TLP 577: How Your Children Respond to Sin, Part 3 | Knowledge

When Adam and Eve sinned against God they knew they were naked and they knew they had done wrong. But they lied to themselves about how the Lord would respond to what they had done. 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.

Knowledge, Belief, and Spiritual Maturity

Welcome back to the show. I'm so pleased you are here. I pray that what we talk about today sharpens you spiritually and equips you to help your children respond correctly to sin. As Always. Today's show is accompanied by free episode notes a transcript and links to related resources.

I encourage you to follow those links consume that information and apply it to your parenting. This show is unique because it's formatted to be like a one-sided counseling session here. We open the word learn from it and seek to apply it to our lives in measurable ways via teaching and reproof.

Of course.

It isn't a conversation at all like a regular counseling session would be but you should be talking about these things. With your spouse the men and women with whom you're in a discipleship relationship.

Your friends your pastor and anyone else who can help you grow in these areas. Today, we're going to consider the first response. Every person has to sin. But even though it's the first it's the one response that doesn't register for most Christians.

However to miss this truth is to miss an important dynamic of being a sinful human as well as parenting sinful humans in our homes. So let's get started. The first response that all people have to sin is knowledge.

Now that might sound strange because it's not a verb. It's a noun. How does someone respond with a noun and not a verb? But before we unpack that I want to talk about some other lessons We've learned over the years concerning the importance and nature of knowledge.

Number one knowledge is imperative in belief. You cannot believe something. You don't know. You can't put your faith in Christ's substitutionary death on the cross. If you don't know who he is and what he did for you you can't trust God's plan for your suffering if you've never learned what his plan is.

If Belief is the roots of our tree truth and knowledge comprised the nutrient rich soil around those roots. Too little soil and the roots can't soak up the nutrients. But the more fertile soil that's there the easier the roots can believe everything they need to believe.

Therefore I preach often of the absolute necessity of biblical parents teaching their kids. This requires that we the parents know and believe God's truth ourselves. And it also requires that we're communicating it to our children.

Sure Sunday school teachers and friends can be part of the process but the scripture makes it abundantly clear that we the parents need to be rearing our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

As well as reminding them of the glorious truths. He has taught us over our lives. And I'll take it one step further though. Not every parent should homeschool their children. Most Christian parents could if they correctly approach their schedules and finances and had a right view of the importance of discipling their kids.

The more opportunities you have to educate your kids. Even if those things are history and science and math the more you can weave the truth of scriptures into the learning of those topics. So knowledge is very important because your kids will never be able to believe that which they don't know.

Number two. Knowledge alone puffs up in 1st Corinthians 8 1 through 3 Paul starts a discussion about how Christians should interact with meat sacrifice to idols. But as he introduced the topic, he makes a very important observation.

Now concerning things a sacrifice to idols. We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up but love builds up if anyone thinks that he has known anything He has not yet known as he ought to know but if anyone loves God he has been known by him.

Knowledge alone isn't good enough as we collect more knowledge than those around us. The natural sinful tendency is to look at our growing collection and respond arrogantly. This point is similar to the last and that knowledge without belief is empty.

But so is knowledge without love only when we rightly love God and our neighbors will our knowledge have any value. Each faction in the Corinthian Church had a lot of knowledge about meat offered to idols.

But they lacked the love God wanted them to pour on each other. Teach your children to use their knowledge to serve God and seek the best for others. Then and only then their knowledge won't be completely useless.

Later in chapter 13 verse 2 Paul writes. And if I have the gift of prophecy and know all Mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but I do not have love. I am nothing.

And Finally as far as the intro goes anyway, number three. Increasing knowledge is required for spiritual maturity when we're surrounded by truth. We're believing it, but we're not consuming it for our own pleasures, but rather serving God and others with it.

We will be maturing. 1st Peter 1 2 3 promises grace and peace be multiplied to you in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

Through the full knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. It is through the knowledge of God that we have grace peace and absolutely everything necessary for life and godliness.

If you've never listened to the evidence of spiritual life series I did for the celebration of God podcast. You really need to check it out. It's a great way to determine if someone has spiritual life, but it's also a wonderful roadmap for increased spiritual maturity.

