that statement was pretty short and punchy and it's also true, but I need to be very clear so that we don't encourage our kids in sin.

First, we absolutely need to parent against sinful anger. If there's even the tiniest hint of sinful anger, we must not encourage or applaud it. It's not okay if it's quote-unquote really close. And I know, let's be real here, most professing Christian adults fail in regard to experiencing and expressing genuinely Christ-honoring sacred anger.

Therefore, we had better be very careful before we put any stamp of approval on our children's anger. It must be Christ-honoring or we should be against it. Still, the point is here because it's right.

If your child is actually experiencing a Christ-focused, God-pleasing anger in his own sinful heart for the glory of the Father and in the power of the Holy Spirit, then yes, we must encourage that kind of mature response.

Second, we have to recognize that like all emotions, they can fluctuate from moment to moment. That means that we need to keep careful guardrails on this experience to set them up for the most success.

As hard as it is for mature adults to consistently experience and express holy anger, it will be harder for our kids. Therefore, we need to be teaching and leading and guiding and counseling so that they continue to anger to the glory of God and not slip into sin.

So, what does that look like? Well, I would highly encourage you to work through, again, the Merciful Life series. Toward the end of that series, we take an in-depth look at the key differences between sanctified anger and sinful anger.

I'm going to outline the differences quickly here, but I'm not going to take the time to substantiate the conclusions from Scripture because we already have a great tool for that and we're getting to the end of our time today.

In order to teach your kids about why God's anger is not sinful, in order to help them see why their anger doesn't accomplish the purposes of God, and in order to help them better understand and work toward Christ-honoring anger responses in their lives, you will need to teach your kids early and often about sanctified or divine anger.

So here are the touchstones of such a righteous anger. Number one, sanctified anger is rooted in truth. If the anger is rooted in a lie, it's already sinful anger. Number two, sanctified anger is motivated by God's glory.

If the anger has any shade of personal vengeance or is motivated by what we want to see done, it's selfish and prideful and therefore sinful. Number three, sanctified anger has a time limit. This is a very interesting study.

The Bible has very interesting things to say about daytime and beds and anger. In fact, the two times we are commanded to experience sinless anger, both instances also talk about sleep. So here are a couple of quick practical applications from this biblical principle.

First, sanctified anger will cease when the object of our anger submits to truth. Second, sanctified anger will cease when God judges the person. Third, sanctified anger will cease when we leave the person's presence.

And fourth, sanctified anger will cease when the evening comes, even if the person is still in our presence. A key observation about sanctified anger is that it's the anger of God in us. And since God is perfect and infinite, it follows that his anger is really unsustainable in a human.

God can be and is perpetually angered by the sin of the world, but we humans cannot sustain that without serious detriment to our physical bodies and our spiritual maturity. Therefore, if the anger really is sanctified, it will cease at the appropriate times.

However, if ours or our children's anger continues beyond any of these boundaries, we can rightly assume our anger is probably pretty sinful. Again, I build a biblical case for each of these applications in the Merciful Life series on the episode about anger.

In conclusion, it is very natural for mankind to respond to sin in anger. It might be good, but most often it's bad because it's rooted in pride and delusion. So be a wise parent who is able to read, understand, and rightly interpret your child, but also strive to be a parent who breathes Scripture into your kids' lives.

That's what they really need in their sin and subsequent responses. Please share this series with your friends and never hesitate to email us at counselor at truthloveparent .com or leave a voicemail at 828 -423 -0894.

We would love to help you in this current season of your parenting. And don't forget that we could really use your help to keep publishing this biblical parenting content and equipping dads and moms all over the world.

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So on our next episode, we're going to look at another very common sinful response to sin. We're going to talk about mankind's propensity to blame everyone else. I'll see you then. Truth. Love. Parent is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you worship God through your parenting.

So join us next time as we study God's Word to learn how to parent our children for life and godliness. And remember that TLP is a listener supported ministry. You can visit truthloveparent .com forward slash donate to learn more.