TLP 602: Teach Your Children to Flee

It saddens my heart when I meet people who really want their kids to be morally good. They want their kids to be good kids, but they have no interest in introducing them to…

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. I'm glad you're here. Though I enjoy creating all of the episodes for Truth, Love, Parent, I have to say that I really enjoyed today's topic.

If you are new to the show, we welcome you and pray that you are encouraged and challenged and sharpened today. And if you take a look at the description of today's episode, you'll find free episode notes, a transcript, and related resources that will help you dig deeper into today's content.

So let's begin this super exciting podcast. No doubt the title caught your eye.

And no, it's not just clickbait. Today we want to talk about how you can teach your children to flee.

But there are a lot of important dynamics to discuss in this topic. We're definitely not trying to rear cowards or fraidy cats.

And I'm not suggesting that there aren't times your children should run right at the situation in front of them.

The key to all things is proper biblical balance. And in order to accomplish that, we need to see what the

Bible has to say on the topic of fleeing. But before we get too far into this discussion,

I'd like to make you aware of a fantastic discipleship resource called the Year -Long Celebration of God.

There'll be a link for it in the description so that you can learn more about it from its website and podcast.

But I will tell you that this discipleship tool is unique in that it uses the church's holiday calendar and your family's daily calendar to help your families worship

God better this year than they did last year. So check it out at celebrationofgod .com.

And at least listen to the introductory episodes of the podcast in order to truly understand this free tool and how it can be used in your home to disciple your kids.

And lastly, we're approaching our 10th year of podcasting, and we are so thankful to the

Lord that He has allowed us to do this for so long. We're amazed at how He's used this ministry to equip dads and moms on six of the seven continents.

We're praising Him for allowing us to start translating some of our content into Spanish. We're overwhelmed by the outpouring of love coming from the individuals and families who have participated in biblical counseling with us.

None of us deserve to be God's ambassadors on this earth, and that causes us to celebrate Him even more.

So in preparation for our 10th anniversary, we're trying to raise $100 ,000 so we can continue serving

God and equipping families. Will you please help us reach that goal? These monies are necessary to cover our expenses, create new content, write more books, and counsel more families.

You can learn more at truthloveparent .com forward slash donate. Thank you for partnering with us.

All right. So today's points are number one, what should our families flee? Number two, how should our families flee?

And number three, when should our families flee? Number one, what should our families flee?

I'm going to let the scriptures do the talking, at least most of it on this point. So let's start with 2

Timothy 2 .22. Now flee from youthful lusts. First Corinthians 6 .18

says, flee sexual immorality. First Corinthians 10 .13 -14, no temptation has overtaken you, but such is common to man.

But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. 1 Timothy 6 lays out a number of sins, including a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, envy, strife, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind, as well as discontentment, the love of money, and all sorts of evils.

Then verse 11 says, but you, O man of God, flee from these things. 1

Thessalonians 5 .22 commands abstain from every form of evil. Proverbs 14 .16

reads, a wise man fears and turns away from evil, but a fool gets angry and feels secure.

Proverbs 22 .3 says something similar, a prudent man sees evil and hides, but the simple pass on and are punished.

Proverbs 27 .12 continues the theme, a prudent man sees evil and hides, the simple pass on and are punished.

Now even though the imagery of fleeing and running aren't in these next three passages, I offer them as further proof that we and our kids need to always flee from sin.

Galatians 5 .19 -21, now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these of which

I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5 .3 -5, but sexual immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints, nor filthiness, and foolish talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.

For this you know with certainty, that no one, sexually immoral, or impure, or greedy, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Colossians 3 .5, therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.

And I could just keep going and going. However, I think the point has been made that God wants our posture towards sin to be constant flight.

We turn our backs to sin and we sprint. Now a natural question is going to arise, perhaps it already has,

Aaron, but God has not given us a spirit of fear. All this fleeing and running seems very cowardly.

Well, we are going to talk about how we should flee, but before we do that, I want to use a really fantastic Old Testament illustration of this principle.

In Genesis 39, we learn how Joseph was sold into slavery to the Egyptian captain of Pharaoh's bodyguard,

Potiphar. And starting in verse 6, we read, So he left everything he owned in Joseph's hand, and with him there he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate.

Now Joseph was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance, and it happened after these events that his master's wife set her eyes on Joseph and said,

Lie with me. But he refused and said to his master's wife, Behold, with me here my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has given all that he owns into my hand.

There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.

How then could I do this great evil and sin against God? So it happened that as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her.

Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the household was there inside. Then she seized him by his garment and saying,

Lie with me, and he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside. Though there are many fantastic examples in the scriptures of fleeing from sin, these seven verses encompass nearly everything we need to know on the subject.

But before we go into our second point, I simply want to make certain that we understand that in order to be biblical parents, we absolutely need to teach our children to flee from sin.

We can't be soft on this point, and here's why. Number two, how should our families flee?

There are two keys to the how. The first is, letter A, we need to understand just how deadly sin is.