And Speaking of the year-long celebration of God if you've never checked out celebration of God calm you should do that. I created the year-long celebration of God it's podcast the Bible readings fasting journals and holiday guides to help parents grow in their love for the Lord and Worship him better with their families this year than they did last year.

Check out celebration of God calm and subscribe to the celebration of God podcast wherever you consume your podcasts. We're not currently producing new content for that podcast. But the 162 episodes that are there are evergreen and the perfect place to help you Re-evaluate how you and your family worship God during the high days and the low moments of life.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 3

All right, so knowledge is a really important concept we see all over the place in Scripture. In fact, there is so much more that we could say about it. But we need to turn our focus to one more important truth about knowledge.

Before we do that. I want to read part of a passage. We're going to be in over the next few episodes. Let's start with Genesis 3 verses 1 through 11. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which Yahweh had made and he said to the woman indeed.

Has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden and the woman said to the serpent from the fruit of the? Trees of the garden we may eat but from the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden.

Which I'll just say is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said you shall not eat from it and you shall not touch it lest you die. And The serpent said to the woman you surely will not die for God knows that in the day you eat.

From it your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God knowing good and evil. Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was Desirable to make one wise so she took from it its fruit and ate.

She gave also to her husband with her and he ate and the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they Were naked and they sewed fig leaves together made themselves loin coverings. Then they heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid Themselves from the presence of Yahweh God in the midst of the trees of the garden and God called to the man and said to Him where are you?

And he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid and he said who told you that you were naked. Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was very likely a unique yet normal tree. I don't personally believe it had any inherent magical powers or spiritually corrupting influence. The tree simply represented the very first law of God and the opportunity to break that law aka sin.

Two episodes ago. We talked about how sin is anything and everything that violates the law of God. Again, Adam and Eve had never sinned because they hadn't transgressed any of God's laws up until that point.

Their only rule was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Up until that point they had no idea what it was like to sin. They didn't have any knowledge concerning the violation of God's law and even their knowledge of good was limited.

They were like fish swimming in water completely ignorant of what water was. How it worked and even how it would feel to be out of the water. The comfort and blessing and glory of being good or in this case innocent was not something they could fully understand without a knowledge of evil hence the temptation.

So Satan approaches Eve and leans heavily into the value of knowledge. He accuses God of knowing how wonderful it would be for Adam and Eve to have knowledge of good and evil and not wanting Them to have that knowledge.

Of course, a lot of people say that Satan lied to them. He didn't actually technically lie to them. He just spoke truths designed to deceive. Adam and Eve did not immediately die after eating from the tree and their eyes were open.

At least they didn't die. Physically and it was this promise of knowledge that led to her taking the fruit. Let's be honest. She had tons of food available to her. How many countless beauties were in the new creation?

Sure, the tree was good for food and beautiful to the eyes. That's the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, but it was the pride of life. Exemplified in Eve's self-possessed desire for knowledge.

She believed would make her wise that set this tree apart from all the rest. But it wasn't the forbidden fruit that opened hers and Adam's eyes. It was the experience of transgressing God's law for the very first time.

How Sin Gives New Knowledge

Number four the first response to sin is the gaining of knowledge. Letter a when someone sins they gain new information about good and evil. In Genesis 3 22 God says behold the man has become like one of us to know good and evil in The moment that they transgress God's law.

They now practically and functionally knew and understood what it was to break God's law and in so doing they understood the beauty of obedience That they had previously missed. This happens to your children as well.

I remember well the first time I used the f-word. I had been exposed to it a number of times and felt uncomfortable hearing it. But over time the discomfort wore off. Then came a time that I imagined myself using the word.

I felt dirty the first time but then I remember thinking about what it would be like to say it out loud. It's like I prepped for it. And when the day came I remember using the word in what was most likely the lamest moment to do something like that.

My point is when I finally brought myself to say it I instantly knew a number of things. I knew what it felt like to sin in that way. I knew what I was capable of. I knew the consequences that could come if my or my friends parents found out.

I recognized that I had taken yet another step down a road in my rebellious behavior. I Knew the further I got down that road the further it was taking me from God's will for my life. And I even realized there was no taking back what I did.

It was done. I was no longer an f-word virgin. Now, maybe you've never had those moments when you've sinned. But I've experienced similar situations throughout my life as it relates to the increased knowledge I had about good and evil and myself when I would sin.

The reality is that whether your kids can consciously articulate it or not. Each sin provides new knowledge about the behavior the thought the word and themselves. But there's another interesting way God communicates this idea of gaining and having new knowledge.

Letter B. When someone sins they see life more accurately. After Adam and Eve sinned nothing is said about them dying or knowing good and evil for 15 verses. Instead we read a lot about nakedness. The last words of Genesis 2 says Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed.

In verse 7 the Bible says. And the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed Fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. When God finds Adam hiding in verse 10 We hear Adam say.

I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid to which God replies who told you that you were naked. Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

Then in verse 21, it says then Yahweh God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and he clothed them. So why all the focus on their nakedness? In their innocent state Adam and Eve were had absolutely no reason to understand or experience shame.

They were the only two humans they communed with their Creator and since they had no concept of guilt or indecency or shame. There was no reason to imagine that anything was wrong or that anything needed to be changed.

But Adam and Eve's feelings about their nakedness was like an alarm system for them. By the way If you use the link in the description of today's episode to download the evermind app and create a free account.

In addition to all of the awesome free content there you can purchase the doctrine of emotions for only $10. It usually retails for $25 in that material. You'll learn so much about why God gives us emotions and how we can use them in this life.

But one of those ways is to be an alarm bell for us when we're in sin. And this is what happened to Adam and Eve. Listen nakedness is an embarrassing thing and it's not simply embarrassing because we're not good-looking or because we're sinners.

Being naked as being as raw and transparent and intimate as a person can physically be. It's a picture of our need for the righteous robes of Christ the husbands and wives a relationship where they can bask in each other's nakedness as Uncomfortable as that often is in our flesh is supposed to be a picture of God's loving his bride despite her uncleanness.

There's a lot of imagery and significance all these mentions of nakedness. And I bring it up here because the first and most significant consequence of their sin was their ability to see themselves as they really were.

And even though there were still no strangers around and even though they were likely the most beautiful people to ever exist They were instantly ashamed. Now God is omniscient. He knows all but God chooses to reveal to Adam through his own Emotional response to his own nakedness that he knew Adam had must have sinned.

And this happens with us and our kids too. We see ourselves for who we are when we sin. We see the consequences of sin for what they are. We see our tempter the way they are we see the thing for which we traded our righteousness for what it is.

Now you may be thinking wait Aaron. I don't know about all that. I see a delusion in myself when I sin and that's true. But when you've worked with as many counselees as I have and when you really sit with yourself and consider your own Responses to sin you start to see patterns and one of the patterns that we see is that we lie to ourselves and pursue Delusions in part to convince ourselves that the ugly I see in the mirror isn't really that ugly.

Yes, we callous ourselves to sin. Yes, we lie to ourselves and we're gonna talk about each of those later. But those things happen as a result of our truly seeing ourselves the way that we are. Now we're gonna talk about guilt and shame more next time so I don't want to say much more about that here.

But it's the presence of that guilt that sends us looking for distractions the kisses of the enemy and the desensitization of our hearts. Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nakedness because for the first time in their short lives.

They knew what it was to be ashamed. They were ashamed of their sin, but they were even ashamed of something that had no direct correlation to their sin and Your children respond to their sin the same way they see with new eyes and they know things they didn't know before.

Parenting Knowledgeable Children

So, how are we to parent them in these situations number five parenting knowledgeable children? Knowing that your kids gain information as they sin it would behoove us to take the following four steps.

Letter a. Understand what they know. When your kids sin they learn about the sin. Of course, this is different for every kind of sin. One simple example is a lie. When a child lies they learn what works and what doesn't.

They learn how it feels to lie. They learn what it takes to double down on a lie. They also are learning about shame and guilt something we're going to talk about more later. But they also learn about the consequences of their sin.

Whether they're caught or not, they experience the primary consequences of sin, which we discussed in our consequences in series. Now they may not completely understand all the details about their primary consequences.