I like to illustrate the first part of this point with a pair of foam nunchucks. When teaching this principle to young children,

I pull out a pair of foam chucks and I tell them that I'm temptation and the chucks are sin, and I encourage the kids to get as close to me as they can without getting hurt.

Of course, the chucks are soft and it's almost fun to be hit by them, so the kids get right up next to me as I bonk them on the head and slap the foam against their bodies like some crazy ninja, and everyone's laughing and they're all having a good time.

Then I tell everyone to give that child a round of applause and I ask if anyone else wants to try, and by then all the other hands go up.

So I call a child up to me and give them the same instructions. But then as we're getting ready to commence the bonking,

I say, oh wait, you know what? I forgot something. The Bible says that sin isn't safe.

The Bible says that sin is dangerous. In fact, the Bible says that sin is deadly. I guess these foam nunchucks aren't a good example of sin.

So then I put the foam chucks down and I pull out a heavy set of wooden chucks with a heavy chain in the middle, and I start swinging them around with actual combat force.

You can hear the air screaming as the nunchucks move through it. Then I encourage the child to get as close as they can without getting hurt.

And you know what? After doing this for decades with children of all ages all over the United States, you know what every kid does every time?

They get as far away from me as they can. Some of them even run away doing it. You see, they get it.

They understand that those chucks could seriously injure, if not kill them, and they want nothing to do with it.

They have no desire to see how close they can get without getting hurt. It's not worth it.

In fact, they realize it's impossible. But the reason that kids do that is they truly understand the danger of the weapon.

Our problem, and our kids' problem, is that we don't truly understand the danger of sin. We're delusional.

We like our sin. We so often love our sin more than we love our Savior. We and our kids will never escape from temptation and sprint away from sin unless we truly know, understand, and believe that our sin is going to kill us.

Romans 6 .23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, and Romans 3 .23 tells us that we are all sinners.

And 1 John 1 .8 reveals that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

We will never flee from sin unless we believe what God has to say about it. That means that we need to teach our kids what

God has to say about sin. Joseph understood this. When confronted by Potiphar's wife, he said,

Joseph understood how deadly that sin would have been. It would have destroyed a marriage, and it would have easily destroyed him when her husband discovered it.

But that's only part of the how. In fact, I'm going to argue that it's the less important part.

You see, I can teach my kids that sin will hurt them, and they, not wanting to get hurt, will likely flee from it, at least some of it anyway.

But their escape from that particular sinful behavior was motivated by another sin, self -worship.

Do you know how many unsaved kids participated in my nunchuck illustration? Do you know that the unsaved kids ran away from the chucks the same way that the born -again kids did?

They weren't stupid. And there are plenty of rocky -hearted kids in our homes who can intellectually acknowledge that certain sins are bad and should be avoided, but those kids aren't avoiding those sins for God's glory, they're just looking out for themselves.

That's why this second point is the most important point to consider as we prepare our families to flee from sin.

Yes, we need to understand just how deadly sin is, but more importantly than that, letter B, we need to understand how good

God is. I'm going to reread the passages from the first point, but this time

I'm going to include the instruction around the part that I read. 2 Timothy 2 .22

Now flee from youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the

Lord from a pure heart. 1 Corinthians 6 .18 -20 Flee sexual immorality.

Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you were bought with a price?

Therefore glorify God in your body. 1 Timothy 6 .11 -12

But you, O man of God, flee from these things, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, gentleness.

Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

1 Thessalonians 5 .21 -22 But examine all things, hold fast to that which is good, abstain from every form of evil.

Now, this next passage is an interesting one. We're all familiar with Proverbs 22 .6, train up a child according to his way, even when he is old he will not depart from it.

We have a whole episode just about that one verse. Well, what most of us don't know are the verses leading up to that verse.

We like to think of the Proverbs as a bunch of disconnected ideas, but they are so much more than that. So, let's listen to Proverbs 22 .3

-6. A prudent man sees evil and hides, but the simple pass on and are punished.

We heard that verse earlier. Then it goes on to say in verse 4, the reward of humility, the fear of Yahweh, is riches, glory, and life.

Thorns and snares are in the way of the crooked. He who keeps his soul will be far from them. Are you following the train of thought so far?

Well, then in verse 6 it says, train up a child according to his way, even when he is old he will not depart from it.

We are to be training our children to see evil and hide themselves. Not only because thorns and snares are in the way, and not only because it will result in our punishment, but because we fear

Yahweh. It's this training, when our children participate in it, that will result in them not departing from the riches and glory and life of Christ.

Psalm 143 .9 reads, Deliver me from my enemies, O Yahweh, I have concealed myself in you.

How was the psalmist to be delivered? It was only by concealing himself in God. The ESV actually translates the last part of that verse as,

I have fled to you for refuge. And speaking of the psalms, the very first psalm taught us exactly all we need to know about how to flee from sin.

Psalm 1, How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.

But his delight is in the law of Yahweh, and in his law he meditates day and night, and he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and whatever he does he prospers.

The wicked are not so, but they are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not rise in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. We need to teach our kids to flee from sin, but they'll never flee from sin unless they realize how dangerous it is.

But if they flee from one sin for their own glory, they're only running headlong toward another sin.

The only way to truly flee from sin is to run toward God. There is no fleeing from sin that doesn't take you closer to the

Lord. We need to meditate firmly on the Word of God which reveals Him, His goodness and His grace.

And not only will running toward God cause us to flee from sin, listen to what James 4 .7 says,

Be subject therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. The tempter himself will flee from you.

How beautiful is that? And you know what? Joseph knew all of this. He didn't even have any of the

Bible, but he knew this. You see, he didn't reject Potiphar's wife simply because he respected her husband or he wanted to protect his own hide.

Listen to what Joseph says in verse 9, How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?

We need to love God. We need to worship God. We need to want to please Him above all else or we will never flee from sin.

I hope you heard what I just said. We and our kids will never truly flee from sin unless we love

God. And I'm not talking about warm feelings and liking what He does for us. I'm talking about wanting and working toward His best interests because we are devoted to Him because He is

God. He is worthy. He is majestic. He is awesome. And He deserves our love and obedience.

It really saddens my heart when I meet people who want their kids to be morally good. They want their kids to be good kids, but they have no interest in introducing them to the

God who defines all that is good. They're encouraging their kids to run from certain sins, but they're pushing them toward the sins of self -worship and self -empowerment that are the very sins that lead to every other sin.

There is no such thing as a morally good person who isn't pursuing holiness because it pleases the

Lord. When we rightly conceive of God and want to please Him, we will know and believe just how dangerous

He says sin is and we will want to run as far from it as we can. So now let's finish by asking the question, number three, when should our families flee?

Let's consider Hebrews 12, 1 through 2. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

My friends, there is never a time when we should stop pursuing God and running from sin. There is never a time our kids can take a break from fleeing sin and temptation.

But I know some of you are still stuck on the cowardice thing. Listen, this actually does involve fear.

It involves the fear of God. We love God so much that we fear displeasing Him. And yes, we should also fear not only the lethality of sin, but also the consequences of sin.

In Luke 12, 4 through 5, Jesus said, I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.

But I warn you whom to fear. Fear him who after he is killed has authority to cast into hell.

Yes, I tell you, fear him. It's not cowardice. It's majestic awe.

It's not being a scaredy -pants. It's being reverentially devoted to Christ. But some of you are also thinking about other biblical passages that make it seem like we should be charging into the fray instead of running away.

In fact, you may be thinking of Ephesians 6, 10 through 18. In that passage, we're told to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might, stand against the schemes of the devil, wrestle against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

And it goes on to say again, stand therefore, extinguishing all the flaming darts of the evil one. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, and so on.

The key is this, none of this imagery is about running toward sin. In fact, it's all the exact opposite.

We're wrestling against those things that would tempt us to do evil. We're standing firm in God and His strength, absolutely covered in what?

Truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, and the Word of God, praying at all times.

Well, what about the flaming darts of the evil one? Isn't that sin? Isn't that temptation? Well, no, I don't believe it's sin at all.

Satan can't make us sin. Yes, he can tempt us, but what's our response to that?

We're extinguishing those arrows with the shield of faith. While we wear the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation.

This is not about cowardice and rearing a generation of kids who have been sheltered. We have a whole episode about how you need to prepare your kids, not protect them.

This is about rearing a generation of followers of Christ who can't help but walk away from sin and darkness as they follow

Him. This is about rearing a generation of young people who are spiritually mature and strong and passionate about pleasing the

Lord. And that's exactly who Joseph was. He daily did not listen to the temptation.

He daily said no. Each of those statements and each act of holiness was fleeing from evil. And one day when she grabbed his clothes, he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside.

And that's what we need to do when it comes to sin. That's what we need to teach our kids to do. We perpetually, every day, run from sin and avoid temptation because we love

God and know how dangerous sin is. But you may still ask, are you sure there's never a time when we shouldn't run away?

Sure. Metaphorically speaking, we need to stand up against the darkness of this world and we need to be salt and light in our communities and we need to not be afraid to speak the truth, but none of that actually has anything to do with the commands we studied today.

We are to moment by moment run after God, hide under the shadow of His wings, follow

Him and pursue His glory. And every minute spent doing that is another minute spent fleeing from sin.

Even if every minute spent doing those things, running after God, means that we do run toward other things.

We run toward certain conflicts. We run toward being salt and light. Yes, we run toward many things, but we do not ever run toward sin.

We flee from that. So please share this episode with your friends, family, and church. May we equip a generation of parents who will rear a generation of kids to flee sin and pursue

God. And if you need personalized help doing this in your own life or helping your kids to do it, please email us at counselor at truthloveparent .com

or leave a voicemail at 828 -423 -0894. And join us next time as we talk about where your kids get their answers.

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.