But they are intuitively learning about the hurt being caused them and others by experiencing it. The same is true for any secondary consequences once they know about those consequences. They are definitely wanting to lie to themselves about these consequences.

But the reason they have to lie is that they do intuitively understand the truth about their sin. This is illustrated in Romans 1. The scriptures make it clear that everyone knows God exists and It's because of that knowledge that they lie to himself themselves about him.

That's the same situation going on here. So you need to work to understand what they have learned about their sin. This will require knowledge of scripture the specifics of the sin committed the consequences and so on.

And once you better understand the knowledge that has been added to your kids through this experience. You need to let her be exposed what they know you need to talk through these things with your kids.

Remember biblical parenting takes time it involves asking questions drawing out the heart. Teaching proving parables and metaphors and the variety of communication tools at your disposal. The goal is to help them realize the effect sin has had on them.

Now there are many effects sin has on a person and we're going to have to expose all of those to our kids. But for our topic today, it's important to talk with your kids about what their sin taught them.

How easy do they think it is to lie? What have they found that works and that doesn't. Now, please understand this is not about helping them sin better far too. Many parents are just painfully unaware of the knowledge kids glean as they sin.

I've worked with parents who knowing the sins their kids had committed in the past. Couldn't believe their kids knew what they knew and thought the way they thought. But it was so clear to anyone who was familiar with the knowledge that comes through that kind of sin.

We need to understand our kids minds and we need to have open lines of communication. As we uncover their growing knowledge base that comes from sending letter C explain what they know. Part of the reproof stage is helping our child understand they were wrong.

But another part of it is helping them understand what they need to do with that information. Your daughter may have learned that referencing girl stuff with dad convinces him to back off the conversation.

Even when the girl is trying to hide something that has nothing to do with quote-unquote girl stuff. But your daughter needs to understand that the knowledge she's gleaned from that experience is dangerous.

She needs to understand that information in light of God's Word. How does the Lord want her to understand and use this information? He definitely doesn't want her to use those lines those lies to test her father.

Also just as a side note if you're a Christian parent. You absolutely have to have open conversations with your boys and your girls about their bodies sexuality attraction medical issues and like I am sick and tired of dads who refuse to talk about girl stuff with their daughters and Moms who think boy stuff is off the table.

Sure might be easier for the same-sex parent to explain these things, but you're both the child's parent. Nothing is off-limits here in your relationship. Just think about a single parent is a single mom never allowed to talk with her sons about pornography and masturbation.

Of course not. Anyway, I need to climb down for my soapbox. The point is we need to understand what our kids know by doing our research expose what they know by talking with them. But then we also need to explain what they know so they can relate to it correctly and lastly letter D.

Challenge what they know. When Adam and Eve sinned against God, they knew they were naked and they were afraid they knew they had done wrong. But they lied to themselves about how the Lord would respond.

But here's the thing they believe the truth about their sin as well as the lie they told themselves. They thought all of that information was true. Your daughter may quote-unquote know that you're going to blow up at her for what she did and therefore she will then try to lie To you and then once she's caught in her lie, she might believe that she knows you're giving her consequences because you hate her.

So as you unveil what she's learned through this situation. You're going to have to challenge some of the knowledge. They think they've gleaned. There's a very very tiny span of time between gaining knowledge through our sin and convincing ourselves of a lie.

The point is you're going to find and as you talk with your kids that they now think they know things that really just aren't true. Challenge those beliefs and do it biblically. I Know this idea of responding to sin by gaining knowledge is a new concept for many of you.

It's definitely counterintuitive and I probably didn't explain it as well as I should. So keep in mind that every experience your kids have teaches them things about life themselves others and God. The information they learn as they sin is life-altering.

Therefore if we're going to parent well, we need to be knowledgeable concerning the knowledge they've gained and how they're responding to it. Please share this series with your friends. Check out all the great offers and related resources in the description of this episode and please email us at counselor at truthloveparent .com.

Or leave a voicemail at 828 -423 -0894. If you need a personalized biblical counsel parenting your kids through this season of their lives. As I alluded to earlier our next episode is about another important response to sin guilt and shame.

So i'll see you next week. 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.

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